16. April 2025
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Songs Of My Life: John Miles – Music

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Though a lot of Song which shaped me have been recorded in the 1980’s and 1990’s, I want to move through the decades and genres as long as I can in the Songs Of My Life here on Flyctory.com. This time I am sharing my thoughts about a masterpiece of rock music with you. This posting is taking you back into the year 1975, when Music by John Miles has been recorded.

 

Music – The Story Of The Song

John Miles was born as John Errington on 23th April 1949 in Jarrow in the Newcastle / Tyne and Wear area, Northern England. Founded a band called The Influence at school years. The lineup was quite remarkable from a today’s perspective. On the one hand, it featured Paul Thompson, who later was on the drums for Roxy Music. Another musician who became famous was Vic Malcolm, the later lead guitarist with Geordie. In 1971, however, John Miles decided to go for a solo career and signed with Decca UK in 1975.

https://youtu.be/PF6mk2Sq4yY

Music was the second single of his debut album Rebel, which has been released in 1976. What an amazing song, which has originally been written during a one week concert tour stay in Leeds in 1973. The song is in fact very simple, it just contains eight different verses. When Miles and his band initially played the song in their shows, the audience was rather confused  but Dekka insisted to put it on the album and released it as a single. Though it is that simple, together with the massive orchestral instrumentation, it is a very characteristic and special song.

Interestingly, neither the single nor the album was an outstanding success. It was in the Top 10 only in three markets: it topped the Dutch charts, went up to the third spot in the UK and just made it to the Top 10 in Germany. In the USA, for example, the song peaked 88th. Rebel went ninth in the UK album charts. In the 1970’s John Miles had a couple of succssful album, especially in Scandinavia, but he could not keep up with it. His last album so far is Tom and Catherine dated as of 1999.

 

Music – My Story Of The Song

There are finally two reasons, which Music by John Miles is truly a Song Of My Life: First of all, I feel no song ever written relates so much to my attitude towards music and what music meant to me, especially in hard times.

Music was my first love
And it will be my last
Music of the future
And music of the past
To live without my music
Would be impossible to do
In this world of troubles
My music pulls me through

With these lyrics, the song is likely even more up-to-date in the frustrating Covid-19 situation than it ever was. Music was always a part of my life – and from over thirty concerts of Guildo Horn in my life to thirteen visits of the Queen musical We will rock you or 32 visits at Rock of Ages (so far!) – it has always been distracting and empowering to me. It touched me and made me cry. Music truly pulled me through.

 

https://youtu.be/egwARrX1ik8

On the other hand, it is a song, which also strongly reminds me of my father. He has been a former Regensburger Domspatzen boy choir member and thus came with a huge addiction to music. However, he was more on the classic music side. So going to pop or rock concerts was rather torturous for him. However, as a family, we regularly went into Cologne’s Kölnarena (which some people today call LANXESSarena) once a year to see Night Of The Proms. The show combines classic music, sometimes also jazzy stuff and pop / rock music. We saw amazing classic instrumentalists there, but also great rock acts like Roxette.

Night Of The Proms comes with a full orchestra and choir. I saw a lot of acts in these shows, which are among my favorite ones – but in contrast to the rotating lineup, John Miles was in the show practically every year. And every year he played that song, Music. With a full live orchestra and a choir, it is simply amazing – even my father loved it every year. Whenever you have the opportunity to see this song in that configuration, go for it – regardless of the ticket price. It is the most amazing rock sogn to be performed live on stage in my point of view.

 

 

Songs Of My Life Playlist

I created a playlist with all the Songs Of My Life songs so far. It will be updated with very new episode:

 

Title picture: John Miles – Rebel Album cover

 

Postings about Concerts

All postings about concerts I visited:

 

Spotlight – Flyctory.com Interviews

Here are all postings of my interview section Spotlight:

 

 

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