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Lieutenant Kijé

I only have to hear the first notes of Lieutenant Kijé  to feel the newness, to smell the plastic arrival of Christmas. The greatest gift we can receive this time of year is our own Sanyo Music Centre.

 ELO Out of the Blue and a Bon Dylan 12" single, Is Your Love In Vain?
And a bundle of Boots cassette tapes to bootleg the FM radio. Top 20.

 Lieutenant Kijé  - sublime incorporation into a prog rocker's hit single. I Believe in Father Xmas.
Lieutenant Kijé - seasonal incidental music on the telly.

 I don't remember a Christmas fresher before or after seventy-eight,
as fresh as my first ever kiss from Morag Lyall
but Santa took longer to fill my stocking than she took to touch tongues before moving
on to my conventionally good-looking pal.

I only have to hear the first notes of Lieutenant Kijé to recall how it felt to be present, really present at 15, a schoolboy who had at last kissed a school girl from the year below,
who at last had kissed a school girl for two minutes back in October.
A schoolboy now accepting gifts of sherry and aftershave.

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