POPFESSIONS

Rhodri Marsden

Almost exactly 28 years ago I was 12, and a record by Frankie Goes To Hollywood called ‘Relax’ was screaming up the charts. But I couldn’t hear it on BBC radio or telly because Radio 1 DJ Mike Read had decided it was rude. 
 
I had a look at the 7” in my local record shop in Dunstable, and thought that, yes, it probably was a bit rude, because one of the people on the sleeve wasn’t wearing any pants. The next day I tuned in to pirate station Laser 558 and heard it. It sounded bloody amazing. And the fact that I knew I probably shouldn’t be listening to it made it even more thrilling. So I had a ferocious pre-teenage wank to celebrate. I mean, I don’t know this for sure, I didn’t keep a diary, but it’s likely, because I was 12.
 
Throughout 1984 I became even more enamoured with Frankie Goes To Hollywood, their 12” mixes and their nipple piercings. At one point I had posters above my bed of Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford wielding chainsaws. It’s hard to think back and gauge what my sexual awareness was at that point, but it was probably greater than my parents, who didn’t seem remotely bothered that their son’s favourite record was about men fucking each other’s arses off.
 
Incredibly – and this is something that conservative commentators might like to take on board – my devotion to Frankie Goes To Hollywood and my awareness of the singer’s sexuality didn’t make me go all gay. What it did do was foster in me an appreciation of the sonic wizardry of Trevor Horn, although I didn’t have a poster of him above my bed because he looked like shit.
 
A few years later I saw the banned video for ‘Relax’, with all the leather and the boobs and the tigers and the wee. This event was discussed on Twitter a couple of years ago, and I mentioned to Guardian critic Alexis Petridis that it was an eye-opening and scary experience for a boy from Dunstable who had no direct experience of S&M fetishism. I thought, you know, that this might be what adult life outside Bedfordshire is actually like. I wasn’t sure about it at ALL.
 
“But did that encourage you never to leave Dunstable,” replied Alexis, “lest someone wee on you?” The answer was no. “I was a bit scared of all the wee, and also the tigers,” I said, “but eventually I thought, well, fuck it, I can’t stay here for ever.”