So I was in Ed's Diner having an American Cheese burger and vanilla shake after having seen My Week With Marilyn at the Curzon Soho, after having been to the gym and before browsing round Foyles - my basic default perfect Sunday - when Dusty Springfield starts up on the jukebox, singing this...
and the middle-aged Australian ladies next to me at the counter start singing along quietly to it, in the way that people do at Ed's. And I thought: don't you know how old the girl was when the Son of A Preacher Man came calling? This song is about a couple of fifteen year-olds making out, and the sad thing is that the girl hasn't ever found anyone else who made her feel like making love since. Jesus! Even I knew it was about that when it came out, oh, errrr, last year.
Yet there they were, singing along about how the only boy who could ever reach them was a sweet-talkin'-son-of-a-preacher-man. Nope. Not in their experience. But they were note-perfect. I'm not sure what it proves - perhaps that if you put it in a song, you can get away with a lot more. But then, could anyone get away with Gary Puckett's Young Girl today. I'm thinking not.
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