Starlord & The Walkman Era

Yesteryear's 11 year old boy knows all about the trusty Sony Walkman.

No, he doesn't have one. And no, he hasn't even seen one in the flesh, our own early model consigned to the bin many decades ago.

But we have watched Guardians Of The Galaxy umpteen times and Chris Pratt is one of his favourite actors. So we can blame Starlord for the lad's knowledge of music's earliest portable device, a neat little gadget of it's time, which celebrated its 43rd birthday yesterday (June 30)

Who could forget the opening scene of the original, where Captain Peter Quill (aka Starlord) enters a dark cave on an alien planet in search of a hidden treasure. He removes his space helmet with the tap of his hand, puts on his little foam headphones and clips a Sony Walkman to his belt.

With a click of the PLAY button the tape rolls on Awesome Mix Vol. 1.

'Come & Get Your Love' by Redbone fills the cavernous space and Quill begins his interplanetary dance, marking one of modern cinema's truly memorable entrances.

The first time we saw this together, the young lad asks with an air of innocence.

"Hey Dad, what's that thing on his belt?"

"That's a Sony Walkman. We all had them back in the day"

"Really? How does it work?"

"Well, it plays a tape that sends music to your ears through a set of headphones. We used to make our own tapes from songs on the radio and then play them on a Walkman"

"Hmmm. So, you had to sit and wait for your favourite song to come on the radio before you could record it to a tape that you would then play on this thing that you would have to carry around with you?"

"Yeah, well I guess we did, but ..."

"Why didn't you just download a playlist from Spotify to your iPhone then stream it to Hey Google - way easier"

Lucky I didn't tell him how we had to use a pencil to re-spool the cassette tape when you'd played a favourite mix one too many times!

Another day, another nail in the coffin of the humble cassette tape.

Comments are welcome... keep them spinning folks :-)