Fortissimo Fridays - Shaun Keaveny

And so! The fates dealt me a minor brush with celebrity this morning! Such excitement in our little house and it’s not even 10 o’clock! This morning I was ALMOST a radio superstar.

You may or may not know that most mornings in our house have a particular musical accompaniment. Amongst the fog of baby porridge and Weetabix dust, between the younger child’s ‘Mammy-you’re-not-making-it-fast-enough’ whimperings and the older one’s ‘request-by-way-of-staccato-command’ instructions for how he wants his toast (“DAIRYLEA! DAIRYLEA! DAIRYLEA!”) can always be heard the dulcet tones of one Mr Shaun Keaveny on the BBC6 Music breakfast show – my FAVOURITE thing. Without fail, the DAB radio gets switched on before the tea bag hits the bottom of the mug and I can always rely on some great tunes to get me on the right track of a morning.

Some of them straight out of my own record collection (cue singing along much to the amusement of my children) and some new tracks... which I have often shared with you here as part of my Fortissimo Friday feature. I credit the 6Music morning show for helping my personal thawing process – you all know how I am musically frozen in high school.

But I digress... you want to know how I missed the bus of radio superstardom today? I was happily bopping around in the kitchen to this classic tune from my childhood sweethearts Depeche Mode when some tit from Sheffield offended the airways by requesting an Incubus song as part of the ‘My Morning Racket’ feature.  (This is where they get a listener on air to request a song.)  So, fuelled with Tetley’s Extra Strong and the safety of anonymous text messaging, I sent the studio the following:

What, in the name of arse, is this pile of wank? Is this what Radio 1 plays when it wants to be ‘edgy’?

So through a wacky combination of my favourite thing and my SECOND favourite thing (namely, being a total music snob who likes to complain about bad music) I got a call from one of the show’s staff not two minutes after the text was sent to ask me if I would like to be this coming Monday’s on-air guest for ‘My Morning Racket’.  I laughed, and blushed, and apologised for being a bit sweary.

Yet another example of why the Universe hates me by making me go back to work after ten months of maternity leave – you guessed it – this coming Monday. Curses!

Probably a blessing in disguise – I would likely have messed up the whole delicate programming schedule by roping Mr Keaveny into a satisfying yet passionate musical debate and lost him a whole pile of listeners. That’s if I could even choose a song. One song? ONE SONG to share with the entire nation to illustrate the depth and breadth of my schizophonic audio-obsession? Nigh on impossible. I’d not have left the house for the duration of the entire weekend, instead staying next to the computer flooding the studio’s email inbox with at least 400,000 “wait-I’ve-changed-my-mind!!” emails.

So, England... you won’t hear this honey-voiced-lovely on your airwaves come Monday morning. I will miss ‘My Morning Racket’ and instead be replacing it with my own from behind the wheel of the car in the morning rush hour by swearing at other drivers, innocent pedestrians and too-close-to-my-wing-mirror motorcyclists on the way to my first day at work in nearly a year. Bloody shitty bollocks and fuck.

But – it is Friday after all... so you’ll be expecting a song, won’t you, my dear readers?

Here’s what I would have chosen:

...WAIT! I’VE CHANGED MY MIND! ;-)