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Well Kiddies
It is today Monday the 2nd of March 2009. It is today precisely 10 years to the day since the passing of the legendary and infamous Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, OBE better known to you and me as The first lady of White Soul Dusty Springfield. Not to unlike your truly, caked in makup, panda-eyes Dusty was the original IT girl lesbian bat out of hell. She rose to fame in the late 60s the with a string of hits including, I Only Wanna Be With You, I Just Dont Know What To Do With Myself, Wishin' and Hopin, Some Of Your Lovin', Goin' Back, The Look of Love, Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa, I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten and You Dont Have to Say You Love Me, before packing her bags and hightailing it to the bright lights of the United States in the latter end of the the decade to produce her highly acclaimed and still widely available Dusty in Memphis (go get it kiddies – you deserve it) before blending into the background for much of the 70's and early 80's to get pissed off her knocker in a cloud of alcoholism and mad out of her face on mandrax (what a treasure, a true icon, a model for us all). Having come back to reality several years later Dusty was often asked if she would concider by writing an autobiography (she coulda made a mint. Geri Halliwell's done it twice and shes only in her 30's) to which she always replied: "How could I write a book about my life, I can't fookin remember half of it!"After the mixed success of her recording career during this time period dusty finally returned to the top scoring a free lunch from The lovely Pet Shop Boys in their 1987 hit 'What have I don't to deserve this?
Fast forwarding to 7 years later of renewed success (also helped by the inclusion of 'Son of a Preacher Man' in Pulp Fiction), to the recording in Nashville what was to be her last album, Dusty was diagnosed with breast cancer. Following a brief period of remission in 1995, the illness returned in 1996. After fighting tooth and nail and swinging her handbag over her head (the international symbol of a fighting woman) Dusty passed away in her home in Hanley-on-Themes on the 2nd of March 1999, the day she was due to go to Buckingham Palace to receive and OBE. In her will she left all her dosh to her cat Sargent Tom. (She musta been sniffin the ether when she write that) This song (below) is taken from her 1979 Royal Albert hall concert. Ironically in the intro to the song she give a short monologue that in retrospect would seem to be very much about herself. Rest in piece Dusty (lots of little burned pieces scattered over the Cliffs of Moher by her brother Tom Springfield (real name Dion O'Brien.....I know to much) ) In honor of dusty I'm goin to have a drink and wash me vodka soaked cornflakes down with a bottle of chamepers that fell up me top in oddbins (another one of those accidents that always happens me kiddies). Happens all the and they've never successfully prosecuted me yet. Tough times ya know. Its my emperial word agains theirs. As the Beloved Dusty would say: Let everyone debate the true reality, I'd rahter see the world the way it used to be, And a little bit of freedom is all we lack, So catch me if you can, I'm Goin Back.
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Molly T xxx