‘Under the Sun’ by Alan Price is not a song I want to listen to just now. I heard it many times as a child and I’ll be hearing it many times in the future.

‘This is the song I want played at my funeral.’

My Dad said that to me on my last visit home, as ‘Under The Sun’ floated into the conservatory from the kitchen, courtesy of BBC Essex. He isn’t dying. He isn’t even ill.

‘Don’t be bloody morbid,’ I said, tears already gathering momentum for the journey down my face.

‘No need to cry,’ he said.

My Dad’s choice surprised me. He is not a sentimental man. He grew up motherless on one of the roughest housing estates in Manchester and joined the army at fourteen as respite from his home regime. I think I came as a shock to him – my over sensitivity, the ever ready tears. He didn’t associate childhood with the expression of emotion. And yet he’d chosen a real heartstring- tugger of a song as a send off. Don’t Cry, Don’t Cry, the opening line of the song begs us. There won’t be a dry eye in the house. Is he providing us with an opportunity for catharsis or is it emotional manipulation from beyond the grave?

When I got home, I googled Alan Price. I discovered he’d been a founder member of the Animals and that ‘Between Today and Yesterday’ is a concept album about his harsh upbringing in Jarrow near Newcastle and its effect on him as an adult. As a child of course, I’d known none of this. I just listened to the music and liked the album cover because it had a rainbow on it and Rainbow was my favourite television programme. And I always cried at ‘Under The Sun’ because I knew it was about the end of something.

The only copy of ‘Between Today and Yesterday’ I could find to buy, was second-hand on Amazon. I wondered if I should I get it, in case we couldn’t find it later? Talk about forward planning. If I did buy it, should I listen to it? That might be unfair. I’d have time to practice grieving - get a head start on everyone else.

I also discovered the album was released in 1974, the year my sister Sarah died. My mother told me that Sarah was in Dad’s arms when she went.

We’ll be together Under The Sun.

That’s the promise made by the last line of the chorus. I think that’s what he believes and I think he deserves that.

I decided to buy it. One day it might be gone forever. I smiled at the idea of me searching for Dad on Amazon when he’s gone, when he’s transformed into a format no longer compatible with the material world.

Tracey has lived in Edinburgh for ten years. She's currently writing her first novel - either in bed or in a converted cupboard covered in fairy lights. In an ideal world, she would be paid vast sums to write short stories. One of her stories, 'Our Big Day Out,' was a runner up in the 2004 Scotsman and Orange Short Story Prize and is published in the anthology ‘North’. She also has work published in ‘Parenthesis’ (Comma Press) and ‘New Writing Scotland 24’. To read Tracey’s story, ‘Under the Gloss’ on the showcase section of this site, click here.

© 2007 Laura Hird All rights reserved.