News & Insights 7 June 2007

Jingle Improvisation at the BBC

Thursday 7 June, 6.30pm (BBC Studios, Caversham, Berkshire):
We only landed at Heathrow yesterday and we’re still pretty much on Korean time. Which means for us it’s about 2.30 in the morning. An ideal time to be recording a live session and interview for BBC Radio, then.

We are the featured band on Linda Serck’s show The Session on BBC Radio Berkshire. A couple of minutes before Linda presses the record button, she reminds us of the Radio Berkshire jingle that all featured bands are asked to write in preparation for appearing on The Session. An alarm-bell rings in my head. George and Tony turn to me, slowly, each of their faces a matching cocktail of panic and befuddlement. Yes, I have whole-heartedly and unequivocally forgotten to tell anyone about this. How long do we have to write this jingle now exactly? Erm, about 45 seconds. No probs. Lennon and McCartney wrote From Me To You in 25 minutes, and that was in the Sixties when everything took much longer.

Whilst Linda is rifling through CDs, we have a hushed, and somewhat frantic, confab. We resolve to pinch the chorus from Emily and change the lyrics to “BBC Radio Berkshire, The Se-ssion, with Linda Serck…”. One quick rehearsal and, thanks to our formative years in a barbershop quartet in New Orleans back in the early 1920s, it actually sounds alright. Linda swings round in her chair and we beam at her. “Ready!”, we say in unison.

You can check out our jingle, along with the rest of the interview, on the BBC Radio Berkshire website.

Chris Lightyear

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