This one was a big favourite of my Dad’s, so my memory of it is half affectionate and half curdled: I remember trips north to see relatives with him singing lustily along and surly me in the back seat wanting to put my Smiths tapes on.
So it’s hard for me to hear this as a teenage song, even though my Dad was a teenager when he liked it. The busy, scrabbly guitar picking and the almost-breaking voice work as markers for ‘the teenage’ and its fumbling urgency – but that’s something I know about the song, not feel. To be honest “Diana” annoys me – Anka’s “ohhhh please” sounds gormless and he sings the verses too rhythmic, too precise. Maybe I just prefer Dad singing it, ’cause the clockwork guitars work for me fine.
Score: 4
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