Bonnie Tyler passed on last Wednesday, 8 July, aged 75. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t feel moved to write about the passing of a one-time pop starlet thousands of kilometres away – but marking Tyler’s passing is less than paying the usual respects than mourning the loss of something that will probably never be done so beautifully again. Emulated, possibly. Remixed, sure. That seems to be a thing these days anyway. But really done better — nha, I doubt that.
If I’m beginning to sound like someone who’s just too miserable to accept that his best days are behind him, and is annoyed by the receding hairline, I won’t hold it against you. You’re probably right: it’s not even necessarily about the music per se. It’s about an era. A moment in the time of listening to people on the radio. If you were lucky enough to own a tape recorder, and patient enough to push the record button when ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ came on the radio, how blessed you were.
To be sure, Tyler was more of a rosy-cheeked Welshwoman than a revolutionary Annie Lennox, but if you were holding out for some hero to come and save the day, her songs always struck a nerve – even though you’d never admit as much to your comrades. A lazy comparison, I know. But whether one fancies a chivalrous white knight in love or a Makarov-wielding resistance fighter, all is fair in love and war.
Hers was a time of genius, when creativity was a thing, and to earn your chops as a pop star meant you simply had to have the pipes. That is, you had to do live on stage what the records claimed you were capable of.
Kosher bands gigged everywhere they could, and every chance they got. If she’d grown up in Langa, Tyler could’ve been another Brenda Fassie, because neither lady was a Weekend Special. You could toss the records aside when mom insisted on listening to the radio drama. But dump them? Never.
Tyler showed us the grace of taking love, even the unrequited variant, and carrying it so dearly as to ‘Make Love (Out of Nothing at All)’, regardless.
Fassie was there to remind the gossiping townshipper that her efforts to stand in the way of the marital plans of her (Fassie’s) son had to come to nought. For here was Fassie’s son about to tie the knot, so Vulindlela weMamgobizi. Out the way, you no-good jibber-jabber.
Like Janis Joplin, they took another piece from the heart of lovestruck fans. They gave us evergreens – songs that are still spinning on the old home stereo, stirring up memories both unforgettable and heartbreaking to this day. Real songs for real people. To many of her fans, Bonnie provided the soundtrack to the first dance at the Matric farewell, the tear-inducing voice when the one you loved, loved you no more.
But there’s also a lighter side to my story about Bonnie, which occurred at a lavish Bloemfontein restaurant around the 2010s when Tyler and her entourage rocked up one evening after a concert – an establishment where yours truly was working at the time. The previous evening I’d been fortunate to serve her roadies – a rowdy, unfussy lot whose only instruction to me was exactly what a commission-earning waiter likes to hear: ‘drinks all around, and keep ’em coming, mate.’
The following evening, her main posse showed up. Doting – as is the habit of kitchen hands – after them, I rapidly obliged when they asked for a gas heater to be hauled into the area where they were seated. Big mistake. Barely five minutes later, a whooshing sound came from their secluded nook. The heater had triggered the smoke detectors, and the poor guys were spilling out of there trying to get away from the gush of water. Thank God, Tyler had by then decided on an early night. Even better, her people found the whole thing rather hilarious — so funny, in fact, that they left behind a bucket loaded with beer for everybody who was on duty.
Of course, even die-hard fans are disillusioned when these idols suddenly change musical tack. Move with the times, as it were, leaving us to commiserate about what was, and what will never be again.
Tyler later struck out in some unfamiliar directions, but glimpses of the old Bonnie still shone through. So we continued to listen, albeit in a more lukewarm way.
Fassie’s funeral was a national song of mourning, a special composition for the one and only ‘Ma-brrr’. I hope the Welsh – an unapologetically pompous lot if the standup comics are to be believed – will come out and dance a bit for the beloved Bonnie Tyler.
Featured image: Bonnie Tyler in Germany during her ‘Greatest Hits’ tour, 2016. Stefan Brending / Wikimedia Commons.