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My name is Jon
Arne. I'm 51 years old and comes from Trondheim. A town in the
middle of Norway.
Since I was a
little kid, music has been a major interest to me. First with my
parents Beatles album "Sgt. Peppers", later with David
Bowie and Queen as the artists with the greatest influence.
In 1982 I
discovered British popmusic with artists like Spandau Ballet,
Ultravox, U2, ABC, Yazoo, and The Human League.
In 1984 a friend
of me that was a D.J. at school parties made a cassette for me with
many of the most popular songs of the time. I remember artists like
Howard Jones, Paul Young, Limahl, Frankie goes to Hollywood among
others. And a catchy song by a band that I didn't know the name of.
I played this song over and over again. It was very special, with it's flutes that gave assimilations to something pastoral, or
military. Also the refrain was easy to like with the words
"send me away on holiday", "don't send me away".
A little later the
song got erased from the tape by accident (or so I thought). An
incident that made me sad. Later I asked my DJ friend what the name
of this band was. But unfortunately he had forgotten about the whole
thing. Or he might have said that the name was Freeze. Which I then
thought was Freeez (I.O.U.).
And so my search for the song went into the blue for some years.
Later when I met people who I thought was into music - and the 80's
in special - I asked them about this song. I even sang the
refrain "Send me away on holiday", "don't send me
away", and I whistled the flute tune. But nothing seemed to
help. No one knew about the song. After some time I thought that it
was all an imagination. That the song didn't exist.
When I entered the cyberspace some years later, I thought this was a
good opportunity to get in touch with other 80's fans around the
world. So I entered a few 80's forums to ask about the song. But to
my disappointment no one seemed to recognize it. Toe many tried to
help. It was also at this time that I entered the music forum of VG,
Norways biggest paper. Where I met other people with a big heart for
music. My first entry to the forum was with a question where I asked
for this song.
A lot of people
got interested in my story, but no one seemed to be able to help me
with my song. A song that through the years had turned out to be my
personal search for “the holy grail”. Music was such an
important thing to me, and I had “all the records” in the world.
But not the one that I really wanted.
People came up with all kind of ideas what this song might be.
Scorpions (Holiday), Blancmange, Orange juice, and Spandau Ballet
among others. I even bought The Verlaines album “Hallelujah all
the way home” because of a song called “Don't send me away”
which contained flutes and pastoral moods. Nice song, but not the
right one.
In despair I went up to the attic to find that old cassette from the
80's that originally had contained the song. To see If there was
anything left of it. I had listened to the tape many times earlier,
only to find the song erased by another song. But when I
played the cassette this time, to my big surprise, it was there!! It
was a kind of spooky experience. Like someone had made a change to
the cassette!
The song was just as good as I remembered it. A nice tune, good
singing, and a good arrangement. The whistling/flute is what makes
it so special. It sounds very British, and in my mind I see a
typical English countryside with marching soldiers. At the same time
it sounds very much 80's. I hadn't heard it for 22 years, still I
had remembered most of the chorus and the flute tune correctly.
Now that I had the song, I wanted to know who was singing it. To
find out if it was a band I knew, and that they might have other
good songs too. So I transferred the song to a cd, and put
parts of it out on the net. On a page that I made (in english and
norwegian) :
http://www.jonarne.net/hva_heter/song.htm
And so I went out
on the net again, this time with the song "in my bag". I
thought it would be easy to find the artist. But to my sad surprise
no one recognized the song. Many thought it was a catchy song, so
they wanted to find out about the artist for themselves.
What made the breakthrough, was that a friend of me who was a DJ in
the 80s told me about someone he knew from those days, which now was
working in Norwegian broadcasting (like BBC). He said I ought to
contact him. Which I did. I sent him a link to the page I made.
Unfortunately he couldn't recognize it. But he sent the link to
other parts of the broadcasting system. And in the soundarchive in
Oslo there was a guy who recognized it. And he could tell this was
“Foxhole” by Freeze Frame.
I was unbelievable happy when I received the message. Because I
instantly knew that this was the right answer.
I then went on the net to order all the records I could find with
Freeze Frame : “Today/Tomorrow”, “Your voice”,
“Touch”, Seeking professional advice”, and of course “Foxhole”.
I put the songs
together on a CD that I created. A CD which I plays regulary.
“Foxhole” has become a true favourite of me. And is now on my
list of top 100 songs of all time. A page was made to celebrate the
song.
And this page was
found by a friend of Steve Byrne. The singer of Freeze Frame. And a
little later he got in contact with me. This gave me the opportunity
to tell him about my search for "Foxhole". A story
he was delighted to hear.
I'm also the Webmaster
of a Norwegian 80's tribute page called The
musical world. And at the time I got the mail from Steve I was
planning to make a section for Freeze Frame (in norwegian). The
plans got changed. Instead we made a whole new page together, which
turned out much more informative than the one I had planned.
I hope you like
it. As a tribute to a band that never achieved the recognition it
deserved.
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