There's probably an action movie out there somewhere that had almost everything: Good cast, big budget, great script, excellent direction, plot, setting, stunts. Yet the critics reviewed it so insipidly, so tepidly that the whole thing sank without trace. In fact it probably took so little money the studios couldn't even be bothered releasing it on DVD. It was probably worth more as a tax loss. If the cast are lucky they'll probably only see it on the didn't-realise-we-got-these satellite channels at three o'clock in the morning, dubbed into Serbo-Croat. Probably.

So what was missing? Well, what it needed was a kick up the arse right at the very start. It needed the hero to hit the ground running; running away from the bad guys. Running after the bad guys. Running to save the heroine from despair. Running to stop the world from ending. How best to emphasise that startling urgency, to make you feel like the hero just had to run somewhere, run anywhere? Obviously the missing ingredient was that it needed to open with 'The Thrill Of It All' by Roxy Music.

This is the opening track from Country Life, one their best albums and it does strike a note of extreme urgency and excitement; of Roxy's bravura, an outfit at their creative peak, secure enough to know that what they committed to vinyl wasn't just intended to secure a quick route to Top of the Pops and the chance to feel up Frida or Agnetha or one of the Three Degrees. Though obviously given the chance...

Now a lot of people, including Bob Harris, hated Roxy for being 'pretentious'. Admittedly ‘The Thrill Of It All’ does quote Dorothy Parker's famous 'Resume' line 'You Might As Well Live' which in the view of those who see music as being merely a commercial transaction designed to milk those seeking background accompaniment while life happens to them may be true. Fuck 'em.

Anyway, there's nothing pretentious about how I discovered it. 'Check this', my friend Derek said, showing the 13 year old me a cover photo of two glamour models clad only in sheer lacy underwear. 'Ye can see their fannies an' everything'. It was true; you could see their fannies and everything and for a pubescent lad deprived of titillation in a world still awaiting internet porn that was enough to convince me to buy it. Instead of waiting to find scud books in hedges I would always have emergency source material safely stashed beneath my bedroom record player with my other fourteen albums. It even came with a free record.

I didn't play it for a day or two afterwards and when I did I was almost reluctant, thinking it would be shite and dull and ancient as it was about ten years old by the time I bought it. All the old baggage of Roxy being pretentious art school pseuds died once the needle slapped the record. I forgot that two red-lipped amazons took me by the hard-on and led me to the cash register once I heard the opening bars of that first track. It injected into me and forced energy through my veins. Twenty odd years later, it still does.

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Alex Cox was born in Glasgow 38 years ago to the justified silence of an indifferent world. He has been writing short stories and novels since the time computers were still 'the future', but a lack of confidence and ability has deterred him from ever imposing his stuff on others. As such he has pursued a livelihood in the spiritually crushing sphere of economics and finance and as such is now making a break whilst a modicum of his soul remains, albeit heavily sedated and with its relatives hovering around the bed and speaking in whispers. To read Alex’s story, ‘Helicopter Pilot’ on the showcase section of this site, click here.

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© 2009 Laura Hird All rights reserved.