We really do like to be beside the seaside and we’ve celebrated the fact in song for a long time. Singers and songwriters have been drawn to the seaside as somewhere to holiday or have a holiday home. Check out these ten facts - or little pieces of trivia if you prefer - about the inextricable link between popular music and the great UK seaside holiday. Songs about the seaside and holidays have been around forever - but we won’t go as far back as ancient folk tunes and sea shanties. We’ll start in the twentieth century….
Image: Cliff Richard kept a boat on The Broads, at Potter Heigham in Norfolk, for years. He’d already had a hit with ‘Summer Holiday’ so perhaps it was his newfound wealth that bought the boat…Plus Bowie would make one of the most famous Norfolk holiday references ever when he sang - ‘from Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads’.
1 UK holidays have inspired pop songs for longer than you think
We really have been writing and recording seaside holiday songs for a long time. In fact, the first genuinely commercial ‘hit’ tune to capture our love affair with UK summer holidays was Mark Sheridan’s 1909 recording of John Glover-Kind’s song ‘I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside’.
2 The Suffolk bred boy goes global
Singer songwriters don’t come much more successful than Ed Sheeran. He hails originally from Yorkshire; but he grew up in, and his writing has been inspired by, the area around Framlingham. It’s not far from the Suffolk coast and the idyllic seaside town of Southwold, in Suffolk.
3 Music is why people are looking for places to stay in Suffolk
Hotel and weekend breaks in Suffolk, have been high on many music lover’s priority lists since 2006. That’s when, at Henham Park, near Southwold, the first Latitude Festival was held. Nowadays, even allowing for the current situation, it’s huge.
4 From the coast to The Broads and holiday chalets
Officially they are The Norfolk and Suffolk Broads. Cliff Richard kept a boat on The Broads, at Potter Heigham in Norfolk, for years. He’d already had a hit with ‘Summer Holiday’ so perhaps it was his newfound wealth that bought the boat. Norfolk was the choice of UK holiday home for Cliff’s band mate too. Hank Marvin of The Shadows had a holiday chalet in the area. Hank apparently liked the secluded parts of the county. For those who like all the fun of the fair there is Great Yarmouth.
5 Some facts from the Norfolk coast
It was the House of Fun, and the legendary Roller Coaster, on Great Yarmouth’s Pleasure Beach, where Madness chose to make the video for - you’ve probably guessed it - their hit, ‘House of Fun’. Great Yarmouth has long been the base for Peter Jay. He still lives there. Back in the 60’s Peter Jay and The Jaywalkers were a seriously cool band. So cool that a young David Jones was besotted with them. So much so that to launch his singing career, and to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees, he changed his name to David Jay. Soon though he changed it again - to David Bowie. He did ok. Bowie would make one of the most famous Norfolk holiday references ever when he sang - ‘from Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads’.
6 Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green - the man who wanted the quiet life on the Norfolk coast
Great Yarmouth’s neighbour is Gorleston on Sea and that’s somewhere else with pop and rock credentials. British blues band Fleetwood Mac went on to become international superstars. Fame though sat uneasily with founder member Peter Green. One of the greatest guitarists of all time, the man who wrote ‘Albatross’ and ‘Man of the World’ would spend a lot of time living quietly with his brother Len and sister in law Gloria in Gorleston-on-Sea.
7 The only way is Essex? Essex caravan parks, Clacton-on- Sea and much more
Meanwhile, further south, Clacton-on-Sea was home to super smooth singer songwriter Sade. Still in Essex, it wasn’t the song but the band who featured a famous UK holiday landmark. Remember ‘Little Does She Know’ by The Kursaal Flyers? They’d named themselves after Southend’s legendary amusement park. Southend-on-Sea has proved popular as a film location too. Oasis, Morrissey and George Michael all filmed videos there. Whilst we’re on the subject of the Essex coast it was being rumored in the media a while ago that Rhianna was planning to spend a holiday there. Although it did turn out that she was planning to rent an entire island. As you do. Don’t assume that the pop and seaside links are strictly southern. A single town in Yorkshire for example has two claims to pop fact fame. Whitby is not only the birthplace of 60’s psychedelic rocker Arthur Brown (as in The Crazy World of Arthur Brown), it also features in a 1989 track by Leeds band Cud. Who can forget their ‘Only (a Prawn in Whitby)’?
8 The beat goes on..
Ever since that 1909 release of ‘Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside’ there’s been a constant thread of hits inspired by sand and sea. By 1975, although sounding very much like 1935, Queen were singing ‘Seaside Rendezvous’. The seaside beat goes on.
9…and on!
And it shows no sign of stopping. In 2004 The Ordinary Boys made a real plea with the refrain ‘The seaside needs us more than ever….’ in a track called ‘Seaside’. And in 2017 The Kooks posed the question ‘Do you want to go to the seaside’ in their, and another, song called……… ‘Seaside’.
10 Songwriters inspired by their love of Suffolk cottages, villa holidays and Essex holiday parks
There is, as we all know, a vast catalogue of American songs that celebrate the seaside. Beach Boys were surfing, The Drifters were hanging out under boardwalks and Otis Redding was just sitting ‘On the Dock of the Bay’. But songwriters have always been inspired by their love of of UK holidays, from Suffolk cottages by the sea, to villa holidays; from Essex holiday parks to touring caravans. (Did you know by the way that touring caravans are a big thing for pop star and one-time Dr Who sidekick Billie Piper? Who knew?).
