Martin Newell
@Cleaners_Venus1
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I walk away from rubble if I can.
North East Essex
Joined March 2017
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Good day so far. We've just hit 8 million and 12 thousand streams on Spotify for Only A Shadow. It was made on a Tascam 4 track Portastudio, decades ago . No one was interested, so I hung onto the ownership.
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ONLY A SHADOW: a song recorded by the Cleaners from Venus on a 4-track in late 1982, has just hit over 7 Million streams on Spotify.
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At long last, 'The Jangling Man' documentary about Cleaners From Venus/Martin Newell is officially available on Amazon Prime (rent/buy) and on our webstore (rent only) beginning today!
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It was 40 years ago today etc. I was working on this. It's quite successful. Took a while but we got there, you know?
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THE JANGLING MAN
Film premiere coming to a central London cinema in about three weeks time. Times, date, location and ticket information next week
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"Only A Shadow" hit 6m streams yesterday. Not bad for a song made on a 4-track back in 1982 in between my kitchen portering shifts.
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The Organist Misunderstands...
Instead of going out to the pub like other sane people, I have a glass of brandy and sit there messing around with a keyboard which I don't quite understand.
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THIRTY YEARS AGO TODAY
Andy Partridge and I finished recording this record. 2 highlights here.
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The Cleaners from Venus new album is due out in a few weeks. But first, the advance single with two bonus tracks is out on Friday 2nd June. It's very good. You won't be disappointed. Promise. x
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Coming Down Again. This is an old Keith Richards song from 1973. Just the thing for a piano player with a broken finger on a November afternoon. Camera work by Lily.
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Thanks to everyone for my birthday greetings. I've been recording today. This was my birthday a few years back. It was at Manningtree Station buffet. I had a small hangover.
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The last recordings for this album were finished today. It's been six months. This picture is what the end of an album looks like. Next comes re-mixing and track ordering. Then mastering. In 10 or 12 weeks, we should have a new album for you. So how d'ya like that?
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Re-united with the Rickenbacker yesterday.
Which I lent to Nelson for some months, while my
hand injury was healing. Things are on the up.
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BRAZIL'S BEST GIRL....gone today aged 83.
Been listening to her since I was a boy.
She'll be featuring on the next Oddcaste.
What a singer. What a loss.
Astrud Gilberto RIP x
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Track of the Career (possibly) Quite big news actually. Yesterday we were informed that Only A Shadow has passed over 4 million streams on Spotify alone. Good job no one in the music biz could 'hear a single' when I made it. Because I still own it.
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Ryuichi Sakamoto:This brilliant composer and musician... 1952-2023
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49 Years Ago Tonight. This young man (20) played his first pro gig in Chigwell, Essex with Colchester's finest (only) glam rock band, The Mighty Plod. It changed and very probably saved his life. Thanks to all my fellow passengers on this long trip. I'll never forget you. x
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I will NOT let this go. Can the world's media (especially the BBC ) please stop referring to those terrorists as "The Beatles" ? It's lazy stupid and culturally profane. The Beatles made great music and promoted love. Share if you care.
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This is where the Cleaners from Venus really began.
I was at a 'do' a while back. An industry type on the stage, introduced me and made a joke about the band's name. I told him later, "You shouldn't really laugh. We sell more music than your acts do."
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This just in. A pic from the late 80s, at guess. Dave Vanian, Joey Ramone and M'Colleague Captain Sensible, whom if you look closer, you'll notice is wearing a first edition Cleaners from Venus t-shirt. (thanks Pete Gillett )
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Right then, guitarists and Cleaners from Venus listeners, here's a question. If it could be done, how much interest might there be in a future book of properly annotated guitar-music manuscripts of favourite Newell/ Cleaners songs, in their correct keys and tunings?
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Only A Shadow. Lol recorded some drums for me. I put a bass down. I added
the guitar riff and doubled it. I knocked up the lyrics and sang it. I asked Celia
a jazzy singer I knew to help me with the choruses. I thought it was great.
No one else seemed interested at the time.
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About 30 years ago, Mr Partridge and I were working on this song...and indeed on the album of the same name.
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FILM NEWS! Well this is quite good. For those who've been asking As of next Monday 12th December, Captured Tracks Records will be making film "The Jangling Man" rentable online! More details soon.
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Wivenhoe Bells 2. Yes. I was going through my 'Backyard Spector' phase . 2nd attempt at the song. With all my cheap gear it took bloody days to get it this big. It remains a psychedelic lo-fi triumph. I still love it.Two-fingers up to the music biz.
#TimsTwitterListeningParty
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I'm actually serious about not talking music tech or guitars. I leave all that shite to boring beardie musos. When I make a record, I just use whatever's lying around. I'm a pop music fan. I was always more interested in clothes and mascara, frankly.
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Coming later this year... A new US Documentary, Announcement this Thursday.
Stay Tuned!
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In my kitchen, with an eye patch, after cycling into Colchester and back earlier today . It's a trailer of a song 'Estuary Boys' from the next album 'Penny Novelettes' out next month.
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Minivid of the Day: Re-learning THE JANGLING MAN.
With only days to the Golden Arvo, our hero attempts
to recall whatever it was he did.
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Album news: It looks like there's a new album coming. For months now, I've been writing and recording songs about London: the London that I knew at various times in my life. Got about 8 weeks to completion. Release in September (probably). It's title will be "That London."
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Cycling elegance for early autumn
with Eastern England's foremost fop.
Jacket- Saxon & Hawk of Savile Row
Boots Brogini
Shirt - Moss Bros.
Waistcoat - Taylor& Wright at Cat Rescue.
Ladies Size 12 Jeggings by M&S
Hat by Hawkins.
Duduma shades.
Bin that Lycra, guys.
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In which a Cleaner from Venus plays a Smiths classic on a Hofner Verithin. Does it ever get any more jangly than this?
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The New Cleaners from Venus Album K7...
Will be going up for pre-order on June 30th (next Friday)
Nuff said already
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Mini-vid of the Week:
Well, now the surgeon has declared me fit for service, I have a gig in a week, which means some rehearsing. So, I'm studying old mini-vids to see what I know. This is a Smiths song, 'Some Girls Are Bigger than Others, which I sometimes do live.
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Minivid Request: Clara Bow. I had to look it up on the web to find out how I played it.
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Me and Johnny Clarke having a bit of a Friday night catch-up for the first time in a couple of months...
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TRACK OF THE DAY: Immortal LoFi from the early 1980s. Recorded on a 4 track Portastudio using junkshop gear. Track 1 of a now multi-million streaming album. At the time it was 'mysteriously overlooked'(it says here).
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"It'll be good for you. " Nice Christmas Day walk along the muddy trackways, before setting the microphone up for the Oddcaste. Pretty cold. Dazzling sun. Hardly anyone about.
Merry Christmas everybody!
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From the Archives...
Summer of '74. Outside 55 East Hill, Colchester: Former HQ of the Mighty Plod, Colchester's only glam rock band. A 21 year-old Newell, then known as simply as 'Zap', having recently returned from some gigs in the north of England.
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I should tell you that at 10pm, next Tuesday courtesy of that very nice Tim Burgess off of The Charlatans, I've been invited to participate in his Twitter Listening Party with my antique album Midnight Cleaners (1982).#
Why not join us?
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It was 28 Years Ago Tomorrow...That Andy Partridge and I mastered the album The Greatest Living Englishman. It's my best-known solo album and now even has its own Wikipedia entry. Track of the Day link below.
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Upon My Birthday...
No idea what FB is telling people about it but anyway here's a clip to say thanks.
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For BOWIE FANS
This year is the 50th anniversary of David Bowie killing off Ziggy Stardust at Hammy Odeon. For most of my tour dates, I've finished my set with Ziggy. This was Saturday night in front of several hundred people at the Earth Theatre, the last of three London shows.
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For those who missed the early edition...news of this has only come to my own parish late. So here it is. The review in the January edition of The Wire magazine.
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Back at my day job again. Got a basic beat down yesterday. The upright piano went down quicker and easier than I thought it might. Hofner bass going down next. Then it'll be time to look at writing some lyrics I suppose.
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This was me workin in Germany in the mid 70s. I found all these pics.
#TimsTwitterListeningParty
In my own town there's people..and the NME slaggin me off and I;m in Germany in front of 800 people takin the place apart. Wrong haircut probably.
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Coming back from a small chest infection, so I had to lower the key of Illya Kuryakin Looked At Me (1985) in order to sing it.
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With a new Cleaners album titled 'K7' due out 'in the coming weeks' we thought we'd better tell you about the next single -out on Friday 2nd June -- just over 2 weeks time. There are two bonus tracks: 'Done With The Runway' and Flora and Fauna'. The single is classic Cleaners.
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"A film? About me? In America? Wow. I wondered what that film crew was hanging around for.
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Sitting on the...Track of the Day.
We've been told that any minute now, Only A Shadow, recorded in 1982 in an un-used former kitchen on a 4 track Portastudio will have notched up 3 million streams on Spotify.
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Okay this is the lovely Flo Dill's Breakfast Show from Monday on NTS. Lots of Cleaners from Venus stuff and about 20 minutes in a music/spliced interview with me.
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Colchester Council wanted to memorialise those of its citizens who'd died as a result of the Coronavirus. They did this in a rather inspired way.
They've planted in Kings Meadow, in Castle Park four glades of trees with the work of 4 poets. Here's mine.
Pic by Siana Hughes
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Today's Mini-vid. "FOR NO ONE"
Not for no one. For Paul McCartney.
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Just doing the soundcheck on Saturday, to make sure that my shirt was loud enough.
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Track of the Night. (1983) Poorly recorded, sloppily played and with nasty reproduction, this gem succeeds in delighting the listeners and infuriating music geeks. With coming up to 2 million streams We think it's a victory for Lo-fi and DIY.
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I was really angry, I suppose, that all the great pop music I'd grown up with had been replaced by cocktails'n'coke 80s culture. Why was everybody singing like opera singers and wearing tablecloths?
#TimsTwitterListeningParty
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I was invited to be a special guest of Fred Armisen at this gig in 3 weeks. It's at the EartH Theatre in Hackney. So if you're in that London, do pop in.
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This is a trailer for the Patreon (Thursday) first time I've played Only A Shadow in 40 years.
Helping me out here is Daryl Jack Sharman who knows a couple or three things, since he's been doing the manuscripts for the Cleaners Songbook.
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Day three: "STRAIGHT TO YOU BOY" The Greatest Living Englishman 1993. This was my own favourite. She doesn't know who she is.
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Still huge on YouTube. Pretty good for a song that's never been a single, was recorded on 4-track in 1982 by two broke yobs in a loft, and has been covered by MGMT and many other bands.
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Track of the Day:
Quite a clean pressing of my 1986 shopping-list song of all my 1960s madeleines.
"Illya Kuryakin Looked At Me"
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Time In Vain
Definitely in Jacky DeShannon territory here with the songwriting. It's a Searchers,
Byrds, Tom Petty jangle-fest. Lol wasn't around to play drums. I used a
drumbox and banged a floor tom. I love cheap lo-fi sounds.
#TimsTwitterListeningParty
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Getting used to the Ricky again...Back story and other goodies over on the Patreon.
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25th December 2023 North-east Essex. Between 9 and 10 am. Photographic evidence that there's still some good stuff to be found.
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RIP David McCallum 1933-2023 a great British actor, who played Illya Kuryakin, subject of the early Cleaners from Venus single: "Illya Kuryakin Looked At Me."
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RAINBOW CONNECTION
While shooting the Patreon vids today, this one came up
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Hay fever got my bad eye and my hair's getting longer. Looked terrible. Why not put on a tricorn and an eye patch? I'm Martin Newell, I can do that sort of thing if I want.
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Haven't done this in many a year but Red Betsy needed some exercise. I hope the new neighbours don't mind -- pub over the road and an old rocker next door.
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White Reaper's perfectly good cover of my 7million streaming song "Only A Shadow" which we learn is now in their set. Couldn't be happier with it.
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WINDOWS ON A LO-FI LIFE
These are all different recording set-ups from recent years . They were usually photographed because I needed to remember things. Sometimes I snapped them because I liked how they looked.
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Thirty years on...The Greatest Living Englishman album.
Goodbye Dreaming Fields (continued) ...
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Mystery shot from the vaults. Probably taken about 1979.
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Minivid of the Week: Not done this one before. It's The Greatest Living Englishman as a breakdown of the track.
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Meanwhile back in the 1970s...I spent 6 years of my life doing 'this sort of thing'. There's a big box-file of pictures. I keep threatening to sort them out. But I don't. I leaf through a few, sigh and then put the box back in the cupboard again.
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Went off line because of the wind. But I'm back on now. Thanks to Rennies. So was that alright then?
#TimsTwitterListeningParty
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Work-in-Progress. A midweek afternoon at Mule Towers fiddling with a brand new track 'The Beautiful Stoned' and a brief look at the 1961 Hofner V3.
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And so, after nearly a month of working on other projects, with the Light Music Company's mini-album put to bed, on a snowy April 1st. I re-commenced work on the new album. This was a day of mainly, guitars.
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This just turned up again on my feed. In answer to a question some while ago, what I thought about the steady progress of my music projects internationally, I gave the answer below. It still applies.
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This Rainy Decade
This track was made, not with a synth of any sort. I couldn't have afforded one
I used a Stylophone 350S (the double stylus one) I also used a Swanee whistle
and made 'pink-noise' sounds by close-miking by breath through a tape echo
unit. I made this in October
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"They won't remember mourning
any pop star in this way
And won't know why they're weeping
in the middle of the day.
He was Youth and he was Beauty
He was talented and clever
So stunningly original and...
they thought he'd live forever."
5 years this Sunday. Full poem on F.B
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A recent trailer from Joe, who did the animations for the forthcoming documentary film (soon, we hope) of The Jangling Man -- the story of The Cleaners from Venus
This (2018) excerpt demonstrates my polite and constructive approach to the music business
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More boyhood madeleines..."Bus Stop"
(That's enough old northern songs Ed.)
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At the London premiere of The Jangling Man film last week: The director James Sharp and I signing posters. Other pics include the showing, the Q&A session. The billboard of the film's premiere in Los Angeles yesterday. More pics soon.
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Corridor of Dreams. This was going to be great, but I never did get that killer chorus in.
It's got Mick Brannan's great sax on it. I had a row with my
woman about this. I put her in the lyrics. She didn't like it. I took her out. She was even
madder. Spoilt the song for me.
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In which, while still in recovery, with a voice like a little glaze-cracked pot, your Cleaner does a second Smiths favourite, helped by the new Hofner Verithin.
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Lost Brotherhood of Lizards Pictures:
Hyde Park and Queensway Tube Late October 1989. These just sent in by Rachel Dolly Mixture. Stills taken by Schu Sandeela during the making of the lost Lizards documentary.
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A Wretched Street. One of my favourites at the time of making the collection of songs. It was winter 82. Thatcher had now been in for three years. We'd had strikes , closures, unemployment ..and a war.
#TimsTwitterListeningParty
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48 hours to the London premiere of The Jangling Man at Picture House, Hackney and here with a report from the kitchen is yr correspondent.
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Mini-Vid of the Morning:
First time I picked up a guitar in a week. (bin takin a break). This is from the Greatest Living Englishman album. "Goodbye Dreaming Fields."
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With over 7.5 million streams on Spotify, ONLY A SHADOW is our top tune at the moment. Here I am with Daryl Sharman playing it for the first time in a domestic setting. There are not one but Two back stories for this song on the Patreon
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It's mainly about me when I was 19, working in this filthy factory at the height of my glam rock, pill-boy trouble. Then I moved town, cleaned up and joined a band.
#TimsTwitterListeningParty
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From Никола Робэску, in Manhattan, who while teaching English in China, acquired this 1st pressing of the GLE album which contained a ticket from a 1994 Japanese gig, where my band contained Capt and Garry from the Damned, Tiv, Nel, and Dave Gregory from XTC. A rocking unit...
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Long time ago, when I was 20 or so, working in clubs, I used to sing this. Last week some woman who'd been drinking loudmouth soup, comes over to ask for it. I play roughly this. She says, " Wow. You actually know it!" I quietly think. "Wow. 48 years. I actually remember it."
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