How first crushes shape us forever

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of

I have a type. It’s the same type as I had when I was 4.

He has dark hair, is skinny and has a slightly wild look in his eye. If he’s on Top of the Pops in 1980, he also moves his legs in a disturbing way.

He is Shakin’ Stevens.

But even though I love Shaky, I’m also afraid of him.

While most children in the 80s were hiding behind the sofa because of the Daleks in Dr Who, I was hiding from a double-denimed Welshman who was throwing his hips around on Top of the Pops.

Former milkman Michael Barratt, aka Shaky, was Wales’s answer to Elvis the Pelvis and popularised a knee knocking dance that I would emulate in the living room. About 20 years later I’d make a friend who in another living room, 150 miles away in Essex, was doing the same dance as me – until her dad walked in on her and, looking concerned, asked if she was ok.

My parents also picked up on my ardour for Shaky, and teased me for it.

Hence the hiding behind the sofa.

I was embarrassed - not just by the brand-new feeling itself, but that something private had been found out. I blushed whenever his name was mentioned, I felt sick when I heard This Ole House. This otherwise innocuous song became as terrifying as the sound of the Incredible Hulk’s shirt splitting to me. So for weeks I’d make any excuse not to be in the living room on Thursday nights at 7pm.

But Shaky was everywhere, damn him: Little and Large, The Basil Brush Show, Cheggers Plays Pop. He was in the UK charts for more weeks than Madonna in the 80s¹. There was no escape.

But credit where credit’s due. I like to think, even then, some part of my embarrassment came from the fact that Shaky was deeply uncool. His 50s rockabilly aesthetic just wasn’t really for me.

Perhaps this is why I moved on to Adam Ant

Same hips, even wilder look in his eye, but also a make-up and fancy dress element. Part pirate, part highwayman, part prince charming at the same time Diana was marrying her Prince Charming (as a 5-year-old at this point it was very difficult to know what was real and what was fairytale).

Like Shaky, Adam and the Ants deliberately marketed themselves to kids - unlike Shaky, this was a massive death knell to their counterculture following. Adam was a bonafide punk before he sold out to the mainstream. When manager Malcolm McLaren asked if he wanted to be on underground records or on the back of cornflakes, Adam replied “Of course I want to be as accessible as possible, I want to be everywhere. I want to live in a fish bowl.”

Adam and his ants appeared on TOTP, Canon and Ball, the Royal Variety show and all the kids TV. They even developed their own set of merch. I had Adam Ant nail varnish, which I carried around with me everywhere.

The marketing worked: Adam and the Ants were so big that in 1981 they had 7 singles in the top 40².

The hips don’t lie

Fast forward just 12 years – and another pallid dark-haired youth catches my eye. This time it's Brett Anderson, the lead singer of Suede. Same swivelling hips, same hair, same wan complexion and a similar sound – a touch of glam rock, plus bullety drums, and Bowie-accented yelps.

Looking like the love child of Jenny Agutter and the Artful Dodger from the film Oliver! Brett had that underfed street urchin look that was now ingrained favourably in my psyche.

And the music helped. The band’s mix of council estate lyrics and theatrical beats created something both comforting, but also slightly on the edge. Catchy, but unsettling. Their charity shop shirts and half-mast corduroys were the perfect backdrop to this strange melodramatic sound.

I listened to a lot of Suede during my teenage train travelling years. To get anywhere half decent I’d have to change at Southampton. Standing on the platform for hours was where I’d hear announcements for trains calling at Haywards Heath, where Suede were from - and Worthing, which they’d mentioned in their lyrics - and it felt as if they were just at the other end of the track.

£11.99 a month can buy you back your youth

Now that I’m rich and have a YouTube subscription I can watch the music videos I didn’t get a chance to see when I was young/poor/hiding behind the sofa. And I can see this pattern of attraction from a distance.

I can also see the versions of men I’ve dated since. There’s the ginger Bernard Butler. The Lithuanian Adam Ant. The Godalming Damon Albarn.

Is this really how tastes evolve, ie, not very much?!

We like to think that attraction is something we refine over time. But really, I think it’s imprinted early, locked into our psyches before we even know what’s happening.

Science backs this up. We know that young brains are plastic and impressionable. We also know that music is highly effective in triggering dopamine, but when we also watch someone dance to that music, Psychology Today says we get a ‘pleasure double play’ ie, a double dose.

Added to that are the evolutionary reasons why hip swinging in particular is so attractive - in short, it’s to do with fitness and fertility. This study published in Scientific Reports even says: “The women also took note of the speed at which male dancers moved and flexed the right knee.”

“The right knee”? Let me check my videos….

It’s official: if your first crush involved someone who could do a knee-crossing dance, as in Shaky’s case, then you’re hardwired to seek that pattern again and again.

Perhaps I should be grateful I happened to see Shaky on Top of the Pops that night, and not Black Lace doing Agadoo.

Thanks for reading! What are your early crushes and do you agree that these act as a kind of emotional blueprint for the rest of our lives?! Do click the ♥️ if you liked this piece as it helps others to find it.

1. Shaky spent 254 weeks on the UK charts in the 1980s, while Madonna spent 252 weeks. Stevens had 31 hits in the UK in the 1980s, including four number one singles.

2. https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/18646/adam-and-the-ants/