"I can't play the same song three times. Here you go."
That's what the DJ says as he hands me the record. I'm four years old, and I've just been given my first ever 7-inch single.
Again. And again.
It's 1979, probably the summer. We're at a family party. I'm pretty sure it's a cousin's engagement party, because the wedding comes early the next year.
There's a DJ in the corner, and I've worked out the most important thing about DJs. You can ask them for a song.
So I do. I ask for Can't Stand Losing You by The Police.
He plays it. I love it. So I go back and ask again.
He plays it again. I love it even more. So I go back a third time. Persistence, four-year-old style.
That's when he stops, looks down at this small boy who won't leave him alone, and hands me the record. To keep.
I take it home, and I've still got it today. White vinyl.
Before that, my records were nursery rhymes on a Fisher-Price record player. I'm still not sure they were real records. This one was.
Singing along to a song I didn't understand
I had no idea what the song was about. I just liked singing along, and I loved the sound of it. If you know the lyrics, you'll know it's not exactly a song for a four-year-old. Let's leave it there.
The picture on the sleeve is a man standing on a block of ice. At four, I didn't ask any questions about that either.
The Police were Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, and the song is from their first album, Outlandos d'Amour. The single first came out in 1978 and got to number 42. The following year it was released again and went all the way to number 2. So that summer, plenty of people were probably asking for it. I was just asking more often than everyone else.
Years later I heard a hip hop DJ take one line from it, "and they're all scratched", and loop it back and forth on two turntables. A perfect line for a cut and scratch routine.
What that DJ was really doing in 1979
I've been a DJ since 1987, when I got my first decks for Christmas. That's eight years after the engagement party. And I've been on the other side of plenty of requests.
What I didn't know at four is that a DJ playing the same song twice in the same set is breaking a rule. Three times is unthinkable. He's looking after a whole room, and the room doesn't want to hear the same thing on repeat because one small boy is very persistent.
So he had a choice. Say no, send me away and keep the room happy. Or keep the smile on one kid's face.
He found a way to do both. The room didn't have to hear it a third time, and I got to hear it as often as I liked.
When someone asks you for something you can't give them the way they want it, is there another way to say yes? It's worth a moment to look for one.
People sometimes ask me what the first record I ever bought was. The honest answer is that I didn't buy it. I asked for it until somebody gave it to me.
At four I had no idea that asking three times might be annoying. I just knew what I wanted, and I kept asking. I'm not sure that's the worst way to go about things.
And somewhere out there is a DJ who has no idea that a white 7-inch he handed over at a family party is still in my collection, more than four decades later.
What was your first record? And did you buy it, or did someone give it to you? Tell me, I'd love to know.
