Let the Countdown to the October playlist begin!

Sounds Like... is our monthly series of songs and music representing a different theme... and this month, our theme is time.

First, we’re going to talk about a musician and composer from Leeds. You may have never heard his name before, but you have certainly heard his music, and some of it hundreds of times. We’re talking about Alan Hawkshaw (who wrote the Countdown theme, above!). Alan died in October 2021 after a lifetime of playing in bands, working as a Musical Director, Producer and Composer. If you’re old enough to remember the original version of the Grange Hill theme tune, that’s him too! Those are just two examples in a very long list of themes and incidental music for TV and film. He also set up The Alan Hawkshaw Foundation, which supports degree students at Leeds Conservatoire with bursaries.

But back to time; which humans have chosen to measure for thousands of years by the length of a day (one complete rotation of the Earth), a month (the time taken for the moon to complete a phase and return to it’s starting point) and a year (one complete rotation of the Earth around the Sun). For convenience there are further divisions, of course, into hours, minutes and seconds. All regular pulses, pulse obviously being the name we give to the steady beat in music that we use to maintain speed. Which ALMOST works in this tune by Leroy Anderson (the clue is in the title!):

And why is our theme time? It’s to remind you to turn your clocks back on Sunday 31st October. But don’t listen to us, listen to Bob Dylan instead…