One Day at a Time

Annette Scally

I remember the late ’70s, early ’80s. The excitement of going to town on a Saturday, getting a value-3-pack of blank tapes at Woolworths, in Oliver Plunkett Street, Mullingar, where there were also pick n mix sweets and hair toners. The sachets were called ‘hint of a tint’, for approx. 22p, which I used to experiment with, usually to try and make my hair blonder.

It was beside Grahams, an exciting self-service grocery store, a ‘treasure trove’ that had a nice aroma of coffee, as well as a stock of baking products that I especially remember at Christmas time.

I’d rip the plastic cellophane off the packet of tapes with excitement.

We had an old clumsy transistor on the highest shelf in the kitchen, over the black and white TV, placed, no doubt, out of reach, since my sister and I were toddlers as it would be a temptation to experiment with the various buttons, or hear the buzzing, crackling sound, if it was gone off the station.

RTÉ Radio 2 was founded in 1979; it’s been 2FM since 1988.

I’m not sure if Santy brought our tape recorder, but it definitely came one Christmas and I can remember the excitement of this silver chrome equipment that would change our lives forever and give us an insight into the music world, and the skill of learning off words of songs.

The other skill we had to learn was to hold down the play button as well as the record one, at the one time, and the art of remembering and timing the exact moment to press stop, when the skill of recording was finished.

Also, the disappointment, and frustration, when you were halfway through recording a song, and the tape finished, with a click and you had to turn it over to side B. Or when, the DJs like Gerry Ryan Jimmy Greely, would talk over the precious words, or if someone came, in the room and spoke; that was a crime.

We spent hours replaying our recordings, and that’s how we learned the lyrics, word for word, song by song to our hearts’ content.

There was one song we didn’t need to put learn as much as it got so much airplay

Gloria’s version of ‘One Day at a Time’ hit number one in the Irish charts in September 1978 and stayed at the top for seven weeks, and remained in the Irish top 30 for a record-breaking 90 weeks in total. Released in August 1977, it became the biggest-selling Irish single in history at that time.

It was originally an American gospel-country song about seeking divine strength to navigate life’s overwhelming struggles by focusing only on the present day.

The key themes and meanings were about living in the moment, focusing on the now, rather than trying to fix everything at once.

It was like a prayer of strength, to handle daily challenges and let go of worries about the past or future.

It acknowledged human imperfection: ‘I’m only human’.

It affiliated with helping people through tough times, perhaps addiction, grief, sickness, or life in general.

‘Tomorrow, may, never be mine’, shows that we have no control or choice, over what happens, that’s in God’s Plan.

I was just 10 and probably did not fully appreciate or understand the song as I do now. I would compare it to mindfulness and living in the present, taking one day at a time!

Annette Scally is a member of Inklings writing group, who meet on Tuesdays at 11am and Wednesdays at 7.30pm in the Annebrook House Hotel. Visitors are welcome.