Welcome back. And tonight I'm asking the
question, what makes Northern Soul Northern?
So what makes Northern Soul Northern?
Is it the sound, those driving beats, the relentless tempo
records built for movement, not radio?
Is it the place from the dance floors of Wigan Casino to the
back rooms and ballrooms scattered across the industrial
north? Or is it something deeper?
When you need me anytime baby, don't you hesitate.
Just call my same old number and then just wait.
Give me just a minute or two. I'll be right there to see about
you, see about you, baby. Just like Johnny.
Just like Johnny.
Let's me.
Hey, hey, hey. No need to be an old song only.
And this is all fun. Just call me darling and I'll be
home. Run.
Give me just a minute or two. I'll be out there to see about
you. I'll see about you.
Play. Yeah.
I'll be just like Johnny on the Star.
Just like Johnny on the Star. Just like Johnny.
Just need me. I make the highways.
That's what they call me. Give me just a minute or two to
rescue you. Just like Johnny.
Just like Johnny.
For those who never stood on a packed dance floor at 3:00 AM,
never felt the opening bars of the right track hit like a
heartbeat and never heard a room erupt at the drop of a needle,
Northern Soul can feel like a mystery.
Who was Frank Wilson? How did these impossibly rare
American records, pressed in tiny numbers thousands of miles
away, end up becoming sacred objects in Britain?
And perhaps the biggest question of all, what makes Northern Soul
Northern? Don't say that I've been there,
never taking you nowhere but aside everything that I even
accuse me of being. And I'm true.
I still love you, baby. But you've got me training
behind my Give me a plane a ride, darling me, please relax.
Cut to yourself. Open your eyes.
Baby can't see that I know what else to eat ever since the day.
The story, as it's often told, begins with Dave Golden, late
1960s in London, inside his shop, Soul City.
The capital's trendsetters are chasing the newest sounds.
Fresh Imports chart hits the next big thing from across the
Atlantic. But something unusual keeps
happening. Week after week.
Young people with northern accents, sharp eyes, purpose in
their stride, walk in, asking for something completely
different, Not the new, not the fashionable.
They want forgotten records, obscure American Soul singles,
tracks already disappearing into history and golden.
He clocks it, and he gives them a name, a section in his shop
labelled simply Northern Soul. And many places hide.
I'm a smiler and many faces hide.
If you're wondering if my love is true, it's true.
And I'll give a few of you world My love is right on me.
Don't you may roar anywhere, but my lover will be right there.
And my love will never, never die, Never die.
Tell me why were my lover? It's for this ride on me.
I'm fit. You is my joy to see.
I love only you, my dear. No matter if you're away from
me. My love is true.
No little. Can't you see that little girls?
I miss you With you my lover. They don't compare so don't
worry, I guarantee you. But really, the label only tells
you what it's called, It doesn't really explain why it happened.
And to understand that, you've got to leave London behind and
head north, back to a Britain where the skyline wasn't glass
and steel towers, but mills, foundries and pit heads.
Try under, say that I love you, I love you, I love you baby,
That I'd never never you without you baby.
You better be a little patient, baby.
It's nothing but a harmless flirtation and that she can't
confare with me, but it's something I don't want about I
guys to do and try to undine that I love you, I love you, I
love you baby. That you win win.
We have a baby. It's not that you're not good
too baby. You're even better than she
looks baby, and the thing that is you for baby 'cause I always
need to love and soul me stand I happy and try to under that I
love you, I love you, I love you baby that you we we will have a
baby. My baby, 'cause I always enjoy
loving song. Please stand by me and try to
understand that I love you. I love you I love you baby.
That you way way above a baby. That you sleepy love me.
The north of England in the 1960s and 70s was still the
industrial engine of the country and if you were young, working
class and living there, your path was often laid out.
School, work, factory, repeat. No gap years, no trust funds, no
finding yourself. So when the weekend came, it
really mattered. Now, down in London, youth
culture shifted fast. Monster hippies in the blink of
an eye. But up north something different
happened. They held on to the beat.
The sharp suits softened, maybe, but the music stayed fast,
urgent and danceable. I used to sit around with my
head hanging down. I'm feeling sad and so blue
because I'm lonely for you, you, you.
I brought them all just for you, darling.
You're my whole world around you.
I refuse. I refuse to be lonely baby.
To be lonely baby. I refuse to be lonely baby.
Slowly but surely I had to get over you.
And then I realised just what I had to do.
Have to get you out of my mind. Start my life with me.
That's what I've got to do. I refuse.
I refuse to be lonely, baby. To be lonely, baby.
I refuse to be lonely baby. I refuse to be lonely baby.
From that day on I have got to forget.
You forget, only regret I have. I still love you, lonely, and
you always on my mind. I refuse you.
I refuse to be lonely baby. Lonely baby.
I refuse to be lonely, baby. I refuse to be lonely, baby.
I feel to be lonely, baby.
I feel to be lonely. Oh, I be lonely, lonely.
Never be lonely. I don't know.
I'm lonely, lonely, baby. I won't be lonely.
Because you see, life up north really wasn't about drifting
away. It was about release.
No LSD daydreams, no sitting in fields watching the wheel go by.
This was all night, dancing, sweat, spins, backdrops.
Hours on a sprung floor chasing a rhythm that never LED up.
And here's the twist. That music, the heartbeat of
Northern Soul, it wasn't British at all.
It came from places like Detroit, Philadelphia and
Chicago. I know you want me.
I know I wish you success. How will I understand your love
for him? It's like my love for you, love
for you, Your love for him. It's like my love like my lover
for you all baby. It's a wasting of the time rope
and it's hope is being. It doesn't stand to reason.
I know if the food is too, that you get up yourself and there's
nothing you can leave. Your love for you, it's like my
love for you. I'm young.
Your love for you, it's like my love, Like my love for you.
I'll be there. Oh, don't eat nothing that one
bad. But you made-up your man and
there's nothing you can do. Your love for him.
It's like my love for you, love for you, your love for you.
Get your tear that I really love you baby.
Now those American cities were industrial cities, working class
cities, places that in many ways mirrored the north of England.
Different continents, but the same energy.
Then they were the venues, ballrooms, dance halls, places
built decades earlier for workers to unwind, now worn,
slightly crumbling, but perfect. They were cheap to hire, big
enough to move and, crucially, free from trends because in the
North, no one cared what was fashionable in London.
When I'm not around, Try to make you live without me.
Lose the love that went down. But I can't excuse that made of
me. What means all right will never
be wrong. Tell them where we go live.
Tell them that I know where I know.
I'm bringing you down. I'm.
I'm on the roadside of town. I'm bringing you down.
I'm on the roadside of town. You're trans.
You're talking about me. You say you won't live without
me inside. I hope you won't live without
me. In the north of England they
cared about the record, the temple, the rarity and the
feeling, and no one captured that better than Wigan Casino
from 1973. It became the beating heart of
the scene and all night a temple to soul music.
Not glamorous, not polished, but real.
Gonna go be a mountain way up high.
Gotta get away from this cruel world.
Gonna leave everything, everything including my girl.
My girl gonna go be a mountain way up high.
I'm going to look for freedom of the mountain time.
If I don't find anything I'm on my way to the moon.
The garden world will be seen this soon.
Going to build me the mountain way apart.
Can you tell me what to say? Say to my mother and father?
Just do, brother, do. Come on, let me hear what you
got to say. It better be good because I'm on
my way. When I will say no Glory
Hallelujah. And at the Wigan casino, dishes
like Ruswin Stadley at the freedom to dig deeper, play
rarer and push further while the London clubs chase the trends.
Wigan, Magic in the grooves and of course Northern Soul didn't
stay in the north forever. Places like the 100 Club carried
the torch in the capital and today the scene stretches across
the UK and far beyond. But its identity that's still
rooted in something very specific.
Working class energy, obsessive record collecting, and a dance
floor culture built on escape, not image.
So what makes Northern Soul northern?
It's not the geography, it's graft.
It's community. It's the idea that after a long,
hard week, you earn your moment, one record at a time, one dance
at a time, until the lights come up and reality kicks back in.
Man, oh man, I'm trying hard as I can just to make you
understand that my heart is breaking, the love is left.
I'm all by myself, like my heart is on the shell and I'm bad and
shaking. What shall I do?
I'm in a order to share. Now I'm feeling somebody come on
and tell me what to love you. I need to know Him.
I know Love's need love just simple my PP and you're thinking
not just forget nobody her love can be found if I just look
around I know she's in town. I'm going to jump on the
childhood which I do too little man and I hide in all that he
shall now and don't feel real. Nobody.
Come on and tell me what she's like to do.
The all sweet love is simple, up, above, up, whatever you're
thinking of, just forget about it.
Her love can be found if I just look around.
I know she's in town. I'm going to jump on the
Charlie. What should I do?
Just get my love back and I hide it.
All that is shine now and I feel hurt to lose somebody.
Come on and tell me what should I do?
So what makes Northern so Northern?
It's not just the records pressed in places like Detroit
or Chicago. It's not just the venues like
Wigan Casino where the music found its home, it's the people.
It's the dancers who gave those records live, the DJs who
searched endlessly for the next undiscovered gem, and the
communities that turned forgotten songs into timeless
anthems. Northern Soul isn't just
something you listen to, it's something you live.
And once you've felt it, it never really leaves you.
Until the next time, bye bye. Love is blind, love is blind
that I can see and I open up my heart girl, open up my heart.
You made us love me and I tell myself it I'm never look again.
And now that you gone away and I just.
I I just can't even. I just can't.
I just can't win. So I walk through the land with
the harmless steel. I know when I'm feeling baby
that love is me. I just don't believe that.