My record collection
[391] Luna - Dear Paulina (framed)

I’ve probably said pretty much all there is to be said about how the single of Luna’s “Dear Paulina” came about, so I’m not too sure what this post is going to be. I suspect It’ll cover a lot of ground that’s been in the three earlier posts (see below), the long lost tracks post I made a few years ago, and the Substack rehash from last year.

Dear Paulina in 'the museum'

Having completed the single, and sold as many as I could I decided that I really ought to have a signed copy of it on my wall so I asked Dean if he could sort that out for me. I had paid the band in copies of the single, so Dean took one around the band, got them to sign it, and sent it back to me. I bought a couple of cheap frames and it has lived on the wall of the three homes we’ve had since the single was released… and will be on the wall of the fourth soon (I hope).

In May 2017 Luna launched a Pledgemusic campaign to fund the covers album, A Sentimental Education and for one of the extras you could buy, Dean would write out by hand the lyrics of a song of your choice. I initially resisted, it was tricky to justify the cost, but by July the idea of having Dear Paulina written out by Dean hanging next to the signed single seemed perfect, so I just went for it.

Signed sleeve and lyric sheet

Now, I know people put out singles all the time, I know it must be a thrill, but also it’s what they do. I ran a mailing list and a web page, that’s what I did. Putting out a single was a significant event. It wasn’t a record label putting out another single, it was a fan putting out a single by a band he loves. Of course labels love their bands… but it’s surely a different kind of love? When there’s another single by another band you love coming along I guess it’s something you just get on with. For me this was a one-off. It was important for me to do it right, and do it as well as I could. And I wanted it to be something that I could look back on and say “wow, I made that happen”.

Having said that I didn’t really have any idea how to make it happen so am grateful to a lot of people who helped with that, whether it was friends or acquaintances, or the companiues I used to get it over the line. There were a number of significant milestones on the road to getting the single out… here are a few that pop into my head:

• Asking Dean if I could and him saying “yes” - I really had no idea what I was doing, and it really was just a half-baked idea that I didn’t really expect to come to anything. When Dean said “yes” I suddenly had to start figuring things out.
• The DAT arriving. Dean had suggested he might dig out a couple of demos for the single, which of course would have been amazing, but, more amazing was getting something as unique as Dear Paulina. A genuine Luna rarity that (as of now) only exists:
  • in an unpleasant scene in a film
  • on a 7” single released by me (546 copies)
  • on the rarities bonus disc on the Long Players 92-99 box set (2000 copies)
• Getting the single cut at Abbey Road Studios
  Now, thousands of records have been cut at Abbey Road, so the fact that “Dear Paulina” was cut at Abbey Road doesn’t really mean anything. Except, it was cut at Abbey Road with Hazel and myself sitting on a sofa watching. It’s the only record that that has happened to† (so far).
• Getting a finished article into my hands, and into the hands of the friends I had made on the mailing list. I just read through the archives with a glow at how it was received. I think because, while it reached a lot further than the mailing list members it was actually made just for them/us!

The big surprise to me was that I never actually managed to sell all the copies I had. It was trickier in the pre-Paypal days, and I guess ‘99 was close to vinyl’s nadir, but I really was expecting them all to go instantly. In 1999 there were about 350 subscribers to the mailing list.

You can probably tell that, 27 years on, I still look back on “Dear Paulina” with a ridiculous amount of pride.

• Catalogue Number: AHFOW 11/048
• Artist: Luna
• Title: Dear Paulina / Seven-Eleven
• Notes: Signed and framed and in ‘the museum’
• Format: 7”

Previously in my record collection:

• [065] Luna - Dear Paulina
• [141] Luna - Dear Paulina test pressings
• [256] Luna - Dear Paulina (plain white sleeve)

† I had been to Abbey Road for a single cut once before, when I sat on the sofa with Ken watching the Brian single being cut, that was also a thrill. You can read about that on Substack too.