Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair with The Bay City Rollers [Paperback]

Caroline Sullivan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 2001

Funny, poignant, and totally original--this story of one girl's love affair with the Bay City Rollers is a brilliant portrait of an era.

'I loved them desperately. For four years I lived for them. It's not a pretty story.'

Bye, Bye Baby is the true tale of a passionate obsession with possibly the most untalented bunch of musicians in the history of rock and roll. Even in their heyday, Leslie, Eric, Woody, Alan, and Derek of the Bay City Rollers were hideously uncool among everyone but fourteen-year-old girls. Their tartan knickerbockers and striped socks were sneered at, while their feeble teenybopper music was ridiculed.

And yet for Caroline Sullivan, a teenager in suburban New Jersey, these pasty-faced Scottish youths ruled her heart. Over four hot summers from 1975 to 1979, Sullivan and her band of lust-crazed friends, the Tacky Tartan Tarts, crisscrossed the United States in the Rollers' wake, staking out airports and hotels, tricking airline clerks and wheedling information out of bodyguards and PR companies-all in pursuit of that one big night.

Bye Bye Baby is a confessional memoir that invites the reader into some of Sullivan's most excruciatingly embarrassing moments. More than just an uproarious tale of teenage passion and teen-adulation, it is also an inspired exploration of the intimate bonds that tie teenage girls.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Everybody has a guilty secret--but most people tend to want to keep their skeletons well hidden in the closet. Not so Caroline Sullivan, a noted rock journalist in the U.K. In Bye Bye Baby, Sullivan stands up and shouts, "I was a Bay City Rollers fan."

Sullivan readily admits that the Rollers were not musical geniuses. Growing up in Millburn, New Jersey, on a diet of Led Zeppelin, the Who, and Peter Frampton, she recognized skilled musicianship. But she was a fan from the moment she saw BCR on television. "My entire Rollermaniac career was a struggle between knowing they were no Led Zep but loving them anyway."

For her obsession, Sullivan lacks even the excuse of extreme youth. Age 15 in 1975, when the Rollers made their first appearance in the U.S., she and her 16-, 17-, and 19-year-old friends--the self-proclaimed "Tacky Tartan Tarts"--were already older than the average Roller fan. But she was no average fan: "I love them desperately. For four years I lived for them. It's not a pretty story."

But it is a funny story. Bye Bye Baby tracks the history of the band, from their unassuming beginnings as the Saxons to the top of the U.S. charts with "Saturday Night"--and their inevitable decline. It also traces the antics of a group of dedicated fans who would do anything to get close to their idols--turning up at airports at the crack of dawn, wild car chases through city streets, elaborate subterfuges with hotels, airlines, and PR companies. "We were a bit like those dogs who chase cars--what would they do if they caught one?"

In the end, Sullivan did catch one--though only for a brief time (and she's gentlewoman enough never to expressly name which one). And she, her fellow Tarts, and the Rollers all moved on. But in Bye Bye Baby, Caroline Sullivan tells a funny and touching story--and pays homage to the band she once loved. --Sunny Delaney

From Library Journal

Sullivan, a noted rock critic for the London Guardian, bares a side of herself that most rock journalists wouldn't dare: she was a fan of the 1970s Scottish pop quintet the Bay City Rollers of "Saturday Night" fame. First published in England in 1999 to riotous acclaim, her account of adolescent infatuation provides a glimpse into the actions of 21st-century fanatics of boy bands like the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync. From procuring the Rollers's cigarette butts to calling the band members' mothers, Sullivan bravely lays out in print the embarrassing moments of growing up we can all relate toDand most of us try to forget. More like a pop culture diary than an informative history of the band and "Rollermania," Bye Bye Baby is fun but more often tedious. All the same, rock star Courtney Love bought the film rights and is set to direct. Recommended for larger public libraries.DRobert Morast, "Argus Leader Daily," Sioux Falls, SD
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (February 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582340552
• ISBN-13: 978-1582340555
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #818,294 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A watered-down American Psycho for Teenyboppers, March 2, 2001

By 

Dubash "citykix" (Copenhagen, Danmark) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair with The Bay City Rollers (Paperback)

As a non-gay, young male teenage fan of the Rollers back in the 70s, I was quite intrigued to read this book - especially in light of recent press about Courtney Love purchasing the rights to this for film (and reports of Ewan McGregor playing BCR singer Les McKeown, despite McKeown's protestations that it should be Keanu Reeves). What I found was a mildly entertaining story of obsession - but obsession with what? Clearly it really wasn't the Bay City Rollers. What emerges is a rather negative and downer read, based mostly on teen rivalry, boredom and fanaticism, with the Rollers themselves (and their music) as a non-essential peripheral excuse for the whole shang-a-lang. Actually, this so-called "fan" makes continued slams on the band themselves, mostly their music. She offers very little in the way of information about the group, other than what everyone already knows from numerous press releases and stories already on the net. Aye, a wee number of personal observations, of course, but these are peppered with less-than-accurate negative critiques of their music, looks, style, decisions, etc. This book is more the tale of a loser with nothing better to do than compete with other losers for "stalking rights" for a band she cares almost nothing about musically...which begs the question "what is the point"? This book, actually, could have ANY teenie band substituted for the Rollers (i.e Westlife, Boyzone, Osmonds, etc.) It reads a tad like American Psycho, but instead of murder, it very blandly tells of endless waits in hotel corridors, and the occasional angry spat if one of the band members was seen walking with another girl. Jeesh. One wonders how on earth a film could be squeezed out of these boring pages...I had hoped for a true memory of those days (I didn't necessarily need an apologetic and nostalgic look at Rollermania, but this is a completely dull opposite), but what we get is a rather pathetic portrait of life as an American school leaver obsessed with a band she didn't actually care for, and, from these pages, a band with an image, music, musicianship, style, etc. she actually disliked. What's the point? Rollermaniacs, or those interested in the whole subject: avoid - this really offers nothing; not even a glimmer of the fun and excitement we all felt back when we had acne and funny tartan clothes.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Boy band Lover or ex boy band lover???? READ THIS!, August 19, 2001

By 

A "ashlyangel" (Scotland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair with The Bay City Rollers (Paperback)

I am not a Bay City rollers fan. I'm not even old enough to know about the hysteria they caused and to be really honest I have never really cared. So why then this is one of the most enjoyable books I've read in a while?

It tells the account of a young fans obsession with the 70's answer to today's N*SYNC or the like, and charts the impact they made on her life as she was growing up. The goings-on of her and her fellow fans (the tacky tartan tarts) whenever 'the rollers' were in her country will either amaze you or be painstakingly similar to your own boy band experiences.

Bye bye baby is a fab book for anyone who has been part of the boy band experience and the great thing about this book is that you will be able to relate to it whether you're an ex tacky tartan tart aged 40+ or a 16-year-old drooling over your n-sync posters.

Ardent Bay city Rollers fans may feel a little uncomfortable in how the Bay City Rollers music was discussed in the book, but don't take it too seriously. This is an honest book and with boy bands more often than not the looks and personality's of a band are always put before their music.

This is a light-hearted tale that will entertain you right till the last page.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A giddy pop culture must-read, March 6, 2001

By 

A. Dupuis (VT, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair with The Bay City Rollers (Paperback)

I'm much chagrined to admit that before an accidental viewing of one of VH1s seemingly never-ending repeats of a teen idol retrospective, I had never heard of the Bay City Rollers. Born in 1976, my own musical awakening didn't come until the era of Van Halen and Micheal Jackson.

Having got this out in the open at the beginning, I feel completely comfortable recommending this book without reservation. Sure it's about a band, but way more importantly, it's about a fan. Having lived through a tragic "love affair" of my own, Sullivan's words ring incredibly true. She says the things that I haven't sufficiently grown up to phrase, but she said them exactly as I feel them.

Bye Bye Baby should be required reading for passionate fans of any persuasion (be it for Nsync or, for God's sake, the cast of Rent or the Chicago Bulls). The sentiments and the sharing, the friendships these people formed and the goofy things they lived through, and occasionally lived for, make the book worth the read.

And if you're not down with that, it's a fascinating sociological recounting of American pop culture in the 70s, spattered with Tab and Sid and Nancy and Elvis and Lennon.