…and the new Pollokshaws Cadillac is available on Mixcloud, with the self-same single by Van Morrison opening the show.Full playlist at the end of the essay.

I love that the song Caldonia (What Makes Your Big Head So Hard) was written by someone called Fleecie Moore, which sounds like the kind of nom-de-plume a Shetland crofter with literary pretensions might hide behind.

A hit for Louis Jordan in 1945, it has become a staple of jazz and jump blues bands with a modicum of dexterity right up to the present day, notably Tam White and the Dexters during their Edinburgh residences (note: thanks to Graham Hutton, I’ll play a live track from the late Tam and Brian Kellock on the Pollokshaws Cadillac show next week).

Van Morrison’s recording of Caldonia (no’e’) for a 1974 single release is wonderful, the Caledonia (with an ‘e’)Soul Express, core of the touring Caledonia Soul Orchestra, best of Morrison’s bands, clearly loving the chance to show off their considerable chops. Even more so on the b-side, Wake Up (Crazy Pup), where Van’s grunts and yelps are joyfully hilarious.

It was on one of broadcaster and author David Hepworth’s social media videos that I came across the recording, as according to him, it has never been streamed, released on a compilation, on CD or anything but that now-deleted 7-inch lump of 45rpm vinyl. Grumpy Van decreed it so, apparently. Which is a pity, as it’s both completely brilliant and, unlike much of Morrison’s work, uplifting and funny. There is a version on YouTube but it’s an advert for someone flogging the actual single, and not quite right.

I tracked down a copy (not dear: £6) and you can hear both sides on the current Pollokshaws Cadillac show (ethos: Scottishness, and Van’s granny Margaret Young, err…came from Stirling) here. Opening tracks so no need to waste time on the rest if it’s not to your taste.

It is, after all, a single. Less than three minutes of sonic glory. And I now own that physical object, an elusive one. Which prompted the thought: what else is out there, silent on microgrooves, lurking in lofts or cupboards, unplayed, and unheard on the Itunes, Spotify and Tidal of today?

Well, loads. I still feel guilty about the vast collection of 78 shellac singles I was offered for free, if I could somehow collect the records from Elgin. The fact that they were all Scottish country dance recordings put me off. A little accordion goes a long way. But now I wonder: was there music there that has been lost forever? Shattered in a skip and landfilled? A part of our culture erased and forgotten?

I began to think about my own – not so much collection, as random accretion – of singles, or those that remain. More to the point I searched in vain for the only 7-inch record I made and released, in the company of Norrie and Tom Craig and Angus Morrison, as, gulp, The Prendergast Smythe Band. I can’t find it.

Others I do have. Saved up for, as I could very rarely, as a teenager and later, afford albums. The Rolling Stones, It’s Only Rock’n’Roll. Ian Hunter’s Once Bitten Twice Shy. Trying to be a rock journalist and buying Sunset Gun’s marvellous version of William De Vaughan’s Be Thankful. Trying to be a band manager and retaining three copies of We Free Kings’ Death of the Wild Colonial Boy. The Hindu Love Gods’ single, bought for me in Athens Georgia by its bass player, Mike Mills of REM. The ultra-rare Blue Nile single I shouldn’t have at all. Later acquisitions that definitely can’t be found in any other form, such as Nigel Sleaford and Paul Haig masquerading as The Juggernauts on the lost Edinburgh classic Come Throw Yourself Under the Monstrous wheels of the Rock’n’Roll Juggernaut as It Approaches Destruction. And, let’s face it, many more.

But not the ones I wanted most. Where’s Free and Bad Company? Where’s Jim Reeves’ Old Tige? Ray Charles is here but how about the Cowboy Church Sunday School (If you don’t go to Sunday School/You’ll grow up to be bad/You’ll never know just what you missed/And someday wish you had/If you want to someday see the Lord/You better start today/The ones that miss the Sunday School/Are on the Downward Way)?

And more to the point, the Prendergast Smythe Band. That was an EP, running at 33-and-a-third rpm. Four songs: More than a Movie, Born Again, Winterlove Waltz, Thomas. It must be somewhere. It wasn’t great, but it existed, and so did we, nearly half a century ago.

Listen to the latest Pollokshaws Cadillac show here

Caldonia (What Makes Your Big Head so Hard) — Van Morrison

What’s Up (Crazy Pup) — Van Morrison

Invisible — Unkle Bob

Stornoway at 2AM — The Tumbling Souls

Emma’s G-Spot: Come Again You’re Welcome / the Hurricane / the Grocer — Rock Salt & Nails

Grass Orphan — Bongshang

Da Sneck o’ Da Smaalie — Fiddler’s Bid

Doghouse — The Supernaturals

Candybar Express (Alt. 7” mix) — Love and Money

Saint Jack — The Primevals

Fun Patrol — James King & The Lonewolves

Vows — James Edwyn & The Borrowed Band

The Elusive Highland Beauty — Elephant Sessions

Mercury — Siobhan Miller

A Girl Called Johnny — The Waterboys

Sunkissed — Friends Again

Somewhere — Runrig

Running to the Light — Runrig