Soundtrack Saturday

It would have been Joe Strummer's 73rd birthday two days ago, 20th August, had he lived. As a Strummer birthday soundtrack here's some songs from Mystery Train, the 1989 film that Joe starred in. Mystery Train was directed by the great Jim Jarmusch and is a triptych of stories that come together at the end, all centred around a hotel in Memphis where Screamin' Jay Hawkins is the night clerk. The first story features a Japanese couple on a pilgrimage to the birthplace of rock 'n' roll, played by Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagase. The second is about an Italian widow stuck in Memphis overnight (played by Nicoletta Brashci) and the third is about a recently unemployed and single Englishman (Joe obvs) and his two friends played by Steve Buscemi and Rick Aviles. It's a charming and beautifully shot film, downtown America, funny and with well drawn characters. I have a friend who holds the opinion that Strummer's acting ruins Mystery Train but I'm giving Joe the benefit of the doubt.

The songs on the soundtrack are mostly 50s rock 'n' roll- Elvis' song, the film's title track, is central, one of the foundation stones of rock 'n' roll. Blue Moon is played many times too, in the hotel's foyer through the night. The chug of the guitars and the drums evoke that long black train rattling through the night. 

Mystery Train

Mystery Train was written and recorded by Junior Parker in 1953, a slower, more bluesy take. 

Mystery Train

Roy Orbison turns up to with Domino (later covered by The Cramps).

Domino

On the soundtrack album the second half is from the score, written and played by John Lurie, who worked with Jarmusch on Down By Law and Stranger Than Paradise and also Paris, Texas. The eight instrumentals on the soundtrack are all 50s/ 60s inspired rockabilly guitar- led instrumentals and all are good to work away from the film as well as on its soundtrack.

Mystery Train (Suite)

Tuesday Night In Memphis

Happy birthday Joe. 

Forty Minutes Of Spiritualized

I've been going back through some of this year's albums and playing them again. Spiritualized's Everything Was Beautiful is one of them, the second part of Jason's double offering to go with 2018's And Nothing Hurt. Both still sound like a real return to form, the guitars, horns and rhythms all exactly as they should be and Jason's spaceman voice more wracked than ever. Today's mix is a bunch of Spiritualized songs and remixes, not quite chosen randomly from my hard rive but definitely not intended as a best of, more of a set of songs that flow together. The back catalogue is so deep and wide that I have a feeling I could compile multiple Spiritualized mixes and not get near a definitive one- so it is just what it is, a set of songs that sound good together. 

Forty Minutes Of Spiritualized

• Goldfrapp: Monster Love (Goldfrapp Vs Spiritualized)
• Spiritualized: I Think I'm In Love (Chemical Brothers Vocal Remix)
• Spiritualized: Come Together (Live At the Royal Albert Hall)
• Spiritualized: The Mainline Song
• Cut Copy: Free Your Mind (Spiritualized Version)
• LFO: Tied Up (Spiritualized Electric Mainline Remix)
• Spiritualized: Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space (Original Unreleased Mix)

Goldfrapp v Spiritualized was one of the B-sides from a Goldfrapp CD single, Happiness, in 2008. 

The Chemical Brothers remix of I Think I'm In Love came out in 1997, one of the Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space singles. Spiritualized Live At The Royal Albert Hall is from the same year, a full on space rock extravaganza

The Mainline Song is from this year's Everything Is Beautiful. 

Jason's remix of the Cut Copy song came out in 2013, with a new vocal from Jason and guitars, organ, noise and repetition combining to produce what is essentially a new Spiritualized song.  

The remix of LFO, nine minutes of soundwaves, drones and oscillating ambient techno bliss is from 1994. 

The unreleased original mix of the title track of Ladies and Gentlemen... dates from 1997 and fell foul of the Elvis Presley estate who didn't like the borrowing of a line from Can't Help Falling In Love With You. More fool them. 

Wise Men Say Only Fools Rush In

We went to the cinema last week, the first time we'd been since pre- Covid. There's nothing quite like sitting in the dark and seeing a film on the big screen for that full immersive experience. The film we chose was Baz Luhrman's Elvis, a brash, hyperactive, high camp, historically inaccurate take on the life of Elvis Presley. It was great fun of course if an hour too long. Elvis' musical life splits into three stages for me- the raw, untamed brilliance of the Sun years followed by a succession of increasingly tame songs made to promote films he was starring in followed by a kind of renaissance- the '68 comeback special (the first heritage rock show?) and then the Vegas years (a mixture of sublime inspiration and utter schmaltz). Elvis released Can't Help Falling In Love in 1961 to accompany the film Blue Hawaii, a song which has a life of it's own- Elvis crooning with his heavenly backing choir, some emotional button pushing lines but some genuine beauty too. It was covered by UB40 and the supporters of several English football teams have made it their own too- hearing massed ranks of Sunderland fans singing it at Old Trafford once was quite a moment.

Can't Help Falling In Love

In 1997 Jason Spaceman was going through the recording of Spiritualized's then latest album, what would become Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. He wrote and recorded the title track, a weightless, wracked and wasted piece of space pop/ rock, introduced by a deadpan Kate Radley, blending his own song with the melodies and words from Can't Help Falling In Love. Obviously, by the time the album was ready to be released, Spritualized's finest album, the Presley estate were not happy and the Elvis parts had to be removed. Bootlegs exist of course. As a song, it is almost too much.

Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space/ Can't Help Falling In Love 

Last summer Jesse Fahnestock was having his own blues and revisiting Ladies And Gentlemen... and in search of a musical outlet for this found himself playing the song everyday, focusing on the line 'getting strong today/ a giant step each day'. I'll let Jesse describe the next steps...

'A lot of my music is about touching the hem of Spiritualized/Spacemen's cloak anyway, so I decided I’d pick up the baton. I spent a couple of weeks at the piano writing my own melancholy folk song in the round, keeping the “fools rush in” and adding some hopeful sentimentality to try to pull myself out of my funk, some words about daring to be happy, taking a chance on love and life. I called it “A Giant Step”, but that title didn’t stick.

In parallel I’d been toying with the idea of sampling some archival footage of the West’s last great philosopher (and personal hero), Bertrand Russell. I didn’t have a song for what I’d found, so when I started producing “Giant Step” on the computer, I stuck Russell on the intro, just as a whim. And then suddenly I heard what Russell was saying in that clip … it was about acting “vigorously” in spite of one’s doubt, about how modern philosophy was there to help you dare to live, even without the certainty of religion.

Making music is full of serendipitous moments, but this was the best one I’ve had yet. The song is more appropriately called “The First Step” '

10:40's The First Step has now been released as one of the songs on Higher Love Vol. 2, a compilation on Brighton's Higher Love label. You can get it here. It's a slow burning, sombre and emotive piece of music, the voice of Bertrand Russell surrounded by the laid back groove and the spectral female voices that join whispering, 'fools rush in'. It's a different take again from the feelings Elvis provokes and from the ones summoned by Spiritualized, a new feeling, and it shows how music can transform itself, shift its shape over time, one person taking a song somewhere else. 

The rest of Higher Love Vol. 2 is uniformly superb too, from the skittering sunset vibes of Perry Granville to the blissed out twinkling of Joe Morris, the heady brew of Secret Soul Society and enormous symphonic, spinning, giddying sound of Mass Density Human, and plenty more besides- if you need a soundtrack for the dog days of August, you'll find one inside Higher Love Vol 2. 

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 166

Back in the mid 2010s there was a long running series here on a Friday evening, a series of rockabilly posts that ended up a) reaching number 165 and b) draining me of enthusiasm for rockabilly. In the end it felt like a chore and that's a sure sign to kill off a blog series. Plus there's only so much you can say about rockabilly- a twangy guitar or ferocious leadline, slapback bass, railroad rhythms and a man or a woman usually singing about another woman or man. Tonight is a brief reprise inspired by finding my copy of Jim Jarmusch's 1989 film Mystery Train and watching it last Friday night (or maybe it was Saturday, difficult to tell). Either way it was the first time I've seen the film for many years.

Mystery Train is three short stories that interconnect on one night in a Memphis flophouse hotel. It unfolds pretty slowly, at a pace today's films wouldn't, and in the end nothing much really happens. The first story, Far From Yokohama, has a young Japanese couple, Mitsuko and Jun, making a pilgrimage to the American south to see Gracelands and Sun Studios. She, MItsuko, is obsessed with Elvis, he, Jun, with Carl Perkins. The second story is about Luisa, a young widow, stuck in Memphis overnight while trying to fly her recently deceased husband back to Rome for the funeral. She ends up sharing a room with Dee Dee, who has just split up with her English boyfriend. In the room at night Luisa sees the ghost of Elvis. The third story centres around Johnny, the English boyfriend (played by Joe Strummer) who has lost his girl and his job, is drunk and out of control. Dee Dee's brother (a young Steve Buscemi) is called to rescue Johnny and they spend the night in the hotel too before the film's finale the following morning where there is a gunshot and the participants from all three stories move on. Each hotel room in the film has no TV, something each guest remarks on, but each room does a portrait of Elvis looking down on the guests. Mitsuko is keeping a scrapbook as she travels through the US, a record of Elvis and the people he has influenced , from Madonna to the Statue Of Liberty.



As well as Strummer (in his first acting role and thrown a line by Jarmusch who wrote the part for Strummer at a time when he was adrift and depressed) and Buscemi the film stars Screamin' Jay Hawkins as the hotel's night clerk. Buscemi is Buscemi, Hawkins is droll and subtle. Strummer overdoes it a bit, clearly the non- actor in the film. Thirty one years on the real stars are Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagase, the young Japanese couple, smoking their way through the train, the railway station, the hotel and back again. The chemistry between them and their understated cool, a pair of eighteen year olds in 50s clothing entranced by the music of the rockabilly pioneers, is central to the film.



The song Mystery Train was written and recorded by Junior Parker in 1953, a Memphis blues before it became a rockabilly song. Elvis' version from 1955 is a crucial, definitive song in the history of 20th century music, in American culture and in Elvis' own story. It made him a nationally known figure. Producer Sam Phillips, guitarist Scotty Moore, bassist Bill Black and Elvis created something that is one of building blocks of popular music, pure magic from start to finish, from the fade in and the moment when Elvis comes in with the line 'train arrived sixteen coaches long' to the fade out, and his girl gone on the train into the night.

Mystery Train

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 150

Rockabilly as a genre is particularly clothes obsessed and I've posted a number of rockabilly songs celebrating pink pedal pushers, cat clothes, a black leather jacket and motorcycle boots, be-bop glasses and blue suede shoes. Carl Perkins was responsible for blue suede shoes but it's best associated with Elvis Presley. The '68 Comeback is pretty special.

Have a good evening, whatever you're wearing, wherever you are.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 147

Better late than never. Elvis live in Tupelo in 1956, thirteen minutes, six songs, one pair of hips. And screaming, lots of screaming.

In The Ghetto

This is from a charity album from a couple of years ago (1969- Key To Change, for homeless charities, all the songs being covers of songs from 1969). Bernard Sumner's short lived Bad Lieutenant project doing Elvis' In The Ghetto. It's pretty faithful to the original and a song that maybe doesn't stand much mucking about with but there's an element of karaoke about it. Bernard sings it well and I suppose that's the main draw- In The Ghetto being sung in a soft Mancunian voice rather than a Southern US one, and there's a good guitar break from about 2.50 onwards.

I saw Bad Lieutenant at The Ritz. They played the first half of the set from the Bad Lieutenant lp, Stephen Morris on drums, a pair of guitarists plus Bernard's guitar and it was all so-so. The second half was far livelier- a bunch of well chosen New Order songs, a rarely performed early Electronic album track and the Chemical Brothers/Sumner smash Out Of Control, then Love Will Tear Us Apart. Just play the hits Bernard, just play the hits. I had a ciggie outside alongside Mani who was asked by a passing gent when the Freebass album was coming out. 'Fuck knows' he replied. Things have shifted a bit since then for our Mani. Freebass (Hooky, Mani and Andy Rourke with an unknown singer and an 'amusing' name) was never going to work was it?

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 128

I'm stretching the definition of rockabilly beyond reason here but there is a rationale and I couldn't let the Kennedy connection pass by.

I have a memory of watching something back in 87-88 (ish), probably The Chart Show's indie section but it could have been something on Channel 4, and it was of a band called The Jack Rubies (named after the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald, who may or may not have shot JFK). The song had an 80s rockabilly swing with a video containing black and white footage of  Elvis performing outdoors in the 50s, like in the picture above. My memory tells me the song went 'the King is dead...'

My not very extensive research has turned up The Jack Rubies on Youtube- not particularly rockabilly to be honest, more mid-to-late 80s indie-pop, in a similar vein to The Mighty Lemon Drops, that sort of thing. From Stoke Newington. Brief music press interest. Underperformed. Had a college radio hit in the US. Obscurity.

This song, Wrecker Of Engines, has some slight rockabilly influences. Possibly.



That's yer lot. Normal rockabilly service resumes next week.

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 124

October 25th is also my wife's birthday- I hadn't forgotten this morning, no no no, I just thought I'd link it to Friday night's rockabilly post rather than this morning's John Peel post. So- happy birthday Mrs Swiss, this song is for you.

Elvis, as Chuck D said, was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me... well he never meant shit to me but all the same he never meant a massive amount either (or is that the same thing? Now I'm getting confused by Chuck's double negative). He was rockabilly in the 50s though even if he very quickly became something else entirely. His songs recorded for Sun are great, full of swing and raw guitar parts. Like this one from 1955, written by Arthur Gunter.

Baby Let's Play House

The Return Of Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night 32

'Train I ride sixteen coaches long

Well that long black train carries my baby home'

From Sun Records all the way back in 1953 this is Little Junior Parker and the original version of Mystery Train, co-written by Parker and Sam Phillips. Elvis' version came out two years later and helped invent modern music. I'm not sure Little Junior Parker's song is rockabilly, just early rock and roll, but it's Friday night, it's sheeting down outside and who's splitting hairs?

Mystery Train

Rockabilly Train

Elvis. He kissed a girl, and she liked it.

From riding the rasta train earlier this week to a short hop on the rockabilly train. Elvis' Mystery Train is the grandaddy song, one of the actual starting points for this thing we're all obsessed with. It's got many qualities that are impossible to pin down and I'm not even going to try, except to say if you haven't got this, get it now. We're going away for a week, not by train sadly. Back online on Saturday April the 16th I should think. Be good while I'm away. Don't make a mess and remember to feed the cat.

02 Mystery Train.wma

If You're Looking For Trouble...

The other day our daughter E.T., 7 years old, asked about Elvis and as we were by the computer I got Youtube open and searched for the '68 Comeback Special. Soon we were watching the opening section of the show, Elvis singing Trouble in black shirt and red neckerchief, jet black hair and tanned skin, then seguing into Guitar Man with the banks of guitarists behind him shot in silhouette against bright white lights. Woah, I'm saying to her, look at that. To be fair, E.T. stayed the course, watched the clip and then wandered off pretending to be unimpressed, saying 'he died from too many burgers'. Mrs Swiss and myself however were left floored by the '68 Comeback Special, as I am whenever I see it. Stunning performance. Totally staged, hyper choreographed, cynical TV opportunism by Colonel Tom obviously, but stunning performance. I'll say it again, stunning. Audio track below.

I'm left wondering if and where I could get away with wearing the black shirt and red neckerchief. Without looking like a total dick.

01 Trouble-Guitar Man.wma