The Past Is Another Blog #2: The More Things Change...

Back to the trawl through the pages of my original blog, picking out selected bits that seem interesting or timely. I found a list of my Top 60 Songs from 2006. I'll spare you, but I was surprised by how many of them I'd completely forgotten...

Ooberman - Crashing Ellipticals

Charlotte Gainsbourg - AF607105

The Spinto Band - Oh Mandy

I also found a review of the last time Billy Bragg played Holmfirth - Saturday the 2nd of December 2006. This is timely because I'll be seeing him on the same stage, 18 years later, next Saturday night. I might compare reviews then.

Billy Bragg - The Short Answer

But it was the post below that caught my attention, particularly as it tackled a similar topic to this week's Self-Help For Cynics. This was written when I was still working in the wonderful world of radio advertising...

FRIDAY 15 DECEMBER 2006

It occurred to me this morning that a blog, by its very nature, must always wear your polite, public face. For obvious reasons, I can’t come here to carp about my job or the noxious individuals I come into contact with through said job, those especially maleficent characters I’d cheer to see floating face-down in the Leeds-Liverpool canal. (Does that make me a bad person? Why don’t bad things happen to bad people? I refer you back to Jarvis Cocker’s song of the year, ‘Running The World’.) I suppose I could set up a second, anonymous blog for that purpose, or use an alias… but even then, I’d have to remain circumspect with the details to avoid giving away my true identity. How many of us cherish a dream of the day when we no longer need this job, when we can finally interrupt our meeting with that complete and utter bumhole and tell them what we really think? But you can’t use a blog for that, even anonymously (though I’m sure some people do, braver – or foolhardier - souls than me). Still, that’s what I have my fiction for. It’s how I deal with the world.

Fortunately I work with much nicer people these days. (Except Bob.) Unfortunately, I don't write fiction any more. Unless you think this all might be made up?

Invaderband - People Who Are Happy Are Ill

On a related issue, please take care when receiving emails from the sort of person mentioned above, and forwarding them on to your like-minded, co-suffering workmates. Be careful about adding a little comment, such as, say, ‘What an absolute tool!’ Be extra-careful that you’re not – rather than hitting ‘forward’ – actually replying to the worthless piece of gutter-froth who sent you the email in the first place. Believe me when I say you’ll wake up at 3am in a cold sweat regretting an error such as this.

Still good advice, almost two decades on.

The perfect excuse to listen to a shamelessly OTT chunk of hair metal...

Mid-Life Crisis Songs #72: Grey

Going grey is a natural part of the aging process and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. There certainly won't be any Just For Men on my shopping list any time soon. I've been pretty lucky that I've kept a full head of hair, rather than losing it on top like many of my peers. I thank my mum for that - I have her hair, not my dad's... if it was his, it'd be half gone by now.

The weird thing about grey hairs is that they creep up on you in a sneaky way. I look at myself in the mirror and generally don't see any grey. Yet when I have a haircut, I always notice the grey clumps on the floor afterwards. I realised why this is the other day (no great revelation here): because it starts at the sides. Specifically, for many people, the temples. And because it's on the side of your head, you don't see that so easily when you look at your reflection straight on. So it's quite a shock when you catch a reflection side-on. 

But it's OK, because greying temples are "distinguished", they tell us. Really? Who came up with that idea? I bet he was going grey.

I content myself with the idea that, being a comics fan, I always wanted to look like Reed Richards. He is, after all, Mr. Fantastic!

 Ooberman are one of my favourite bands that nobody else gives a monkey's about. (See also The Indelicates.) As such, I like to feature them here whenever I can. Here they are singing about the colour grey...

Snapshots Spillover: Another Ten Million Songs

With the new format of Saturday Snapshots essentially becoming the new way for me to continue doing thematic Top Tens on this blog, I've found I often don't get to feature all the songs I'd like. Partly to avoid too much repetition of artists, eras or genres in the quiz. That's why I label it "A Top Ten..." ratherthan "The Top Ten..."

Then it occurred to me: why not start a new Monday feature where I squeeze in some of the songs I didn't have room for? Not every week. Just when I have an overspill. 

So here we go with a few more Million songs...

10. Human Radio - My First Million

When I make my first million

Think I'll buy myself some happiness

If there's a sale on satisfaction

I might just have to stock up

Maybe I'll buy myself some muscles

And a California lifestyle

An irresponsible Ferrari

An ex-cheerleader to knock up

Sadly, it never happened for them.

9. The Ovations - One In A Million

Well-produced Memphis soul. 

8. Orange Juice - A Million Pleading Faces

Impossible not to tap your feet to.

Trumpets, too!

7. Queen - The Millionaire Waltz

Freddie played a great piano.

6.   The Pastels - A Million Tears

Kurt Cobain's favourite 80s Glaswegian indie band.

5. Toto - A Million Miles Away

From one of Toto's least successful albums. Meaning it only sold a million copies rather than 5 million, probably. Starts slow but then, woah, mama! 

4. Lowell George - Twenty Million Things To Do

Solo album from the Little Feat man, manages to get the words "mysterious wisteria" into the lyrics. Points for that.

3. Ooberman - A Million Suns

I will never understand why this band weren't massive.

2. Kirsty MacColl - I'm Going Out With An 80 Year Old Millionaire

He won’t last much longer if he keeps drinking gin

I filled up the bottle that’s marked medicine

He says that he’ll leave all his empire to me

And sitting on top is the best place to be

So don’t get impatient now boys you must wait

We’ll all have such fun when I own the estate

Britt’s got her toy boys but I don’t care

‘Cos I’m going out with an 80 year old millionaire

1. The Wedding Present - A Million Miles

New version, from the just-released Locked Down & Stripped Back album, which is getting a lot of spins in this house right now.

Actually, I found quite a few more. Maybe not a million, but I could have gone another ten.

Any you would have featured?

Saturday Snapshots #143 - The Answers

Welcome to the Hunger Games... because you're all hungry for the answers! So let's get going...



10. Where mustangs work out, near Coben's home.

(Ford) Mustangs work out at the gym.

The Coben was Harlan Coben. (I couldn't think of any other Harlans.)

Jim Ford - Harlan County

9. Wall, Hill & Baker. Power fantasies.

Wall, Hill and Baker are all famous streets.

The Streets - Weak Become Heroes

8. Dracos bread.

Dracos are flying lizards.

Bread is money.

The Flying Lizards - Money

7. When Bridget Jones leaves, via the sinister slope.

Bridget Jones was played by Renee Zellweger.

Sinister is left in Latin.

The Left Banke - Walk Away, Renee

6. Milo O'Shea isn't in 2D... but he could eat a horse.

Milo O'Shea played the character Dr. Durand Durand in Barbarella. Take two Ds away and you get...

Duran Duran - Hungry Like The Wolf

5. Beware - women with javelins live here! Winners drive home in their sports cars.

Fatima Whitbread was a champion javelin thrower.

Fatima Mansions - Only Losers Take The Bus

4. One notch in on the belt for Riverdale campanologist and doctors from hell.

Tighten that belt!

Riverdale is the home of Archie.

Campanologists ring bells.

Dr-Hell... "Dr'ell".

Archie Bell & The Drells - Tighten Up

3. Cyclone where the Boys meet the Boss, darling.

A cyclone is air curving round and round and round really fast. (Trust me, I'm a scientist.)

Backstreet Boys.

Bruce also sang about the Backstreets.

Curved Air - Backstreet Luv

2. Bloke who drives a modern taxi downs gin with a cherry.

A modern taxi is an Uber. (Don't ask me, I never liked taxis... you're not going to get me in a taxi driven by an amateur!)

Gin blossoms. Cherry blossoms.

Downs = falls.

Ooberman - Blossoms Falling

1. Aretha Bee Chesspiece... Graham Greene.

Aretha was the queen of soul.

Queen bee. 

Chess.

Graeme Greene wrote Brighton Rock.

More Joy... and a great deal of Mystique... next Saturday.

Mid-Life Crisis Songs #21: Beany Bean

Do you ever get a feeling that you're missing out on something?

And whatever the point was?

I can't remember what it was...

Life is a series of crises. The one you have in your late 40s / early 50s gets all the press, but there are plenty more before and after.

Ooberman released Beany Bean as a single in 2002, the year I turned 30, so obviously it suited my Turning-30-Life-Crisis down to the ground. A couple of years earlier I'd been forced to quit drinking after I discovered I suffered from a little-known liver condition called Gilbert's Syndrome. Some doctors say it's an asymptomatic condition, but I found that after drinking I was getting repeated bouts of severe fatigue that could last up to two weeks or more, and all the medical tests I had came up blank... except for the one that revealed Gilbert's. If you google the condition, you can find plenty of people who say they've suffered fatigue as a result of the condition... as well and many medical experts who say that's hooey. All I know is, a few years after I'd quit drinking, the symptoms disappeared and (touch wood) I've not suffered a bout in over ten years now.

Around the time this single was released though, I was still coming to terms with an alcohol-free existence, and so Sophie Churney's lovely chorus of "Get me a Jack D, a double Jack D" was quite apposite (particularly as Mr. Daniels' Old No. 7 had been my tipple of choice)... as was Danny Popplewell's rough Bradfordian existential mumble. I'd been single for getting on 5 or 6 years, I was stuck in a dead-end job, lonely and just turning 30...

And it just seems like the whole point of life is just to grow old and die and maybe get a family or something but... what a waste of time.

This song brings it all back. God, I loved this band.

I need a holiday on Mars...

My Top Ten Science Song Songs Volume 2: Physics

This week's science lesson is on Physics. Take notes in your books; there will be a test.


10. Landscape - Einstein A-Go Go

Let's start with the father of modern physics... and some classic oddball synthpop from 1981.

See also Einstein On The Beach by Counting Crows which you probably won't like as much as Landscape... though I do.

9. Jim White - Objects In Motion

Jim White finds a suitcase full of old love letters floating in a river... and starts getting metaphysical.

From the album Drill a Hole in That Substrate and Tell Me What You See... which shows Jim also has an interest in geology, I guess.

8. The Verve - Space & Time

We have existence and that's all we share...

More metaphysics from Tricky Dicky Ashcroft. Or Mr. Smiley as I like to call him.

This whole album is very evocative for me of '97 / '98, when the world still seemed full of endless possibility... and aching loneliness. I could probably write more about that, but it has very little to do with physics, so I'll save it for another post.

7. They Might Be Giants - Particle Man

Forget Einstein. This is what genius sounds like.

6. Pixies - Distances Equals Rate Times Time

And this is how you create a great pop song in under one minute twenty seconds. 

Missing from my Maths Top Tens because I thought it to do with Physics.

5. Nick Cave - Higgs Boson Blues

In which Nick Cave drives his car down to Geneva to teach you some particle physics.

If I'd had a Physics teacher like Nick Cave, I'd have got higher than a D.

4. Big Audio Dynamite - E=MC2

I like a bit of a cavort.

For years, I thought the dialogue sampled in this song were Michael Caine.

It's actually James Fox from Nic Roeg's Performance.

But you knew that.

3. Ooberman - Physics Disco

The only song I own which actually features Physics in the title. 

Ooberman are one of My Top Ten Unsung Legends of Pop. They should have been bigger than Oasis.

2. Billy Bragg - Qualifications

OK, so the top two songs are only tenuously connected to Physics, but both brag about a qualification in that particular field of science... and both of them make me smile a lot whenever I listen to them.

So what's the point in university?
For three years I read philosophy
Now I read barcodes all day long
Beep-beep-beep sings that check-out song
With my qualifications
Talking bout my qualifications
Would you like to see my Ph.D.?
My BSE? My GCSE?
I gotta First in Physics so I ought to know
If your fries are for here or to go

1. The Undertones - My Perfect Cousin

He's got a degree in Economics
Maths, Physics and Bionics

No wonder he's his mother's little golden boy...

Not the obvious Number One, but indisputably the best song on here. 



 Which one makes you want to get physics-al?

My Top Ten Danny Songs

I used to work with a guy called Danny. I once heard him (non-ironically) tell a client, "yeah, yeah, it's cool, it's happening, it's us". Plus he called EVERYONE 'mate'. He couldn't finish a sentence without sticking that word on the end. As a result, I have a deep, irrational distrust of anyone called Danny... so I apologise if that's you. I'm sure you'd never say, "it's cool, it's happening, it's us". Would you?

Anyway, here's ten songs about Danny. No Daniels, they'll get their own turn some other day, Elton.




10. The Fall - Rollin' Dany

Mark E. Smith and co. cover a 1958 Gene Vincent song as the B / AA side of the Fall's 1986 single Couldn't Get Ahed. Missing out letters was cool back then. 

9. Billy Bragg - Danny Rose

Originally recorded by Lal & Mike Waterson in 1972 (with Richard Thompson and Martin Carthy on guitars), but I'm more taken by Billy's cover because... well, it's Billy. No idea who this Danny Rose is - but it's not Woody Allen's or any of the footballers.

8. Richard Hawley - Danny

Gorgeous instrumental from Hawley's third album, Lowedges.

7. Rufus Wainwright - Danny Boy

The second track on Rufus's debut album (18 years old, folks) is the first of three Danny Boys to make the Top Ten (all different songs). This one's a typically dramatic and beautiful ode to a former beau who let Rufus down (not advisable unless you want to be immortalised in song). 

We walk the streets
Gently starin' wonderin' what to do
The sun in sheets
Pourin' down those streets to eyes green and blue
And a ship with eight sails could come 'round the bend
Or a herd of bulls charging stop lights red
I'd be blind

6. Jackie Wilson - Danny Boy

The original Danny Boy: the Irish anthem, set to the tune of Londonderry Air, and a firm favourite of my dad, has been recorded by everybody from Elvis to Johnny Cash (twice), Patti LaBelle to Thin Lizzy. But I'll be damned  if I've ever heard a better version than Jackie Wilson's 1965 cover. He takes that tune to new places.

5. Ooberman - Danny Boy

Danny Popplewell will forever be Bradford's greatest musical export in my ears, and considering how long a career Stuart Murdoch has maintained in a very similar vein, I always feel it's tragic that Ooberman were not a much, much bigger band.

This is a pretty obscure b-side from their single Tears From A Willow... but it's still great.

4. Conway Twitty - Lonely Blue Boy (Danny)

OK, this one takes a bit of explaining. This song was written by Ben Weisman & Fred Wise who wrote a number of songs for Elvis movies, of which this was one, although it wasn't released at the time. A little later, the chorus (and title) were rewritten from Danny to Lonely Blue Boy, and re-recorded by Conway Twitty who had a US Top Ten hit with it in 1960. I could have linked to the Elvis version - y'know, the one that's actually called Danny - but I prefer the one by Mr. Twitty. I first came across it on the soundtrack to Punch Drunk Love, that rarest of beasts: a good Adam Sandler film. (No, really.)

That's twice Elvis has lost out today - don't worry, you're still the king.

3. The Ramones - Danny Says

At first, this doesn't sound like a regular Ramones song at all - it doesn't begin with a "One-choo-three-four!" for a start. Phil Spector's influence is all over this one though, and it does build (in typical Spector fashion) to sound just like a Ramones song: indeed, Joey apparently thought this was one of the best songs Spector produced for the band.

The Danny in question is Ramones' manager Danny Field, the man who also signed Iggy and the MC5 and also worked with Jonathan Richman. Without him, they say punk might not have happened.

There are a couple of cool covers of this song by Tom Waits and the Foo Fighters.

2. Prefab Sprout - The Songs of Danny Galway

From Paddy McAloon's glorious 2014 comeback album, Crimson/Red. I loved this song from the moment I first heard it, but it took Miller (yes, him again) to point out that it was a in fact a tribute to one of the greatest songwriters to ever walk the face of the earth: Wichita Lineman's own Jimmy Webb.

In words he paints a vivid scene, of places you may not have been
Yet listening, you're moved to swear, I know that house, I've climbed the stair
I've shared those overwhelming feelings, I've suffered loss - I've known such joy
Emotions we all know, are burnished til they glow, in the songs of Danny Galway

1. Anne Murray - Danny's Song

Have you been watching the Mick Jagger / Martin Scorcese TV show Vinyl? You know, the one about the record industry in the 70s with Jagger's son James doing his best to distance himself from his new Wicked Stepfather (like Jerry Hall hasn't got enough money) by working alongside daddy dearest? The show's not been particularly well-reviewed but I'm really loving it (once you get past the typical Scorcese excessive glorification of sleaze) and the soundtrack is excellent, mixing classic rock 'n' roll, soul, blues, punk and cheesy 70s pop to great effect.

A recent episode closed with Anne Murray's classic rendition of Danny's Song (written by Footloose maestro Kenny Loggins, trivia lovers) and it was a weird case of synchronicity since I've been playing this track a lot lately ever since I heard it played on the radio as a tribute to Wogan (it was one of his favourites I didn't get round to writing about in My Top Ten Terry Wogan Songs).

Altogether now...

"Even though we ain't got money
I'm so in love with you honey..."

Which one do you think is cool, happening, us?

My Top Ten Dolphin Songs

Last week's post about vacuum cleaners had less hits than anything I've ever written here. Which I guess shows that nobody is particularly enamoured by pop songs about household appliances. (So I'll be revisiting that again soon, dead horses need flogging.) I'll surely be on safer territory this week... everyone loves dolphins, right? (Although...that one above...is it just me...or does it look a bit like the Alien?)



10. The Byrds - Dolphin's Smile

 A song about cutting your moorings and floating free away...sounds tempting, right?

9. Ian Brown - Dolphins Were Monkeys

Well, if anybody would know about being a monkey...

8. Prince - Dolphin

Leave it to Prince to write a sado-masochistic reincarnation fantasy about dolphins... weirdo. Of course, considering this was written during the Slave / Symbol / TAFKAP days, its lyrics are pointing straight at his record company...

U can cut off all my fins
But 2 your ways I will not bend
I'll die before I let U tell me how 2 swim
And I'll come back again as a dolphin

7. Martyn Joseph - Dolphins Make Me Cry

The grown-up world is seriously depressing Martyn Joseph... that's why dolphins make him cry.

6. Shed Seven - Dolphin

From the York yobboes' debut album, this was their first single to crash into the Top 30 at the dawn of Britpop in 1994. They'd go on to much greater things, but Dolphin stands the test of time pretty well.

The video features Rick and the band performing in a waterless swimming pool. Can't help but think it'd have been more interesting if they'd filled it up as the song went on... but I guess there might have been health & safety issues with that.

5. Terrorvision - Perserverance

From York to Bradford, and more brilliantly raucous Britpop hooligans... they were right about the whales and dolphins. (Terrorvision went on to name their greatest hits album after this very lyric, so it obviously meant something.)

4. Crosby, Stills & Nash - After The Dolphin

This Dolphin was the London pub where the first aerial bombing of WWI took place. Here, Graham Nash asks if the world was ever the same after that fateful night...? 

3. Ooberman - Dolphin Blue

Ah, Ooberman. They should have been so much bigger.We need more pop stars called Popplewell.

2. Beth Orton & Terry Callier - Dolphins

Written and originally recorded by Fred Neil (who also wrote the gorgeous Everybody's Talkin'), this is surely the most covered Dolphins song in history. Tim Buckley's is probably the most famous; Billy Bragg did a heartbreaking cover on Don't Try This At Home; but there's something about the dreamy combo of Beth O. and folk-jazz pioneer Terry Callier that just does it for me like no other...

I've been searchin'
For the dolphins in the sea
And sometimes I wonder
Do you ever think of me?

1. David Bowie - Heroes

Arguably Bowie's greatest moment, with a little help from Brian Eno, Tony Visconti, and Robert Fripp on feedback. Strangely, it wasn't that big a hit when it was first released in 1977, but time has been very decent to it. Shows what the recording buying public know!

I 
I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins
Like dolphins can swim...

Which is your Flipper?

My Top Ten Thirteen Songs

Happy New Year from Top Ten Towers!

So, it's Two Thousand Thirteen, or Twenty Thirteen, or Another Bloody Miserable Year... whatever you choose to call it. Thirteen's traditionally an unlucky number... but then again, considering the world was supposed to end in '12, we're already starting ahead of the game.

Happy New Year to you anyway - may 2013 bring you all your heart desires... or, at the very least, ten great songs with the number 13 in the title...

(Special mention to Thirteen Senses and the marvellous Thirteenth Floor Elevators.)



10. Big Audio Dynamite - V. Thirteen

The last song Mick Jones and Joe Strummer ever wrote together sounds, unsurprisingly, like The Clash playing one final concert in Sodom and Gomorrah.

 Sodom and Gomorrah? This is London, guv.

9. Ann Margret - 13 Men

When the H-bomb goes off, Ann Margret finds herself the only girl in town... with 13 blokes in hot pursuit.

Uh, there were two men every morning
A-seein' that I was well fed
And believ-a you me, one sweetened my tea
While the other one a-buttered my bread

Simon Armitage and the Scaremongers recorded a song with the same title, but that was a tribute to a local Rugby League team... and sadly, it's not online anywhere for me to play it for you.

8. The Delgados - Thirteen Gliding Principles

Look what you've left me, your bottles of camomile
funny old phrases and outdated style

Does camomile come in bottles north of the border? Down here, we get it in bags.

7. The Pixies - No. 13 Baby

In which Frank Black meets a six foot, sweaty lass with XIII tattooed on her tit.

If man is 5, the devil is 6 and God is 7... what the hell's 13?

6. Johnny Cash - Thirteen

Johnny Cash covers Glenn Danzig. Now there's something I never thought I'd hear... and yet, it works beautifully.

5. Pink - Conversations with My 13 Year Old Self

Obviously Pink remembers what it feels like to be 13 - she's hardly grown up since. If you're a 13 year old Pink fan, this will obviously offer you some comfort... good luck in growing up like your heroine though.

4. Elvis Costello - 13 Steps Lead Down

One of many classic Costello songs I fell in love with despite having zero idea what it was all about.

When nobody knows, she puts on secret clothes
And lies in her splendour for a picture opportunity
Cover up that bruise, put on patent leather shoes
Just stop playing that bad mood music

Still don't.

3. The Cure - The 13th

In which Mad Bob McMad falls asleep watching telly... and has some typically bonkers dreams.

2. Ooberman - 13

Dan Popplewell spends the majority of this song wishing he was still 13. And then he changes his mind...

Do you remember rounders on the top field? 
Playing 'three and in' in your Dunlop Green Flash? 
Getting chucked in the park lake by the thick lads on the way back from school? 
Actually when I think about it, when I was 13 I was a deeply unpopular child... 
13... Thank God I'm not 13... 

1. Big Star - Thirteen

Alex Chilton, on the other hand, recaptures the crazy, confusing, combustible feeling of being a newly-heeled teenager with one of his most simple yet heart-wrenching ballads...

Won't you let me walk you home from school?
Won't you let me meet you at the pool?
Maybe Friday I can
Get tickets for the dance
And I'll take you.

Those were my favourite 13 songs. Which one gives you triskaidekaphobia?

My Top Ten Olympic Sport Songs

I've already covered running, jumping, gymnastics, swimming and cycling... here are a few songs about the remaining Olympic sports.

10. The Magic Theatre - Rowing Boat Love Song

If you were wondering whatever happened to Dan Popplewell and Sophia Churney of Ooberman, here's your answer... and it's quite, quite lovely.

9. MC Hammer - Can't Touch This

Stop.

Hammer time!

8. Slow Club - Horses Jumping

A song that covers a number of sporting disciplines, including swimming, sprint, pool and horses jumping... out of a boat. Don't ask me.

7. Heartless Bastards - Marathon

We're all racing for our own reasons

6. Beach Boys - Sail On, Sailor

If you were expecting Rod Stewart... isn't this so much better?

5. Operator Please - (Just A Song About) Ping Pong

Don't you know beef jerky has an aftertaste?

4. Prefab Sprout - I Never Play Basketball Now

After that last unholy row
I never, ever play basketball now.
It joins the list of things I'll miss
Like fencing foils and lovely girls I'll never kiss.

3. Julian Cope - Trampolene

No gold medal for Julian's spelling.

2. Trashcan Sinatras - Weightlifting

Pumping iron never sounded so beautiful.

1. Ben Folds Five - Boxing

Boxing's been good to him...



So... which one's your Olympian?