The Best Of 2024 (Part 3)

Y'know, I dream of the things I'll do, with a subway token and a dollar tucked inside my shoe... 

More thoughts on the musical year that's ending, interspersed with lyrics from popular song to make them more palatable. 

Wasn't it great to see perpetually despondent clown Bob Smith get out of bed for the first time in 16 years and think about making a new record? Of course, Songs Of A Lost World is wonderful, and given more time to wallow in it, I've no doubt it would have edged its way into my Top 24. Because of his "advanced" years - come on, he's 65, a spring bloody chicken! - Sideshow Bob does find it harder to get going, which is why many of the songs start with a 3 minute intro before he mumbles some lyrics about the end of the world and the price of make-up in Superdrug these days. If there's a smile on his face, it's only there trying to fool the public. But it's all good. Just don't wait so long before the next one, eh?

Someone else doing the resurrection shuffle this year is one J.R. Cash. Often erroneously referred to as John R. Cash, though his actual name is just J.R. Apparently his mum wanted to call him John and his dad wanted to call him Ray... so they settled on the initials. Johnny is just a stage name.

But anyway, he's back, making light of this dull, dull day. And fortunately it's not some nightmarish AI version (although, give it a couple of years... I bet Colonel Tom Parker's Estate is seriously investigating the Elvis-shaped possibilities), just some songs J.R. left lying around in the early 90s when Rick Rubin came along and gave him a better offer. They've been dusted off and given a respectful reworking by his son, and it makes for a nice enough collection. Though clearly not in the same ballpark as the American Recordings stuff, it's good to hear his voice again... for a few moments, I'm able to kid myself that not everyone I know goes away in the end...

Now's as good a time as any to mention the new Nick Cave album, Wild God, which I fully expected to be part of my year end countdown... but it isn't. Yet. I guess it's a life of surprises - it's no help growing older or wiser. After my initial excitement died down, I couldn't get into it... so I put it back on the shelf to revisit later. I feel this is my failure, and I can only apologise for that. After all that we've been through, Nick, I will make it up to you - I promise to!

We close today with the Avett Brothers, another band I can't keep up with, since the last time I paid them any attention was back in 2009, and they've released another four albums since then... five if you count this year's eponymous offering, which I do, because it's very good indeed. Too good to be forgotten! Now what more can I say...?

Snapshots #228: A Top Ten Drums & Drummer Songs

As Brian said last week, the answers always seem obvious on a Sunday.

Beat your drums to the following tunes, please...

10. Sounds like he had slim sleeves.

Jim Reeves - Distant Drums

9. Genesis sang about them three times.

Genesis sang Tonight Tonight Tonight.

Tonight - Drummer Man

8. Detective who used to make sketches meets homicidal artificial intelligence. 

(Or... would-be Dirty Harry meets magician in a box.)

Nancy Drew + HAL 9000.

Dirty Harry was originally going to be played by Frank Sinatra,

David Blaine was a magician in a box.

Nancy Sinatra & Hal Blaine - Drummer Man

7. Wot, no peppered sprouts?

"We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout" is the opening line to Jackson.

Chad Jackson - Here The Drummer, Get Wicked

I thought I'd hate that, given how much I hate most dance music from that era. But I actually had quite a fond recollection, hearing it again after all these years. It's a lot more old skool than I remember.

6. They got tangled up in a hotter vest bra.

"Hotter vest bra" was an anagram.

The Avett Brothers - Kick Drum Heart

5. Southern Indian devotional poet.

Named after King Kulasekhara, the aforementioned devotional poet.

Kula Shaker - The Sound Of Drums

4. Famous for producing ground beef dish.

The man who produced Meat Loaf, on Bat Out Of Hell.

Todd Rundgren - Bang The Drum All Day

3. First in line, lover of wolves.

Prince Charles if First In Line for the throne.

"Connor" means lover of wolves, apparently.

The Charles Connor Band - Drummer Man 

2. In this picture, you have seen torsos.

"Seen torsos" is an anagram.

Stone Roses - She Bangs The Drum

1. Rocking horses.

Rock as in stone, horses as in ponies.

Linda Ronstadt in the middle there. The Lemonheads version always deserves a mention.

The Stone Poneys - Different Drum

Catch a Yellow Submarine... or a Tank Engine called Thomas... to bring you back for more Snapshots next Saturday.

My Top Ten Laundrette / Laundromat Songs

This one was inspired by The Swede who posted one of these tunes a few weeks back. I liked it so much, I thought I'd dig out nine more and toss them in the washing machine...

10. Joe Jackson - Laundromat Monday

Joe wonders where his Mondays went, while trying to find someone else to do his chores...

I want a French maid, someone to wash my jeans
Each quarter I've made is lost in washing machines
I'm gonna change the world, I could be President
If I could just work out where all my Mondays went

9. Camper Van Beethoven - (I Was Born In A) Laundromat

Another CVB song that appears to have an anti-racism subtext mixed among the tumbled socks...

I was born in a laundromat
I was born in a cul-de-sac
Some of us are brown
And some of us are white
Just give me some tension release

8. The Dead Milkmen - The Laundromat Song

Ever fallen in love across the laundromat floor? Hide your embarrassing undies...

Clothes go round and round
And my heart goes up and down
She's drying her jeans
In separate machines

My mind grows dirty when my clothes get clean

7. The Avett Brothers - Laundry Room

I suspect there's more going on here than just a little fluffing and folding...

Close the laundry door
Tiptoe across the floor
Keep your clothes on
I've got all that I can take
Teach me how to use
The love that people say you made

6. Rory Gallagher - Laundromat

Rory Gallagher sleeps inside a washing machine. Those crazy 70s.

5. The Detergents - Leader of the Laundromat

An answer song written as the male response to Leader of the Pack. I remember hearing Brian Matthews play this years ago. It's quirky and kitsch, but can't hold a candle to the original.

4. Trent Willmon - Dixie Rose Deluxe's Honky Tonk, Feed Store, Gun Shop, Used Car, Beer, Bait, BBQ, Barber Shop, Laundromat.

I might give this one to Charity Chic for his Most Country of Country Song Titles series...

3. Albert King - Laundromat Blues / Answer To The Laundromat Blues

Don't put your blues in with your whites, Albert.

You take two or three pieces
And go down to the laundromat
An' take ya eight hours to wash 'em
No good!

2. The Pretenders - Watching The Clothes

Imagine bumping into Chrissie Hynde down the washeteria!

1. Vivien Goldman - Laundrette

Thanks again to The Swede for this lost early 80s gem. Had to make it Number One because it's just so quirky/offbeat/cool.



What's in your washing basket?

Saturday Snapshots #23 - The Answers

Lose Yourself in the answers to this week's quiz... while pondering what your Saturdays would be like Without Me...


10. Bizet's loneliness.

Bizet's most famous opera was Carmen.

Eric Carmen - All By Myself

Rigid Digit woke up first this weekend to snap this one up.

9. Animal doctor siblings stir feelings between us.

An animal doctor is a vet. D'oh.

The Avett Brothers - I And Love And You

Knew Charity Chic would get this one.

8. Van & Laura's girl won't die.

Van Morrison and Laura Branigan both sang about Gloria.

Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive

Another point for Rigid Digit.

7. A blogging hero gets sad about his tactile addiction.

The Swede gets the blues... But Alyson gets the clue.

Blue Swede - Hooked On A Feeling

6. Billet doux on the cost of keeping time.

Metronomes keep time. Economy counts the cost.

Metronomy - Love Letters

Well done, Chris.

5. 50 shades of spliff will have you floating off...

A spliff is a doobie (hence The Doobie Brothers). 50 Shades of Grey, obviously.

Dobie Gray - Drift Away

Lynchie was hip enough to get this one.

4. An indistinct packet of Alecia's daylight.

Pink!'s real name is Alecia Beth Moore.

An indistinct packet would be a fuzzy box.

Fuzzbox (or, if you prefer, We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It!!) - Pink Sunshine

Another point for RD!

3. I am intensely enthusiastic about Franka Potente.

As Chris pointed out, I spelled Franka Potente incorrectly. Sorry, that wasn't part of the clue.

The Passions - I'm In Love With A German Filmstar

Half a point to Lynchie, half a point to Chris.

2. American mother reveals excessive excerpts of erotic envy.

Momus - A Complete History Of Sexual Jealousy (parts 17 to 24)

Lynchie got the artist (half a point), The Swede beat Chris to the song by one minute (half a point).

1. Gregory Peck goes west for a solitary fireplace.

Gregory Peck was in a western called The Big Country.

A fireplace has a grate.

Another one for Rigid Digit, making him this week's undisputed winner.


Thanks for playing. More next week.

My Top Ten Carpentry Songs

My dad is a joiner by trade, and though he didn't pass any of those woodworking skills on to me, I think he's proud that at least one of his grandsons did follow him into the trade. A joiner is a carpenter, in case you were wondering, though arguably more skilled... I'll let you google the arguments on that one. 

Special mentions to The Carpenters (of course), Mary Chapin Carpenter, Cold Chisel, Woodkid, Harrison Ford, Jesus and Ron Swanson...

(Ron Swanson ROCKS.)


10. Paul Weller - Woodcutter's Son

I guess this could be about me...

You better give me the chance
I'll cut you down with a glance
Yeh, with my small axe - so help me,
And tho' I'm only one
And tho' weak, I'm strong
And if it comes to the crunch
Then I'm the woodcutter's son
And I'm cutting down the wood for the good of everyone!

Erm... perhaps not.

9. Bob Dylan - The House Carpenter

A traditional folk song ghost story, recorded by Bob and a bunch of other people. Nice guitar work on this one, Robert.

8. Robert Plant - Big Log

OK, I admit it, this one's a stretch even for me. But it's a great song just looking for a bandsaw to cut it into planks...

7. John Prine - Grandpa Was A Carpenter

He built houses, stores and banks
Chain-smoked Camel cigarettes
And hammered nails in planks

Nice work if you can get it.

6. Idlewild - These Wooden Ideas

All good carpentry projects have to start somewhere...

Don't be real - be post-modern!

5. The Avett Brothers - The Once & Future Carpenter

Once I was a carpenter, man my hands were calloused
I could swing a metal mallet sure and straight
But I took to the highway, a poet young and hungry
And I left the timbers rotting where they lay

Lovely stuff from the new Avett Brothers record.

4. Eddie Floyd - Knock On Wood

What else do carpenters do? (If you believe this song is a euphemism for something else entirely... shame on you.)

See also the excellent versions by David Bowie, Amii Stewart and Emma 'Gwen Stacy' Stone... among others. The original's still the best though.

3. Aberfeldy - If I Were A Joiner

Joiners are better than plain old carpenters. According to my dad, anyway.

If I were a joiner
You know what I'd do?
Put up a shelf
All about you.

2. The Four Tops - If I Were A Carpenter

Written by Tim Hardin, recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash and Bob Seger to Robert Plant and Leonard Nimoy... but it was the Four Tops version that originally chiselled its way into my heart.

I know... you thought this was going to be Number One, didn't you? So did I, until I remembered...

1. Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon - Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartbreak

He's a carpenter of love and affection!

I could have chosen the equally smashing (if slightly less legible) cover by Dexys Midnight Runners... but that didn't have Pan's People dancing like this...





Which one gives you wood?

(Sorry.)

My Top Ten Wizard of Oz Songs

With Sam Raimi's Wizard of Oz prequel in cinemas this week, I thought I'd cobble together ten songs (mostly) inspired by the land over the rainbow... 

Special mention, of course, to Toto...


10. Squeeze - No Place Like Home

Domestic violence, Difford & Tilbrook style. Get whacked round the head by their ruby slippers.

9. Emit Bloch - Dorothy

Probably not about the Dorothy...or any of her friends.

Just be happy yourself
Don't worry 'bout nobody else
You've got problems of your own, she said
Quit your nosing around...

8. Everclear - The Good Witch of the North

A lot soppier than the title lets on, and surprisingly upbeat for the Everclear lads. Most of their songs are about Wicked Witches...

7. The Flaming Lips - If I Only Had A Brain

Wayne Coyne's version is scary-genius.

6. James - Scarecrow

It's hard to believe James were around back in 1985, in the days when everything was still in black and white.

5. Mumford & Son - Little Lion Man

OK, so I couldn't find a song called The Cowardly Lion. I did think of throwing in the awesome Coward of the County instead. But I'm saving that for later. Still, any excuse to play my favourite from Mumford and his boys. (That second album was a bit of a water-treader, but the first still holds up.)

4. The Avett Brothers - Tin Man

They see pain but they don't feel it. You can slap them as much as you like.

3. Scissor Sisters - Return To Oz

True munchkins...

He said, "Is this the return to Oz?"
The grass is dead, the gold is brown and the sky has claws
There's a wind-up man walking round and round
What once was Emerald City is now a crystal town

2. Judy Garland - Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Timeless. As is Eva Cassidy's version. And, as I discovered earlier this week, also the inspiration for the chorus of Starman by David Bowie. The leap of between octaves on "Some... where" and "Star...man" is identical.

1. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Supposedly the first film lyricist Bernie Taupin ever saw, The Wizard of Oz obviously had a profound impact.

The b-side, when this was released as a 7", was called 'Screw You'. Which leads us nicely up Eminem's own Yellow Brick Road...



Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

My Top Ten Brooklyn Songs

Loads of ideas for Top Ten lists... not enough time to write them. Here's another entry into my musical tour of the USA, stopping off in one of the five boroughs of New York City... because if I start trying to tackle the city as a whole, I'll be here till the end of time.

10. Al Stewart - In Brooklyn

Admittedly, this 10th spot would have gone to John Peel favourites Bob with their 1989 single 'Esmerelda Brooklyn'... if only I'd been able to find it anywhere online. Al Stewart gets a pass instead, a well-deserving runner-up.

9. Fun Lovin' Criminals - Swashbucklin' In Brooklyn

Gets in on the title alone.

8. Barton Carroll - Brooklyn Girl, You're Gonna Be My Bride

Seattle's Barton Carroll has a nicely cynical Nick Lowe-ish edge to his songwriting.

I'm not a dandy or the sharpest knife in the drawer
and I've always had to work with my hands,
But I use what I was given and I work for a living
and that's more than you can say for your man.

7. Woodkid - Brooklyn

Every now and then, in the course of compiling these charts, I come across a song I've never heard before by an artist I've never heard before, that's really quite lovely. I was taken with this one, until Louise came in and asked, "What are you listening to - it sounds like Kermit." Too late, I'd already downloaded it from Amazon. On her account (accidentally) - that''ll teach her to leave it signed on!

6. Steely Dan - Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me)

As with most Steely Dan song, I've no idea what this is about. But it still sounds damned good.

5. The Black Keys - Brooklyn Bound

Could have been recorded any time in the last 50 years. I think that makes it timeless.

4. Jesse Malin - Brooklyn

Ten years ago, Jesse Malin released an album, The Fine Art of Self-Destruction, which still remains his career best. This song goes a long way towards explaining why.

3. Brooklyn Bridge - The Worst That Could Happen

Yes, I'm breaking one of my main rules here, but I couldn't resist. This one's a classic, written by the great Jimmy Webb, sung like his life depended on it by the late Johnny Maestro and his band... Brooklyn Bridge.

2. The Avett Brothers - I And Love And You

Someone on youtube describes them as "the American Mumford & Sons", which isn't a bad comparison. This is the most beautiful song they've yet recorded. Oh, and Brooklyn features heavily, even if it doesn't appear in the title.

1. The Beastie Boys - No Sleep Till Brooklyn

Inevitably. 

Were the Beastie Boys ever really this young? Were any of us...?




They were Brooklyn's best... unless you know different. As always, let me know your favourites - or any I left out...