Snapshots #420: Square Number Songs

You can pretty much tell AI didn't come up with that image, can't you? What can I say, I'm an old-fashioned guy, and I wanted a picture of a square dude holding a camera. Unlike yesterday when I showed you one of the residents of Albert's Square holding a camera. 

All in aid of - with great thanks to our resident Maths teacher, George, for suggesting the theme and many of the tunes - songs about Square Numbers. Working our way from the square of 15... down to the square of 1.

15. The very latest in toy soldiers.

New Model Army - 225

14. Often killed in avalanches.

The Mountain Goats - Move (Chicago 196x)

That was the hardest one to find, despite the fact that I love the Mountain Goats.

13. Just saying, it follows Burt… but only so far.

JS is, apparently, interweb shorthand for Just Saying.

Burt Bach...arach (only so far).

J.S. Bach - Cantata 169

12. Post pride.

Wouldn't be a George post without a bit of The Fall, which usually follows pride.

Also, I wouldn't have thought of this one on my own - a gross being 144.

The Fall - Gross Chapel / British Grenadiers

11. De Niro is waiting for Howard’s End.

Howard's End was written by E.M. Forster. Robert De Niro has been waiting for that.

Robert Forster - 121

10. Humming, Thunder, Surfing. 

Hummingbirds, Thunderbirds, Surfin' Bird.

The Byrds - One Hundred Years From Now

9. Some were talking to Jesus and Mary, the rest were saved for the Brotherhood.

Jesus & Mary Chain sang about Some Candy Talking. The Brotherhood of Man were saving their kisses for you.

Candy & The Kisses – The 81

8. They’ll never be stale.

"Be stale" was an anagram.

The Beatles - When I'm Sixty-Four

7. When you hear the bing, the whiskey will be fermented, so grit your teeth till then.

Bing Crosby. Whiskey is fermented in Stills. Gnash your teeth.

Crosby, Stills & Nash - 49 Bye-Byes

6. Where pretty penguins live.

The Beautiful South - 36D

5. An O.J. Celeb.

Orange Juice was the band of Edwyn Collins. A celeb is a starr.

Edwin Starr - 25 Miles

4. Caroline is determined.

Caroline was Sweet. The is a determiner.

The Sweet - Six Teens 

Thank you, George. That's a belter.

3. Soviet strikers.

¡Forward, Russia! - Nine

2. Spill the milk wide.

"Milk wide" was an anagram.

Kim Wilde - Four Letter Word

1. Silence was golden when he was a child.

Pictured with his Mum and Dad (Chip Hawkes from The Tremeloes)...

Don't be square - join me again for more Snapshots next Saturday.

Snapshots Spillover - More Nonsense

More song titles without real words in them, starting with the ones I rejected this weekend for being too obvious...

The Crystals - Da Doo Ron Ron

Manfred Mann - Do Wah Diddy Diddy

The Police - De Do Do Do De Da Da Da

Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans - Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

Trio - Da Da Da

The Beatles - Ob La Di Ob La Da

Small Faces - Sha La La La Lee

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - Zabadak

Silver - Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang

The 5.6.7.8s - Woo Hoo

Little Richard - Bama Lama Bama Loo

The Rivingtons - Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow

The Rubettes - Foe-Dee-O-Dee 

Dickey Doo & The Don'ts - Nee Nee Na Na Na Na Nu Nu                  

Ten Years After - Skoobly Oobly Doobob          

Ernie K-Doe - Te Ta Te Ta Ta                                         

LaVern Baker - Tra La La

Nina Hagen - Wau Wau

And, of course, the ultimate... which always reminds me of Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks...

I fully expect Ernie or George will fill the comments box with info about some of the above not being nonsense at all... but that's just more fun.

Snapshots #388: Songs About Roads, Streets, Avenues etc.

This is Mike Skinner. Mike's looking rather sad because he's lost his camera. Still, he seemed like the ideal person to introduce today's answers... twelve songs about Streets... whatever we might call them.

Oh, and in case you were wondering why Clint Eastwood appeared here yesterday... well, he was The Man With No Name. And I'm sure you all remember what Bono told us? 

12. Three merry old souls.

A rock n roll standard, originally recorded by... 

The King Cole Trio - Route 66

11. Clint was always talking to them.

Clint talked to the Trees.

Trees - Road

10. Furious & Cannon look for their other halves.

Fast & Furious + Cannon & Ball...

Fastball - The Way

9. Don't look at that streaker! He's not Abel.

Ray Stevens advised "Don't look, Ethel!" Abel's brother was Cain.

Ethel Cain - Thoroughfare

8. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you.

That's a blessing, that is.

The Blessing - Highway 5

7. Pottery, embroidery, macrame.

Three examples of craftwork.

Kraftwerk - Autobahn

(All 23 minutes of it, just for George.)

6. Confused prats retested.

"Prats retested" was an anagram.

Peter Sarstedt - Boulevard 

5. He say yes!

"He say yes!"

The Man from Delmonte - Drive Drive Drive

4. Fancy playing badminton, Osborn? Mixed doubles?

"Badminton, Osborn" was a mixed up anagram of...

Tom Robinson Band - 2-4-6-8 Motorway

3. Mariah Carey loves to break the rules... but she causes twice the commotion!

MC is a rebel, but gets in double the trouble.

Rebel MC & Double Trouble - Street Tuff

2. Hercules, Colorado, Stag.

Three types of beetle.

The Beatles - Penny Lane

Other roads were available, including long and winding ones... but the Beatles were here for the lane today.

1. Dawn rises over the Yellow River.

Tony Orlando was in Dawn. Christie sang Yellow River.

Tony Christie - Avenues and Alleyways

The road leads back to Snapshots next Saturday...

Bertie Fridays #2: He's Got The Mad Hits

I wonder if the first time I ever heard the name Bert Kaempfert, it was in the lyrics of the big 1999 hit by Canadian tongue-in-cheek indie band Barenaked Ladies. Here, this week's Bert shares the limelight with other notable names such as Harrison Ford, LeAnn Rimes, Akira Kurosawa and Sting. You know you've arrived...!

Barenaked Ladies - One Week

(By the way, that song reached Number One on the US charts. Guess how long it spent there?)

Sadly, Bert K died 19 years before the Barenaked Ladies claimed, "Bert Kaempfert's got the mad hits", so he had no idea how much his name would live on. But what were the "mad hits" from this German orchestra leader, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, arranger, and composer?

Well, for one, here's a tune made famous by Wayne Newton in the States... though arguably made much more famous by one Ferris Bueller in 1986...

Those of you who are familiar with that movie (and if not, why not?) will recall that Ferris follows up with his take on The Beatles' version of Twist & Shout. And Bert K had his own Beatles connection, hiring the Fab Four to back Tony Sheridan in 1961 for their first commercially released recordings... which led to their discovery by Brian Epstein.

Tony Sheridan & The Beatles - Ain't She Sweet

Bert K was also one of the songwriters responsible for turning German folk song "Muss i denn" into this two minute pop smash...

Elvis Presley - Wooden Heart

Here are a few more mad hits Mr. Kaempfert had some kind of involvement with...

Al Martino - Spanish Eyes

Nat King Cole - L-O-V-E

Andy Williams - Almost There

Lemon Jelly - In The Bath

And here's one we used to play in wind band...

Bert Kaempfert - A Swinging Safari

Mad hits indeed. But perhaps the maddest of them all was probably my dad's favourite song. Whenever I hear this tune, written by Bert K, I can hear my dad whistling it in his workshop. 

The lyrics were added later by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder, and it became a huge hit for old blue eyes... even though he called it "a piece of shit" and "the worst fucking song that I have ever heard." The Chairman thought it was about a love affair between two men, you see. Unthinkable!

Although Bert Kaempfert is still credited as the composer, a number of other interested parties would later claim ownership of this tune, though a Parisian judge decided in 1971 that there was no case for plagiarism because many songs were based on "similar constant factors".

Perhaps the greatest legacy of Strangers In The Night is that it gave Sinatra the opportunity to scat-sing "doo-be-doo-be-doo" as the record fades out... thereby giving a name to the world's best-loved ghost-chasing Great Dane...

Zoinks!

Bertie approves.

Next week... Scotland's answer to Bob Dylan.

Sequel Songs #4: Cathy's New Clown

Cathy's Clown was the biggest hit of the Everly Brothers' career, spending five weeks at Number One in the US, seven weeks at Number One in the UK, and selling over 8 million copies worldwide. 

Phil and Don argued over who wrote it, though the tune was allegedly nicked from a section of The Grand Canyon Suite by American composer Ferde Grofé. I had a listen and couldn't hear any similarity myself. The Everly's close harmony singing style was particularly influential on The Beatles (who iffypedia says "once toyed with the idea of calling themselves The Foreverly Brothers", but I'm not sure I believe that). There's certainly a similarity between Cathy's Clown and The Beatles' debut single...

The Beatles - Please Please Me

The song also gets mentioned in the opening lines of one of Elliot Smith's biggest hits...

First the mic, then a half cigarette
Singing, "Cathy's Clown"
That's the man she's married to now
That's the girl that he takes around town

Elliot Smith - Waltz #2 (XO)

It also inspired these guys to name their band when they wanted to record a cover of a Gil Scott Heron song...

Jay And Cathy's Clowns - The Bottle

All of which brings us to a man who also named himself after a song: John Wesley Hardin. Here he is in 1990 with his own sequel to the Everly Brothers' smash...

Snapshots #339: A Top Ten Board Game Songs

We do like a good board game at Top Ten Towers. I know, rock n roll, right?

Here are ten rock n roll board games...

10. Who will be at Lester's party, inside the crowd?

Who will be at Lester's party?

The Beatles - Ticket To Ride

Ticket To Ride is my favourite boardgame. Somewhat ironically, it has been replaced by a game called Wingspan as the favourite of everybody else in the house. "It's only the game Ticket To Ride could have been," they tell me.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, The Beatles are on stage in that picture, playing to a crowd of 18 people, in December 1961.

9. Dancing with German Measles.

Rubella Ballet - Twister

I had C down to get that one. I did however question whether Twister was a boardgame. The web of lies tells me it is, so that's OK.

8. Orbiting Atlanta.

The Georgia Satellites - Battleship Chains

7. Jett joins Juliet Bravo.

Imagine Joan Jett was a a policewoman...

Joan As Policewoman - Game Of Life

6. Grape or Dick?

Moby - Go

5. I'll give them 2:1 odds...

A Certain Ratio - Guess Who

4. Rhett smoked a bong, and it really messed him up.

"Rhett smoked a bong" was an anagram...

Booker T & The MGs - Chinese Checkers

I couldn't find any songs about Draughts.

3. Listen to the music playing in her head. 

That's almost a line from Lady Madonna...

Madonna - Sorry

2. Humpless camels on drugs.

Llamas are camelids without humps.

The High Llamas - Three Point Scrabble

1. Attendant and Richard's lad.

A paige and Dick's son.

Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson - I Know Him So Well

From the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, Chess...

A few more I didn't have room for in the games cupboard...

Parquet Courts - College Chess Circuit

Seafood - Boggle

Captain Sensible - There's More Snakes Than Ladders

Ride - Mouse Trap

Ariana Grande & Victoria Monét - Monopoly

We'll play again next Saturday morning...

Mid-Life Crisis Songs #108: Hello Goodbye

A couple of weekends back, Louise and I went to see Stewart Lee at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. He's long been my favourite comedian - Louise isn't quite as big a fan, but she did admit he was "quite good" this time.

As usual, his routines are meticulously crafted, self-aware, and full of meta-commentary on the art of stand up comedy itself... though they appear random and ramshackle, like Lee himself. The climax of this show was a long bit in which Lee pretended to go through an average week, making "Hello and goodbye" small-talk to a colleagues in a workplace environment. I'm not going to try and replicate it, but it was full of clichéd conversation such as...

"Morning... yes... good weekend? Do anything nice? No, not really... took the dog out."

"Seeya! Have a good evening... doing anything nice tonight? Oh, lovely. Well, enjoy!" 

Julia Jacklin - Small Talk

I found this painfully funny. Painful and funny. The dull repetition of banalities seemed a metaphor for our treadmill existences... well, you can probably see why I approved. 

Nine Inch Nails - Every Day Is Exactly The Same

The show's being filmed for Netflix, I think. I won't recommend it, because comedy is even more subjective than music, but it did make me laugh. A lot. And then cry myself to sleep that night...

Soft Cell - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

There are many songs which include both Hello and Goodbye in the title. Beyond the obvious one by That Scouse Band. Gilbert O'Sullivan wrote one too, although it's about him trying to seduce a lady and her telling him to do one. Like a lot of Gilbert's songs, it sounds vaguely creepy nowadays. 

Gilbert O Sullivan - Hello, It's Goodbye

Here's another one of those, though it fits perfectly with our Mid-Life Crisis theme, as it's about an older man worrying he can't keep up with a younger woman. Which we dismissed last time as a non-starter. There are some great lines in it though, regarding the passing of time... and all its sickening crimes...

And I'm not getting any younger

Gone are those days when school reports were all I feared

Now for the first time in my life

I'm seeing something I don't like

And am powerless to prevent from happening

One day you'll find out for yourself just what I mean

The irony is, I'm sure that when I retire, I'll miss those casual day-to-day exchanges that Stewart Lee mocked. Because I largely like the people I work with. And always have, thinking back, in every job I've had. Not management, obviously. I have had some good bosses, but they were mostly line managers. The bigger bosses were largely tossers - both in radio and Further Education. Only in my current job can I look all the way up to the head teacher and find people I generally respect and get along with.

Moxy Früvous - I Love My Boss

Of course, there's always a few people in every workforce who are complete tools. There's only one particularly big eejit in my current setting... you all know the type, the sort of person who as soon as you see them in the corridor, the first word that pops into your head is "knob", or your own equivalent of choice. (Side note: I just blew up Google by asking for a synonym of synonym.) Interestingly, all my immediate colleagues find this one individual just as loathsome as I do... which makes me wonder, what must it be like to go through life either:

a) blissfully unaware that everyone you work with thinks you're an arsehole?

or

b) aware, but completely happy with it?

Neverending Top Ten #6.7: The 150th CD

When Sam was very small, I started making compilation CDs to play in the car whenever we were out and about, with the aim of giving him a solid introduction to the wonderful world of pop music in all most of its many varieties. I don't have a date for when I made that first CD, but he must have been about one, so it was a good 9 years ago. These were the first three tracks on CD 1...

The Beatles - Drive My Car

John Denver - Leaving On A Jet Plane

The Monkees - Daydream Believer

It wasn't about choosing my favourite songs, but what I thought he'd like as a one year old. He was obsessed with cars from a very young age, so the Beatles' "beep beep yeahs" seemed like an obvious opener. I'm not sure why I chose Jet Plane next, other than that it has a similar travelling message and a soaring melody that was good to sing along to. Daydream Believer, on the other hand, is just one of the greatest and most joyful pop songs ever written. It had to be there.

That first CD included other singalong greats like Sweet Caroline, Build Me Up, Buttercup and a Motown double-whammy of I Can't Help Myself and You Can't Hurry Love. Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al was on there because we used to listen to Graceland a lot at bath / bedtime back then. Although many of the favourite artists of my youth were present (REM, Billy Joel, Freddie Mercury), there was no Bruce or Huey, Johnny, Jarvis or anything by The Smiths. And though Glen Campbell made the final cut, he was wearing rhinestones, not searching in the sun for another overload. I rip to 80 minute CDs, so I'm always limited to between 20 and 22 tracks. That said, there were a couple of leftfield choices...

The Colourfield - Thinking Of You

Everclear - Wonderful

And this was the most contemporary song on there...

Pink! - So What

A good nah-nah-nah-nah chorus was bound to appeal to a one year old.

Anyway, I've kept making these CDs over the years and gradually broadening Sam's knowledge of popular music, though the song choices have become less obvious and more eclectic as time's gone by. Last week, I put together SAM 150, a compilation which ranged from The Staple Singers to Leo Sayer, Pete Townsend to Modern English, Joni Mitchell to Ash, The Climax Blues Band to The Trammps to The Shangri-Las. It also included the following, even less obvious choices...

Kongos - Come With Me Now

Thanks to Martin for that one.

Sun Sawed In 1/2 - Janet Greene

Top power pop tune - one listen, and Sam was singing along.

And then there's this... a new discovery, but one that had me hooked as soon as Diamante Azzura Bovelli started belting out her tribute to the year I turned 15, like Pat Benatar or Bonnie Tyler at their best. Again, Sam was soon singing along. Which, considering he was born in 2013, is kind of like me singing about 1936 when I was a kid. Imagine that. 

Not that I'm trying to make you feel old. But Diamante, in case you fancy another nail in your coffin, was herself born in 1996, nine years later than the year she dreams of dancing in.  

Still, 150 CDs. You can't say I've completely wasted my life...

Celebrity Jukebox #116: Denny Laine

I'll get round to Henry Kissinger eventually. He may not deserve a tribute, but he certainly appears in plenty of songs.

First though, and far more importantly, we need to celebrate the life of the man who sung this...

If you were to make a list of the best intros to 60s hits, that would be right up there. It's a cover, of course, and the Bessie Banks original is pretty special too... but Denny & co. gave it a bit more zing. Denny didn't stick it out with the Moody Blues and most of their subsequent success came with Justin Hayward at the helm... but for me, they never bettered that track, even when they got decked out in White Satin. 

Denny didn't stop there though, he went on to form The Electric String Band and begin releasing solo material too...

The Electric String Band - Ask The People

Denny Laine - Say You Don't Mind

Colin Blunstone of the Zombies would take that latter track into the charts in 1972.

Denny also took to the skies with Ginger Baker's Air Force, making a credible fist of this old standard... 

Ginger Baker's Air Force - Man Of Constant Sorrow

You might say he earned his Wings with that one. So it's hardly a surprise that Sir Thumbs Aloft would soon be giving Denny a call and asking him to join a new beat combo he was putting together. I often wonder, late at night when I just can't get to sleep, whether Macca invited Denny to join Wings because his name sounded like a pun on Penny Lane. Or did Denny - whose real name was Brian Frederick Hines - choose that particular rock star alias for exactly that reason? Not according to Denny himself, who claimed the Laine came from Frankie, his sister's favourite singer, and Denny because... er... "everyone had a backyard, and a den to hang out. I think I got that nickname there." Turns out that Denny had his stage name before Paul wrote Penny Lane, but as the song is about a real Liverpudlian Street, could the Birmingham lad have visited it in his youth and found it just as inspirational as the Scousers did? You can see why I find it hard to get back to sleep.

As to Wings... well, they were only the band The Beatles could have been. 

You knew that one was coming. 

Which leads us to this...

Mull Of Kintyre is a track I was taught to hate from an early age. It became cool to loathe it, largely due to the fact, I presume, that it was the UK's biggest selling single of all time throughout the late 70s and half the 80s, at least until Band Aid came along and sold a few more copies. But is it really that bad? I mean, OK, it's no Band On The Run or Jet or Goodnight Tonight... it's not even Junior's Farm... but really, it is really worth all the vitriol? Even when the bagpipes come in. Actually, watching that video now, I come over all wistful for times long gone, and that's the power of a good pop song as far as I'm concerned. 

When Ben alerted me to the passing of Denny Laine, he added the following comment...

That means it's only going to be Fairytale of New York and Mull Of Kintyre this Christmas. At least it means Stop The Cavalry will have less airtime. Christ, I hate that song.

Unwittingly, Ben just provided me with an excellent link into the only obvious song that came to mind as a tribute to Denny Laine...

Jona Lewie - Denny Laine's Valet

Sadly that was all I could find that mentioned Denny by name. Well, apart from this live track from the album Wings Over Europe on which Macca graciously cedes the stage to Denny...

I'm sorry you have to Go Now, Denny. I hope your heaven is filled with mist rolling in from the sea.

Product Placement #22: Jelly Babies

In case you've just arrived from another planet, iffypedia tells us that, "Jelly Babies are a type of soft sugar jelly sweets in the shape of plump babies, sold in a variety of colours." Something about the use of the phrase "plump babies" in that sentence makes me consider Jelly Babies in a far more sinister light than I ever have. If you have just arrived from another planet, please note that we do not eat human babies, no matter how plump and tasty they might look.

To make matters worse, Jelly Babies were originally called "Unclaimed Babies". I'd like to reiterate... we do not eat human babies, claimed or unclaimed.

Jelly Babies were a big favourite of Tom Baker's Doctor Who...

When Beatles fans found out that George Harrison liked the odd Jelly Baby, they started chucking them at the band. But they didn't have Jelly Babies in the USA, so when the band went over there, people chucked Jelly Beans at them instead. Which were a lot harder.

George Harrison on Jelly Beans.

Even more dangerous is the popular school science experiment, The Screaming Jelly Baby. Luckily nobody ever chucked one of those at The Beatles.

There were a couple of bands named after Jelly Babies, but I could only find music by one of them...

The Jelly Babies - The Pleasure Of Her Company

Beyond those guys, who else likes their Jelly Babies in the world of pop...?

Let's start with a classy B-side from Hot Chip...

You're choosing something sweet, you chew on something sweet
A fleshy rubber made of me
A packet does contain a beautiful refrain
Least when the two of you stand free

Hot Chip - Jelly Babies

1982 was a great year for music. And then there was Johnny Demestos...

Johnny Demestos – Leave My Jelly Babies Alone

Did you know that Barbra Streisand once sang a song about Jelly Babies?

OK, that's not strictly the truth. However, once you've read the lyrics below, you might wish that was what the song was about...

Like Guava Jelly 
Baby, here I am,
Come rub it on my belly 
Like Guava Jelly 

Barbra Streisand - Guava Jelly

I always thought Babs was such a sweet young thing. Like butter wouldn't melt. Then I saw the cover of the album that came from...

 ...which has surely got to be one of the worst album covers ever. You call your album ButterFly, and that's the image you decide to go with, Babs? 

I subsequently learned that the album was solely produced by her then-boyfriend, Jon Peters... so I'm guessing clear heads might not have been involved in the cover selection process.

Guava Jelly was originally recorded by Bob Marley. And somehow, his version seems a lot less sordid...

Bob Marley - Guava Jelly

But I've gone off on a tangent as I'm pretty sure neither Bob nor Babs were thinking about Jelly Babies when they sang that song (although the white powder the sweets are often covered in might have been of interest to Jon Peters).

Here's a whole shop full of sweets, including Jelly Babies, Rhubarb & Custard and a quarter of Sherbet Lemons...

Eddie's Brother - Sweet Shop

But today's best tune comes from Ipswich punks The Adicts (originally known as Afterbirth, until wiser minds prevailed), from their 1985 album, Smart Alex. If only because it includes the lyrical couplet below...

Why do you have to be such a party-pooper?
You wouldn't even dance to Alice Cooper!

They don't write 'em like that anymore.