Snapshots #415: Songs That Catch A Bus!

Thanks again to the wonderful Mr. John Medd for providing this week's Snapshots link... songs with words that relate to buses. Or, as John put it, "these artists have all recorded songs where one word in the title can suffix the word 'Bus'."

Did you catch them all?

15. The process of transferring certain residents' belongings from Number 15 to Number 9.

Obviously this clue referred to The Move... especially as a couple of prominent members of this band ended up forming the band at #9 today.

The Move - Turkish Tram Conductor Blues

Bus Conductor.

14. Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Lyrics taken from Beautiful Boy, a song John Lennon wrote about his second son... although the line was coined by American journalist Allen Saunders in 1957.

Sean Lennon - Queue

Bus queue.

13. Sounds like some folky minstrels.

His name sounds like the New Christy Minstrels.

Lou Christie - Lightnin' Strikes

Bus strikes.

12. Am I seeings things correctly?

"Seeings" was an anagram.

Genesis - Time Table

Bus timetable.

11. Libertine Marquis.

The Marquis de Sade was a bit of a beggar.

Sade - Smooth Operator

Bus operator.

10. Quiet, please.

He was the Quiet Beatle.

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass 

Bus pass.

9. Leo was in turmoil.

Leo is a very short anagram for the band that evolved from The Move...

ELO - Ticket to the Moon

Bus ticket.

8. Troubled souls. 

They were on a Bridge Over Troubled Water...

Simon & Garfunkel - Baby Driver

Bus driver.

7. ...will be...

Boys will be Boys!

The Boys - Terminal Love

Bus terminal.

6. Give him roasted toadstools and a glass of dandelion wine.

Lyrics from The Laughing Gnome...

David Bowie - Station To Station

Bus station.

5. Toffish ogre... or ogreish toff? Neither, exactly.

Two anagrams for the price of one!

Foo Fighters - Times like These

Bus times.

4. Sounds like Cow-Cow, Shoo Shoo Morse.

Ella Mae Morse recorded Cow Cow Boogie and Shoo Shoo Baby.

Ella Mai - Trip

Bus trip.

3. Ann burned cow! That's out of order.

"Ann burned cow" was an anagram.

Duncan Browne - Journey

Bus journey.

2. My boy cracks the Da Vinci Code.

My boy is called Sam. The Da Vinci Code was written by Dan Brown.

Sam Brown - Stop

1. Two under par.

That would be an Eagle, golf fans!

The Eagles - Life In The Fast Lane

Bus lane.

Catch a bus back here again next Saturday for more of this nonsense!

Snapshots #361: A Top Ten Existential Question Songs

Above are a series of self-portraits taken by Austrian philosopher and photographer (although he gave them both up to become a shepherd in later life), Ludwig Wittgenstein. On pondering the great unanswerable philosophical questions, Wittgenstein came up with the best answer I've ever heard when he said, "I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves."

And with that in mind, here are some more big questions to ponder...

10. Pee Wee zeroes in on the answer.

Pee Wee zeroes...

Weezer - Why Bother?

9. When the still sea conspires an armour, and her sullen and aborted currents breed tiny monsters, true sailing is dead!

Those are the 6th Form Poetry opening lyrics of Horse Latitudes by The Doors. But I'm sure you all knew that...

Horse Latitudes - What Is More Than Life? 

8. They're new, but they've been around long enough to be considered outstanding.

Classix Nouveau - Is It A Dream?

7. More than half of Genesis were pretty good.

The first half in particular...

Gene - Why Was I Born?

6. A dreamer, in the Caribbean.  

Freddie was one of the Dreamers. Montserrat is an island in the Caribbean.

Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé - How Can I Go On?

5. We're all going together, on the bus.

Coach Party - What's The Point In Life?

4. What connects Christopher Cross, Utopia, Octopus and Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine? 

Each one contains a TOP. Add them together and you have...

Four Tops - What Is A Man?

3. Furtive canine inquiry. 

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Who Am I?

2. Oz, Raleigh, Pidgeon.

One Frank (Oz) and two Walters...

The Frank & Walters - How Can I Exist?

1. By...! What Cat's In The Cradle is about.

By George! Cats In The Cradle was about Harry's son.

George Harrison - What Is Life?

Thanks for playing. I'll be back with more existential questions for you to ponder tomorrow. 'Will Snapshots return next Saturday?' won't be one of them...

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.

Snapshots #252: A Top Twelve Signs Of The Zodiac Songs

The Zodiac is all about reading the stars in the sky... so here's David Starsky...

Look, I couldn't find a picture of Mystic Meg with a camera, all right?

Well done if you predicted the ten artists below... 

12. Roman Empire, Berlin Wall, House of Usher.

The Fall of...

The Fall - Two Librans

11. Inside the house, Charles still gets a tan, somehow.

Inside the house, Charles still gets a tan, somehow.

The Charlatans - Taurus Moaner

10. Heroic Bum. 

Supertramp - Aries

9. Perception minus commodities.

Sense less things.

Senseless Things - Leo

8. Muddled, in a moron's RV.

"In a moron's RV", muddled up, gives you...

Van Morrison - Virgo Clowns

7. Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen and Barry Allen feel all pent up.

Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen is the current world chess champion.

Barry Allen is The Flash. (Look it up.)

If you feel all pent up, you're angry. Pent also means five, as in pentagram.

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5 - Scorpio

With Metal Mickey on guest vocals.

6. Bloody emus!

Anagram!

Moody Blues - Gemini Dream

5. Rubber Duck.

See Convoy.

Kris Kristofferson - Jesus Was A Capricorn

4. Instigator of Temptation.

One of the founding members of the Temptations.

Eddie Kendricks - Son of Sagittarius

3. Gregorian Horse.

Anagram!

George Harrison - Pisces Fish

2. Colin Firth hates them.

Regular readers will get the reference.

Eels - Cancer For The Cure

1. Height, width, depth, time...

Height, width, depth, time... are the first four dimensions. As I'm not a physicist, I'm not going to try to explain the 5th.

The Fifth Dimension - Age of Aquarius

The stars tell me there will be more of this nonsense next week. 

Snapshots #220: A Twelve Days Of Christmas Top... erm, Twelve

Here's a member of the Partridge Family. Yesterday, we had Steve Coogan, aka Alan Partridge. I couldn't find a song with Partridge in the title, which almost derailed this quiz. And then I settled on the perfect solution...

12. Alias Harry & Jones.

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. and David Robert Jones.

David Bowie & Bing Crosby - Little Drummer Boy

Twelve drummers drumming...

11. Hayley's boy in Leningrad, as was (mostly).

Hayley's boy was Crispian Mills, the lead singer of Kula Shaker.

Leningrad is now known as St Petersburg.

Crispian St Peters - The Pied Piper

Eleven pipers piping...

10. This would be a royal scandal!

Imagine if Prince George was Harry's son!?!

George Harrison - My Sweet Lord

Check out the new video above, starring Mark Hammill, John Hamm and Weird Al Yankovich, among others. A lot of money was spent on it. I have no idea why.

Ten lords a'leaping...

9. No kilts.

Anagram!

KT Oslin - 80s Ladies

Nine ladies dancing...

8. Bernard Shakey.

When he directs movies, Bernard Shakey is the pseudonym he uses. Honestly. Google it!

Neil Young - A Man Needs A Maid

Eight maids a'milking...

7. Maiden on the Prosecco.

Iron Maiden and some fizzy wine.

Iron & Wine - Swans & The Swimming

Seven swans a'swimming...

6. Express, Trust, Park.

The National Express. The National Trust. The National Park.

The National - The Geese of Beverly Road

Six geese a'laying...

5. This is your one main sin.

"One main sin" is an anagram.

Nina Simone - Plain Gold Ring

Five gold rings!

4. Candymen (and women).

Shame on you if you didn't get this one.

(Or maybe shame on you if you did?)

Sweet People - And The Birds Were Singing (Et les oiseaux chantaient)

Can you believe that that got to Number 4 in the charts? In 1980!?

Four calling birds...

3. Shout a Smurf!

Anagram!

Rufus Thomas - The Funky Chicken

Three French hens...

(I think the French are quite funky. Don't you?)

2. Nothing to be scared of.

"Ridicule is nothing to be scared of," sang Adam, in Prince Charming.

Which gives me the opportunity to slip this in...

Anyway. Where was I?

Prince - When Doves Cry

(That wasn't actually a picture of Prince. But it was a Prince Christmas tree bauble. You can buy them on eBay. Or you might prefer to save your money.)

Two turtle doves...

1. Number One.

And because I couldn't find a song with a partridge in the title, I settled instead for this gentleman.

Andy Partridge.

Andy Partridge in a pear tree.

Here's a seasonal song from the man in question.

And, to close, the very best version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, from Father Jack himself, Frank Kelly...

Saturday Snapshots will return.

Just not next Saturday...