Celebrity Jukebox #3: Peter Lorre

"Wondering who else is going to pop up in this series now," said Alyson in last week's comments. "I know of one song where Peter Lorre is mentioned but surely there can't be many more. Maybe time to prove me wrong."

Well, I do like a challenge. And Casablanca was on TV this weekend... though Lorre has a better role in The Maltese Falcon, in my humble opinion. He and Bogie were mates, apparently. 

Let's see if I can find the song Alyson was referring to...

Could it be this?

Lou Reed & Metallica - Brandenburg Gate

I would cut my legs and tits off

When I think of Boris Karloff and Kinski

In the dark of the moon

It made me dream of Nosferatu

Trapped on the isle of Doctor Moreau

Oh wouldn't it be lovely

Hang on, Lou. It's Peter Lorre we're looking for, not those guys...

I was thinking Peter Lorre

When things got pretty gory as I

Crossed to the Brandenburg Gate

I was feeling snappy perhaps I'd been napping

As I just ate

A following heart can tear you apart

On a midnight to eight shift

A graveyard romance can only give one chance

As the tombstones weave and breathe

That'll do.

Do you know what? I've never heard that before. But I like it far more than I expected to.

This one, on the other hand, has actually featured on this blog before...

Kurtis Blow & Run DMC - 8 Million Stories

You wake up in the morning and you're feelin' blue

Because Vicki is gone and your money is too

She's more sinister than Peter Lorre

And this is just two of 8 million stories

Probably not the one Alyson was referring to though. Are there any songs actually named after Mr. Lorre? Turn out: yes... this one even has 80 views on youtube!

The World/Inferno Friendship Society - Peter Lorre

This one, however, actually comes from my own record collection...

Peter Lorre, Peter Lorre 

He's a brick, he's a brick

You can count on him in trouble 

Even if it's really thick

Any crisis, he'll be there 

Like a little squidgy bear

Peter Lorre, Peter Lorre 

He's a brick

Peter Lorre, Peter Lorre 

Runs a nightclub way downtown

Peter Lorre, Peter Lorre 

Always wears a evil frown

Don't spit on his shoes 

Or mess up his hair

Or he will shoot you dead 

And go back upstairs

A real gentleman

Never bad and never rude

Never mad and never crude

Just like Sydney Greenstreet

Just like Sydney... Green...street

In any crisis he'll be there

Like a little squidgy bear

That's Peter Lorre, not Sydney Greenstreet

You know I'm going to declare that today's winner, don't you? Even though it's not the song Alyson was referring to. Let's call that a worthy runner-up...

On a morning from a Bogart movie

In a country where they turn back time

You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre

Contemplating a crime

Sorry, Alyson!

Negative Songs For Negative Times #1: Molly

My old friend Sally bought me the above book many years ago when we worked in the same commercial production department. We shared a love of morbid songs that got us through the horrors of that job. (I now look back fondly on the "horrors" of that job, of course: further proof that life only gets worse.)

The book tells the story of some of the most depressing songs ever written - from Tell Laura I Love Her to One by Metallica. Alone Again (Naturally), Seasons In The Sun, Hurt... a great read, though it always rankled that the author hadn't chosen a Smiths track. Bruce is in there though, with The River, and Billy Joel, with Captain Jack, which I always thought was about masturbation, but the author insists is a drugs dirge. Anyway, it's a fun read - the author keeps his tongue firmly in his cheek throughout, and it has persuaded me to hear a fair few tunes with fresh ears over the years.

The other day I stumbled across a song I'd never heard before, but I immediately had to send it to Sally. It's by Bobby Goldsboro, who does make the above book with Honey... although the song below takes the melodramatic misery to a whole different level. Like Ruby (also chosen by Tom Reynolds), it's the story of a soldier who comes back from war, no longer the man he once was.

Tissues at the ready...

No, no, wait for the talky bit... the talky bit will always get you... if only for its needless exposition...

Saturday Snapshots #180 - A Top Ten Sand Songs

If you're stuck in the House again this Sunday morning, here's yesterday's Snapshot answers. Don't be Laurie if you didn't get them all...

A TOP TEN SAND SONGS

10. Imaginary compilation album gets weighty.

As anyone who follows The Vinyl Villain will know, an Imaginary Compilation Album is an ICA. A heavy one would be a Metal-ICA.

Metallica - Enter Sandman

Still not a patch on this version...

9. USA, avenge NZ!

It was, of course, an anagram.

Suzanne Vega - Song of Sand

8. Fair lady leaves the Queen in the company of two killers. 

My Fair Lady was Eliza Doolittle.

The Queen is Elizabeth,

If Eliza left the Queen, all that would be left is Beth.

The two killers were Dennis Nilsen & Mark David Chapman.

Beth Nielsen Chapman - Sand & Water

7. Where to get a good kebab.

From the doner van, of course!

Donovan - Sand And Foam 

6. Done to spells, lines, eyes and shadows.

You cast spells, cast lines, cast your eyes and cast shadows.

Cast - Sandstorm

5. It's easier to get down on one knee when you're not so old.

It's easier to kneel when you're young.

Neil Young - Cowgirl In The Sand

4. Kick to restart - amazing!

A free kick, taken to restart a football game, could be a corner. An amazing one would be...

The Brilliant Corners - Delilah Sands

3. Sliced ballerina.

An anagram for the wonderful...

Belinda Carlisle - Circle In The Sand

2. Eponymously big.

Giant Sand - Sand

Or you could have had...

Giant Sand - Every Grain of Sand

1. Central arrears.

Core debts.

More Snapshots for you (and Hugh) next week...

Conversations With Ben #1: James Hetfield & The News... and Sting

 

Rol: 

I'm thinking of starting a feature on the blog called Conversations With Ben. 

Part of me doesn't want to tell you this because I don't want you acting up for the cameras, but I figure it's pretty sleazy to not ask your permission, and also you might sue me for using your intellectual copyright or something.

Since your guest post, most people are convinced I made you up anyway.

Ben: 

I don't act up for anyone. My wit is and always shall be as sharp as those 70s pencil sharpeners on the teacher's desk that mangled the pencil. Use whatever, I'm not precious about what's said or used. I don't say anything I don't stand behind, and even when joking, there's not enough identifying info out there that people could use to discredit me. So go for it.

As I know you have a penchant for Mr Lewis. It's actually really well done the whole way through...

James Hetfield sees that and realises how his whole life has been a sham. Look at what you could have won...

They could make a new supergroup. Better Be True mixed with Nothing Else Matters.

Well, the News do need a new singer now that Huey has been struck down with Menieres. Which I still consider a tragedy. Meanwhile, Sting is fine.

Is he really, though?

I sat through The Bee Movie with Sam the other day. Awful. Sting had a cameo.

The only adequate thing Sting ever did was be The Face in Quadrophenia. And that was amateurish at best.

My favourite Sting song...

My favourite sting album...

My favourite Sting song...

I'm not sure we're talking about the same Sting.

Sting is more of an idea than a person.

Like the tooth fairy. Or Satan.

My Top Ten World War I Songs

100 years ago today.

Here's ten songs in tribute to all those soldiers - on all sides - who lost their lives in what tragically wasn't "The War To End All Wars".

With a special mention to Franz Ferdinand, who started it all...



10. Whistling Jack Smith - I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman

Rumoured to be based on a WWI marching song, the hit version was written by the two Rogers: British songwriters Cook & Greenaway. There was no Whistling Jack Smith, and some debate over who actually did the whistling. On the album version, someone shouts "Oi!" near the end, but this was "cleaned up" for the single release and changed to "Hey!" instead.

Those crazy 60s also brought us The Royal Guardsman - Snoopy Vs. The Red  about Baron von Richthofen, Germany's infamous Red Baron airman. Charlie Brown's cartoon pooch Snoopy often imagined himself fighting The Red Baron in the war.

9. Metallica - One

One of the more accessible Metallica songs, about a WWI soldier whose injuries are so terrible he's left praying for death.

8. The Zombies - Butchers Tale (Western Front 1914) 

Definitely the scariest song on this list... perhaps because (unlike Metallica's usual fare) it's a million miles away from the sunshiny pop of She's Not There.

And I have seen a friend of mine

Hang on the wire

Like some rag toy

Then in the heat the flies come down

And cover up the boy

And the flies come down in

Gommecourt, Thiepval,

Mametz Wood, and French Verdun

If the preacher he could see those flies

Wouldn't preach for the sound of guns

7. Siouxsie and the Banshees - Poppy Day

...In Flanders fields

The poppies grow

Between the crosses

Row on row

That mark out place

We are the dead...

Based on a 1919 poem by war poet John McCrae. See also 10,000 Maniacs take on Wilfred Owen... Anthem For Doomed Youth.

6. The Beautiful South - Poppy

Leave to Paul Heaton to mourn with bitterness and anger...

They dressed you up and took you off to World War One 

Armed you and surrounded you with wire 

Sat in stinking mud you sung your stupid songs 

And waited till they told you when to fire

Cause the rulers always laugh 

At a video bloodbath 

Nothing makes them laugh 

Like a video bloodbath

From the First World War to the Yom-Kippur 

It was Beadle's About 

The bayonets slice, the rockets roar 

And he jumps out

5. The Pogues - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Written by Scots-Aussie Eric Bogle (whose other big WWI tune was The Green Fields of France), but Shane and the boys did the definitive version for me...

When I was a young man I carried my pack

And I lived the free life of a rover

From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback

I waltzed my Matilda all over

Then in nineteen fifteen my country said, "Son

It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be done"

So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun

And they sent me away to the war

And the band played Waltzing Matilda

As we sailed away from the quay

And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers

We sailed off to Gallipoli

4. Radiohead - Harry Patch (In Memory Of)

Written in tribute to "the last surviving Tommy", the oldest survivor of WWI who died at the age of 111 in 2009...

I am the only one that got through

The others died wherever they fell

It was an ambush

They came up from all sides

Give your leaders each a gun and then let them

Fight it out themselves

3. PJ Harvey - On Battleship Hill

Polly Jean mourns the 500,000 who died at Gallipoli...

On Battleship Hill I hear the wind,

Say "Cruel nature has won again."

2. Randy Newman - Going Home

Here's Randy's explanation of this song...

This is a World War I song.
World War I fascinates me because it was such a shock to the world.
Nothing before or since has come close.
It was a horrible, horrible event.
It was modern weaponry and cavalry and then tanks.
They fought for four years over a hundred yards, some ridiculously small amount of ground.
It's the stupidest event in history.
This is one of those songs that I just can't sing - it's right in one of the cracks in my range.
So we did it to approximate what a recording of that era would sound like.
I know Mitchell's going to get blamed in some review for using all these effects, but we did it because I simply can't sing the thing.

1. The Farm - Altogether Now

I was nineteen when this record came out and I had no idea what it was about. I guess I just didn't listen to the lyrics...

Remember boy that your forefather's died

Lost in millions for a country's pride

But they never mention the trenches of Belgium

When they stopped fighting and they were one

A spirit stronger than war was at work that night

December 1914 cold, clear and bright

Countries' borders were right out of sight

When they joined together and decided not to fight

All together now

All together now

All together now, in no man's land

The same old story again

All those tears shed in vain

Nothing learned and nothing gained

Only hope remains

All together now

All together now

All together now

In no man's land

The boys had their say they said no

Stop the slaughter let's go home, let's go, let's go

(See also Pipes of Peace by Sir Macca Thumbs Aloft... which I like more than I ought to... but then, I was only 11 when it came out.)

My Top Ten Horror Actor Songs

It's Halloween - the night we all dread because the scariest creatures on earth roam the streets spreading terror and mayhem. No, not ghosts, vampires and zombies - children! Give me a werewolf any day over a belligerent teenager in joke shop fangs with a table cover of his head and a couple of sachets of ketchup. Like most sane people, we turned off the lights and hid behind the sofa till it was safe to come out.

While there, I realised that every year at this time I usually post a horror-related Top Ten... and I'd completely forgotten to compile on this year. So here - in conjunction with my Songs About Actors series - are ten songs which feature famous scary movie stars in one way or another...


10. Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead

You've got to either start or finish with this one, haven't you? I never quite got the appeal, but it's OK once a year. Chvrches do an interesting cover though. As do Nouvelle Vague.

9. Redd Kross - Linda Blair

 A suitably freaky tribute to the girl they couldn't exorcise.

8. Lou Reed & Metallica - Brandenburg Gate

Boris Karloff, Klaus Kinski and Peter Lorre all get a namecheck in this... interesting... collaboration. Not as heavy as you might expect.

7. The Huntingtons - Let's Go To Haddonfield

Stumbled across this song about one of my favourite horror movies - John Carpenter's Halloween - and its star, the original scream queen, Jamie Lee Curtis. The Ramones have a lot to answer for.

6. Garland Jeffries - Lon Chaney

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of the saddest films I've ever seen.

Oh Lon Chaney,
What's to hold you back?
The Wolfman's dead
And the old black cat is gone,
Like a memory faded from your past.
You look so sad,
With a face of stone,
Just skin and bone.
You're all alone,
With a hunchback's eye you live.

5. Jack Lukeman - Ode To Ed Wood

Cult genius or worst actor / director ever? I always had a fondness for Ed Wood, largely driven by the Tim Burton / Johnny Depp film which led me to seek out some of his work. Jack Lukeman does an excellent spooky tribute.

4. ZZ Top - Vincent Price Blues

This is both hairy AND scary. Honest: give it a spin... if you dare!

3. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Zombie Zoo

You look like Boris Karloff - and you don't even care!

2. John Grant - Sigourney Weaver

Those scary aliens gave Sigourney no trouble at all.

And I feel just like Sigourney Weaver
When she had to kill those aliens.
And one guy tried to get them back to the Earth.
And she couldn't believe her ears.

And there's a shout out to Winona Ryder in the second verse too: the scariest thing in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula was her English accent...

I feel just like Winona Ryder
In that movie about vampires.
And she couldn't get that accent right;
Neither could that other guy.

1. Warren Zevon - Werewolves Of London

Lon Chaney AND Lon Chaney Jr. - in the same song! And they're both walking with the queen...



Your suggestions always welcome. Just don't knock on my door with them tonight.