This morning’s selection was a real no- brainer; it’s the song which gives the usual Sunday morning series it’s name.
But there’s another reason; the original of this song is one of my Dad’s favourite records, and today marks four weeks since he was admitted to hospital following his fall at home. And four weeks later, that’s where he remains.
Actually, that’s not strictly true, since this week he was transferred to a different hospital where he can receive treatment from a more specialised unit for one of the issues which has been identified. (Obviously, I’m not going to go into details here.)
This is a live version, taken from a recording of a 2013 concert at Union Chapel in North London, one of my favourite venues. Coincidentally, it as also recorded on my birthday, and so I can only assume it was before I joined their mailing list or I would have tried my damndest to have been there.
I haven’t really posted much Kris Kristofferson since his rather underwhelming appearance at Glastonbury a couple of years ago, when he seemed confusedabout where he was, what he was doing there, what song he was supposed to be singing, what the words were to it, each song just sort of tailing off rather than reaching any definite ending.
I went to see Kristofferson play in Bristol a few years before this 2013 gig, and really enjoyed what I saw, although I had to leave early (a long story, which I’ve gone into before on these pages sometime, so won’t bore you with it again). I’d reported back Dad that the gig had been alright, and so, when Kristofferson next came to the UK, off he went, Mum in tow.
I think it was on this 2013 tour that they saw him, but their experience was closer to the disappointing Glastonbury performance than to the one I has been to, however it led to one of Dad’s proudest moments when he called from the audience to prompt Kristofferson with the words “…someone frying chicken!” when he floundered at one particular moment.
Thankfully, although I have no idea how many takes it took, he just about manages to get through it unassisted here:
Regular readers may recall that a while ago I mentioned that a couple of my friends have had some mental health issues -as have I, in the past (hopefully) – and that I was happy that both felt they could talk about their issues with me.
Shortly after that, one of them contacted me to say that they had been reading *gestures with an air of futility around me* this thing that I do, and had been taking the time to listen to the songs I post. One had particularly impressed them, by Teenage Fanclub, and they confessed to me that they had always been baffled by my allegiance to them, but thought that they may have got them mixed up with The Boo Radleys, who they really didn’t like.
There are many differences between The Boo Radleys and Teenage Fanclub; not least, the worst thing that can happen to you whilst wearing a Boo Radleys T-Shirt is someone might mistakenly think you a fan of Harper Lee’s works; wearing a Teenage Fanclub T-Shirt, on the other hand, can get you banned from various parks and playgrounds.
Anyway, I tried to explain to them that they had the wrong opinion of The Boos, thinking that it might be based on their Britpoptastic breakfast show staple Wake Up Boo! This was not, I said, in the slightest bit indicative of their early work, and I promised I would post something more in keeping soon.
And so here we are, with a single from their magnificent Giant Steps album; like several others in this series, rather than being quiet, introspective, acoustic or bleepy, this falls just about in the “great cacophany of noise” bracket:
After Friday’s post in this series, I wasn’t going to bother posting today, but when you have a legitimate reason to deliver some Bowie, how could I resist?
When the story of indie pop is written (if it hasn’t already been done) then The Brilliant Corners will be, in my mind, one of the most unjustly overlooked bands not to be mentioned.
Certainly, along with bands like The Chesterfields, they were pivotal in me breaking free from the shackles of “chart” music and listening to something just ever-so-slightly off the radar.
Their 1988 album Somebody Up There Likes Me is a lost jewel, packed as it is with witty (sometimes rude) observational lyrics about life on the breadlines, great pop hooks, parping brass and achingly cool (if slightly flat) vocals.
Technically – *technically* – I don’t need to write another one of these now. To the housebound and diary blind, simply refer back to this post for the next few days. I’m sure you can work things out from there.
As the lockdown continues, I had this vague idea that I’d start writing about my favourite albums, or all of the albums by my favourite bands (not Quo, don’t fret, although……..nah), and whilst I toy with that idea, and how to try to do it differently to people who have mused on the same topic before (presumably writing about their favourite albums rather than mine), I remembered a bit of live footage which I used to have on videotape of one of those bands performing songs from one of those albums.
And it occured to me that other than their debut album, released in 1983, but which didn’t even begin to speculate about the merest possibility of crossing my radar until five or six years later, I own absolutely nothing else by them, despite them releasing their tenth album in 2019.
Even then, when I say “own” it took me an awfully long time to actually purchase a copy on CD; I picked that up in Cardiff’s Fopp, and that didn’t open until 2004, having survived with a copy on an old C60 cassette tape from 1989 until then. I was, it’s safe to say, long overdue in investing in a copy.
I speak, by the way, of Violent Femmes’ peerless debut album.
I’ve mentioned it before on these pages, but it’s one of those rare albums with not one duff track on it, each one an absolute pearl.
So how comes I’ve never bought anything else by them?
Well, I’d like to tell you that it was because I’d listened to some of their other releases and just not been fussed, that nothing they did could ever live up to that first record, and so I’d rather my opinion of them remained unblemished.
That’s close to the truth, but still not quite true. I think that, sadly, that first record reminds me of someone.
I’ll explain.
In my first year at college, before I started actually DJ’ing at it, I would regularly attend the bi-weekly Indie night, Funk Off (terrible name) and it was there, the first time I went, that I bumped into two girls who I recognised as being on my course. They recognised me too, and over the next few terms we got to become really good mates, sitting together in lectures and bars alike. They would always come and sit with me and my male friends at Funk Off, to the point where the boys would refer to me as “Jez MP”, the MP standing for Magic Penis. (Pure jealousy, of course: all this actually meant was that I knew some girls and they were unable to even speak to any.)
Anyway, as was my want when I was that age, I became moderately obsessed with one of them, and it was reciprocated to an extent; after a night out, she and I would retire to my room in the halls of residence, put a record on, turn the lights off and lay on the bed listening and smoking.
Nothing ever happened, for I knew I was firmly in the friend zone, and that any kind of move would not be appreciated. Which was lucky, as I had zero moves in my repertiore.
Come the summer holidays, and I was back at home when I was summoned one evening by my mother to the telephone in the hall. That’s where phones lived back in those days: out of the living room so nobody has to be disturbed by your bellowing conversation.
There was a girl on the phone for me – which seemed to surprise my mother more than me – and when I picked up, it was her, the subject of my unrequited obsession.
“I’ve just heard this record, and I had to call you because you’re going to love it,” she said, disregarding the tradition of saying “Hello” at the start of a conversation.
And then she proceeded to play the Violent Femmes’ first album down the phone to me, like my own personal Dial-a-Disc. When the first side finished, I could picture her – as I can now – cradling the receiver under her chin as she flipped the record over and let side two start.
Neither of us spoke throughout and when it finished she did the equivalent of rolling over and falling asleep: she just said: “Amazing, isn’t it? Better go, this is my parents’ phone” and hung up, leaving me to sit dazed trying to work out how I could sneak the equivalent of a post-coital cigarette without my parents noticing.
When term-time came around again, she thrust the aforementioned C60 into my hands the first time we met up again.
That’s what you want in a partner, isn’t it? Someone who hears something, thinks of you, and makes damn sure you know about it.
And that’s why I don’t think I have ever bought another record by the Violent Femmes: for nothing could be as perfect, so unexpected, so welcome, as my introduction to them.
Violent Femmes by Violent Femmes is a masterpiece, choc-a-bloc full with catchy tunes, sing-a-long lyrics, teenage angst, enough rude words as to offend your parents’ ears, and all played on acoustic instruments which would inspire wanna-be musicians to learn to play their songs. I rarely give money to buskers, but if ever I hear one playing Add It Up I will literally empty my wallet into their flat cap.
So here are my favourite songs from that album; like I say there isn’t a duff tune amongst the ten, so it’s quite tricky to just pick four or five out, but I’ll give it a go:
Which brings me to that live footage I mentioned earlier. Recorded at London’s Lyceum Theatre back in 1984, broadcast in the wee small hours on regional TV, this is Violent Femmes performing the opening salvo from that album, and demonstrating why, if you’re filming your own gig, it’s essential that you make sure the cameraman is a fan:
It turns out that Thursday is not a day of the week which has inspired many songs.
Which is a shame, as I quite like Thursdays. You’ve got over the hump of the week (Wednesday) and Friday and the weekend is in sight. Give me Thursday over Tuesday any…erm…day of the week.
Anyway, here’s a song I found by popular Trivial Pursuit (Baby Boomer edition) answer, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich:
There’s something about that sleeve which made me hope that Mrs Thursday might turn out to be somehow linked to Mrs Jones. You know Mrs Jones, right? No, not she of Billy Paul’s Me & Mrs Jones fame. I mean the Mrs Jones name-checked in one of the finest rhyming couplets ever commited to vinyl:
Here we all are, sitting in rainbow
“Cor blimey, hello Mrs Jones! How’s your Bert’s lumbago?”
Until I got bored with writing a post a day a couple of weeks ago, Wednesday had developed into the place where I posted something “new”.
By “new” I generally mean an act that are new and up-and-coming, but today something new by a band who have been around for a while, but who I’d never heard of until this:
To me, a mark of a great record is when you hear the intro and mis-recognise it, believing it to be one record, but turns out to be something just as good, if not better, and you find that you’re not disappointed to be hearing a different song to the one you had anticipated.
For every time that Felony has cropped up on the radio recently, just for a few seconds my heart soars as I think they are about to play Spanky Wilson’s utterly wonderful version of Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love.
But even though it turns out they’re not, and even though I love a bit of Spanky (stop sniggering at the back please!) I think I’m just as happy, if not more so, to be hearing The Allergies.
This was the first single after Shane had been kicked out left the band, and at the time I remember feeling quite positive about their ability to continue without their main man.
I mentioned in my post on Friday how I had read a lot of people saying how they were losing track of what day it is in these ‘lockdown’ times of ours.
I’m not entirely sure why they can’t just look at their phones to find out, but here we are.
Finally, I can genuinely say, hand on heart, that I’m ‘giving something back’.
For I can help with this. Not all superheroes wear capes.
So everyday this week, there will be a solid way for you to remember what day it is along with any of my usual stuff that I can be arsed to write (which, judging by the last couple of weeks, won’t be much).
Off we go then, and in case you’re still not entirely sure, today is Monday:
There are a few bands who take popular pop or rock songs and cover them in a country or bluegrass manner, Hayseed Dixis being the most famous. As one might expect with such projects, they often have very mixed results.
Here’s one by The Twang, lifted from AC/DC’s legendary Back in Black album. As I say, ordinarily I approach such things with great caution, but this is not bad at all:
If you’re struggling with the whole ‘lockdown’, then a tip for you: rather than having the mindset that you have been ordered to stay at home, try to convince yourself that it was entirely your idea in the first place.
To assist, here’s 70s dreamboat David Soul, although I suspect he has more than binge-watching the latest Scandi-noir drama on Netflix on his smutty mind:
There’s something rather puzzling about the dots after the the title of the B-Side of that, isn’t there? Is it supposed to be an open-ended statement for us to complete? (“Mary’s Fancy…” what? David? Pants?) Or perhaps it’s two drag queens chatting as Mary, of whom they do not approve, totters past.
Yeh, you’re right: I need to get out more. I’m trying not think about it. Have you not been paying attention?
Tucked away in those chart positions mentioned in my last post was one other single which didn’t quite make it to the #1 slot. But serendipitous times decree that the driving force behind said record and band, Dave Greenfield, also passed away this week.
The single in question was this, by far their biggest hit and the one most will remember them by, many blissfully ignorant that it’s a song about heroin addiction:
I never quite understood why The Stranglers got lumped in with the punk scene, they never seemed to fit there to me. For a start, they all seemed a little bit too old and educated. Lyrically, I get it, especially as another of their greats, No More Heroes, invokes revolutionary vibes. But other than that…nah.
But I loved The Stranglers; when I hit my teens The Collection 1977 -1982 was rarely off my turntable (me and my Greatest Hits fetish again), most notably this, which shows off Greenfield’s amazing keyboard technique, and which must surely make Clint Boon hang his head:
If you had asked me, twenty five years ago, who Florian Schneider was, I would have shrugged and told you I had no idea.
If you then went on to tell me that you were from the future (bear with me) and that the fifty year old me was really quite saddened to hear that he had died, I would probably have called the (time) police.
But such is life and death; for this week I was indeed saddened to hear of the passing of somebody who can truly be described as a musical innovator.
For Florian was a founder member of Kraftwerk, the German minimalist electro band. Moreover, he’s the one from the band that you recognise.
Describing Kraftwerk as a band doesn’t seem right somehow.
Pioneers. That’s better. For that’s what they were.
There are few artistes that you can confidently say changed the way music is produced, listened to and appreciated, but Kraftwerk unquestionably fall into that bracket.
I first encountered them, as I imagine so many others did, when this single went to #1 in the UK charts back in 1982:
At the time, I remember being baffled that this weird sounding thing had knocked Shaky’s Oh Julie off the number one spot. Back in the days when singles didn’t just go straight in at #1, it lumbered its’ way up the charts in a fashion that just doesn’t happen now (I guess: I can’t remember when I last checked in on The Charts,but that seemed to be how it was happening last time I looked). It spent just one week at the peak, replaced by The Jam’s Town Called Malice.
The even weirder thing about The Model was that the week before it hit the top slot, it had gone down from #2 to #3. This sort of resurrection simply never happened; once a record had hit its peak, that was it, done and dusted. Off down the charts you pop. (It was kept off #1 the first time around by Bucks Fizz’s The Land of Make Believe.)
But something about this Germanic foursome’s record buying public refused to give in.
I’m not sure when things finally clicked and I ‘got’ Kraftwerk. I guess it was sometime on the 1990s, or possibly even the early 2000s. I suspect it may have been when I finally got my hands on a copy of the NME 40th anniversary album Ruby Trax – where contemporary acts of the day were invited to record a cover version of a song which had been a #1 single – heard Ride cover The Model, and thought a) That sounds nothing like Ride; b) that’s really great but is it really that different from the original? and c) What have I been missing all these years?
I do know that I was desperate to see them on their 2005 Minimum/Maximum tour, but didn’t manage to get there for some reason or other. Probably financial, as I would think tickets for a Kraftwerk gig were prohibitavly, and justifiably, expensive.
So here, to mark Florian’s passing is footage from that tour. Clear some me-time in your diary and watch this, two hours of minimalistic magic (m)electronica:
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve read people complaining a tedious number of numerous times on social media how, as we continue to stumble our way through ‘lockdown’, they find they are losing track of what day it is.
And just to cause more confusion, today, a Friday, is also, technically the May Day Bank Holiday Monday.
That’s right, Friday is the new Monday.
But worry not – this does not mean that immediately you think you’ve finished one week, the next sodding one starts. No, rest easy, weekends have not been cancelled. Not yet, anyway.
Many moons ago, probably when the Government thought they might need to rustle up some more jingoistic nationalism and Blitz spirit as the no-Deal Brexit they crave edges ever nearer (no, you’re right, I haven’t mentioned it for a while, have I?), some yahoo in a salmon shirt popped open their filofax and noticed that May Day – the Bank Holiday which traditionally falls on the first Monday of May – was due to take place on the Monday just gone, and that Victory in Europe Day (or VE Day) was today, the 8th May, and they wanted that to be a Bank Holiday for the nation too.
Actually, “too” isn’t quite right, for what they actually decided was that us oiks didn’t deserve to have two days off in the same week, so today became May Day instead.
If memory serves, the announcement was garnished with some florid explanation about how the economy couldn’t possibly withstand the idea of the majority of us taking two days off work in the same week. I’m sure, now that any public places where folks might want to gather to celebrate is closed, public gatherings cancelled, we’re all banned from standing within 6 feet of each other, and the Goverment is supposed to be furloughing thousands of businesses to keep them afloat, the irony of that decision isn’t lost on whoever made it. Could’ve let us have both and it wouldn’t have made a jot of a difference, would it?
I don’t want you to get the idea, however, that I don’t think VE Day should be celebrated, far from it. I think it is important that landmark military successes in our proud history are remembered. Plus, I have relatives who served in the armed forces (yes, I appreciate that does sound a little bit too close to “But! Some of my best friends are black/gay/Liberal Democrats…”) and I wouldn’t want them or any of their brothers-in-arms to think their work was not appreciated by yours truly.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to post Dire Straits’s Brothers in Arms.
I sort of remember having a lovely time attending VE celebrations in Cardiff Park many years ago, probably when it was the 50th anniversary.
I say “sort of” remember because I was, predictably, absolutely twatted.
I remember thinking how pleased all the drunks who usually lolled about in the park would be that several hundred chairs had suddenly been provided for them. Even more so that on this day they had something to sing-a-long with, rather than indulging in their second favourite past-time (third if you count sniffing industrial strength adhesives from brown paper bags, fourth if you count laying on your back zonked out on a combination of UHU and White Lightning) of just making up songs on the spot and singing them at anyone who cared to listen and a lot more people who didn’t.
For if memory serves, there was a real smorgasboard of entertainment laid on for us that day: an orchestra zipped through a selection of wartime hits, there was some opera, and I think Michael Ball probably sang. He has a tendency of turning up and doing that, whether he’s asked to or not.
And a bit of Ball is like catnip to your not-so-average sunburned Park drunk (“O! Mikey! Do Love Changes Everything, I fecking loves that one I does!”)
Anyway, to mark the day in my own sweet way, I give you this:
Towards the end of 2019, a quite intriguing record was released, featuring not one, not two, not three…ok, I’ll cut to the quick…but five generations of the legendary Carter Family.
The material included here comes from unreleased tracks by Mother Maybelle’s daughters June, Helen, and Anita, as well as a home recorded tape from the 1960s used by family members to share news among themselves.
The result is that members of the fifth generation are heard with their great-great grandparents as recordings on which original Carter Family members appear are seamlessly blended with contributions from later generations.
The results are a bit special; do yourself a favour and have a listen:
There have been many send-ups of boy bands over the years, but to my mind very few are as on the button as Newport’s least finest, Goldie Lookin Chain:
And just to hammer the point home, here’s the accompanying video, only with all of the effin’ and jeffin’ (which I probably should have mentioned before you listened to the song) censored):
There’s a reason for that – and no, in case you’re concerned, it isn’t related to my Dad’s health (although at the time of writing he is still in hospital).
This is one of those posts which I’ve started writing and have no idea where it’s going, so bear with me.
I had a long chat on the phone the other day, and during that conversation the person I was chatting to mentioned they read this, and asked me how my stats were.
It was a trick question, for I had previously told them that I wasn’t interested in how many views or visitors this place has had anymore. And yet I was able to answer quite precisely. Which meant I was getting too fixated on that aspect of blogging, the chasing of numbers. And so I took some time out.
Saturday mornings, though, is almost traditionally where I have a rant about whatever’s going on in the world that yanks my chain. It used to be Brexit, but now it’s Covid-19, or more specifically the Government’s handling of it.
“Now is not the time to be apportioning blame!” howl the gammon-faced who habitually do just that. “Now is the time to come together to defeat the common enemy” they scream in a rare moment of lucidity, attempting to evoke some kind of Blitz-spirit, even though World War 2 and the current crisis are in no way comparable.
Ok. I won’t then. But let me know when it is okay to criticise the Government’s handling of the pandemic crisis and I’ll happily chip in. It’s clearly not the day when they missed their target of 100,00 tests a day by the end of April (goal posts moved: that was what the pledge was, but now it’s to have the capacity to test rather than to actually test).
And that’s why I’m slightly reticent about writing a political post today, for satirical behemoths – BBC1’s Have I Got News For You and BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz – have both aired; I’ve watched/listened to them both, so I worry I may be inavertently nicking a gag or a point from one of the more famous participants.
But the Goverment’s position – that they had achieved or nearly achieved the target – is just laughable. For the stats they announced failed to take into account those who were tested more than once, and included testing kits which had been posted out, rather than those which had actually been returned and tested.
The adjusted figures I have seen suggest a figure of around 714,000 per day was actually being tested. And that’s fine, that’s good: that’s better than 713,000 per day.
But here’s the problem: we don’t believe politicians any more. I mean, you only have to look at who our Prime Minister is to see that’s true. Nobody believes a word that Boris says, because it’s Boris and we all know his history as a liar, a serial philanderer, a bully, a Brexit flip-flopper until the moment suited him, and the most shamefully incompetent and yet self-promoting Mayor of London in history (OK, for the latter part I’ll give you Dick Whittington: say what you like about BoJo, he hasn’t got a pantomime named after him. Unless you count the Cabinet, of course. Boom! Satire! ) and yet we – and by we, I do not mean me – voted the tousle-haired absentee Latin-quoting shagger into office.
It’s not often I find myself agreeing with Janet Street-Porter, but I saw this the otherday and found myself nodding in consensual confirmation:
I mean, she’s right, isn’t she?
We may have a bull-shitting, bizarrely coiffured, absentee numb-nut in charge, but at least we don’t have this bull-shitting, bizarrely coiffured, (golfing) absentee numb-nut in charge:
I *love* the way he has to clarify the word “doctor” by prefixing it with the word “medical”. You know, like all those other kinds of non-medical doctors you might ask about this kind of thing.
The day after that press conference, there was a spike in the amount of people admitted to hospital in the US, having injected themselves with bleach in the hope of ridding themselves of any virus potentially coursing through their neanderthal veins. Cue the POTUS back-pedalling and claiming he was “being sarcastic” when he suggested it. Of course you were, Donny.
See, perhaps when you say something sarcastic that is no more ludicrous than many other things you say, you need to make it a bit more obvious that it wasn’t an instruction:
A thought: if someone is so stupid as to think that by injecting disinfectant directly into them is a good idea – and by which I actually mean not only believing but acting upon anything Trump says – aren’t these exactly the braying yee-haw rednecks we should celebrate being removed from the gene pool? (And a big hello to all my American readers!)
That’s why Trump back-tracked: not through any concern or remorse for people self-harming as a result of his *coughs* sarcastic words, but because he realised that only his supporters would be dumb enough to do it, and dead people can’t vote him back in. Although he’d probably find a way to allow it. As long as they weren’t black, obviously.
But I’m not talking about any of that today. (Yes, that was me not talking about it. Welcome to my world.)
Instead, let me take you back to November 2019, when regular readers may recall I had to decant from my flat into temporary accommodation in a Travelodge whilst some anti-subsidence works were done to my residence.
I always promised I would write about my time in this Partridge-esque setting, but truth be told nothing much happened which deserved comment. There was no breakfast and so no Big Plate – sorry, there was breakfast but it was “breakfast on the go”, so a scrambled egg bagel, a coffee and a fruity muffin (stop it!) all for the princely sum of £5.25 per day and nowhere to sit and eat it, so I declined it every day – and other than my key not working every now and then (actually, more now and also then), there was nothing much to report.
Look. Here’s the view from my room; this as exciting as my time there got:
Beautiful, right? If that’s not inspiring, then I don’t know what is.
When I finally returned to my flat, I found that the workmen had literally done as little as possible. They had started painting my kitchen, but gone no further than painting the borders. They had been instructed to obtain new lampshades for the Big Lights in the living room and bedroom, but had elected to just swap them in the hope nobody would notice. They installed a new curtain rail and curtain which left about six inches between bottom of curtain and bottom of one window. They didn’t bother covering anything when painting the rooms, so now my belongings – a fridge/freezer, a coffee machine to name but two – have paint spattered on them, as does the bathroom and kitchen floor.
Along with the spattered paint, several clues had been left throughout the flat to confirm they had ever even been there: numerous fag ends tossed on the floor; paint on the windows – not just close to the window frames, but sloshed across the pane like blood at a crime scene; sandpaper, paint and rolling trays nonchalantly left on top of the cooker, a box of black rubber gloves left on the mantlepiece.
Wait, what?
Truth be told, that box of black rubber has subsequently saved me a couple of quid, since for the last month or so, the wearing of latex gloves has been demanded whenever leaving the boundaries of my residence.
Keen to observe goverment directives, (when they finally came) I ordered a surgical face mask, and was delighted when it arrived, for finally I could go outside without attracting the sort of glances usually reserved for serial killers and sexual deviants (I imagine).
Which was ironic for now I actually looked like a serial killer. Rocking the black latex gloves and surgical mouth-mask look gave me the appearance of popular 80s murderer Denis Nilson; whenever I ventured out I felt like I was en route to a serial killer-themed party.
Plus, I also found that every breath from my Covid-19 defiant, mask-covered mouth and nose caused my glasses to steam up. Any spectacles wearer who has walked into a crowded pub on a winter evening will know what I mean. Faced with the choice of inadvertently passing on a virus I don’t think I have or accidentally walking out into the middle of the road and the path of an oncoming bus, I chose the former.
And let me tell you ladies and gentlemen, that if there’s one thing worse than the disapproving looks you get for not wearing a surgical mask at all in public during pandemic times, it’s the looks you get for obviously having a mask but electing to wear it slung casually loose around your neck, rather than in place in front of your wheezing breath orifices.
I’m reminded of Rhod Gilbert’s encounter with the travelling chef on a train:
Time for an appropriate tune: Tina Turner’s Steamy Windows springs to mind, but I bloody hate that song, so instead, this:
And so to the weekly question I find myself grappling with every week when I come to write this post: to theme tune or not to theme tune?
Nah, not this week.
Instead, some RAWK!, and the first single from the band’s second album, produced by Josh Homme, who also appears in the video, along with Dave Grohl and Jack Black:
Unusually, the album version is shorter than the single version; I was going to prove this by posting the video too, but there are a couple of sequences where young ladies’ clothes are blown off by the electric guitar playing of band frontman Jesse Hughes. It’s all a bit Benny Hill, nobody needs to see that, I thought. Although, to be fair, Hughes’ fretwork does also blow the clothes of pretty much everyone in the video, including Homme and Black too.
So instead, here’s a half-naked Jack Black performing his very graceful Quarantine Dance, which should keep you happy for the time being:
Whilst I’m trying to stay positive and upbeat – at here, at least – in the face of all that’s going on (global pandemics, parents in hospital, not being able to go out in the annoyingly glorious good weather), today was always going to be a difficult day for me and my friends.
Because today would have been Llŷr’s birthday, and so he’s on my mind even more so than usual.
I mean, I still think about him every day; sometimes, accidentally, I manage to forget he’s gone, or my brain tricks me into thinking he hasn’t, and then it hits me again when I remember, usually brought on by watching something on TV which sparks the memory.
Yesterday I sat and watched all of the second series of Ricky Gervais’s Netflix sitcom After Life, which probably wasn’t the smartest move, dealing as it does with the aftermath of Gervais’ character’s wife death from cancer.
It has it’s funny moments, although as with much of his comedy, it relies rather too much on trying to be shocking, or the use of the c-bomb. Some of the dialogue is a bit clunky, topics launched into with no build-up or introduction. But every now and then there are some truly heart-wrenching and spot-on observations about death, loss and bereavement that I found myself holding back at least one massive blub per episode.
One thing which I did like about it was the casting of two characters in particular, one a returning character from series one, the other newly introduced this series. I’ll not give any spoilers, but the two actors in question appeared in a sitcom as neighbours back in the 80s, where they flirted a lot despite one being married, and much to to her husband’s paranoid dismay. To reveal which sitcom I’m referring to would in itself be a spoiler, so I won’t, but if you’re a fan of British comedy then I’m pretty sure you’ll know what/who I’m talking about.
That 80s sitcom was one of Llŷr’s favourites; he bought the box-set and I would often walk into the liing room and find him doubled-up on the sofa in a fit of giggles watching it.
The Office, the series which shot Gervais to fame, first aired when we were living in the flat of filth, and I remember us tuning in to watch it. Later, it was revealed that many people had watched it not realising it was a sitcom, but we knew what we were buying into.
When I wrote the post just after Llŷr had passed, I mentioned the mass of videos containing clips and full shows he had recorded; there was one show which was probably buried amongst it, but which I’d never seen or even heard of before, not until one day when we were visiting our friend Mark and the show came up in conversation. The next thing I knew we were watching hours of the stuff that Mark had on tape.
I speak of Sky Star Search, a TV talent show hosted by Keith Chegwin (thankfully fully clothed), and judged by a rolling list of UK celebrities from the 80s and earlier: Cleo Rocos, Melvyn Hayes, Sheila Ferguson, Stan Boardman, Rusty Lee, Derek Nimmo, Bernard Manning, Paul King…
You get the idea of the calibre of the show, I think, from that roll-call. As for the contestants who appeared: imagine the early rounds of The X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, the rounds where the truly terrible appear. And then imagine the contestants who were too awful to even make that round.
Actually, don’t just imagine: here’s some clips showing the standard of the contestants (and judges) who appeared:
…not forgetting this absolute classic, which for a while you watch and wonder if this is a Tommy Cooper riff, the awful magician act made funny:
And then those classic words:
“Robert, do you want a hand?”
“They’ve tied it too tight….”
A few months ago, was just after the anniversary of his passing, Mark and I were having a text conversation about Llŷr, part of which, with Mark’s permission, is here:
Mark and Llŷr DJ’d together once, in a bar the salubrious Splott area of Cardiff. It was a birthday party of someone Mark knew, I think. But it was in a bar, so I got there early enough to sneakily grab a table and get drunk offer moral support.
Here’s two of the records that I remember them playing that night; I’m not 100% sure who played which, but I could have a pretty good guess.
There was this, a favourite of mine and Llŷr’s (and probably Mark’s too; he came to see SFA a few times with us), often posted on these pages, complete with end-of-bridge to air-drum along to:
There’s a good chunk of that song which gets me every time, now, since he passed even more so than when he was still alive. I’ll leave you with the bits I mean:
And I have to speculate That God Himself did make Us into corresponding shapes Like puzzle pieces from the clay.
And true, it may seem like a stretch But it’s thoughts like this that catch My troubled head when you’re away And when I am missing you to death.
And when you are out there on the road For several weeks of shows And when you scan the radio I hope this song will guide you home.
They will see us waving from such great heights “Come down now!”, they’ll say. But everything looks perfect from far away “Come down now!” but we’ll stay
Before I go any further, I’d like to thank all of you who were kind enough to leave birthday and get well soon wishes to my Dad on Thursday. He’s asked me to pass on his thanks too, and described it as “…all a bit overwhelming, to be honest”.
As I write this, he’s still in hospital, although we’re hoping that he’ll be discharged if not today, then soon.
In the meantime, another song from the rich mine that is “Songs Which Can Only Be Country Records”.
It’s very important that I say a few things about today’s choice: firstly, released in 1965, today’s tune bucks the trend slightly in this category in that the title doesn’t quite reveal the full story, not in the same way as the previously featured You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly, and How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away? do. In an ideal world, it would have the next words in the song after the title – It’s Like Having You Around – included within the title. Put them in brackets if you like, Billy, but don’t give us half a joke title, man!
Secondly, don’t be fooled by the title, it’s quite the jaunty little number.
Thirdly, whether you elect to refer to today’s selection with or without those five extra words, my decision to post this today should in no way be inferred as any comment as to how my parents have been for the past week.
By which I mean announcing that you like this type of music but not that type. It’s never made any sense to me: why write off a whole music genre when there might, just might, be one or two records lurking in there that will float your boat?
The whole point of music is that’s it’s subjective, that no two people like exactly the same records, that there may be overlaps on the Venn Diagram but no two circles are perfectly aligned.
So generally, when asked to pin my colours to the mast, I’m reluctant to, partly for the reason above, but also because I’m aware that the “only guitar-based records are good” policy I pursued when I was younger led me to missing out on so much.
Looking back, I was still wary of announcing my position in any dispute even back then, although that was probably more to do with trying to avoid looking an idiot in front of my peers than anything else.
For example: why do I have to choose between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones? I don’t like them equally, but to have to choose between the two just seemed ridiculous.
Similarly, in the 1990s at the height of Britpop you had to be either Blur or Oasis. “Why?” I would ask anyone who pressed me. And, on the rare occasion when an answer was proffered it was invariably something along the lines of they very lame: “Because you have to!”
Erm, no I don’t. I liked some Oasis records, but a heck of a lot more Blur records. But I wasn’t going to stop listening to or buying one or the other through some misguided notion of faithfulness.
One way you can tell which of the two band were better is by looking at the output of the main figures after the band’s split:
That tune got a new lease of life a few years later, when Tim Deluxe got his mucky hands on it and mashed it up with another total banger to make this:
Today, more new(ish) music (new to these ears anyway) which I’ve heard whilst working from home.
Jetta first received recognition in 2013 when her song “Feels Like Coming Home” was chosen as the soundtrack for the Google Zeitgeist 2013 – Year In Review (whatever that means) which gained more than 33 million views.
On no account should Jetta be confused with a certain model of car produced by Volkswagen: she is from Liverpool and comes in two and four-door saloon/sedan versions, and five-door wagon/estate versions – all as four or five seaters. Oh, hang on a minute…I see what’s happened here…
Ignore my rubbish jokes, and listen to this, which reminds me of SBTRKT and Little Dragon, both of whom you should also like if you have any sense:
On Easter weekend, I mentioned how, because of “the lockdown” it would be odd that I wouldn’t be travelling to visit my parents, which my brother and I do pretty much every year, not for any religious reasons, more for it being a long weekend and, crucially, generally around the time of my Dad’s birthday.
You can keep your St George’s Day celebrations today, your William Shakespeare was born and (because he couldn’t handle his beer) also died on this day, for this year, today, is my Dad’s 80th birthday, which probably would have warranted a second visit.
Before lockdown, when pressed as to what he wanted to do to mark his milestone, he insisted that he didn’t want any fuss. Which was lucky, because he’s not going to get any this year – at least not via close contact with any of his family, anyway.
And that includes my Mum, because this year, he isn’t going to be spending his birthday at home. Oh no. He’s in hospital, recovering from an operation.
On Sunday, my Mum called. This is not a common occurance. (Actually, that’s not strictly true. My brother and I have set times on set days that we call them to have a weekly catch-up, and if you’re as much as five minutes late, your phone will start ringing as the enquiries as to why you haven’t called yet begin. “I took a little longer in the toilet than expected, Mum. Shall I take the phone in with me next time?”)
Anyway, Sunday is not my day to speak to them, so I feared something was wrong. And it transpired that as he was cooking his breakfast that morning, he had inexpicably fallen over. He couldn’t get up again by himself, and my Mum, who is probably about half the size of him and has just had a hip-replacement operation herself, couldn’t manage it either. An ambulance was called, and off he went to hospital where a diagnosis of an acute fracture of the femur was given.
I don’t know, some people will do anything to get out of the house during lockdown.
Unless he has made a miraculous recovery, that’s where he will remain throughout his birthday.
So since I won’t be able to see him to wish him a Happy Birthday – or rather, as happy a birthday as it’s possible to have laid up in a hospital bed – I thought I’d share a memory, which looking back now, probably had a lot to do with my obsession with music later in life.
Growing up, evening meals at our house during the week were always taken at the table in the kitchen, but often Saturday’s evening meal (if there was nothing on TV, in which case it was eaten off trays on our laps in the living room) and definitely Sunday lunch, were served in the dining room.
Which makes our house sound remarkably grand, but it wasn’t really. I mean, it was a decent sized gaff; not long after we moved in in the mid-70s we had a loft conversion done at the front and an extension built at the back, and it was in the latter that the dining room was situated.
Here’s a photo of the old place, which just so happens to be my brother and I’s favourite picture of Dad, fag in hand, leaning nonchanlantly against the back of what we think was his first ever company car (a Vauxhall Cavalier – there’s posh!):
Anyway, after we’d finished eating on a Saturday night, we’d remain sat around the table, picking records to play from his collection. It’s a tradition which remains to this day when the family meets up, although these days tunes are played via an iPhone and bluetooth speaker rather than from his hi-fi system.
Inevitably, since my brother and I were forbidden from bringing any of our records downstairs – he’s not daft, he’d heard enough Quo blaring from upstairs as I tried to play my guitar along whilst simultaneously trying to perfect my ‘foot-on-monitor-rock-god’ pose to know that he needed to subject himself to no more – the same records would get picked every week, to the point where, after a few weeks I started compiling a chart.
Because generally the same records got picked every week, it wasn’t the most exciting chart to read, I’ll grant you. There was no Beatles v The Stones, no Blur v Oasis.
But one rivalry did spark up, oddly between two records by the same artist.
And that was because Dad would always pick the same record by this artist, and, after a fashion, so would I.
You know when you were a kid and, if you had a sibling, you would both be charged with doing the washing and drying up every now and again? And how the one doing the washing-up would often lay down a challenge: “I bet I’ll finish first”? And the dryer-upper would rise to the challenge, hurriedly drying each pot, plate and pan, blissfully ignorant that the washer-up had to finish before the dryer-up because that’s the order that things get finished in? I say this like it’s a rhetorical question, but this definitely happened in our house, and no I wasn’t the one doing the washing-up.
The same principle applied here: having compiled the chart and established that Dad’s weekly selection was miles ahead, I started picking the same record every week, determined to catch him up, hoping that he would forget to play the resolute Number One. And of course, every week, after I’d played my choice, Dad – and he might let me think he’d forgotten for a record or two afterwards – would play his choice and I’d have a bit of a sulk and would vow to return the following week, surely to be triumphant when next we would joust.
When I mention the name of this artist, a couple of his best known records will spring to mind, and don’t get me wrong, they’re great, great records, but a bit…I dunno…’comedy’. The record I used to choose every week pretty much fell into this category, but the one Dad chose most certainly did not.
They’re both by an artist who is often cited as an influence by bands and musicians who came through in the late 50s and early 60s: as well as having an effect on the likes of The Beatles and Jimmy Page, in the 70s he released an album where his backing band comprised of Elton John, Ronnie Wood, Brian May and Ringo Starr. He later toured with Van Morrison, which displays far greater levels of tolerance than perhaps he had previously been credited. The Wedding Present have recorded a cover version of one of his songs. There’s doubtless many more who would cite him.
I speak, of course, of Lonnie Donegan, who I found out when researching this, died in my home town of Peterborough. It has that effect on people.
It’s a shame that he is mostly remembered for his ‘novelty’ records, for “My Old Man’s a Dustman” and “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It’s Flavour on the Bedpost Overnight?” and this, the record which I chose every week:
It’s a record which, now imbued with a a little more pop knowledge, reminds me of The Beach Boys “I Get Around”. That should be the other way round, of course.
Unlike this, my Dad’s choice which is neither novelty nor particularly skiffle, but whenever I hear it, makes me think of…well, Dad:
I don’t think he would argue too much if I said that was his favourite record.
And after today, annoyingly, it still remains top of the charts.
Dad: I know this might sound weird given where you are, but happy birthday. I’m so sorry that we can’t be with you today. When all of this is over, and you’re allowed home, and we’re allowed to visit, we’ll have a bloody good drink. Deal?
And if any of you are nice enough to want to wish him a happy birthday too, there’s always the Comments, and, rather than calling him Jez’s Dad, his name’s Den. That would be quite a lovely thing for you to do.
At least so I thought; do you remember a few years ago, The Third Degree released a cover of Duffy’s Mercy, and it sounded so authentic many thought it was the original and Duffy’s version was a cover? Well, I was reminded of those records the other day when I heard this from the Dap-Dippin’ with… album:
I was sort of familiar with some of the late Miss Jones’ work (they have featured on these pages before), and if I’m not mistaken, the Dap-Kings also used to perform and record with Amy Winehouse, but somehow this particular gem had escaped me.
What I did know about Jones was that she had a reputation for producing barn-storming cover versions, and this is just one from her canon. For the sake of clarity, Dip-Dappin’ with… came out in 2002, so Jackson’s version is definitely the original.
Although, were he still around, Prince would apparently disagree with me…
Apologies for the lack of a post yesterday; I could have sworn I wrote something over the weekend to feature in the usual I’m Not Too Keen on Mondays series, but apparently not. I think I decided after writing The Chain that I just couldn’t be bothered, which, given the supposed inspirational, motivational theme of the series is a tad ironic.
Anyway, I’ll try to combine the two, with this rollicking opening track from one of my favourite records ever. The title, however, may be a little inappropriate for these times, but since it clocks in at a mere 1:47 it’s perfect for here, and allows us to look forward to the day when we’re allowed out to have any kind of stroll at all, be it of the Rockin’ or just Plain variety.
Imagine it’s January 10th and you’re about to send an email. Do you still include that bit where you wish the recipient all the best for the coming year?
Similarly, I long for the days when I don’t have to start every email I send with the phrase Hope you and yours are keeping safe and well (or some varient thereof).
I mean, I do hope they are. Mostly. Okay, occasionally. (Never.)
I’m trying to keep things round here as upbeat as possible. You’ve probably noticed.
So whilst the album title that today’s tune is lifted from could be considered ironic in these days of lockdown, or at the very least read with a world-weary sigh, here’s a song which doesn’t try to pretend to be anything other than a dumb, fun trip down Yee-Haw lane:
I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that there’s nothing which can’t be improved by the addition of The Muppets.
Doctors and nurses may not have sufficient, or even the right kind of, PPE to be able to protect themselves from the virus while they work, but give them a furry puppet with ping pong balls for eyes, and maybe they’ll be ok?
In the same way that Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way has been culturally reassessed over the past few years (it’s a great record, always has been), so some other pop records from the same period should rightly be reappraised.
Having spent much of the last 24 hours writing the latest installment of The Chain, you’ll forgive me, I hope, if I rattle through the usual weekend posts.
I got quite excited the other day, when I went into my Drafts folder and saw this title.
“Zut alors!” I exclaimed, thinking that I must have at the very least started writing the next installment of The Chain. And that I was French or German or whatever that language is.
But no, my laziness and ineptitude was laid out there before me, for all I had done was write the title, and that was it. Classic me, if my deadline nightmares are anything to go by.
Anyway, hello, and welcome back to the latest in what is turning out to be an increasingly infuriating occasional series: The Chain.
But at least it’s here, right? We all need distractions and things to think about at the moment, things to fill the time, and surely there’s no finer way to spend some time than reading what folks from all around the world can link to one particular song. It’s what Covid-19 was invented for, surely.
A brief reminder for those new to the shnizz we get up to here: we’re working our way through the songs played on The Chain section of Radcliffe & Maconie’s 6Music show, coming up with alternative suggestions, and listening to them all instead of just the one (Mrs Wembley). 80s sitcom gag, there, to help you acclimatise to the level of writing you can expect should you venture further.
I used to write these once a week, but then couldn’t be arsed lacked inspiration for a year or so, brought it back and suddenly find myself wondering where the days/weeks have gone and how it’s got to the point where I really should have written it by now has arrived.
Anyway, blah blah blah poor old me….let’s be off.
This episode, just to be different, we’re not going to start with the source record from last time. Well not quite, anyway.
No, instead, we’re going start with the first part of one of Rol from My Top Ten‘s suggestions:
The album version of Tubthumping opens with an inspirational quote from the great Pete Postlethwaite, taken from the movie ‘Brassed Off’…
Dammit, it’s done my head in for years trying to remember where I recognised that from! Cheers, Rol!
Before we go any further with Rol’s suggestion, I’ll hand you over to one of the two people who insist on emailing me (which is fine, by the way) their suggestions rather than popping them in the Comments section:
You may recall that last time out The Great Gog got a little obsessed with the county of Hampshire. And rightly so: if Hampshire had a church steeple with a 123-metre spire, then them pesky Ruskies would be queuing up to smear Novochok all over it and any corporate Italian restaurant chain in the immediate vicinity (I’m nothing if not topical).
Anyway, things don’t appear to have changed much in the Land of the Gog:
The album containing Tubthumping is Tubthumper.
Thumper is a rabbit in the animated film Bambi.
There are lots of cartoon rabbits in the animated film Watership Down.
Watership Down is set in some Hampshire fields – which could take us all the way back…
Is it too early to be handing out points for Comments Showboating? I think not: POINTS!
By the way, I’m not going to post the Points Table every time I write one of these, as nothing much will change from one post to another. It’d be like looking at any sports league table over the past four weeks. I’ll update things and do it every couple of posts or so.
Or…The Great Gog continues…stretching the link to breaking point (You’re by no means the worst cuplrit, fill your boots)…given my ramblings above…[this] would seem appropriate:
The soundtrack to Brassed Off was performed by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, Rol continues. The Grimethorpe Colliery Band also played on this famous John Peel favourite:
Next up, over to The Robster from the annoyingly still dormant Is This the Life blog who offers this:
All I could come up with is Get Up by R.E.M. but I’m sure I can come up with something else given time. Probably got, what, 18 months before the next installment? which is a bit rich, coming from the man who only posts anything at the end of the year. Go on click that link to his blog, let’s see if we can’t get him back in action. Your country needs you, Rob!
I posted the album version of this song not so long ago in my I’m Not Too Keen on Mondays series, so here’s a slightly different version, a live one, which pops up as one of the bonus tracks on the Collector’s Edition of the Shiny Happy People CD single.
But since the band themselves have practically disowned that single (guitarist Peter Buck once described it as “relentlessly upbeat” and also said “If we did one of those per record, I could see how it could get a little embarrassing”) maybe we should too; it’s notable for it’s absence from many of the Greatest Hits compilations, despite it being their =4th biggest hit in the UK (after, in reverse order: Leaving New York (#5), E-Bow The Letter (#4) and The Great Beyond (#3))
They weren’t so embarrased by it that they declined to do this, though (and who could blame them: would you turn down the chance to appear with the Muppets on Sesame Street???)
I love that the female vocalist is a Muppet who looks like Kate Pierson from The B-52s who, as you all know, provided the additional vocals on the single.
But I digress: this version is neither the album version nor the tucked-away-on-a-limited-edition-CD single version, but one I *coughs* obtained from a long gone and much missed blog called (I think…) The Independence of Tractors (long-time bloggers and blog followers may be able to jog my memory….I’m thinking of featuring this soon and would like to accredit, so if anyone has any info….y’know….), who once posted the whole of the band’s Tourfilm DVD as a series of mp3s:
Onwards, then, to the next suggestion, and to Alyson from What’s It All About? who proffers this:
I got a bit worried when you mentioned Jarvis and his controversial stunt at the Brits as I remember whose expense it was at. But no, it was our friendly water boys who if I remember correctly soaked Two Jags Prescott. Sticking to my Scottish band theme I’m therefore going to go with The Waterboys for the next link and sticking with my “water” theme in this comments box, the song….
I think I should step in and clarify that, according to their Wikipedia page, they’re a Scottish-Irish band..
Anyway, nice of you to bring up the subject of Chumbawamba’s dust up with John Precott at The Brits, as this gives us licence to go off at a bit of a tangent.
To start things off, here’s George:
AChumbawumba was involved in an altercation with then deputy PM John Prescott, who was the MP for Hull. Also from Hull was Mick Ronson, who played guitar on:
It’s not really a surprise that Ronson was involved, given who wrote the song and who – keen-eared listeners will have noticed – also provides backing vocals on that: one Mr D Bowie Esq.
George adds: I was going to go from John “Two Jags” Prescott to The Jags and Back of my Hand, but changed my mind.
What, and you think that’s going to stop me posting it? Of course you don’t, you know I won’t be able to resist:
Since we’re on Prescott, indulge me for a moment with my two favourite clips involving him. The first isn’t really about him, but it is from a documentary he made back in 2008 called Prescott – The Class System And Me:
I guarantee you, she voted Brexit.
And then there’s this notorious clip:
In his defence: a) what would you do if someone chucked an egg at you? and b) later (admittedly when he’d had time to get someone else to write a witty response think of something clever to say, he came up with this: “Well, Tony Blair asked me to go out and connect with the electorate….”
Anyway, that leads me to my next suggestion of the week:
Over now to Martin from New Amusements who proffers this Prescott related…um… jewel, I guess:
Like George, I’m going with a John Prescott connection, but hope to craft mine into a Double Linker. Yes, Danbert Nobacon once up-ended an ice-bucket over John Prescott at the Brits, but John Prescott was also memorably once replaced on ‘Have I Got News For You’ with a tub of lard, so I can surely claim a double link to Tubthumping for anything lard-related, so I’ll pitch:
He’s not done yet: …which, lest we forget, featured Marc “Lard” Riley. Since this is also about drinking, much like Chumbawumba’s chorus, could this be a Triple Linker? And maybe a point for worst suggestion of the week?
I don’t think I can refuse, can I, dear reader? It’s unquestionably the worst record of the week (POINT!) and he has managed to get a triple link out of this, the first time this has happened as far as I can recall (Ermmmm…points, I guess….).
I think we need to cleanse our palate a little, and remind ourselves that Martin could easily have dodged the sub-Barron Knights tosh that is The Shirehorses by referencing it and then directing us to this:
If that’s not a double-linker, than I don’t know what is.
Well, yes, Yes it is. POINTS!
Anyway, for continuity purposes, take a step back. If You Tolerate This… was the band’s first #1 single in the UK (I’m sure this can all be traced back to a shared cheese salad…) and it contains the line “Well, if I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists”, which leads me to another draft post of mine which I never got round to finishing. And neither Chas nor Dave are anywhere in sight.
This one even had a semi-clever title: “You’re Not The One For Me, Fascist”.
I’ll hand over to the ever wonderful Charity Chic to explain:
Chumbawumba recorded a song with Credit to the Nation called ‘The Day the Nazi Died’…
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t allow a suggestion which was simply “X recorded the source record, and they also recorded this”, but since this was a collaboration with the frankly quite marvellous Credit to the Nation, I’ll let it slide.
Plus: Charity Chic has a point to make:
….Morrissey (who may or may not be a Nazi) – he continues (“Not my words, the words of Top Gear car magazine!”) had a song called:
…And he is a bit of a tub these days who could probably do with a good thumping…Charity Chic signs off.
Just in case you’re not sure what CC is banging on about, or on which side of the fence you should be sitting when it comes to the whole “Is Morrissey a racist?” question, well I’ll leave you to make your own mind up.
And here to help you is a picture of him performing live on The Jimmy Fallon Show in May 2019:
And here’s a close-up of the badge he’s wearing on his lapel:
In case you’re not familiar with it, and I hope you’re not, that is a For Britain badge.
For Britain are not nice people.
Oh my, indeed.
Here’s my rule of thumb when it comes to Morrissey, which you are welcome to adopt: yes, when he was in The Smiths he made some inflammatory comments in interviews, but none of them leaked into his lyrics. Since The Smiths split and he went solo, they have. Regularly.
So: The Smiths – fine to still express love and admiration; Morrissey solo – tread carefully.
Which leads me to a suggestion from Jules of Music From Magazines fame, which *checks notes* I’m disqualifying becuase *checks notes*…well, I’m not sure why to be honest, but I am and that’s that:
Carrying on with the high five, Mel Brooks ‘Hitler Rap’
Ah now, I remember; in response to Charity Chic’s anti-Moz post, Jules responded: A high five for that and I don’t think that’s enough to allow it.
Yes, I am a strict Taskmaster, and yes, Greg Davies, watch your back!
What else have you got, Jules?
As I am a tad partial to a cider drink or eight anything I suggest at closing time will make sense….
Well, long time readers of The Chain will know that certain things crop up repeatedly. For sure is eggs is eggs, someone will suggest either a record by The Clash or Bruce Springsteen just to annoy George, and Jules will suggest something by Lambchop.
No, not that Lambchop….
So let’s unclasp the shackles and let Jules free; I have to say that I almost rejected all that you are about to enjoy, until I thought about his first suggestion a little harder:
Any crossword fan would see the anagram “wham bam Cuba” and the country’s name was nailed by the Gibson Brothers:
Now, let’s be honest: every time we’re unlucky enough to hear that, all we can really think of is this:
…Dave Grohl left the drum stool, strapped on a guitar and became Mr Foo…which sounds like a George Formby record (“Oh Mr Foo, what shall I do…? A niche joke, I know), but I’ve gone off at enough tangents, so we’ll leave that.
This song has featured in The Chain before so strictly speaking should be disqualified, but looking back I see that both this and The Rezillos version were suggsted at the same time, and, unable to choose between the two, I posted both. So I’ll let this slide too…but only so I can post my favourite record about somebody getting their head kicked in:
…link being Chumbawamba covered this on the “Fuck EMI” compilation.
Which leads me back to The Robster, who hasn’t quite had the eighteen months he ribbed me with earlier to think things over, but nonetheless has returned with this:
I remember when Tubthumping came out, it was released on EMI *shock-horror* a filthy major label. The band was deluged with accusations of selling out and going back on its DIY ethos. But one of the reasons they signed to EMI was because previous label One Little Indian rejected the ‘Tubthumper’ album as they didn’t like its sound. The band subsequently signed to EMI as “…experience had taught us that in a capitalist environment almost every record company operates on capitalist principles. Our previous record label One Little Indian didn’t have the evil symbolic significance of EMI but they were completely motivated by profit. Our position was that whoever we signed with would want us not for our ideas but for the potential profit, so we’d battle for a contract where we still had autonomy.”
So to that end, I’m offering up…a song about the music industry’s obsession with making moolah with little regard for the art:
Hang on a minute: that’s two mentions of the same record company in as many messages. It’s almost like somebody has manipulated it so the suggestions fell this way…
We’re on the home stretch now, I promise. And with the finish line in sight, the baton is thrust into Alex G’s hand:
Of course, a song about a man who drinks a whiskey drink, a cider drink, a lager drink AND a vodka drink naturally leads us to Shane MacGowan. I suppose any song would do, but just to keep the theme going, it may as well be…
What Alex G omits to mention is that That Woman’s Got Me Drinking features the guitar work of one Mr Johnny Depp. When he’s not acting in the latest Tim Burton movie, or appearing in an advert for something smelly, or getting stopped at the border of an antipodean country trying to smuggle dogs across and subsequently being forced to make an apologetic if half-arsed video rather than go to jail, or defending himself against allegations of domestic abuse for that matter, there’s nothing Mr Depp likes more than to pop up in unexpected places:
Where were we?
Ah yes, booze related songs. I’m surprised there wasn’t more of these. Let me chuck one into the mix:
…on the bonus cd of Different Class, Jarvis trying very hard to keep his own accent rather than channelling Phil Lynott.
Pat has a point; I much prefer it when Jarvis sounds like Jarvis, rather than trying to sound like a drug-addicted partner of gameshow host Leslie Crowther’s daughter.
Two famous song titles are more or less quoted in the lyrics of ‘Tubthumping’ – the first one being ‘Danny Boy’, which, as we all know, is the Anthem of Northern Ireland. And what is the finest thing Northern Ireland ever produced, apart from ships (minus the Titanic. Obviously)?
Alas it’s not [I know] (although, Jez, nevertheless this should be a good excuse to include said tune in your essay straightaway), because, as I said, another song is being mentionedand that is ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’. Yes, I have noticed that Chumbawamba omit the ‘Argentina’ – bit (and replace it by ‘next door neighbour’). But this is purely for copyright infringement reasons, I’m sure.
Now, ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ is a song done by Julie Covington back in 1976. But only (freaks like) you and me know this. And Wikipedia. To the wider public another version is much better known, and that’s the one by Madonna from 1997.
So the link, no question about that, is, to my great dismay (because I would have LOVED to see my other option), Madonna’s version of ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’.
I mean, love ya for trying and all that, but it isn’t the link, and frankly Covington’s version pisses all over Madonna’s attempt, so Dirk: you shall (metaphorically) go to the (metaphorical) ball!
I always thought that ended rather abruptly, like the whole orchestra had spotted that David Essex had the microphone again, and downed tools to wrestle it from his sweaty palms.
Last one, now (sort of), for inspired by Dirk’s moving words, Walter has something else to offer:
…as Dirk said ‘Danny Boy is is the North Irish anthem and House of Pain celebrated the Irish style on their first album. Therefore I suggest:
(We may have to explain the difference between Northern and Southern Ireland to our overseas friends one day. But not today.)
I say sort of, because of course I have something else to offer.
Dirk also mentions Danny Boy, and you’ll recall that, several hours ago when you first started reading this, Rol mentioned the film Brassed Off and The Grimethorpe Colliery Band.
Which, just to make this all nice and circular (you know, like I know what I’m doing) makes right here a pretty good point to jump off:
Brassed Off was on Film 4 the other night. It remains a thing of beauty. If you haven’t seen it, or even if you have, and have a couple of hours to kill (which, I think I’m safe in saying we all do at the moment) then you could do a lot worse than spend them watching this: it’s up to stream on the C4 app All4.
And that leaves just one thing: the unveiling of the next link in The Chain, and trust me, had anybody got this I would have been suspicious.
Here’s the official link from Tubthumping to the next record:
[Tubthumping] was once sung by Homer Simpson of cartoon fame. He also sang:
Your suggestions then, please, along with your explanation of how your suggestion links to Mellow Yellow by Donovan, via the Comments section below or, if you must, by email to dubioustaste26@gmail.com.
Minus points to anyone who suggests Coldplay. You’ve been warned.
And one which involves a clever play on words or a pun inevitably has me applauding with admiration.
This is definitely not a new series, but this, which contains an absolute belter, came up on my shuffle the other day, and frankly I needed an excuse to post it, so here we are.
And yes, I know the phrase I’m referring to is a play on words rather than a pun, but I needed a snappy title. Deal with it.
I’m more of a fan of Lily Allen as a person than I am as a musician, as it goes, but that belies the fact that she has come up with some absolutely great pop tunes, particularly on her first two albums, Alright, Still and It’s Not Me, It’s You.
This was the lead single from her second album, It’s Not Me… and it’s really rather fine, dealing as it does with her sudden promotion into the spotlight and all the problems that brings with it, the reputation she had, deserved or not.
Oh by the way, that Parental Advisory label you can see on the cover is there for a reason; if you’re unlucky enough to be self-isolating and have kids to consider, then maybe wait until they’re out of earshot before playing this (I wish the label warned of “Effing and Jeffing” but sadly I don’t make the rules):
In a rare example of me being ahead of the curve, I’d not only heard of but had seen Manic Street Preachers a good while before they got anywhere near being famous.
For they had played as a support act at a gig we put on at the Students’ Union.
This was in the year before I became Social Secretary, and so I had nothing to do with them being booked.
And I can’t pretend I was in slightest bit enamoured with them when they did play; I can’t put my finger on quite how I came to this opinion, but I was pretty sure that at least 50% of the four-piece band were miming.
A few months later, when I had taken up my elected post, I was told that we had the chance to book them again.
“Absolutely not”, I said. “They were awful last time they played here, and I can’t see them having got any better.”
Oh, how wrong can a man be.
The Entertainments Manager, who had the final say over who got booked and who did not, decided – rightly, wisely – to ignore my input.
And so, the Friday night they were booked to headline (I say headline, obviously my indie disco was the main draw) rolled around, and as the crew set up, I was charged with looking after the talent, and on this occasion this meant taking them to the college refectory for some food.
We queued with the rest of the students, the band fitting in pretty well to be fair, and then we sat, the four of them with their bordering-on inedable meals in front of them.
Richey noticed I didn’t have any food. “Why aren’t you eating?” he asked.
“Budget doesn’t extend to me, just you chaps,” I replied.
“Have you eaten today?” (I was a lot thinner then than I am these days, or he probably wouldn’t have asked.)
“No, I’ll get a bag of chips on the way home.”
He pushed his plate into the middle of the table.
“Here, have some of mine”, he said, and so it was that I shared a cheese salad with Richey Manic. (Sharing a Cheese Salad with Richey Manic so nearly ended up being the name of this blog.)
This in no way colours my reappraisel of them when they played that night, but everything clicked and fell into place, I suddenly got them. And if they had been miming the first time, they definitely weren’t miming now.
In the years after, when I was working in retail in Cardiff, I sold Nicky Wire the entire Echo & The Bunnymen back-catalogue, and James Dean Bradfield some athlete’s foot powder (in different shops, of course).
But I never again crossed paths with Richey, who went missing a few years later in 1995, never to be found again. He was pronounced “presumed dead” in 2008.
Motorcycle Emptiness remains their finest moment, but for my money this remains them at their most angry, visceral and magnificent. Lyrics all by Richey (I think!):
Today, I’ll be straying into the land of La La La, rather than the usual Ba Ba Ba’s you find in this occasional series. And with good reason.
For yesterday, the terribly sad news came that Tim Brooke-Taylor had died due to Covid-19.
Growing up in the 1970s, Tim was, along with Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie, an absolute hero of mine, for he was one of The Goodies.
You will often hear people say that ground-breaking, anarchic, anti-establishment comedy started with the likes of Not The 9 O’Clock News, or Spitting Image, or The Young Ones. But they’d be wrong, for the irreverance and disregard for form came a few years earlier with the hirsute threesome.
And just like The Young Ones did a few years later, The Goodies exploited their popularity by releasing a few singles, one of which I had bought for me, and which got played a lot, probably long before I was aware of the original:
I was switched on to The Goodies because I used to listen to repeats of I’m Sorry, I’ll Say That Again when I was a kid; a radio sketch show predominantly featuring Tim with John Cleese and fellow Goodie Grame Garden, amongst others.
More recently, I had reconnected with Tim via his regular appearances on I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue, the anti-panel panel show, now hosted by Jack Dee and which I cannot recommend you listen to enough, next time it crops up on the BBC Sounds app (which, given yesterday’s sad news, cannot happen quickly enough).
One of the many absolute highlights of the show – apart from the deeply unfathomable (and deliberately so) Mornington Crescent round – is the round where contestants are asked to sing the lyrics of one song to the tune of a completely different one.
Here’s an example, Tim singing The Smiths’ Girlfriend in a Coma to the tune of Tiny Tim’s Tip-Toe Thru the Tulips:
He’ll be sadly missed round these parts: rest in peas, Tim.
Technically, since the purpose of this series is to give us all impetus to get up and out of bed at the start of another working week, there’s no need for me to write one of these today, Bank Holiday Monday as it is.
But those of us lucky enough to be a) working from home and b) not considered to be a key worker, there’s no rush today.
(By key worker I don’t just mean those working in the NHS – I mean them, of course, just not just them – I mean all those who are continuing to work throughout the current corona-crisis: our retail workers, stocking the shelves and then apologising when they’ve run out of bread, pasta, rice, toilet roll (although, is it just me, or have things been getting better on this front recently?); or postmen and women, diligently delivering all the crap we’ve bought online when bored/drunk/delete as applicable; our refuse workers, carrying away all of the packaging which encases the stuff we’ve bought etc etc etc.)
So, today, a balls-out 70s classic, guaranteed to make you want to shake your booty.
Ok, so it’s lyrically “of it’s time” and most definitely not on point with the whole #MeToo movement.
And strictly speaking, it’s a late night song. Well, it is for me anyway.
I’ll explain.
Back when I lived in Cardiff, I would often frequent Barfly on either a Friday or a Saturday night, a teensy tiny little indie venue, downstairs in a place opposite the castle that stayed open until or 2 or 3 in the morning. I’ve no idea if it’s still there or not, but I loved going there. Often there would be a band on, and I saw many wonderful acts there: Young Knives, The Dears, Graham Coxon, Cud, (ahem) Jet. Loads more that I can’t recall right now. (But yeh, I did remember Jet. Suck it up.)
Anyway, obviously there was the obligatory indie disco when bands weren’t playing, and, as the night went on and the club emptied I would inevitably sidle up to the DJ and ask him if he had his last record of the night sorted yet. He, equally inevitably, would look at me totally non-plussed and tell me he hadn’t. He didn’t need to ask what I was going to suggest, not because he knew what it would be, just that there was a request coming.
“Well, can I make a suggestion….?” I would proffer, and since by this time the venue had practically emptied, leaving just me, a couple of bearded alcoholics propping up the bar and taking full advantage of the late-night serving, and a gaggle of goths at the back of the room, none of whom were likely to dance, he would (inevitably, wearily) say: “Go on….”.
And I would suggest this record, and he’d play it, and I’d spend the last 4:40 seconds of my night out (excluding walking home or trying to flag a taxi down time), whirling around an otherwise empty dancefloor, trotting out every rock’n’roll trope you could name.
It’s a song which has more false endings than the bloopers reel on Smokey and the Bandit, so a new homage would commence with each: Pete Townsend’s helicopter whirl? Check. Chuck Berry’s duck-walk? Check. Quo’s legs astride heads down head-bang? Check. Morrissey’s finger-holding-hearing-aid-in-ear-whilst-brandishing-imaginary-gladioli? Check.
Throughout the week, I will often worry that I won’t be able to think of a song to post in one of my long-running series.
And then something so unequivitably wonderful comes up on shuffle and all my prayers are answered to the point where I find myself wondering how I’ve managed to avoid posting this before.
Two weeks in to this revived series, and already I’m breaking my own rules about posting old skool classics.
But this is worth it, for it sounds like it’s from back in the day, but there’s enough of a modern (at the time it came out, in 2008) twist to bely the fact it’s not as old as it pretends to be.
What I’m trying to say is that this is fecking great and demands to be played L-O-U-D:
Well, on Sunday, The Queen addressed the nation. 24 million people watched.
I wasn’t one of them. Not a big fan of the Royals, me.
I want to make it perfectly clear that, having read the transcript of her message, I have no problem with it. (This is merely an opening clause, bear with me.)
Turns out I didn’t need to watch it, because both the mainstream and social media were all over this. It was a timely reminder, it seems, on a weekend when various parks were closed because people weren’t using them in line with the current rules.
The current rules are not complicated: the parks – presently – are there for people to get their daily permitted exercise, provided they socially distance themselves from others doing the same thing.
So, if you decided to go and have a picnic or sunbathe: you’re a dick and you’ve spoiled it for everybody.
Speaking of dicks, later that evening it was announced that Boris Johnson had been admitted to hospital with the coronavirus. And suddenly, my timeline on Twitter was awash with people wishing him well, hoping and praying for a speedy recovery.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t wish the man dead. But this is the same man who only weeks ago was boasting about visiting hospitals and shaking hands with coronavirus sufferers, willy-wanging about how he wouldn’t stop doing this; who implemented a plan of allowing the virus to spread through the country so that we could develop “herd immunity”.
A policy which leads us here, to where we are today (I’m writing this on Friday, so this will have changed in the interim), with 65,077 confirmed cases, of which 7,978 have died.
I’m not claiming that all of those deaths were avoidable, but some of them definitely were.
And then we were asked to #clapforBoris, a most unfortunate hashtag, given his legendary if unfathomable reputation as a pork swordsman.
I don’t know of anyone who did this; the only footage I’ve seen was on The Telegraph website, depicting folks clapping and cheering, which turned out to have been filmed two weeks earlier, actually depicting folks clapping and cheering the NHS.
So, no: I don’t wish Boris dead. But I’m definitely not going to applaud the venereal old warthog, and I certainly wouldn’t shed a tear if he died as a result.
Oh no, wait: maybe there would be some tears, because it seems that if Boris did croak, Dominic Raab would be in charge.
That’s Dominic Raab, he of restricted understanding, who announced that he didn’t fully understand that the UK is an island, that Dover is a port, and that France is our nearest trading partner.
There’s so much to say about how thick Raab is, but I’ll let the master of takedowns do it:
Anyway, in Boris’ enforced absence, Raab has been hosting the daily updates, and – credit where credit’s due – has been championing the work of our keyworkers, the NHS staff on the frontline.
Have they got proper PPE yet? Or enough ventilators? I’m not sure. Probably not. But champion them he did.
Many of them the very people that Priti Patel wants to have removed from the country.
Ah, Priti Patel. I should add something about all that the Home Secretary has said or done in the past few weeks, but she hasn’t been seen for ages. Just what you need at a moment of national crisis. But as I write this, she seems to have re-emerged, giving a speech about how the police should just chill out a bit.
And then there’s Matt Hancock. Matt Hancock is such a mouth-breather I’m surpised he isn’t hoovering up all the Covid-19 droplets on his own. In a “Who looks the most gormless?” competition, he would potentially only be beaten by former snooker player Neil Foulds. Or Baldrick.
Schnozzeling up all the bad droplets would be a good thing here: we already know he has super-human qualities, given that he self-isolated for just three days – in direct contravention of the Government’s policy – after he began displaying some of the virus related symptoms.
But anyway, Hancock popped up at the start of the week moaning about how much professional footballers are paid, and saying that they should be contributing more to help the NHS.
Now I don’t disagree that professional footballers are paid way too much, but – Thatcherites take note – the market is what the market is. But they’re a bit of an eaasy target here. Why single them out and ignore…oh, just off the top of my head…Google, Amazon, Starbucks and Vodafone, all of whom avoid paying billions into the public coffers, or any of the billionaires who donate to the Conservative party? It seems spectacularly selective at best.
And let’s not forget that Hancock also said this week that now is not the time discuss increasing health workers’ pay. Actually, now is exactly the right time to discuss it. And this was particularly rich, given that MPs were told they could claim an additional £10,000 in expenses for working from home. I’ve been working from home for almost three weeks, where’s my extra ten grand?
Which brings me back to Our Liz. (See? I told you to bear with me.)
Why is the Royal Family not taking a hit here? The monarchy cost British taxpayers £67m during 2018-19, a 41% increase on the previous financial year.
They won’t be travelling abroad much, if at all, in 2020. There’s a saving there, right?
Two of them, and their child, have just renounced their position, moved to Canada and been told they will no longer receive payouts from the public purse. So what’s happening to that money?
And is Prince Andrew still getting his full whack, despite everything? I know his birthday party was cancelled, bless him – there was a balloon sculptor booked and that’s his favourite – but are we still funding the (alleged) paedophile? Is Woking branch of Pizza Express that close to bankruptcy we have to make sure he can visit there as often as possible?
But they bring in so much revenue through tourists, is the usual defence that gets trotted out in such arguments. Not this year, they won’t.
We should be getting some money back off them, surely?
So forgive me if, when I read the words of the Queen’s broadcast to the nation, where she evokes the Blitz spirit, and asks us all to come together and act appropriately to overcome the common enemy, and then I read how wonderful her speech was received, I just think of this.
It may have escaped your attention, in these weird days of self-isolation and lockdown, that it’s Easter Weekend, news that would normally be greeted with great joy since it hails every working person’s favourite type of weekend: the four day one.
But not this year.
I’ve been working from home for the past couple of weeks, and all this means is that in the same way that I wouldn’t normally go to the office until Tuesday, this year I don’t have to go to my living room for the same period.
Which will make this weekend seem even longer than it will already feel.
Some other traditions won’t be observed this year; for example, ordinarily I would go and spend the weekend with my parents, but that’s off the menu now. Easter usually falls close to my Dad’s birthday – it doesn’t this year, but I doubt I’ll be able to visit him when it does happen later in the month, and this is particularly frustrating this year, as he celebrates a significant milestone this year. More of this a little nearer the time.
In the meantime, one tradition which lives on: that I post this song every Good Friday.
In the late 80s, around about the same time as The Smiths split up, major record labels began to look around for the next big thing.
And when they found an act that was getting any sort of traction with “the kids”, they signed them up, shoved them into a studio and got them to churn out an album that was nowhere near as good as they had been when they were on a teeny little indie label.
At least, that’s how it seemed to us at the time; these bands had sold out, taken the corporate dollar, and everything they would release from that point had no artistic value whatsoever.
I can look back now and see just how naive that viewpoint was: what band, when the majors came calling, wouldn’t shake their hand? Of course you would. You don’t know how long your shelf life is, so take the cash whilst it’s there, and hope your contract is good enough that you don’t have to pay everything back to them.
That said, there is definitely a correlation between acts who were blazing a trail on the Indie Scene back then, and their output after they got signed up, and rushed into a glossier, shinier world of ‘product’.
Which begs the question: did they become shit because they signed to a major, or did they only really have a couple of good songs in the first place?
A case in point: this, with it’s Sisters of Mercy-esque sleeve (they sound nothing like them, by the way) is excellent, but I can’t find anything after this worthy of note, which is a shame, because this is so great. Imagine early Echo & The Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes having a jam and then turn it up to 11. Or save your imagination for other things and just listen to it:
I can’t believe I haven’t posted this before, but, unless I forgot to tag it, having trawled through all my older posts featuring this band, it seems not.
Back in 1995, Teenage Fanclub released a four track EP of acoustic versions of songs from their back catalogue.
All of them are magnificent, this one especially so:
And by ’em I mean a) men, and b) songs with great titles.
Last time she appeared on these pages, she was duetting with Conway Twitty on a lovely little ditty called You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly.
And here she is again, this time with Ernest Tubb on a song which you may find listed in some places with the incorrectly added brackets at the end (When I’m Dead And Gone?) – incorrect not just because that’s not the song title, but also because those aren’t words which feature in the song:
Some of you may recognise this from a cover version the late, great John Prine released in 2016 on his For Better, or Worse album, with Iris DeMent taking on the Loretta role:
Sexy times at the LNS terraced bar tonight, with the constantly gobsmackingly brilliant Janelle Monáe doing the best goddamn Kiss-era Price impression you’re ever likely to hear.
Warning: this is the album version which contains not just a fair bit of effing & jeffing, but enough fruity talk to make Innocent smoothies think about a name change:
I know I have often moaned in the past about how time-consuming it is to write The Chain, but this morning, at around 2am, having put off writing it every day this week, it suddenly occured to me that there are three reasons why it takes me so long:
1. You won’t be surprised to learn that I don’t own every record that gets suggested, so I have to track down a copy to post here. I quite enjoy this aspect, as it goes;
2. As I’m going through all of your suggestions, I put all the songs on a playlist so I can familiarise myself with them, and hopefully come up with either some decent jokes (I’ll let you be the judge of how succcesful I am with that) and/or some funny video clips to include in the post. This latter aspect, as I’m sure you can imagine, often leads me down a YouTube rabbithole. That said, I quite enjoy this aspect too;
3. For practically every song you suggest, I manage to think of at least one more to link to either the source record, or your suggestion. That’s not meant to sound like a boast, more a statement of fact: people who write music-based blogs tend to know quite a lot of records. I try to exert some kind of control over the amount of my own suggestions I include but sometimes I just can’t resist. I really like this aspect as well.
So next time I moan about what a pain it is to write The Chain, ignore me. Once I get going on it, I bloody love it.
As can be seen by the amount of suggestions I’ve made this time.
And that’s despite the source record being, in my opinion, one of the worst singles by – well, I’m not going to say the worst bands, not when Black Eyed Peas and Coldplay are both things – but certainly by a band that I don’t much care for.
In case you’ve forgotten, said source record this time around was this:
As usual, the suggestions can be split into categories, one for each word: ‘U2’, ‘Beautiful’ and ‘Day’, with a few tangents thrown in for good measure.
We’ll save the vitriol of links to U2 for later I think, so let’s start with a suggestion from PhonicPat:
“[Beautiful Day] is from their ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind” album which leads nicely to…:”
Over to C from Sun Dried Sparrows to kick off all the nominations linked to the word ‘Day’ and complete the cleansing of the palate:
“I think ‘keeping it simple’ will be my mantra from now on, so… Beautiful Day takes me to beautiful Days. I’ve just been through your back pages and I couldn’t see Kirsty MacColl’s sublime cover version appearing here before, so can we have that one please?”
Next up is a clutch of suggestions/songs mentioned in passing – which you all know I can’t resist – from Kay. For those of you who don’t know, Kay is my manager at work, but also a friend. She, too, wants to keep things simple:
“I’m a simple soul [I’m saying nothing – Ed], so I immediately started thinking of songs about a particular day of the week. First thought was…”:
“…then remembered [Look out, folks, she’s off. Experience tells me to get comfy and look like you’re paying attention – Ed] Foals had a song called Sunday, and I thought I would choose that, so you’d have to post it (much to your disgust)…”
Allow me to explain that “much to your disgust” comment: I’m not a Foals fan. I don’t dislike them either, to be honest. I just find them a bit “meh”. I don’t understand why anyone would want to pay money to go and see them, unless they need to pick up a new Yasser Arafat-type scarf from the merchandise stall, that is.
Anyway, carry on.
“…but then thought neither a Monday or a Sunday is a beautiful day. So I’m going for…”
I’m not sure if this has any bearing, but before we all had to work from home, Friday would be the day when someone was most likely to bring cakes into the office.
In the spirit of full disclosure, Kay’s email to me with her suggestions began like this:
“Here’s my suggestion…(it’s a bit basic, so doubt I’ll win the Showboating prize)…I have an alternative (that could be a Worst Record of the Week Award contender)…”
You know me, dear reader. I was intrigued and pressed Kay as to what that might be.
Time for a clip, and I imagine most of you will know that popular comic creations Lou & Andy from Little Britain…:
…are based on Lou Reed and Andy Warhol as played by David Walliams and Matt Lucas in an old Rock Profile sketch, reprised here on The Ralf Little Show (no, me neither):
Anyhoo. Kirsty MacColl also covered Perfect Day, with the Lemonheads’ Evan Dando, of course. But I’d be overdoing it if I posted that too, so we’ll save that for another…erm…day.
Instead, here’s Kirsty doing something which just begs to be played right after that:
That’s all the ‘Day’ suggestions, and before we move let’s move on to the “Beautiful” links, a suggestion which covers both, and I’ll hand you over to The Robster from on/off/on-again/no-he’s-definitely-gone-this-time Is This The Life?
“Beautiful Day was used by ITV for their ill-fated coverage of The Premiership back in, erm, I don’t remember. Quite a few years ago. The song I always associate with football on TV is Life Of Riley by the Lightning Seeds which Match Of The Day used for its Goal Of The Month feature.”
Ill-fated it certainly was, for two reasons: firstly, given an alternative, I don’t know anyone who would elect to watch football on ITV, and secondly, tactical analysis was provided by former professional footballer Andy Townsend, not from the comfort of a warm studio, but from what was know as The Tactics Truck, for no other reason, it seemed, than alliteration.
Whilst we’re on the subject of football, here’s PhonicPat with a couple of suggestions which I’ll allow, even though they link to The Robster’s suggestion more than to the source record:
“Late to the party this time around and some of my thoughts already reflected in the comments [but I haven’t got to them yet in this post, in case you were wondering – Ed]…More footy with…”:
Sorry, Pat. I can’t say I enjoyed that one. Worst Record of the Week, in my book.
Now we’ll move on to just plain Beautiful, words often used to describe Swiss Adam from Bagging Area, I’m sure:
“There are lots of songs that link to beautiful – Peaking Lights’ Beautiful Dub has the double pleasure of the word in its title and being beautiful to listen to.”
Ok, to break me out of this run, since we’ve now learned that a Beautiful Noise makes Mr Diamond feel good, just like a hand in a glove, I have to post this, don’t I….?
I’m not sure if that’s meant to be a compliment or not. If it is, then frankly that’s not what we expect when asked to comment about U2 round here. Please allow Swiss Adam to show you how it’s done:
“U2 are bad. Really bad. Negativland nailed them and their egos with The U2 Song, daring them to sue. Which they did.”
There’s a little snatch (and no, I don’t mean Bono) of the melody of that, such as it is, which reminds me of Una Paloma Blanca by Jonathan King, but since I’ve banned Morrissey’s solo records from the blog because of his extremist views, I guess I should extend that to convicted paedophiles too. So instead, here’s the George Baker Selection with the titularly-truncated (presumably Ms Stubbs complained) Paloma Blanca:
Going back to expressing one’s…erm…admiration for U2, perhaps one could take a leaf out Stevie from Charity Chic Music who does it in a much more subtle way:
“A mention of U2 leads to You’ve Already Put Big Old Tears in my Eyes (Must You Throw Dirt in my Face) by the Louvin Brothers”
Personally, whenever I hear the name U2, I want to rebel against it, and listen to the complete opposite. So, like a typically confusing clue on 70s game show 3-2-1…
…here we go: The clue mentions the complete opposite and the the opposite of U could be Me or it could be We; the opposite of the opposite of 2 is the number immediately adjacent to it, so it could be 1 or it could be 3; if you want to rebel against something then you want to bring about change, and perhaps the most famous rebels were the French Resistance…so the next suggestion is of course:
I mean, really I should be awarding myself some points for Showboat of the Week. Not that I can be bothered awarding points anymore. Nobody really cares about them, do they?
Here’s Martin again with another song which sort of links to the band’s name:
“Finally I want to mention ‘U Talk 2 Much’ by Sultans of Ping FC, not least for its U2-referencing sleeve art”:
Do you remember when U2 graciously and modestly decided that everyone with iTunes should be blessed with a free copy of their 2014 Songs of Innocence album, whether they wanted it or not? Well, that leads me here:
Time to go off on some (non-football) tangents, I think, and so here’s Alyson from What’s It All About?:
“U-2 is a kind of plane and another plane become the inspiration for a song by OMD, so I’m going for Enola Gay, which very scarily was a big hit for them in 1980, 40 years ago now. The awful event addressed in the song, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, happened only 35 years prior to that. Is it just me or is time running away with us as we get older?”
On the same theme, some suggestions from a couple of first-timers (I think – apologies if you’ve contributed before and I’ve forgotten); firstly, give a big Chain Gang welcome to Devonian:
“U2 is a plane named after a letter and a number. B-52 is also a plane named after a letter and a number. Something by The B-52s, then… let’s say…”
And follow that up with an equally warm hand on his entrance for Stevo Kifaru, who, for a first-time Chain Ganger has certainly got the hang of naming a load of records knowing full-well I won’t be able to resist posting them all:
“U2 were named after an American spy plane, the Lockheed U-2, so I’m going with the theme of Spies for a second. My initial thought was…:”
….which I’m sure you’ll agree is the very best of the mixes, right Chums?
It turns out Stevo is quite the Chatty Cathy (a bit rich, coming from me, granted), for he continues:
“I also thought U2 reminded me of the nomenclature of German submarines, always beginning with a U, & that brought me to Das Boot. Many years ago my friend randomly asked me, what was the number of the sub in Das Boot? I thought for a second & said U96. I have felt like such a nerd since that day, my friend obviously grateful that I answered his question, but the look he gave me was one of shock at my depths of geekness….In reality I just remembered the techno remix of the theme tune that was released under the name of U96….”:
So, having dealt with all things U2-related (was that what we were doing? I’ve lost track…), what about the individual band members?
And by band members, I mean your Bono fide ones, not charlatans like this chap:
Back to you, Robster:
“I’m also going to throw a Half Man Half Biscuit song into the mix, just because it’s Half Man Half Biscuit. Something from their ‘Achtung Bono’ album. How about…:”
In the interest of balance, perhaps I should point out that Bono at least seems to be vaguely self-aware and have a sense of humour about how many people view him, even if that sense of humour has been written by somebody else:
“U2 to Stiff Little Fingers to Grandmaster Flash and back to U2 in 3 moves:
There is a story that Adam Clayton says the bass line for U2’s ‘With Or Without You’ is basically Stiff Little Fingers’ ‘Alternative Ulster’ slowed down.”
Now. I know you haven’t suggested it, and I wouldn’t ordinarily post a second song by the source artist (especially when it’s U-Sodding-2), but I don’t think I can let that slide without investigating. So here’s both of those records, to allow us to compare and contrast:
Hmm. I suppose he may have a point. But it’s not exactly the most complicated bass-line in the world is it?
“SLFs 1997 album Tinderbox,” Rigid gamely continues, undeterred, “contains a cover version of ‘The Message’, which includes the lyric: “Don’t push me cos I’m close to the Edge”
So, here’s both the cover and the original. I do like a bit of SLF, but I know which of these I prefer:
Sounds a bit Walk This Way, only not as good to me, no? Imagine the Run DMC boys hadn’t turned up at the studio and so Aerosmith recorded their part too.
Of course, any mention of The Edge being close to the edge means that I’m contractually obliged to share this clip:
Last ones before we find out what the next record in The actual Chain is, and I’ll hand over to The Great Gog to bring things to a thrilling climax as only he can:
“The phrase ‘close to the edge’ has already been mentioned. Of course Bono and the other two are close to The Edge when they play live. Close To The Edge was also an album recorded by Yes in 1972. Later versions of this album include a cover of the Paul Simon-penned America, also recorded in the same year.”
Now, I’m no Yes man, so I checked what Wiki has to say about this, and GG is quite correct:
“In 1987, ‘Close to the Edge’ was reissued by Atlantic Records on CD in the United States and Europe. Another issue of the album was digitally remastered by Joe Gastwirt in 1994. In 2003, the album was reissued again on disc in an expanded and remastered edition by Rhino and Elektra Records. Included were two previously unreleased tracks: an alternate version of ‘And You and I’, an early run-through of ‘Siberian Khatru’, and Yes’s 1972 single ‘America’ with its b-side, an edit of ‘Total Mass Retain‘.”
It’s not so much a cover version as a lot of proggy noodling with the Simon & Garfunkel lyrics chucked in after a while.
I should be careful how I phrase that, really; for to describe them as ‘Simon & Garfunkel lyrics’ does rather give the impression that Art had some involvement in the song-writing process, a goof that Annie Nightingale made when she interviewed Paul Simon for The Old Grey Whistle Test many years ago:
“1972 saw Simon record the song ‘Mother & Child Reunion’,” GG continues. “He performed this song on stage (and presumably close to The Edge) with U2 at Madison Square Garden in 2015.The performance is on YouTube but the quality isn’t great and there’s a load of waffle from Bono at the start of it.”
Which seems a good enough reason to just post the Paul Simon version:
And all that leaves me to do is….oh wait. Rigid Digit is back:
“Forgot to include the story of my U2 branded SatNav.It’s terrible – the streets have no names, and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.
And I think my U2 fridge is on the way out – all it does is Rattle and Hum.”
Thanks Rigid, I trust you’ll be here all week?
Anyway, as I was saying (he says, locking the door behind him to be on the safe side), all that leaves me to do is to give you the next song in The Chain, along with the way the person suggesting it got there. And don’t worry, it’s a waaaaaaaay better record this time:
The link: As PhonicPat said right at the top, Beautiful Day appeared on the band’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind album. What Pat didn’t say was that said album was produced by Brian Eno (and Daniel Lanois); and the album that this is taken from (Fear of Music) was also produced by Brian Eno (without Daniel Lanois):
So, your suggestions, please, for songs which link to Cities by Talking Heads, along with a brief description of the link, via the Comments Section down below or via email to dubioustaste26@gmail.com in time for whenever The Chain circus next rolls into town, in a month or so’s time (probably).
I don’t really know what to do with this series, to be honest with you.
I want to keep on remembering my lost best friend, my little brother in all but name, and I will continue to do so. I’ll never forget him and all that we did for each other.
But as I said back when he passed, there are so many songs which, whenever I hear them, will trigger some little memory, a shared moment, not worth bothering you all with, but something which does and forever will, remind me.
I know this was his favourite song by this lot, and now, whenever I hear it played, suddenly Llŷr’s sitting next to me and I just want to grab him and not let him go again.
More soon.
*******
I wrote this post on Monday. On Wednesday, Shaun Keaveney played it as the last record on his 6Music show. I had to stop what I was doing and air-drum along to it, just as Llŷr would have done and just for a moment we were back in the Flat of Filth, he was doing the same, and making a far better job of it than I.
Rule No. 1: If you’re going to pick a song by a very well known, recently deceased person, don’t pick one of the songs he was was most known by.
For example: don’t go “Freddie’s dead? I’d better do a cover of Don’t Stop Me Now to show my empathy.”
Pick a semi-obscure sort of hit single from the mid-80s when they weren’t with their band and therefore attracting lots of attention. And then wait a while.
Freddie has a Metropolis lolly, and having a Metropolos lolly is the international sign language for anybody wishing to cover his songs.
And so, observing and understanding the bat-signal Freddie-flounce, several years later, you make this (which I don’t think ever got an official release – I picked this up on of those Buffetlibre promos that did the rounds 15 years or so again) happen:
Returning back to posting new songs on a Wednesday – or rather, new songs to these ears – here’s a food-related two-for-the-price-of-none offer for you:
But here in England it was a Bank Holiday Weekend, so Tuesday is the new Monday, for this week only.
I’ve probably – no, scrub that, definitely – posted this song here before, but if I can’t post this glorious chunk of uplifting disco heaven on September 1st, then when can I post it?
2011 saw David Dondero release A Pre-Existing Condition, thirteen songs, nine of which were cover versions: amongst others there’s Lowell George’s Willin’, Elizabeth Cotton’s Freight Train, Neil Young’s Don’t Cry No Tears, and two by Charley Pride – Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’ and today’s selection.
Without question my favourite Pride song, Dondero does just enough to make it different from the original without ruining it:
Sometimes, late at night, all you really want is an old crooner in a cardigan and suspiciously garey shirt, leaning back the wrong way on a chair, like if Christine Keeler was your grandad:
