Tuesday, 2 March 2021
Conversations With Ben #6: Precious Time
Monday, 1 March 2021
Positive Songs For Negative Times #43: Nighthawks
Sunday, 28 February 2021
Saturday Snapshots #178: A Top Ten Guitar Songs
A TOP TEN GUITAR SONGS
(If you wonder why I call these lists A Top Ten... rather than THE Top Ten..., it's because there are some songs I have to leave out to avoid too much artist repetition. Like...
Bruce Springsteen - House Of A Thousand Guitars
or
Magnetic Fields - Acoustic Guitar
...for just two examples.)
Anyway, these are the guitar songs I ended up with following an exhaustive selection process...
10. The best ale will really scramble your brain.
"The best ale" unscrambled is...
The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps
9. Room for treating dried up grass in mason's house.
A room for treating dried grass would be a Hay-ward. Masons live in a Lodge.
Justin Hayward & John Lodge - Blue Guitar
8. Boston girl meets fortune teller who can't read.
Boston sang about Amanda.
A palm reader without the read would be A Palm-er.
7. Godard, Hitchcock, Scorsese... Tarantino?
They're all directors who may or may not be considered auteurs.
The Auteurs - American Guitars
6. A nobleman, like a Scottish monarch.
A nobleman would be an Earl.
A Scottish Monarch might be a Mc-Queen... just like Steve McQueen.
5. I get mixed up in a casual windmill.
"Casual windmill" with an extra I mixed into it leaves you with an anagram for...
Lucinda Williams - Real Live Bleeding Fingers And Broken Guitar Strings
Or you could have had this John Denver cover...
Lucinda Williams - This Old Guitar
4. Dead cockneys.
"Brown bread" is Cockney rhyming slang for dead.
3. German clarinet?
A Gerry reed instrument?
2. Bill or Hal? (The latter, not so much these days.)
William and Harry are both Princes... although Harry is in question at the moment.
(If you need a reminder of what a great guitarist Prince was, click that link.)
1. Boastful goat.
Still as blisteringly exciting as when I first heard it...
You old romantic, Bill...
Saturday, 27 February 2021
Saturday Snapshots #178
If you feel like you're Bissett on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men... then here's Saturday Snapshots to cheer you up.
Identify the 10 artists below, then think of the theme that connects their songs, then identify the tunes.
Hopefully you won't have to think too Deep...
10. The best ale will really scramble your brain.
9. Room for treating dried up grass in mason's house.
8. Boston girl meets fortune teller who can't read.
7. Godard, Hitchcock, Scorsese... Tarantino?
6. A nobleman, like a Scottish monarch.
5. I get mixed up in a casual windmill.
4. Dead cockneys.
3. German clarinet?
2. Bill or Hal? (The latter, not so much these days.)
1. Boastful goat.
Class dismissed... until tomorrow morning.
Friday, 26 February 2021
Positive Songs For Negative Times #42: Worry B Gone
Thursday, 25 February 2021
MId-Life Crisis Songs #60: Where There's A Will...
There's nothing more guaranteed to make you feel the mid-life dread than when your other half convinces you it's time to get a will.
What do I need a will for? If I die, it all goes to you.
Yes, but what if we both die?
Then it all goes to Sam.
But who's going to look after him till he's an adult?
Er...
And what if all three of us die?
If all three of us die, what do we care where - what little we have - goes after that? It's no use to us.
We have to decide.
Thank god there's a practical one in this house, I guess, who can think about such things. Me, I just go along...
But if this blog suddenly goes quiet next week... can I just ask you all to call a snoopy-nosed detective?
The final stinger?
How much you have to pay a bloody solicitor to write your wills!
After that, we won't have anything left to leave anyway.
Here's a song from that Bahamas album that made it into my Top 20 Albums of 2020. It's about money, and how we spend it, and where that leads us. It's a simple morality tale in 4 minutes ten, and it's very funky.
















