Friday 3 February 2017

My Top Ten Burger Songs


Feeling peckish?

10. Jimmy Buffet -  Cheeseburger in Paradise

Let's start with Jimmy: an acquired taste, I have to concede. But then, so are most burgers. Extra cheese on this one, I think.

9. Todd Rundgren - Boogies (Hamburger Hell)

If you've not yet worked it out: Todd Rundgren was proper mental. I suppose that's why he ended up producing Bat Out Of Hell. His solo stuff, though: it rocks, but it's mad. 

8. Kool & The Gang - Raw Hamburger

VERY early Kool & The Gang - from 1969. Great brass section and shooting-the-breeze vocals.

7. Ramones - Oh, Oh, I Love Her So

Joey Ramone picks up girls at Burger King.

Of course.

6. Pop Will Eat Itself - Def Con One

I was going to save this for my Top Ten Fast Food Songs... but I'll just use it again then. It might well be Number One in that countdown.

I always wondered if PWEI were sent a lifetime supply of Big Macs after recording this.

5. Placebo - Burger Queen

Iffypedia says this track was written about a homosexual, drug-addicted goth in Luxembourg... so it's really 'Bourger Queen, if you want to be pedantic about it. Great song from the second Placebo album, Without You I'm Nothing.
Slightly bemused by his lack of direction
Hey You, Hey You 


Came to this world by cesarean section 
Hey You, Hey You
Chooses his clothes to match his pallid complexion
Hey You, Hey You
Now it takes him all day just to get an erection 
4. The Little Hands of Asphalt - Eating Fish In Hamburger Heaven

Brilliant lyrics and a top tune from Oslo's Sjur Lyseid, tipping his hat to Springsteen and telling a story (I think) about a one night stand that's doomed never to go any further...
My shirt says "Replacements" 
Yours, it has a statement 
That's where we start falling apart
3. John Cougar Mellencamp - Hotdogs & Hamburgers

A song about the shitty treatment of Native Americans by The White Man, filtered through the metaphor of a horny teenage boy trying it on with "a pretty Little Indian Girl". Mellencamp at his best.
Now everybody has got the choice
Between hotdogs and hamburgers
Every one of us has got to choose
Between right and wrong
And givin' up or holdin' on
2. Morrissey - America Is Not The World

Normally we might take this as just Moz's spangly Hollywood big-screen remake of Meat Is Murder... 
In America, it brought you the hamburger. 
Well America you know where 
You can shove your hamburger. 
And don't you wonder, why in Estonia they say? 
Hey you, you big fat pig, 
You fat pig, you fat pig!

Steely blue eyes with no love in them, scan the world,
And a humourless smile, with no warmth within, greets the world.
And I, I have got nothing to offer you
No-no-no-no-no, just this heart deep and true, 

Which you say you don't need...
In light of recent events though... it seems due a re-issue. 

1. Little Feat - Hamburger Midnight

The debut single from Little Feat's self-titled 1971 debut album finds Lowell George broke, sleeping in his car and suffering from the ha-ha-hamburger midnight blues...



Would you like fries with that?

13 comments:

  1. Awesome. I am at a loss for words...

    ReplyDelete
  2. An excellent rundown Rol - I'm particularly pleased to see the Kool & the Gang tune make the list, also 'Burger Queen', from back in the days when Placebo were still a force to be reckoned with. Disappointed that 'Hamburger Concerto' by Focus didn't make the cut though - 20 minutes of prog heaven!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sadly, my Focus exposure has been limited to Hocus Pocus... although a fine noise that is.

      Delete
  3. As a vegetarian, Rol, "Raw Hamburger" was hard to take - but I'll definitely take the fries! ;-)

    You mentioned using wma files yesterday. What are they exactly? Do you use itunes? Are they compatible with that program?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This one might be more to your taste, Marie...

      http://histopten.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/my-top-ten-vegetable-songs.html

      wma are Windows media audio files: the default file windows media player rips in. I've no idea whether they're iTunes compatible since I swore off iTunes many years ago as it wrecked my computer whenever I tried to use it.

      Delete
  4. I'm burgered if I can think of anything to add!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ditto what CC said - Very clever as ever and love the image of Ozzy. My relish of choice tends to be of the sweetcorn variety.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Who would've thought a flat round slab of ground meat shoved in a bun could inspire so many songs?! I'd never have thought it.
    Morrissey's my favourite here and, as you say, it seems even more apposite now.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I was going to say the "Royale with Cheese" audio on Pulp Fiction soundtrack. Not a "song" per se though.

    By coincidence, I recently listened to Little Feat's debut, I got the 5cd Original Album Series in a library sale. I prefer the 2nd album, the first was a bit unmemorable. Seems you liked Hamburger Midnight far more than I did.

    ReplyDelete
  8. 2 triple cheese side order of fries - commander cody back in 1980

    ReplyDelete
  9. no lorraine Bowen 'burger song" !!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...