Saturday 31 March 2018

Saturday Snapshots #26


It's Saturday - time to be a Gambler on Saturday Snapshots.

Cowards of the County need not take part...


10. Strolling round the Sun puts a scratch on your cornet.


9. Frank had a few, on the beach.


8. Massachusetts is better than Flashdance!


7. I don't doubt you could tape over this - so calm down!


6. The brown-eyed kings of Connacht take more than a week.


5. 46, I think. If I'm still here in another 136 years, I'll scarcely be able to open my eyes.


4. Where you'll find the virgin oil... and one's main elbow.


3. Reserve Michael, Clive and Wilfred to go all around the world.


2. A priest plays for Clint at the Mesopotamian party.


1.The King monk's partner (and his dad) need help with a bicycle puncture.


We've Got ('til) Tonight... answers tomorrow morning.

In the meantime... don't take your love to town!


Friday 30 March 2018

Radio Songs #32: Epilogue



Many, many years later, my first date sent me a message on facebook.

"Wow", it read, "what a blast from the past. Bet you don't even remember me. Worked at XXXX in 1990." (I don't feel it's too much of a liberty posting this word-for-word as she's since deleted that facebook account so the message only exists in my old message store.)

I sent back a quick reply that I hoped she was doing OK and never heard from her again.

Not that I really wanted to, as by this point I had already met the love of my life and settled down into the blissful harmony we... cough, cough, cough. Well, me and The Other Half had got together, anyway.

The irony of all this - beyond the fact that she (apparently) didn't even remember our brief connection* - is that my first first date had the same first name as my last first date. It seemed I was destined to end up getting together with a Louise... just not that one. In the long run, everything worked out for the best.

There has never been a more appropriate time to play this - the GREATEST "SONG" about getting dumped by your first love EVER WRITTEN.


32. Billy Bragg (with Johnny Marr on guitar) - Walk Away, Renee (Version)

But our love is strange
And you have to take the crunchy with the smooth, I suppose
She began going out with Mr Potato Head
It was when I saw her in the car park
With his coat around her shoulders that I realised
I went home and thought about the two of them together
Until the bath water went cold around me



*Or did she? Was that message the equivalent of a late night drunk dial to an ex at a moment when she was feeling particularly dissatisfied with her current agenda? I'll never know. Not that it matters.

And then one day it happened
She cut her hair and I stopped loving her



Thursday 29 March 2018

My Top Ten Price Tag Songs




80p for a bag of crisps? I remember when you could get a bag of crisps for 12p!

Back in the early 90s, I briefly considered trying to get a mortgage for a £50,000 house. I decided against it: who wants a mortgage when they're in their early 20s? That same house is worth over £200,000 now.

You'd think pop stars wouldn't worry so much about the price of things... but then again, there's very few millionaires in the list below (with the possible exception of Tom: he must be worth a bob or two).


10. Eileen Rose - $20 Shoes

$20 is about the maximum I would pay on shoes. I realise this makes me some kind of relic. But I'd rather spend money on records.

9. The Fall - The $500 Bottle Of Wine

That's all you get most of the time
For all the life in crime
The 500 bottle of wine...

8. Ruth Etting - Ten Cents A Dance

Written by Rodgers & Hart, recorded in 1930. I miss David Jacobs.

If you don't fancy dancing with Ruth, you could always spend the same amount on a pistol from The Black Keys.

7. Ezra Furman - Maraschino Red Dress $8.99 At Goodwill

From the new album, Transangelic Exodus, which is pretty good.

(You'll have to take my word for it though because I couldn't find the track online and didn't have time to upload it.)

6. Tom T. Hall - Back When Gas Was Thirty Cents A Gallon

Don't even get me started on the price of petrol these days, Tom.

5. The Bottle Rockets - Thousand Dollar Car

If you only got a thousand dollars
You outta just buy a good guitar
Learn how to play and it'll take you farther
Than any old thousand dollar car
If a thousand dollar car was truly worth a damn
Then why would anybody ever spend ten grand
Oh, why did I ever buy a thousand dollar car?

The Handsome Family do a pretty good version of this too, available here.

4. Eels - $200 Tattoo

A drunken first date deal to each get a tattoo might seem like something both parties would come to regret, but E turns this into a sweet little love song...

It hurt a little, hell, it hurt a lot
But a man who won't commit is something I'm not
A little tear rolled down her face
When it was done we went back to her place...

3. Tom Waits - Twenty-Nine Dollars

You get the feeling that Tom will make those $29 count... but they might also cost him a lot more.

2. Half Man Half Biscuit - £24.99 From Argos

Quite a bit of discussion about this song over at the Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project, including what kind of keyboard it was that Nigel Blackwell got for £24.99 from Argos (and presumably recorded this song on) and where the twiddly bits in the tune might originate.

1. Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris - $1000 Wedding

A thousand dollars would be bloody cheap for a wedding these days, but I guess when Gram and Emmylou sang about it, it was pretty pricey.

Particularly if the bride doesn't show up...



Any price tags in your record collection?

Wednesday 28 March 2018

Radio Songs #31: Heartbreak Radio



Our first date was a Saturday night, which meant I didn't see her again until Monday. (Nowadays, texts or emails would be exchanged in the interim, allowing for a better assessment of one's prospects. Back then you just had to wait till you saw them again.)

Come Monday then, I spent a fair amount of time lurking out in the corridor (rather than doing my job), waiting to "bump" into her and test the water over a second date. The idea of making a direct and public approach and actually going into her office to talk to her was obviously beyond me. This was far more stomach-churning than the initial "asking out". Then, my confidence had been buoyed by the encouragement of others and the idea of "nothing ventured, nothing gained". This time I was alone... and the stakes were much higher. The glow of Saturday night was still with me... the idea that it was a one off, and that she hadn't felt a similar glow herself was frankly terrifying.

But there was little sign of her that afternoon, and certainly none of the impromptu visits she'd occasionally make "to check the logs" prior to delivering the next day's schedule at the end of the afternoon. And when that time did actually arrive, it wasn't the girl in question who brought them... it was her colleague.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"Oh, she had to leave early tonight."

"Oh. Did she... did she say anything about... Saturday?"

"Oh, yeah. She said she had a nice time."

"Nice?"

"A nice time?"

"NICE?"

In my head, I heard this.

A couple of days later, her friend told me the real story. She'd got back with her old boyfriend.

The jock.

Sooner or later things went back to normal. I stopped lurking in the corridor. I'd smile and say hello as though nothing had happened. A tiny part of me had died, but it wasn't the first time and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

Their relationship didn't last and she left for a better job a few months later.

Looking back now, I can see that beyond the physical attraction (and the fact that she was a member of the female species who'd actually shown an interest in me: a genuine rarity), we had very little in common and it probably wouldn't have gone anywhere anyway. You wish you could travel back in time and have a word in your ear that it's no great disaster. L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. , as Noah and the Whale memorably put it.

31. Roy Orbison - Heartbreak Radio

The final Roy Orbison album, King of Hearts, was released posthumously in 1992, made up from The Big O's last recordings with producer Jeff Lynne. Orbison died of a heart attack in 1988 at the height of a major career comeback. He was only 52 years old. Tragedy was a constant companion throughout his life, which probably explains why he sang like he did...

Hometown sweetheart.
Hung around in the dark.
Only make a move or two.
I was just a young fool.
Never been to night school,
Didn't know enough to be cool.
 
So she found another lover,
They went undercover.
The way she stole my heart was a crime
In order to keep the peace
Callin' out the police Find her 'fore I lose my mind.




There's a weird postscript to this story which I'll reveal on Friday...

Tuesday 27 March 2018

The Hot 100 Countdown #91


Apparently, these guys are Ninety-One, a contemporary pop band from Kazakhstan. Here is one of their songs. You don't have to thank me, I do this as a public service. I wonder if this is their manager?

Anyway, back to 91 songs. And despite a couple of attempts at 911 songs (fortunately, none of you suggested these guys), there were slim pickings this week (no, not him... though he'd be far preferable to any of the above). In fact only The Swede came up with some proper 91 songs, the first of which was this...

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - The Summer of '91

I have to say, I have a lot of time for ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, if only because they have an amazing band name... for a heavy metal band. Pity they're not actually a heavy metal band at all. Still, they make a pretty good noise despite that, of which this is a fine example. Normally it would be disqualified under my "no year-songs" rule though...

Normally.

The Swede's other suggestion was this...

Singers & Players - 91 Vibration

"A fine dubwize selection," he says. And who am I to argue? Especially since, "This video contains content from [Merlin] Warp Records, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds." Yes, record company, that's a great move: stopping a potential customer from hearing your songs. I despair. Especially as that was my one chance of finding a song that (presumably) doesn't actually have anything to do with the year 1991...

All of which leads me to this...

I knew nothing at all about Lucy Spraggan when I picked this album up from the library, but I liked her quirky songwriting and amusing lyrics. It was only later that I discovered she'd been a contestant on The X-Factor, a show I loathe with every fibre of my being. But Spraggan is not typical of the usual X-Factor fodder, and I guess she only used the show to get her name out there... eventually dropping out of the bread & circuses nonsense due to "illness", by which point she'd already scored a Top 20 hit.

91 isn't the best song she's written but it was the best I could come up with for this week. And yes, it's a year song: but rules were made to be broken! Desperate times...



Which brings us to the end of the 90s. Number 90. A nice round number. Surely there must be a decent 90 song out there...

Monday 26 March 2018

Mid-Life Crisis Songs #20: Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back To Leeds



I've been rather taken with the latest album by The Mountain Goats recently, particularly the track Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back To Leeds, a narrative which can be read in two different ways. On the one hand, the Sisters of Mercy frontman went to Leeds after studying at Oxford University... and it was while he was mucking about pretending to study Mandarin Chinese that he formed the band which would cement his place in the history books as a Goth king. (Although he's since rejected any claim to that particular genre, saying, "it's disappointing that so many people have in all seriousness adopted just one of our many one-week-of-stupid-clothes benders".)




But of course, Eldritch didn't stay in Leeds very long after his band took off. There's a sense in this song though that a return to your roots is something everyone contemplates once fame and fortune have had their way with you...


Nobody ever gets away
Even the best of us come back some day
To the unmarked rooms, where the dry dust breeds
Andrew Eldritch is moving back to Leeds


Not that this is something I have to worry about. You have to be a success before you can worry about crashing out and crawling home like that. And I guess you also have to move more than a mile down the road. After reading a recent interview with Eldritch, it doesn't seem like it's anything he needs to worry about either. The Sisters of Mercy are still touring and Eldritch appears to be doing pretty well living off the money he made before the music industry imploded. So why The Mountain Goats chose him as the subject of their sweet dissertation on growing old, I have no idea. But it's a great song title and a pretty cool tune to boot...




Sunday 25 March 2018

Saturday Snapshots #25 - The Answers



Here we go with this week's answers...

I think we can safely say that The Swede is this week's winner!


10. Lost your afterlife? Ask Syd's heartbreakers.


Syd Barrett recorded a song called Gigolo Aunt, which Urban Dictionary defines as "A Girl who is usually very cute and pretty that seduces men makes them madly fall in love with her using her specific ways".

The Gigolo Aunts - Where I Find My Heaven 

The Swede #1.

9. Irish operas make for rubbish poetry.


Gilbert & Sullivan becomes...

Gilbert O'Sullivan - Nothing Rhymed

One of the saddest song ever written.

The Swede #2.

8. What you need when you're ill in Niagara.


TLC - Waterfalls

Lynchie!

7. Toothpaste flavoured Irn Bru.


Spearmint - Scottish Pop

Martin and a holidaying Charity Chic.

6. Chicks sing on the white lines.


Where's your mama gone?

Middle Of The Road - Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep

Forgotten how good this was. I just ordered a copy of their Best Of.

Alyson got this - of course!

5. Skinny Spaniards play it safe.


Delgado means skinny in Spanish.

The Delgados - No Danger

Another one for Martin.

4. Buddies waiting for the Number 73.


The Hollies - Bus Stop

The Swede #3.

3. Fashionable jigsaws.


The Stylistics - Let's Put It All Together

George & Lynchie - nice try from Rigid Digit.

2. Bicycle thieves get chased by a neighbour.


BMX Bandits - Kylie's Got A Crush On Us

The Swede #4.

1. Russian dolls in the topiary.

Chris got the Early Bird glory this week...

Be still, my pre-teen heart... never did so many young men dream of being a double bass...





Thanks for playing. More next week.


Saturday 24 March 2018

Saturday Snapshots #25


If phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust for you this Saturday morning, then take a stab at these...

Identify ten artists and ten songs from the pictures and clues below.



10. Lost your afterlife? Ask Syd's heartbreakers.


9. Irish operas make for rubbish poetry.


8. What you need when you're ill in Niagara.


7. Toothpaste flavoured Irn Bru.


6. Chicks sing on the white lines.


5. Skinny Spaniards play it safe.


4. Buddies waiting for the Number 73.


3. Fashionable jigsaws.


2. Bicycle thieves get chased by a neighbour.


1. Russian dolls in the topiary.


Should you stay or should you go? Find out tomorrow morning...


Friday 23 March 2018

Radio Songs #30: First Date



I picked her up in my dad's Ford Sierra. I'd only passed my test a few weeks earlier. I didn't tell my parents where I was going - just to the cinema. Which wasn't a lie as such. I don't remember what I wore, I don't remember what she wore... but I think it's fair to say she looked a whole lot better than I did.

We'd decided to go to the cinema because that was all I really knew. But I also knew a nice pub nearby that I'd been to with friends. We went there first. At 18, I didn't drink (that came later), but I probably used the excuse that I was driving. Or maybe I was quite up-front about the whole not-drinking thing. I wasn't embarrassed about it, it was part of my whole ridiculous anti-teenage rebellion.

I don't remember much of the date, but I do remember how proud I felt, how puffed up, how GROWN UP, I felt when we walked into that pub together. I could well have been on stilts. She had a half of lager... somehow I'd expected her to have wine. We talked about work, about... she probably had more to say than me. I wasn't the greatest conversationalist back then.

The film we ended up seeing was hardly a classic, but it was quite appropriate. Crazy People. Not because we were crazy, but because it was about how ridiculous the advertising industry was, and we both owed our jobs to that. I'm sure that gave us something to talk about.

Afterwards, I drove her home. I had no idea how she felt the date had gone, but looking back, it was hardly a house on fire. It was pleasant - but who wants pleasant when you're 18? So I was rather surprised when she asked me in for coffee. Obviously nobody had ever done that before, and I wasn't really sure of the implications. She said something about how her brother would be home soon, so I guessed I shouldn't read too much into it, but still...

I didn't drink coffee either in 1990. (I've made up for that since.) But I accepted when it became clear that coffee actually meant coffee. (Back in the minefield.) I remember that I didn't really like it. Too milky. I even drank tea black in those days: milky drinks have never been my thing. But I drank it. And I guess we chatted some more.

And then I went home. (I think it was before her brother got back.) Not really sure what had happened or what any of it meant or whether I would ever see her again. Other than at work. I must have asked her if there was a possibility, and she must have indicated that there was, because I drove home glowing. Listening to George Michael's Faith album, which I'd recently bought on CD to play on my newly purchased CD player (having previously owned the album) and then taped to listen to in my dad's Sierra.

This seemed appropriate under the circumstances... more for the fool than the kissing (of which there was none).

30. George Michael - Kissing A Fool

People
You can never change the way they feel
Better let them do just what they will
For they will
If you let them
Steal your heart from you



You can guess the rest... or maybe I'll tell you next week.

Thursday 22 March 2018

My Top Ten Grace Kelly Songs


She looked like a princess... no wonder she ended up marrying a prince.

Hollywood's loss was Monaco's gain.

Here's ten songs paying tribute to one of the most beautiful actresses ever...


10. Herman Brood - Hit

"The greatest and only Dutch Rock 'n' roll star" plays his Hit...

The lyrics are a bit rude so you can try to make them out yourself if you want.

9. Paul Gilbert - Six Billion People

Paul Gilbert was the guitarist in Mr. Big.

Wait, wait, come back!

He's also considered one of the fastest guitar players in the world... and he's made some pretty cool solo records. This one is rather sweet...
 
There are six billion people on this planet
But I'll only ever fall in love with two
One is a black and white photo of Grace Kelly
And the other you might like to know is you

8. Piebald - Grace Kelly With Wings

That's more than a dress, it's a Grace Kelly movie...

From the album 'If It Weren't For Venetian Blinds, It Would Be Curtains For Us All', which is surely the greatest album title ever...

Or not.

7. The Chameleons - As High As You Can Go

Some "out of tune boys" take it to the top...

Grace Kelly to Garbo
Clawed their way to the stars
I think they knew
No I don't care who you are
Just sign the line and away you fly
Take a chance and join the dance
And you can make the sound
Take a chance and join the dance
And we can go to ground
Go to ground
And I don't care who you are
Just sign the line and away you fly

6. Brian Setzer - '59

The former Stray Cat frontman was born in 1959 and everything he loves comes from that year...

Well the prince said, "Hey, Grace Kelly
Would you be my wife?"
And Bobby Darin sang Mack The Knife
They took Eddie Cochran, what could we do?
Once he was gone we knew that rock and roll was through.
We had technicolor at the scene of the crime
Coupe Devilles rolling off of the line.

5. Moxy Früvous - King of Spain

If this song doesn't make you crack a smile, then I think we're going to need a chisel...

Royalty, lord it looked good on me
Buried in silk in the royal boudoir or going nuclear free
Or playing Crokinole with the Princess of Monaco
Telling my jokes to the OPEC leaders, getting it all on video

4. Mika - Grace Kelly

You're either going to dig this or you're not. Probably not, since most of you aren't even Queen fans, and this is just a wannabe-Freddie. As wannabe Freddies go though, it's pretty great. Pity Mika couldn't follow it with anything even half as amazing.

I try to be like Grace Kelly
But all her looks were too sad
So I try a little Freddie
I've gone identity mad!

3. Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire

One of those songs that will no doubt divide the readership of this blog... with me on one side and everyone else on the other. But who wants to be popular? Yes, it does owe a lot to It's The End Of The World As We Know It (But I Feel Fine) by REM... but it's still a monster. And the video's brilliant.

Get used to it, anyway... it could well pop up again whenever I need it...

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez

2. Eels - Grace Kelly Blues

The kind of brilliant "keep smiling even when you don't feel like it" song which E specialises in.

The actress gave up all her old dreams
And traded up now she is a queen
Royal families don't have time for that shit
Your crystal ball, you keep it hid

1. Lloyd Cole - Four Flights Up

Lyrical genius ahoy! You don't just get Grace Kelly in this song, but Truman Capote too. And a diamante crocodile! Nobody does it like Lloyd...

You came driving back to town
In a beat up Grace Kelly car
Looking like a friend of Truman Capote
Looking exactly like you are
Yes, I know that's your charm




Any Grace Kelly songs in your collection?

Wednesday 21 March 2018

Radio Songs #29: You're The Radio




Where were we?

The Traffic Girl. She had a boyfriend. And then she didn't...

"They've split up," her friend told me.

"She really likes you," her friend told me.

"You should ask her out," her friend told me.

Well, that rather put me on the spot, didn't it? I mean, that was exactly what I wanted to do... but it was also the last thing I wanted to do. Because asking someone out is pretty fucking terrifying. Especially when you're 18 and you've never done it before, but it seems like everyone else has been doing it for years.

But somehow, after a sleepless night or two, I plucked up the courage. I remember waiting out in that pale, artificially lit, underground corridor (sounds pretty creepy, huh?) for her to make the short walk down from Traffic to Studio A. I remember the butterflies... no, the bats... no, the pterodactyls that were circling and swirling in my stomach. I don't remember the words I used... but I do remember that she said yes.

YES.

YES!!!

And that was it. Probably the greatest moment of my life (up to that point). Or it certainly felt that way. Bloody teenage hormones.

Keen students of human nature will probably have guessed the ending to this story already, but there are two more chapters. First, the date.

My FIRST date.

Then...

29. Thea Gilmore - You're The Radio

You can always rely on Thea to put lyrics to the confusion of emotional entanglements. This was the lead single from her 2010 album Murphy's Heart.

I was hope gone to the dogs
Seven hundred ways to sing the blues
Cue the princes and the frogs
Cue those Capulets and Montagues...
 
I'm the joker in the pack
I've been waiting for the perfect time
You're the ace and you're the jack
You're the reason baby, I'm the rhyme...
 
I'm the song, you're the radio!




Tuesday 20 March 2018

The Hot 100 Countdown #92


Henry Gray released his latest album, 92, last year... so named, because that's how old he is. Let's hope he's got many more albums to come.

As for 92 songs though... what did you suggest?

Well, everyone has learned to keep away from years now, which is very good, but it does mean we can't have the excellent '92 Subaru by Fountains Of Wayne. Shame, but the FoW boys won Number 95, so they've had their moment.

Another one I'd have had to disqualify if you'd suggested it would have been 992 Arguments by The O'Jays. Pity, because that's a cracker too. Great lyrics.

Nobody even suggested B92 by Saint Etienne, which featured here not too long ago on My Top Ten Postcode Songs.

C was first to jump in with a proper suggestion, but it was my second place choice this week... 92 Degrees by Siouxsie & The Banshees. What I love about this song is that it begins with a quote from one of my favourite 50s Sci Fi movies, It Came From Outer Space...

"Did you know, Putnam, that more murders are committed at 92 Fahrenheit than any other temperature? I read an article once. Lower temperatures, people are easygoing. Over 92, it's too hot to move. But just 92, people get irritable"

But it was another 92 Degrees that clinched the title this week, and for the second time in this competition, Alyson & Rigid Digit shared the points. I'll let RD do the introduction, because he nailed it...

"A fine slab of Black Country Grungey-Grebo-Samply-Rap(ish)-Indie..." 




Next week... I may have to use a year song. But it won't be a remix or anything like that. It also won't be what you expect... but I'm willing to have my mind changed if you can come up with a better suggestion. Go for it!




Monday 19 March 2018

46 Years Ago Today...


...this was Number One in the hit parade. It's a wonderfully melodramatic performance of a hugely emotive song, written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger and originally released on their 1970 album, No Dice. Their version's pretty low-key compared to Harry Nilsson's "shatter the wine glasses" remake... only Mariah Carey managed to ever take the song one step further into undiluted histrionics... though most rational people understand deep down in their heart of hearts that her version is utter pants, and an insult to Nilsson's memory. She also managed to turn the track into a perennial X-Factor stalwart... for which there can be no forgiveness.

Harry Nilsson was a hugely talented singer-songwriter in his own right, so it's somewhat disappointing that the song he's most remembered for isn't one of his own. He certainly wrote and recorded far better songs... but none quite so popular and all-encompassing. That's not to say I don't like Without You, and I certainly believe his to be the definitive performance.

Despite winning the Ivor Novello award for Without You, the song led only to tragedy for its writers. After Badfinger's business manager ran off with all their money in 1975, lead singer Pete Ham hung himself. He was almost 28, and about to become a father. Eight years later, still mourning his former bandmate, Without You's co-writer Tom Evans also hung himself over a dispute over the royalties.

Harry Nilsson struggled to match the single's success, despite critical glories for subsequent releases. (I've got every Nilsson album - and there's some great material in there.) He went on to work on an album with his old friend John Lennon, but ruptured a vocal chord during the recording.

Nilsson also owned a flat in Mayfair, London, where two tragic rock 'n' roll deaths occurred. Mama Cass died in her sleep while staying there in 1974 (she did not choke on a ham sandwich: that's a cruel urban legend). Four years later, The Who's Keith Moon took an overdose there. Nilsson wasn't present for either death, but he sold the flat soon after (to Pete Townshend, of all people!), believing it cursed.

Conspiracy theorists might well argue the same about this song...

(Nilsson quit the music industry in 1980 following John Lennon's death. He died of a heart attack in 1994... while recording his "comeback" album.)



Without You was Number One on the day I was born.

Today, I'm working a 12 hour shift, starting with my worst class of the week.

"I've come to wish you an unhappy birthday," as some infamous northern miserablist once sang...

Sunday 18 March 2018

Saturday Snapshots #24 - The Answers



Sorry, I wasn't around on Saturday night this week to do the scoring. Answers only, then...

I'll try to give credit where credit is deserved in the comments later...


10. When Harry met Karen, he was still a virgin. A good snog sorted that out.


Harry Chapin + Karen Carpenter + The Virgin Mary...

Mary Chapin-Carpenter - Passionate Kisses

9. Crossing the snow while getting down: that would be my desire.


Skee-lo - I Wish

8. A Scottish thief  gets your sleeping quarters ready.


Ian McNabb - You Must Be Prepared To Dream

7. They failed Humpty Dumpty: the FBI were brought in to investigate their strong-arm tactics.


All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.

Strong arm = Armstrong (Louis)

The Kingsmen were investigated by the FBI who suspected the lyrics to Louie Louie were either subversive or pornographic. They were actually just gibberish, as Todd Snider explains here.

The Kingsmen - Louie Louie

6. An open invitation to boogie from Texas.


Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody

5. Calling myself a testicle. ID required.


Apparently, Kloot is Dutch slang for testicle.

I Am Kloot - Proof

4. Woken up early by repeated bangs.


Dawn (featuring Tony Orlando, of course) - Knock Three Times

3. Hit in the gob with burnt feet.


Smashmouth - Walking On The Sun

2. Listening to The Knack, Toto and Hall & Oates on the wireless while cutting a Roman into four.


The Knack, Toto and Hall & Oates all recorded songs called Africa.

Latin Quarter - Radio Africa

1. Girls want them... but not every evening.




Thanks for playing. More next week.


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