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
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).
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.
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...
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.
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?"
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...
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...
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...
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...
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".
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.
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
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
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.
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
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!
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
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
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...
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.
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!
...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...
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.
