Hot 100 #42

No prizes for guessing that week 42 of our countdown would be illustrated by Level 42, though Walter did suggest Love Games as a less obvious song choice than Running With The Family or Lessons in Love.

Level 42 took their name from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in which an enormous supercomputer called Deep Thought took 7.5 million years to work out "the meaning of life, the universe and everything". The answer it came up with was 42.

The songs my own giant super-computer (i.e. you guys) came up with for the number 42 were as follows...

C kicked us off with a certain lady whose measurements were 42-39-56 (I never understood lady's measurements, but very little imagination is needed here)...

AC\DC - Whole Lotta Rosie

Next up was Lynchie, with a couple of suggestions I'd earmarked as potentials this week...

The Rolling Stones - Undercover of the Night  

Hear the screams from Centre 42

Loud enough to bust your brains out...

Johnny Cash - I Will Rock and Roll With You

A new sun risin' on the way we sing

And a world of weirdo's waitin' in the wings

But I love you and though I'm past 42

There are still a few things yet I didn't do

And baby I will rock and roll with you

(If I have to...)

That reminded me of another song about the age 42...

Stephen Duffy - Oh God

And at the time I was a young, young boy

Barely 42

I didn't know only love could break your heart

I didn't know what love could do

Now before we get onto the main theme of today's post, here's a few other random 42 songs my own library chucked up...

Gil Scott Heron & Brian Jackson - The Summer of '42

Sonny Carntyne - 42(A)

Coldplay - 42 (shh!)

Jens Lekman - Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo

So this is what they do out here for fun?

They play bingo and let their engines run?

Tonight's jackpot is a pig, hey that's criminal!

G-42! Ooh, I'm going diagonal!

It was Alyson, however, who raised the issue of 42nd Street, so certain I wouldn't be making a stop there this week. As she says...

Of course I know it's not going to be your pick, but the song 42nd Street has been around for nearly ninety years and was written by Harry Warren, who has been mentioned often over at my place as he certainly was prolific, and wrote many of the songs covered by other artists over the decades (I Only Have Eyes For You a favourite of mine). Also the Ruby Keeler story is one that never goes away, it just gets updated for a new generation.

Although Alyson is correct that the original 42nd Street song won't be this week's selection, I did find a number of other songs that stopped off on that particular thoroughfare, including...

Johnny Cougar - Taxi Dancer

Well, I don't know how long or how far her fortune did take her

But I heard she sits alone, drunk in a bar down on 42nd Street

And sometimes an old butch will slip a quarter into the jukebox

And she'll stagger to the bar and dance with that girl for free

(That's very early in his career, before he added the Mellencamp and eventually dropped the Cougar altogether.)

Todd Rundgren - Heavy Metal Kids

It's like a normal Times Square day on 42nd Street

I feel like trashing some windows and crunching some feet

I watch society crumble and I just laugh

They soon will see what it's like to be the other half

Bob Dylan - Talkin WWIII Blues (missed you this week, Swede... I love Talkin' Blues songs)

Well, I seen a Cadillac window uptown

And there was nobody aroun'

I got into the driver's seat

And I drove down 42nd Street

In my Cadillac

Good car to drive after a war

Janis Ian - 42nd Street Psycho Blues

But it was Rigid Digit who came up with the strongest 42nd Street contenders. First this...

Don McLean - Sister Fatima

The spirit of Fatima still rules the Earth

She knows your future, she knows what it's worth

Sister Fatima has God given powers

And on 42nd Street a shop that sells flowers

Is her palace come and be healed

And then this week's undisputed winner, a long-time favourite of mine. Why is it the winner? Because you don't mess around with Jim...

Uptown got it's hustlers

The bowery got it's bums

42nd street got big Jim walker

He's a pool shootin' son of a gun

Yeah, he big and dumb as a man can come

But he stronger than a country hoss

And when the bad folks all get together at night

You know they all call big Jim "boss"

41 next week... More slim pickings? Over to you guys...