Sum 41 were the obvious choice to illustrate this week's entry in the countdown... I was always partial to getting a Fat Lip from them.
There was early agreement over this week's winner, although those of you who aren't big Boss fans were keen to offer worthy alternatives.
George was obviously going to try his best to steer me away from New Jersey, with a couple of fine suggestions...
Iron & Wine & Calexico - Prison on Route 41
Eddie Cochran - Somethin' Else
My car's out front and it's all mine
Just a '41 Ford, not a '59
No, I don't think that was suggested for #59, George, but it should have been.
And what a riff on that song! Stolen - blatantly - by Liam Lynch... Whatever!
Our other resident non-Springsteen fan is C... although I have to say, I felt she was scraping the barrel a little with her offering...
The Dave Matthews Band - #41
Not sure what my final verdict is on Dave Matthews... but he's no Eddie Cochran. He's not even Hootie & The Blowfish.
Onto those of you who accepted the inevitable but offered alternatives for variety, starting with Martin (who only owns one Bruce Springsteen album, so I might have to send him some more in the post)...
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - US 41
Pretty good, Martin, but if we're going with Tom, I'm probably going to have to bend my own rules a little and offer this one...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - American Girl
It was kind of cold that night
She stood alone on her balcony
She could the cars roll by
Out on 441
Like waves crashin' in the beach
And for one desperate moment there
He crept back in her memory
God it's so painful
Something that's so close
And still so far out of reach
Sleeper - Factor 41
I was equally surprised that Alyson didn't suggest this one...
The Bee Gees - New York Mining Disaster 1941
Or even this one, from the same year...
Harry Nilsson - 1941
Thanks, guys, leave the heavy lifting to me, that's fine.
Lynchie, meanwhile, offered an alternative which was a new one to me...
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Born In Chicago
I was born in Chicago 1941
I was born in Chicago in 1941
Well, my father told me,
"Son, you'd better get a gun."
Sounds a bit like what my dad told me about Huddersfield. Lynchie adds...
"The song was written by the wonderfully named Nick Gravenites, who's worth checking out."And from the sound of that, I concur.
Today's final suggestion was a lyrical one, from Rigid Digit...
The Allman Brothers - Ramblin' Man
My father was a gambler down in Georgia
He wound up on the wrong end of a gun
And I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus
Rollin' down Highway 41
All of which brings us to today's obvious choice, as identified by The Swede, Alyson, Lynchie and Martin. Inspired by the death of Amadou Diallo, an innocent young black man who was mistaken for a rape suspect by plain clothes police officers in 1999 and shot dead.
Life begins next week. We may be some time.
Jimmy Buffett - 'A Pirate Looks at Forty'
ReplyDeleteMatt Elliot - 'Forty Days'
Cotton Mather - '40 Watt Solution'
The Shins - '40 Mark Strasse'
I agree about the Dave Matthews Band, Rol - scraping the barrel indeed but the title fitted, that's what happens when you can't do Springsteen ;-)
ReplyDeleteNo 40s in mind yet...
40 Miles Of Bad Road by Duane Eddy
ReplyDeleteTremendous suggestion.
DeleteAnd there's a lorra, lorra songs with the title "40 Days and 40 Nights", although my favourite is by Scruffy the Cat:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rskVshK5YY
Breaking all the rules of your blog (again)
ReplyDelete40 - U2
More palatable suggestions:
40' - Franz Ferdinand
40 Days 40 Fights - Badly Drawn Boy
Outside chance:
Traffic - Roamin Through The Gloamin With 40,000 Headmen
I felt like I had to keep up the Canadian side once again when we hit 40. A fun one, for starters, is by Canada's (former) house band, The Tragically Hip, with the song "Coconut Cream". It contains the following delightful lyrics:
ReplyDeleteThere's a cannon shooting
Coconut cream
40 gallons in a steady stream
There's a cannon shooting
Coconut cream
40 gallons at a steady stream...
Sounds like fun. Then there is, of course, the granddaddy of Canadian folk rock, Gordon Lightfoot, who can teach you how to be an "Auctioneer". You just gotta sound like this:
Gonna send you off to auction school and then you'll be nobody's fool
And you can take your place among the best.
Thirty five dolla bidja now forty doller forty, wouldja megga forty bidya on a
Forty doller forty doller wouldja gimme forty, wouldja gimme forty dollar bill?
I gotta forty dollar bidya now, five, wouldja biddle on a forty-five, bidgel on
A forty-five, forty-five. Who's gunna bidda the forty-five dollar bill?
And no, we don't actually have a forty-five dollar bill here in Canada.
If neither of those floats your boat, and Canadian music ain't your thing, perhaps you might be inspired by Johnny Cash's classic "Forty Shades of Green". Or Perhaps John Lennon, with "Life Begins at Forty",though that might be a bit depressing for some:
They say life begins at forty
Age is just a state of mind
If all that's true
You know, that I've been dead for thirty-nine...
Or if that's too long for you, They Might Be Giants' "Stormy Pinkness" clocks in at just a-minute-and-nine, with the following typically nonsensical lyrics:
Your progression
My digression
Forty days this afternoon...
Finally, in the spirit of cheating just a little, perhaps a shot at a real favourite of many would be R.E.M.'s "Texarkana". The lovely lyrics contain 40,000. That's not far off 40, is it? Just 39,960 or so.
Forty-thousand stars in the evening
Look at them fall from the sky
Forty-thousand reasons for living
Forty-thousand tears in your eyes
I guess it would be churlish not to say anything by John Winston Ono Lennon (1940-1980).
ReplyDeleteHow did I miss the Bee Gees song as I think I've offered it up as a suggestion for 94 before but was disallowed of course.
ReplyDeleteI've just searched the library and have found something called 40 Days and 40 Nights by The Enemy ??
Porter Wagonner and Dolly Parton - 40 miles from Poplar Bluff, a belter of a country song.
ReplyDeleteAnything by UB40
ReplyDeleteAnd in a similar vein: Bangles - Going Down To Liverpool
"Hey there
Where you going with
that UB40 in your hand?"
(Originally by Katrina & The Waves)
Hi Rol
ReplyDeleteManaged to find some time to drop by. I can post links right now, but got some great suggestions.
The topic of forty is quite relevant to me at the moment, because I am just about to have a birthday that ends in a zero – I am sure you can join the dots. So with that in mind, a couple that talk about the age:
Life Begins at Forty – Dave and the Dynamos. A silly, but oh so much fun, one hit wonder from New Zealand.
Forty – Audrey Auld. A Tasmanian-via California-via Nashville country singer that I have really started to enjoy recently. She’s lived those forty years (“I got battle scars around my eyes. I got old boyfriends with bitchy wives. I look back and I wonder why.I’m forty.”) Sadly, she died young after a cancer battle.
Moving away from age, others have already mentioned Badly Drawn Boy but I would support that recommendation.
The other one I would throw in the mix is:
The Ballad of Forty Dollars - Tom T Hall. In the process of discovering Tom T Hall at the moment, and enjoying every moment of it. What a songwriter. In this one, he talks about a funeral, and reflects on the fact that the dead guy owed him $40.
I will really try to get back for next week, as I have a good 39 song suggestion that I doubt anyone else will know about.
Take care
Dean
PS - The Iron and Wine and Calexico song is great and I would have suggested it if I had been around last week too.
ReplyDeletePPS - and another typo from me - as is common. Should read - "cannot post links..."
ReplyDelete