You may know him better as the lead singer of the Georgia Satellites.
8. Moorland flowers explode like stars... just like Caine.
Heather goes nova.
Jules: First I'm gonna deliver this case to Marcellus, then, basically, I'm just gonna walk the earth. Vincent: What'cha mean walk the earth? Jules: You know, like Caine in Kung Fu. Walk from place to place, meet people... get into adventures.
It's the final weekend of our Department of the Peculiar kickstarter, so I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your suggestions about appropriate songs for dead singers to sing. The tracklist has now been finalised and will be included in the "Heroes" CD booklet which we're hoping will be included as a free gift to all backers, if we hit our stretch goal over the next couple of days... along with many of Rob's excellent Dead Hero illustrations (see above), as mentioned on 6Music this week (Mary Anne Hobbes was particularly fond of his Aretha Franklin).
I always feel weird promoting my own work - but that's probably why I never made it as a professional writer. The writing, I can handle... the hawking, less so much.
Anyway, should you be interested... or know anyone that might be, please direct them to our kickstarter page before Monday for full details.
Now on with the main business of the day. Identify ten top tunes and their performers from the clues below, please. It's been a couple of weeks since I set this quiz and I have to admit, I struggled to identify a few of these myself! Hopefully you'll have better luck...
10. Piano playing dog meets marvellous man at the end o' the road.
9. Romantic fullstop for feathered Shakespeare.
8. Moorland flowers explode like stars... just like Caine.
7. What happens when Essex stops dreaming... flatulent warmongers.
6. Should a mother be so confident in her prowess?
5. Shortened tyres preferred by drivers in motor city when chased by small Spanish wolf.
Without realising he'd done it, Charity Chic threw down the gauntlet yesterday when he chose three fine songs about Hard Times.
Here's another ten... and I still had to leave out the Human League! Sorry, Brian. (I also had to leave out Kiss, but I imagine you'll be less upset by that.)
One thing I've become thoroughly sick of over the last few months is people telling me how much more time they have under lockdown to read books, catch up on Netflix box sets, or take up a new hobby. Whereas I've had less time than ever. Grrr.
Still, presumably all that free time people have been enjoying will soon come to an end seeing as the message from government appears now to be "do whatever the hell you like and sod everybody else". I understand Durham's very nice this time of year.
I would say let's not kick a man when he's down, but as Dominic Cummings appears to be a loathsome sociopath, and one of the key players in the destruction of Great Britain, I'd say let's keep kicking the bastard until he screams for mercy. And carry on after that, just to be on the safe side.
And he's not down anyway, is he? The supreme arrogance of this man. He refuses to take responsibility or show any kind of remorse. He's got senior politicians lying blatantly for him, and he's even got the BBC silencing its one truly unbiased reporter who dared to speak out against him by reflecting the mood of the nation. Just when I thought I couldn't find politics any more repugnant...
Never mind, eh? Here's a young man called Tom who's been using the lockdown to catch up on biographies of rock stars, loads of them, including John Lydon, Brix Smith... and... erm...
Last in the pile and reluctantly
There's Autobiography by Steven Patrick Morrissey
The grim first chapters of northern poetry
Give no real hint at the author's latent bigotry
The Smiths appeared on the 100th page
There's endless snide for Rough Trade
But it all goes wrong when he loses in court
He's been slated by everyone but his fans still support him
It's too much for Tom, he gives up, he's had his fill
I realise there were a bunch of other 7 bands I could have chosen to illustrate what's shaping up to be the biggest edition of this countdown to date. Bands like...
(I've never heard of them before either, but Jim in Dubai is a fan. I honestly had to check the lead singer wasn't a young Simon Cowell.)
However, I always had a lot of time for Shed Seven, or "what Oasis might have been if they hadn't been a bunch of absolute Aresholes" as I like to think of them. They put out a bunch of cracking Britpop singles, never took themselves too seriously, and always put on a good live show.
Here's a Positive Song For Negative Times from them...
And now on with the show, which will, by necessity, be a lot of your tunes and very little of me talking this week, if I'm to have a cat in hell's chance of getting through all the 7 songs you suggested.
(Update: well, that didn't happen, did it?)
At least The Swede got his artists and titles the right way around this week...
Day off today and up late, yet still the first one in!
I know, it's like they all have better things to do first thing on a Tuesday morning, isn't it? But what could be better than this? Anyway, on you go, Swede...
Lynchie recalled: I met the prog rock band Egg at a bed & breakfast place in Dundee sometime around 1970 if memory serves me well. Can't say I was a fan.
George wondered: Of Dundee or Egg?
Lynchie replied: Both!
I used to write ads for the radio station in Dundee. Never got the opportunity to visit.
Well, it's definitely the best thing Neneh Cherry ever put her name to.
Oh wait, here's Alyson again...
My pick would be Youssou N'Dour/Neneh Cherry though with 7 Seconds as wrote about it recently so found out so much more of the back story - Again, don't include this bit, but here is a cut and paste:
Sorry Alyson, I need something to break up the endless list, so you're subbed.
'7 Seconds is apparently about the first positive 7 seconds in the life of a newborn child, a child who does not know about the problems and violence in our world. Three different languages were used in the song: English, French and Wolof, which is a language spoken in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania.'
See. That was far more interesting than just another boring list, wasn't it?
You sure about that, Douglas? My research says it was written by Elvis & Jimmy. And I pulled the Deluxe Edition of Blood & Chocolate off the shelf to check. That would have been my choice, anyway.
I have a lot of time for Guy Garvey, but I know I didn't spend enough time on that last album. That's lovely.
Alyson, meanwhile, is still worrying about appearing cool. Listen, Alyson, Martin proudly suggested Sting, so you've got nothing to worry about!
My hard drive obviously comes from Planet Uncool as very little overlap with the above choices at all. Other than Love and Youssou N'Dour, I have the following:
Pretty sure I'm going to irk a lot of musos with that lot.
Like I said, Martin too that crown this week. And it's not like you suggested Ken Dodd again, is it?
And, as a 7 band, my hard drive is littered with material by those giants of pre-teen pop S Club 7 as my daughter was just the right age for them at the turn of the millennium.
Surprised that hasn't come up yet. Graham Fellows (Or Jilted John as some people may know him better as)- Seven Pints & a Suicide
Or John Shuttleworth, adds Rigid Digit, a truly right thinking man if ever there was one. Who else could impart the panic and shock of opening the fridge and findings two margarines on the go.
I woke up this morning with the riff from 7 Reasons by Revenge running in my head, the best New Order song not by New order.
Back to Doug in Canada...
Okay, this time I am still late, and despite the whopper load of songs already listed, I see there are a few left to nab! I would of course have taken R.E.M, myself, but on the philosophy that they can't win two weeks in a row (can they?) I am glad my second favourite choice of all 7 songs is still available, so here goes:
More like it. Mr. Gedge has far more chance around here than Mr. LeBon.
Audience--Seven Sore Bruises
That actually has featured here before, even though it's not the far superior Sophie Ellis Bextor band. Unfortunately, the version on youtube appears to have been hacked by the Russians, possibly as a revenge attack for The Scorpions. (See Sunday's post if you don't know what I mean. Do keep up.)
(Speaking of Ms. Ellis-Bextor... this was obviously a b-side...
Boy, talk about left with the scraps! I was going to wow you with Wah! Heat's Seven Minutes To Midnight,and that has already been mentioned at least twice! All of the best ones are taken, and even most of my songs from the B squad are already here. Time for the C squad:
And finally comes Alyson, with some sage advice...
Think you're going to have to trim this list down, probably...
I'm trying to avoid trimming at this late stage... much as I may live to regret that decision in the remaining weeks. ...but as is tradition I will throw in an oldie for sake of completeness:
I'm guessing that's a different Paul Evans, though I stand to be corrected.
Good luck with getting through that little lot above (no pressure remember to deliver every week).
Good job too, considering how I failed to get through all this last week.
All of which leaves me with only the scrapings from my own hard-drive... but I may whittle that list down a little for my sanity this week. Lots of 7" mixes I had to skip past while searching through these.
However... when I began this countdown, approximately 77 years ago, I knew immediately what number 7 would be on the Hot 100. Just as I've known all along what #1 will be.
Looking up at the list above me now, I can see a number of tracks I might pick instead of this one... some truly excellent tunes that I couldn't be without. But this is what I'm going with, as suggested by The Swede, because... erm... I don't really know why. But it's Prince, and that'll do nicely.
Plus the video is absolutely bonkers...
Only half a dozen to go. And so, as George once sang... I Want Your Six!
Stuck With You is probably my least favourite song from one of my favourite albums of the 80s. Although it was the second biggest chart hit for Huey Lewis & The News in the UK (and their only other song, besides The Power Of Love, to crack the Top 20... something I now find astonishing), I always thought the video erred on the side of cheesy and the rest of the album somehow seems a step above. I know why it was a hit - it's a sweet little lovesong, and I don't actively dislike it... I just forget it when listing my favourite Huey songs, an activity which takes up more of my time than you'd probably think healthy.
All that said, the track took a severe leap up the rankings this weekend when it popped up on a mix we were listening to while Sam and I sat playing games at the kitchen table.
"Was this wrote in 2020, Daddy? Because it sounds like it's about the Coronavirus."
You know what, pal? I'm happy to be stuck with you too...
Plus, the video is a lot funnier than I remembered.
(Or, to give it its full title, as Brian did: I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well.)
7. Coins on the breeze really sting.
I was reading an article the other week about how this record was secretly written by the CIA as a way of further destabalising the Soviet Union prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The lead singer of The Scorpions denies this, but then he would, wouldn't he?
I missed an opportunity with this clue. I should have used Evil wino Jonathan is welcomed to the Pleasuredome. ("In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree...")
That's how you make a music video. Although, frankly, I'd have watched it if was just Olivia.
2. #6 knighted - amazing!
#6 featured John Wayne: The Duke. Give him a knighthood and he'd become a Sir.
I make no apologies for the fact that this is the fourth time Debbie Harry has appeared as the opening image on Saturday Snapshots. I just keep finding different pictures of her posing with a camera. And I swear I only spend three or four hours a week looking.
Anyway, here are this week's posers. You know the deal by now. Don't get Union City Blue if you can't guess them all...
10. Wolves eat most of a baby deer, swapping pronoun for article.
9. It's tidier than all the other rooms in the hospital - don't knock it!
8. Bridge game disrupted by friend of a friend of King of Creation.
7. Coins on the breeze really sting.
6. Larger chaps required for blurry dreamers.
5. Ocean spray for the Evil Dead.
4. I am not a deviant - and neither is my redheaded ghost bride.
3. Evil wino Jonathan moves to rosebud house.
2. #6 knighted - amazing!
1. Soup strung up over Kansas.
If you're thinking I Know But I Don't Know... the answers will be here to put your mind at rest tomorrow.
