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?

My Top Ten Bette Davis Songs

I've been very much enjoying the series Feud: Bette & Joan which ran on TV over Christmas. Great to see 60s America recreated so faithfully and the performances by Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange and Alfred Molina were terrific. Stanley Tucci was hilarious as Jack Warner too. Of the two, Sarandon's Bette Davis probably comes out best, being shown as both the better actress and the more sympathetic human being (most of the time).

Not done an Actory Top Ten for awhile, so here's ten songs about Bette and her films...


10. Rod Stewart - Baby Jane

Well, we've got to start with this one, haven't we? As seen in Feud, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? was the film that cemented the rivalry between Bette and Joan.

Some debate on t'internet as to whether Rod's song has anything to do with the movie... and quite a lot of old Rod The Mod fans bemoaning his 80s ouvre, of which this is seen as a particularly irksome entry. You can have the Belle & Sebastian version if you prefer. Or perhaps a completely different Baby Jane from Dr. Feelgood.

9. The Gaslight Anthem - Mae

There's an argument to be had that Brian Fallon hasn't had an original idea in his life, but everybody loves Noel Gallagher for the same crime, so cut The Gaslight Anthem a break...

Stay the same, don’t ever change
'Cause I’d miss your ways
With your Bette Davis eyes
And your mama's party dress

8. Al Stewart - Next Time

Not the first time Al has cropped up here name-dropping famous actresses. Probably won't be the last.

When you were just a kid you loved
To go to movies in the afternoon
And so you left the factory
And got a job in the projection-room
Bette Davis plays
Ran away with the passing days
You'll be a movie-star
Next time

7. Good Charlotte - Silver Screen Romance

Hit the chorus, lads...!

You're my Bette Davis I'm your Cary Grant
Let's make love all night don't get up at the prohibition
The big depression's over lets have a drink to them
We'll stay young forever living in our silver screen romance

(It's gonna be harder to do my Cary Grant Top Ten now.)

6. Marc Almond - My Love

Hilarious lyrics from Marc on this whole song... and just watch the way he performs the Bette Davis lines in the video: perfect!

My love
Likes tattoos in biro
Love bites and lager
And long menthol fags
My love
Smokes like Bette Davis
In short... 
Vicious... 
Drags.

5. Iggy Pop - Get Up & Get Out

Turns out Iggy was part of the whole #metoo movement almost 40 years before the rest of the world. This is from 1980!

I'm wondering fellas if you've heard the news
The chicks are sick and tired of being abused
Now I saw all this on the wide screen
You know that chick Bette Davis split right out of the scene

4. Dire Straits - Industrial Disease

Leave your Dire Straits prejudices at the door, please.

Sociologists invent words that mean 'Industrial Disease'
Doctor Parkinson declared 'I'm not surprised to see you here
You've got smokers cough from smoking, brewer's droop from drinking beer
I don't know how you came to get the Bette Davis knees
But worst of all young man you've got Industrial Disease

3. The Wedding Present - All About Eve

Nothing to do with the movie, more about the year Davd Gedge spent in South Africa as a child and his memories of Apartheid. Of course, All About Eve also gave its name to these guys. Bette's legacy lives on!

2. Bob Dylan - Desolation Row

Undeniably great. (Though I also like the My Chemical Romance version.)

Cinderella, she seems so easy 
"It takes one to know one," she smiles 
And puts her hands in her back pockets 
Bette Davis style 
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning, 
"You belong to Me I Believe" 
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend. You better leave" 
And the only sound that's left 
After the ambulances go 
Is Cinderella sweeping up 
On Desolation Row.

1. Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes

The obvious #1, though I'm sure it'll be shunned as "too 80s" by many. You may prefer Jackie DeShannon's original... though it's a VERY different song. For a hipper "indie" version, try the Sexton Blake cover or this rather over-produced version by My Gold Mask. I'm sure it's been covered by a dozen other people, but those are the only ones to make it into my collection.

Kim Carnes is worth another post sometime though. Known to most people in the UK as a one hit wonder, her career actually stretches from the late 60s through to the present day, and her Best Of collection shows a lot of interesting work over that time. Try Gypsy Honeymoon as a taster, it might change your idea of her.



Think I can't follow that with a Joan Crawford Top Ten. Go on, dare me!

My Top Ten Horror Actor Songs

It's Halloween - the night we all dread because the scariest creatures on earth roam the streets spreading terror and mayhem. No, not ghosts, vampires and zombies - children! Give me a werewolf any day over a belligerent teenager in joke shop fangs with a table cover of his head and a couple of sachets of ketchup. Like most sane people, we turned off the lights and hid behind the sofa till it was safe to come out.

While there, I realised that every year at this time I usually post a horror-related Top Ten... and I'd completely forgotten to compile on this year. So here - in conjunction with my Songs About Actors series - are ten songs which feature famous scary movie stars in one way or another...


10. Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead

You've got to either start or finish with this one, haven't you? I never quite got the appeal, but it's OK once a year. Chvrches do an interesting cover though. As do Nouvelle Vague.

9. Redd Kross - Linda Blair

 A suitably freaky tribute to the girl they couldn't exorcise.

8. Lou Reed & Metallica - Brandenburg Gate

Boris Karloff, Klaus Kinski and Peter Lorre all get a namecheck in this... interesting... collaboration. Not as heavy as you might expect.

7. The Huntingtons - Let's Go To Haddonfield

Stumbled across this song about one of my favourite horror movies - John Carpenter's Halloween - and its star, the original scream queen, Jamie Lee Curtis. The Ramones have a lot to answer for.

6. Garland Jeffries - Lon Chaney

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of the saddest films I've ever seen.

Oh Lon Chaney,
What's to hold you back?
The Wolfman's dead
And the old black cat is gone,
Like a memory faded from your past.
You look so sad,
With a face of stone,
Just skin and bone.
You're all alone,
With a hunchback's eye you live.

5. Jack Lukeman - Ode To Ed Wood

Cult genius or worst actor / director ever? I always had a fondness for Ed Wood, largely driven by the Tim Burton / Johnny Depp film which led me to seek out some of his work. Jack Lukeman does an excellent spooky tribute.

4. ZZ Top - Vincent Price Blues

This is both hairy AND scary. Honest: give it a spin... if you dare!

3. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Zombie Zoo

You look like Boris Karloff - and you don't even care!

2. John Grant - Sigourney Weaver

Those scary aliens gave Sigourney no trouble at all.

And I feel just like Sigourney Weaver
When she had to kill those aliens.
And one guy tried to get them back to the Earth.
And she couldn't believe her ears.

And there's a shout out to Winona Ryder in the second verse too: the scariest thing in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula was her English accent...

I feel just like Winona Ryder
In that movie about vampires.
And she couldn't get that accent right;
Neither could that other guy.

1. Warren Zevon - Werewolves Of London

Lon Chaney AND Lon Chaney Jr. - in the same song! And they're both walking with the queen...



Your suggestions always welcome. Just don't knock on my door with them tonight.

My Top Ten Ingrid Bergman Songs

Yes, it's the series nobody really likes, but I do it anyway. Indulge me!

Having done Bogie, it seems only fair I give some thought to his Casablanca co-star. Was that cannon fire, or is it my heart pounding?


10. Duran Duran - Notorious

When I started in radio, this record had been out a couple of years and so the jocks (who still had free choice back then... for a short time) would dig it out and give it a spin quite often. Mostly so they could make the same gag: Mo-mo-monotonous...

Still, good memories.

Notorious is a great Hitchcock film, with Ingrid and Cary Grant.

9. Serge Lama & Carla Bruni - Casablanca

Most of it's in French, so I don't understand a word of it... except when they sing about Bogart et Ingrid Bergman...

8. Bee Gees - For Whom The Bell Tolls

Hard to imagine that Robin, Maurice and Barry were big Hemingway fans, but they did steal the title of one of his most famous novels... made into a 1943 movie starring Ingrid & Gary Cooper.

7. The Alan Parsons Project - Call Up

If Alan had a time machine, he'd use it to rescue a bunch of dead stars. Ingrid would be among them, in excellent company.

6. Siouxsie & The Banshees - Spellbound

More Hitchcock, this time with Gregory Peck. Siouxsie is a huge Hitchcock fan.

5. Sleeper - Lie Detector

She's a movie star arrangement
Got a touch of Bergman to her face
She wears suits and buys him flowers
Smokes his cigarettes and bakes him cakes
He says uh oh I love you
But I'm not sure I trust you

Weird thing is, I reckon Louise Wener had a touch of Bergman to her face too. 

4. Richard Thompson - Jerusalem On The Jukebox

In the bathroom mirror they try that Joan of Arc look again
Two parts Ingrid Bergman to one part Shirley MacLaine...

3. The Beautiful South - Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud)

I want my sun-drenched, windswept Ingrid Bergman kiss...

Don't we all?

2. Pulp - The Day After The Revolution

The closing track on the greatest album of the 90s, and the one that killed Britpop. I loved Britpop, but it needed killing.

Fair enough, the Bergman that Jarvis claims is over may well be Ingmar (no relation to Ingrid), but it's my blog and so I'll pretend he was singing about Ingrid just so I get to play this amazing track.

1. Billy Bragg - Ingrid Bergman

I know I featured this a few weeks back in My Top Ten Innuendo Songs, but it's worth giving it another spin without the phnarrs... because it's beautiful. Woody Guthrie lives, through the Bard of Barking.




Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake.

My Top Ten Greta Garbo Songs

I can't claim to be the world's biggest expert on Greta Garbo. In fact, compared to the actors and actresses featured so far in this series, I know virtually nothing about her, and would struggle to name more than a couple of her movies. I do, however, understand how she might vant to be alone...

Songwriters, though, they just won't leave her alone at all...

(Special mention to The Pogues - Garbo (aka In & Out), which is a pretty cool tune but isn't about Greta at all, it's slang for garbage.)


10. Stevie Nicks - Garbo

You can see how Stevie Nicks would be inspired by Garbo. Crazy runs deep.

I love to waltz with a man in a dark linen suit
All alone -- at a party with someone I knew
From a time gone by -- turned to stone

Speaking of insanity, see also Falco - Garbo. No, really. You owe it to yourself.

And, in a similar vein...

9. Van Morrison - Just Like Greta

Well, I guess I'm going A.W.O.L.
Disconnect my telephone
Just like Greta Garbo
I want to be alone

Grumpy old git.

8. Patty Larkin - Rearview Mirror

 Like Suzanne Vega? Give Patty Larkin a try...

I trusted you
I trusted you
Poured my heart out like a friend
But Great Garbo found out in the end
Who's who

7. Neil Finn - Recluse

I guess all those years being in a Crowded House made Neil long for a little solitude too...

JD Salinger lived long ago and far away
Greta Garbo parked her car and walked home from a glamorous party
I just want to be alone

6. David Bowie - Quicksand

I'm the twisted name on Garbo's eyes
Living proof of Churchill's lies, I'm destiny
I'm torn between the light and dark
Where others see their targets, divine symmetry
Should I kiss the viper's fang?

Nope. Not a clue what all that's about. 

5. Nanci Griffith - Late Night, Grand Hotel

But this is sheer class...

And maybe you were thinkin'
That you thought you knew me well
But, no one ever knows the heart of anyone else
I feel like Garbo in this late night grande hotel
Cause living alone is all I've ever done well

4. Mansun - I Can Only Disappoint U

One of my favourite Mansun songs. The title is my mantra.

I traveled from Dublin, you said you'd change the world
You sing like Sinatra, always
You pulled 'em for miles now, like Garbo in Berlin
You played 'em for zeroes, just like always
Tonight, some bitch is hassling me
And tonight, it feels so good feeling cheap

I can only disappoint you cause I always let you down

3. Bryan Ferry - These Foolish Things

Normally I'd go for Frank over Bryan any day, but I have a special fondness for the Ferryman's version of this Cole Porter clssic.

The smile of Garbo and the scent of roses
The waiters whistling as the last bar closes
The song that Crosby sings
These foolish things remind me of you

Speaking of Cole Porter, let's not forget You're The Top...

You're the purple light
Of a summer night in Spain,
You're the National Gallery
You're Garbo's salary,
You're cellophane. 

Imagine living in a time where cellophane is a technological marvel. 

2. Manfred Mann - My Name Is Jack

...and I live in the back of the Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls.

There actually was such a place, apparently, a hostel in San Francisco in the 60s.

1. Lloyd Cole - Perfect Skin

Some of the best lyrics of the 80s...

At the age of ten she looked like Greta Garbo
And I loved her then, but how was she to know that
When she smiles my way
My eyes go out in vain
She's got perfect skin

And I could easily have gone another ten. But which one do you want to be alone with?

My Top Ten John Wayne Songs

I was never a John Wayne fan. I found him a pretty unpleasant character on screen... and I believe he was actually quite a bit worse off-screen.

My dad though... my dad loves John Wayne. If there's a John Wayne film on TV, he'll stop everything to watch it, even though he's seen it a hundred times before. Therefore, this Top Ten's for my dad...

The Quiet Man's a pretty good film though.


10. Haysi Fantayzee - John Wayne Is Big Leggy

Let's start with the obvious, which I always thought was just a silly, novelty pop song... until JC revealed it could well be "one of most subversive Top 40 hits of all time". Ughh. 

9. Nanci Griffith - Lone Star State Of Mind

I just saw John Wayne on the Late, Late Show
Save the girl and ride away
And I was hoping as the credits rolled
He'd make it back to her someday

Real tough guys never get the girl, Nanci.

8. Seals & Croft - John Wayne

Seals & Croft get macho...

Yes, I have a mind with a mind of its own, 
A soul like the soul of John Wayne.

Let's take a look at Seals & Croft to see if we think they might pull of that tough guy act...?

Hmm...

7. Paula Cole - Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

Where is Paula's John Wayne?

6. Twin Atlantic - You're Turning Into John Wayne

 Scottish rock band gets upset that all their culture is imported from the States. Consider...

Every time there's a story,
I turn around, you're turning into John Wayne,
You're turning into John Wayne,
Now here's a grey Scottish theory,
Have you lost latitude and longitude?
Your latitude and longitude.

Now I know that I'm contradicting
Everything I own was made in the US of A,
Made in the USA

 

So when I breathe your air,

Do you believe you're changing the earth?

5. The Indelicates - Remember The Alamo!

Directed and produced by Wayne, many still believe this movie to be an accurate historical document, despite an iffypedia-quoted expert saying, "there is not a single scene in The Alamo which corresponds to a historically verifiable incident". Songwriters have been fascinated with this famous battle for years too: see The Ballad of Davy Crockett, The Ballad of the Alamo and even Remember The Alamo... which doesn't have quite the same message as the Indelicates song of the same name.

You may also wish to check out John Wayne Was A Nazi by MDC. Just saying.

4. John Martyn - John Wayne

John Martyn believed John Wayne to be a very scary man.

Don’t you dare look behind you
For you know I will be there
You’ll feel my breath on your neck
Turn, face me if you dare
I’ve come to measure you
I’ve come to fix you up
I’ve come to measure you
Fix you up.
I am John Wayne
I believe I’m John Wayne
You know, my name is John Wayne
Get on your horse!

3. Arctic Monkeys - Put Your Dukes Up, John

Maybe not directly about JW, but it's got a John and a Duke in the title, and it comes out fighting...

2. Little Green Cars - The John Wayne

John Wayne becomes the perfect metaphor for callous, hard-hearted rejection from this little-known Irish indie band...

You know your neglect
Is the reason that I'm so obsessed with you
And when I asked you your name, you said John Wayne
And I guess it's true
'Coz then you shot me down
Doubled over and I hit the ground right in front of you
I guess in the Wild West
It's OK to shoot the pest that's annoying you

1. Buddy Holly & The Crickets - That'll Be The Day

Perhaps not the most obvious Number One... until you realise that one of the biggest hits of the rock 'n' roll era is actually named after a line from The Searchers. 60 years later, this is still one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded.




Which one makes you want to get off your horse and drink your milk? (John never said that, apparently. It was Little & Large.)

My Top Ten Lauren Bacall Songs

"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow"

Quite a few of the songs featured in My Top Ten Humphrey Bogart Songs also made mention of his fourth wife and the greatest love of his life, Lauren Bacall. So you might think I'd struggle to put together a Lauren Bacall Top Ten without some crossover. Au contraire...


10. Kevin Roth - Just Like Lauren Bacall

She knew 
Just what to do
When the boys came...

I will hold my hand up and say that I'd never heard of Kevin Roth until very recently. Iffypedia doesn't tell me much about him either, other than he's "is an American folk singer and Appalachian dulcimer player who has released forty-five albums".

FORTY-FIVE ALBUMS? Dude needs a bigger iffypedia page.

9. ABC - Love Conquers All

 Another of Sheffield's greatest pop bands...

When Bogart saw Bacall
He knew that love conquers all

8. Alabama 3 - Wade Into The Water

Time for your baptism... Alabama-style.

I got as drunk as Bogart, you were just smokin' like Bacall

7. Kitchens of Distinction - When In Heaven

Imagine what could happen after this drink: I'm wearing wings
Join Lauren Bacall, float up to heaven's gate
Wearing danger smiles. She'll meet with the stars
They'll break down doors
Those shining pearls float off in space
I'm raving beautifully

Well, you're definitely raving, Patrick.

6. Pavlov's Dog - Mersey

Smoothy 70's AOR. You can't beat it.

And all the other times
That I wished that you were here
And everything went crazy
When my head filled up with beer
I played that I was Bogart
And that you were my Bacall
And everything just shattered by curtain call

5. The Clash - Car Jamming

Meanwhile, Joe is certain he saw Lauren Bacall in a traffic jam. There are worse people to get stuck behind.

4. Thea Gilmore - Movie Kisses

Poor old Thea, such a cynic...

Here it is
The not-so-happy-ending
We've done
Our picket fence defending
We did Bogart and Bacall and now the spotlight's gone and anyway
All those movie kisses just last too long

3. The Wedding Present - You Jane

I doubt this will be the last time we'll hear from David Gedge in this particular series...

There’s really no need to explain
He’s Tarzan and you’re Jane
He’s Bogart, you’re Bacall
I’m sure he has it all

2. The Amazing Rhythm Aces - Hit The Nail On The Head

Another forgetten gem from the greatest decade.

I can tell you're from down south
The way you say ya'll
You look at me over your shoulder
Just like Lauren Bacall

1. Jesse Malin - Wendy

One of Jesse's very best. (And he'll be back again tomorrow with another one.)

Wendy took me with a smile
Country lips and Bacall style
Through Tangiers or to Bombay
Her self-portrait in the USA

Which one makes you want to whistle?

My Top Ten Humphrey Bogart Songs

Another new feature. I pick a famous actor or actress, then find ten songs which link to them one way or another... and try to explain the link in as few words as possible.

We're starting with Humphrey Bogart because he is a legend. Not the greatest actor ever, but certainly one of the greatest movie stars. This guy had charisma, attitude, presence by the bucketload. He was a tough guy, sure, but he knew how to take a beating too. And while the kids of today probably wouldn't even know his name, the songwriters of yesterday couldn't stop writing about him. I could probably have made this a Top 20, just from songs that mention him by name (I won't be as direct with every star I choose), and I didn't even have to go to Nik Kershaw.


10. Peter Hammill - No More (The Submariner)

Get ready to have you brain fed through a Van der Graaf Generator. Prog off!

Oh! To be King John or Douglas Bader,
Humphrey Bogart or Victor Mature!
Which one is false and easy?
Which one harder?

9. Hall & Oates - Heavy Rain

Anyone who doesn't dig Hall & Oates, well... when you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.

We've seen a million faces
All staring at you and me
But just like Humphrey Bogart said
Before he passed out on his bed
Here's looking at you kid
And the rocky road ahead

8. Melissa Etheridge - Watching You

Probably one I should haved saved for volume 2 of My Top Ten Stalker Songs...

Sure I'm alright
No I'm not very cold
Every now and then I can feel the subway heat
So go on inside
I'll leave you alone
Anyway Bogart's on in the window down the street
And I gotta do something

7. Roxy Music - 2HB

2HB? To Humphrey Bogart. Thanks, Bryan.

Here's looking at you kid
Hard to forget
Here's looking at you kid
At least not yet
Your memory stays
It lingers ever
Will fade away never

6. The Good Rats - Tough Guys

Lots of famous tough guys from the golden age of Hollywood pop up in this Good Rats song, but Bogie takes centre stage...

Bogie, I've always dug your crowd
The fat man and Peter
And Claude and the rest

Play it again, Sam
These falcons have gone
To their nest
Oh, yes

5. The Beautiful South - I May Be Ugly

I pulled this one out for My Top Ten John Hurt Songs, but it's too good to ignore here...

He dreamt of those old-fashioned movies
Where Bogart gets the dame
But a lorry load of Lorre
Is still the score of pain

"A lorry load of Lorre"... that's some top alliterative punning right there.

4. Suzanne Vega - Freeze Tag

Two kids mucking around in a playground as winter draws in...

You stand
With your hand
In your pocket
And lean against the wall
You will be Bogart
And I will be
Bacall

3. The Donnas - Pass It Around

But there's always someone who's gotta spoil it for the rest of the gang
You're such a little Bogart and I'm sorry but you just can't hang

Why don't you pass it around
Don't bring the party down
If you don't pass it around
We'll run you right outta this town

I had to Urban Dictionary this one...

"To keep something all for oneself, thus depriving anyone else of having any. A slang term derived from the last name of famous actor Humphrey Bogart because he often kept a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, seemingly never actually drawing on it or smoking it."

See also Little Feat - Don't Bogart That Joint.

2. Al Stewart - Year of the Cat

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat

Definitely Al's finest moment. (I wonder if I could have managed a Peter Lorre Top Ten?)

1. Bertie Higgins - Key Largo / Casablanca

Two for the price of one. Another couple I owe to Wogan, I suspect. No idea how else I'd remember these songs. The interweb informs me that "Bertie Higgins is one of China's most requested American entertainers". Good for him.

We had it all
Just like Bogie and Bacall
Starring in our old late, late show
Sailing away to Key Largo...

If you think I've missed any obvious ones out... they might crop up in volume two of this series... so you might be able to guess who's coming next.

Feel free to leave a comment, but remember: people lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite.