Snapshots #323: A Top Twelve Small Town Songs

This is Karen Fairchild, from Alabama country group Little Big Town. I don't just throw this thing together, you know. I spend at least five minutes thinking about it.

Anyway, here are a bunch of small town songs... with very big tunes.

12. Chatty boss gets too close to the fire.

The chatty boss is a Talking Head. He's also a Byrne victim.

David Byrne - Tiny Town

11. Self-confessed bitch.

Hey, I'm only quoting Meredith herself.

Meredith Brooks - My Little Town

10. Kept in an ample jar.

Anagram!

Pearl Jam - Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town

9. Cheering on the dregs of society.

Hurray For The Riff Raff - Small Town Heroes

8. Sounds like a bucket that needs more sun.

A pail that's too pale...

The Pale - Small Town

7. The king goes Bare.

King Charles meets Bobby Bare...

Bobby Charles - Small Town Talk

6. I'm only dancing, but I'd like to get to know you well.

John, I'm Only Dancing... with Howard Jones.

John Howard - Small Town, Big Adventures

5. Swell Maps' second.

The second album by indie darlings Swell Maps was called Jane From Occupied Europe. In 1990, a short-lived band from Salisbury took that as their own...

Jane From Occupied Europe - Little Valley Town

4. Sad chimes.

The Bluebells - Small Town Martyr

3. Charles Weedon Westover did a lot of running back in the day.

He was a Runaway. He chased after Runaround Sue (though Dion beat him to her). Then he came Runnin; On Back. And his real name was Charles Weedon Westover.

Del Shannon - Little Town Flirt

2. She was the only thing not on sale.

You could buy Everything But The Girl.

Tracey Thorn - Small Town Girl 

1. Formerly a middle-aged woman who likes to chase after younger men.

He used to be a Cougar.

John Mellencamp - Small Town

SPECIAL FESTIVE BONUS SONG!

Frank Sinatra - O Little Town Of Bethlehem

Willie Nelson - O Little Town of Bethlehem

Elvis Presley - O Little Town of Bethlehem

Mark Kozelek - O Little Town of Bethlehem

If you ask me, it's still too early for Christmas songs. But maybe next week...

Of course, this week's real Number One song should have been the one below. My brain wasn't working though, and all the searches I did for "Small Town" songs failed to remind me of the "Smalltown" songs. Rookie mistake.

Self-Help For Cynics #12: Prejudice

Some people say bowling alleys got big lanes

Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same

There's not a line that goes here

That rhymes with anything

Take the skinheads bowling - take them bowling!

Camper Van Beethoven - Take The Skinheads Bowling

Racism, sexism, homophobia, hating New Order and Audi drivers... can they all be explained by the storytelling brain?

I heard one today about the one I love

I heard one earlier that shook me up

I heard one the other day, can't believe it's true

I heard one by accident wish I hadn't

I heard one so many times, couldn't care any more

Minutemen - Stories

 
In my past two Self Help For Cynics posts, I've looked at how the brain uses stories to build neural pathways. This can be a positive thing in that it helps us learn knowledge, skills and how to survive… but it can also be negative if the stories we use to learn end up reinforcing bad habits, unpleasant ideas or defeatist emotions. Last time, I explained how a nasty teenage experience had created neural pathways in my head that made me hate New Order. However, just the act of writing about that experience has honestly lessened the animosity I feel towards a band that’s never done me any harm. 

Every time I think of you

I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue

New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle

There are two explanations for this. Firstly, understanding why we think the way we do is the first step towards changing the way we think. (That’s the main reason I’m writing this series.) Secondly, you can overwrite bad neural pathways with good ones by replacing negative experiences (stories) with positive ones. Here’s another example from my terrible teens…

Chumbawamba - Homophobia
 
Was I a homophobic teenager?  
 
I grew up in the 1970s and 80s. Positive representations of gay people in the media were limited to Larry Grayson and Mr. Humphries from Are You Being Served? Camp, limp-wristed caricatures. In the pop world, we had the Village People and then Boy George. Many less stereotypically gay stars like Elton John and George Michael kept their secrets for a long time. Even Freddie Mercury – one of my teenage pop heroes – refused to confirm his sexuality, right up to the point he told us he was dying of AIDS. Tom Robinson might have proclaimed himself glad to be gay in 1978, but I certainly didn’t hear about it.

Pictures of naked young women are fun

In Titbits and Playboy, page three of The Sun

There's no nudes in Gay News, our one magazine

But they still find excuses to call it obscene

Read how disgusting we are in the press

The Telegraph, People and Sunday Express

Molesters of children, corruptors of youth

It's there in the paper, it must be the truth

Tom Robinson Band - Glad To Be Gay

 
Far worse than the clichéd media portrayal of homosexuality was the strong undercurrent of homophobia fostered by straight male society. “Backs against the wall, lads”, “shirtlifters”, “poofters”… these were phrases I heard on a weekly basis from my peers, my elders… even on TV. Add to this that the only openly gay person in my school was a bitchy viper of a boy (probably a defence mechanism, and I can hardly blame him for that)… well, you can see how my storytelling brain was busy building negative neural pathways throughout my early adolescence.

Pushed around and kicked around, always a lonely boy

You were the one that they'd talk about around town as they put you down

Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy

 
Things did start to change in the mid 80s, with more openly gay celebrities, and alternative music and comedy which celebrated LGBT culture. It was at this point when I finally started to question the prejudice I’d been a part of in my early years of high school. But it wasn’t till I started working in radio, at 16, that the stories in my brain were completely rewritten. At the radio station I worked at, there were a lot of openly gay men. And as I got to know them, I liked them. Often more than I liked some of my more hetero, alpha male type colleagues. Some became lifelong friends and so my storytelling brain was forced to write new, stronger neural pathways that cancelled out my old prejudicial ones.

Spearmint - Your New Gay Friend
 
All this just reinforces the value of positive representation in the media, in my mind at least. The anti-woke brigade rail against the fact that every TV show these days has to feature a variety of sexualities, skin colours, genders and differently-abled individuals. But only through frequent exposure to people who are not the same as ourselves will our brains stop fearing these unknown beings who are actually just like us, for good and bad. This all seems a bit obvious to me, to the point where I’m not sure I needed to write it… certainly not for the open-minded folk who read this blog. I’m preaching to the converted. 

Rufus Wainwright - Gay Messiah

Those that are harder to convert – the ones who turn off their TVs whenever they see a gay kiss, for example – maybe they’re beyond help. And there are certainly plenty of storytelling options available to them (particularly online) which feed and reinforce their own negative neural pathways. We’re a long way from a utopia.

As to the Audi drivers… I keep hoping one day I’ll have a positive experience that allows me to rewrite the neural pathway prejudice I feel towards them. They can’t all be bad…?

Snapshots #263: A Top Ten Why? Songs

Sufferin' succotash! It's time for some answers.

Why?

Why not?

10. Cleo’s partner does it in a more contemporary way.

Cleopatra's partner was Anthony... newly!

Anthony Newley - Why?

9. Soggy shortbread.

Limp Bizkit - Why?

8. Humble, hand-wringing clerk.

See David Copperfield.

Uriah Heep - Why?

7. Join Astaire in disarray.

"Join Astaire" is an anagram.

Joe Satriani - Why?

6. The sun’ll come out for a good man and a working bull.

"The sun'll come out tomorrow" is what Annie believes. Len Goodman + Ox.

Annie Lennox - Why?

5. Able to fly now that all appendages are complete again.

Stitched Back Foot Airman, obviously.

No, really, it is.

Stitched Back Foot Airman - Why?

4. Phantom of the Opera gets frisky.

Michael Crawford played The Phantom of the Opera.

Randy Crawford - Why?

3. Ganymede, perhaps?

The Big Moon - Why?

2. Cyril moans just like a slimy acorn.

Two anagrams for the price of one!

Carly Simon – Why?

1. The bridge in Sweden that hosts winter sports and rhythm.

"The bridge" in Swedish is Bron + Ski + Beats.

Bronski Beat – Why?

Why don't you come back for more Snapshots next Saturday?

My Top Twenty-One of 2021: #13

Sad farewells to Mike Nesmith and Steve Bronski last week... December always robs us of a few more heroes, doesn't it?

Here's two classics...

 

But marking these sad departures can't stop the year end countdown train, which today pulls into Station #13, and some old favourites here at Top Ten Towers...

#13 The Hold Steady - Open Door Policy

While I miss the more literary and considered aspect of Craig Finn's solo output, the reformed Hold Steady have yet to put a foot wrong. Time away has obviously recharged their batteries and this is the second strong LP they've produced since patching themselves back together.

Still an acquired taste (like most of the bands on this countdown, I guess), Open Door Policy managed to rock as loud as their earlier efforts whilst continuing to allow Finn to tell his spiky tales of confused and disenfranchised Midwest losers. As always with Finn's lyrics, the devil is in the details...

St. Catherine's was a nightmare

You know they took away my headphones

Sure they let you keep your handset

But the courtyard is a dead zone

And the nurse that they assigned me had Eruption as her ring tone

Blasting out through built in speakers like it's bug spray

Buzzing like a hornet halfway blown