Time for Bertie the dog to pick another of his favourite music Berts... or Burts in the case of this week's star.
I'm sure I can't tell you anything about Burt Bacharach that you don't already know, although I can confirm that he's NOT related to one of my favourite actors of recent years, Ebon Moss-Bacharach of The Bear (soon to play The Thing in the new Fantastic Four movie).
I think we'll just let the music speak for itself today...
The majority of those were written with lyricist Hal David, of course. But he's not a Bertie. Or even a Burty.
If I was forced at gunpoint to choose a favourite recording of a Bacharach composition, it would be this one, which I bought as a 7" single in 1990. I was convinced it made Number One, but clearly I needed to buy a couple more copies, because it was held off the top spot by Timmy Mallet. Oh, the inDignity*!
*I'm particularly proud of that pun. Little things please little minds.
Next week... "For the money, for the glory, and for the fun. Mostly for the money."
I know a lot of people (even cool bloggers and muso critics) praise Adele for her undeniably excellent achievements in the field of current chart pop (i.e. not being unlistenable when so many of her peers are). However, whenever anyone starts banging on about what a great voice she has, I always want to shout back: what about Rumer? Truly the most beautiful voice of her generation; it's a voice which echoes back to the golden age of pop (hence the frequent Karen Carpenter comparisons) and is more at home singing classics from that era than on more modern compositions (although occasionally, as on her debut hit Aretha, she somehow manages to do both).
To date, Rumer's greatest achievement was her stunning 2012 collection Boys Don't Cry, featuring reinterpretations of lost classics by the cream of male singer songwriters from the 60s and 70s, including Jimmy Webb, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Clifford T. Ward, Stephen Bishop, Hall & Oates, even Neil Young. Most were as good, if not better than the original recordings. When I heard that her new record returned to that era, but focused on two composers only (the untouchable kings of easy listening: Bacharach & David), I wasn't sure what to think. It seemed almost too obvious: yes, Rumer's voice was made to sing these songs, and the fact that her producer-husband Rob Shirakbari had worked with Bacharach many times seemed like a match made in heaven. I knew the songs would sound great, but I worried I'd miss the variety that Boys Don't Cry offered... that it'd all end up sounding a bit samey.
After a few listens, those fears were put to rest. The selection is impeccable, as is the ordering of the tracks. Rumer switches effortlessly from the obvious classics like the title track, The Look of Love and You'll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart) to less well-known Bacharach & David compositions such as the 5th Dimension's One Less Bell To Answer and Luther Vandross's A House Is Not A Home. Along the way she takes on Dionne, Dusty, and, yes, Karen Carpenter, and gives as good as they deserve. Her cover of (They Long To Be) Close To You is equal to the Carpenters version yet not identical. Rumer's phrasing is different in places, turning the song from a bittersweet love song into something else. She made me hear the lyrics in a slightly different way. When I do my Top Ten Songs For Conceited Oafs, this will now be a strong contender.
If you've ever been a fan of the Bacharach & David songbook, I urge you to seek this one out. It's as sumptuous and perfect as these compositions deserve. It could have been released any time between 1965 and 1975... but it certainly doesn't sound like 2016. That's probably why it appealed to an old fart like me right now. I'm just so sick of the present. I wish I could go back and live in the past...
That said, there's one song in the collection which is as timely now as when Jackie DeShannon recorded it back in 1965. If not more so.
***Before I start this week's Top Ten: a plea for help.***
Last night, my blogroll disappeared from the sidebar of my site. I have no idea where it went, but all efforts to recover it have been in vain. I have tried my best to reconstruct it from memory (and via the blogroll of my old blog, Sunset Over Slawit, although many of those links are long gone now) but I'm sure there are many favourites I've forgotten. So if you know that I'm a reader of your blog and usually list it to the right... but you can't see it there now... please leave a reminder in the comments box. If you're a music blogger reading this site but I DON'T read your blog, it may be that I just don't know of its existence. Anyway, the same goes for you guys... just leave me a link and I'll add you to Rol's roll.
I calculate that this must be the last of my mathematical posts. It may well prove my last post ever after I'm laughed out of the blogosphere for one particular selection. But, hey: Irk The Musos!
Special mention to Joy Division... and Half Man Half Biscuit's superb "tribute", Joy Division Oven Gloves.
Psychedelic king and Soft Machine founder Ayers brings us a brief coda to his 1974 album The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories. It starts out with a simple bit of maths... and then goes quickly mental.
Surprisingly not the shortest record on this week's Top Ten though...
OK. Here we go. I make no bones about this: it is a truly awful record. But I would argue that's largely down to the production, by the three men responsible for the nadir of popular music in the late 80s. And yes, it's sung by a bloody soap opera star... although arguably one I've grown to have more respect for in his later years (I saw him in the stage version of Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds and he was excellent). The song itself - if you strip away all that awful production - stands up well as a decent enough pop song. If it'd been recorded 20 years earlier by The Supremes, it would be remembered now as a classic.
That said, I know: it's awful.
However.
I was 16 when it was released, and even though my musical tastes had moved well beyond teen-pop, something about this record (and a couple of other singles from the same album) appealed to my cheesy sense of fun. I remember singing along to it with a friend (who was a strict Smiths / Pet Shop Boys devotee) at the top of our voices on the school bus, ironically perhaps, but not caring about the embarrassment attached.
I didn't have to tell you this. I could have denied its existence in the playlist of my memory and clung onto my shreds of blogger cool, but no... honesty is the best policy. I often say on this blog that I do not believe in Guilty Pleasures and will shamelessly extol the virtues of Barry Manilow, the Bee Gees, Genesis, Bryan Adams, Taylor Swift, Elton John, Abba, Guns n Roses, Whitesnake, Lady Gaga, et al. where other bloggers fear to tread. I mean I draw the line at U2 and Michael Bolton, but that's about it. But this time, I fear I've just gone too far...
Perhaps I should consult Jez over at A History of Dubious Taste? If anyone will stick up for me here, it's got to be him...
I became momentarily obsessed with White Crosses, the album this (bonus) track comes from, a few years back. It took Against Me! into more anthemic, Green Day territory than their earlier, punkier recordings and proved a good sing-a-long, thump-the-steering wheel protest record.
I haven't really been paying much attention to the band's career since then, so I was interested to read that the lead singer, Laura Jane Grace (formerly Thomas James Gabel), recently revealed herself to be transgender, as chronicled in 2014's Against Me! album Transgender Dysphoria Blues. As I have a friend / former colleague who recently went through the same thing, I'm very interested in tracking that record down.
From First Band On The Moon, the album that broke The Cardigans onto the international stage (it's the one with Lovefool on!) this low key, bittersweet track puts Nina's vocals front and centre.
Not
actually a calculation of division, though it looks enough like one to
get it in here. The title is apparently an imaginary catalogue number
Alex Chilton and Chris Bell gave to an imaginary record on an imaginary
record label they threatened their real record label they might release
if they didn't get their skates on and put out their debut album. Less
than a minute in length, it's the final track on #1 Record, an homage to
Abbey Road era Beatles.
While Hal David and Elvis Costello were extremely different lyricists, both dealt in melancholia and wordplay. While never aiming to equal the Bacharach / David collaboration, 1998's Bacharach / Costello juxtaposition brought a new lease of life to both artists. It gave Costello the timeless melodies he'd been moving towards after years of feasting at the new wave, country, soul and alt-rock tables, and it afforded Bacharach the opportunity to write his first album of new songs in 21 years. Just beautiful.
And every night you ask yourself "What am I to do?" Can it be so hard to calculate? When three goes into two There`s nothing left over
1. Aimee Mann - One
OK, I owe this one to Martin because I really didn't have a Number One for this final Maths Top Ten until he suggested this a couple of weeks back... and we won't ever get a more perfect One than this One.
One is the loneliest number, much much worse than two
One is the number divided by two...
Of course, One is originally by Harry Nilsson, an artist whom I have a huge amount of time and respect for, and not only because he was Number One on the day I was born. But much as I love Harry's version, the divine Ms. Mann knocked this One out of the park when she recorded the soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia: a good film made great by its musical score.
Perhaps this Perfect One will make up for that Imperfect Nine... somehow, I doubt it.
After last week's Top Ten Songs About American Writers, I thought a list devoted to British wordsmiths would be easy. After all, we invented English Literature... surely Shakespeare, Dickens, Chaucer and Roger Hargreaves must have been name-checked by songwriters aplenty? And if Prince and Ryan Adams can write dirty love songs for Dorothy Parker and Sylvia Plath, surely Tom Jones must have, at some point, fancied getting into Elizabeth Barrett Browning's knickers?
However, while there are plenty of songs inspired by the works of British writers (from Wuthering Heights to all those Rush songs about Middle Earth), it proved much trickier to come up with songs dedicated to the authors themselves. In the end, I had to cheat and include Irish writers as well... for two good reasons. Firstly, the chances of me coming up with a separate Songs About Irish Writers Top Ten were slim to non-existent... and secondly, how could I leave out Oscar? Apologies to any Irish readers who object to being lumped in with us Brits... but you guys helped me out of a hole here.
After beginning my American list with Danielle Steele, it seemed only fair to open this time with her British equivalent. That is, until Radiohead record a song about Jilly Cooper. Go on, Thom, you know you want to...
MBD are one of those frustrating bands whose songs never sound as good as their promising titles. This comes from an album called Like The Exorcist But More Beakdancing which also includes tracks called Flamenco's Fuckin' Easy, Intergalactic Menopause and Holy Lord, Shawshank Redemption Is Such A Good Movie... none of which quite live up to their potential.
Still, I always thought To The Lighthouse was overrated too.
One more reason Warren Zevon deserves a posthumous sainthood (if that's not tautology).
Lord Byron had a lot of luggage He took it when he travelled far and wide He didn't get to bathe very often But he liked to change his clothes all the time
And if that's not good enough for you, check out the bit where he rhymes Henley Regatta with persona non grata. Byron would blush.
You'd think a lyrical philosopher as smart as Burt would have the answers to the woes of the world, yet here he confesses that while ignorance may be the curse of God and knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven... his own words fly up but his thoughts remain below. To paraphrase his muse...
I keep hoping for a better day It's a long time coming, but I wait anyway Life's a miracle or a foolish tale I don't know, go ask Shakespeare
See also... Shakespeare's Got A Gun by Dan Bern in which the Bard gets bent out of shape that a monkey just outside Pittsburgh finally typed out Hamlet... and goes after it with an uzi.
Dexys' 1980 debut single was a fiery statement of intent that name-checks a litany of famous Irish writers in its defiant and rebellious lyrics. But it's got a great Northern Soul beat...
Never heard about, won't think about... Oscar Wilde and Brendan Behan, Sean O'Casey, George Bernard Shaw. Samuel Beckett, Eugene O'Neill, Edna O'Brien and Lawrence Stern. Sean Kavanaugh and Sean McCann, Benedict Keilly, Jimmy Hiney Frank O'Connor and Catherine Rhine.
1. The Smiths - Cemetry Gates
No, Morrissey can't spell cemetery... but that's (one of) the point(s). Mozzer's famous ode to plagiarism has Keats and Yeats on your side, but Wilde - of course - on his. T.S. Eliot apparently said "Mediocre writers borrow. Great writers steal." (echoing Picasso's "Good artists copy. Great artists steal.") and in his early lyrics, Morrissey stole lines from the likes of Shelagh Delaney, Elizabeth Smart, Noël Coward and even Jeffrey Archer (“I was only joking when I said...you should be bludgeoned in your bed.” comes directly from Archer's novel First Among Equals). He even lifted a good chunk of the lyrics for this song from the movie The Man Who Came To Dinner.
Apologies to those of you who were expecting another Smiths song, Shakespeare's Sister, to make the top slot... but I gave that a Number One already.
Finally, I can't let this one go without playing you this excellent tribute to Charles Dickens from "The Smiths"... courtesy of the BBC's Horrible Histories programme. Almost makes me want to give Dickens another go...
From Spearmint's wonderful Christmas album, Oklahoma, but allowed here because the girl in question's birthday is on Christmas Eve. Other than that, too good to miss out.
Just before the tipping point where Stevie went from genius to goon. I Just Called To Say I Love You was still a few years off. Plus, it's a tribute to Martin Luther King, so extra point for that. Still, the 80s electric keyboard sounds very Casio. He should have stuck with a proper piano.
Those were my birthday songs. Which do you wish me?
I'm sure Bloc Party fans will be most put out to see this at 10, especially considering some of the songs below. What can I say? I never claimed to know what I was talking about.
Scottish band Danny Wilson were originally called Spencer Tracy. Sadly, Tracy's estate objected, so they instead nicked their name from a character in an old Frank Sinatra movie. This was their biggest hit: the video has some serious quiff action going on, though not from lead singer Gary Clark.
I only ever fancied Madonna when she had dark hair, pretty much for the duration of this, her best album (in my humble opinion). Of course, the fact that I was 17 at the time might also have had something to do with it. A couple of years later, she took all her clothes off... and I lost all interest.
When I came up with the idea for this Top Ten, I was pretty certain this would be Number One. Confound anyone who thinks I try too hard to be cool and indie when I compile these things. (I don't, I just pick the songs I love.) And I so wanted to give it to the Jove... but damn it, then I remembered...
1. Aretha Franklin - I Say A Little Prayer
Burt 'n' Hal. 'Nuff said.
See also the Gene cover version. Do not also see the Glee version or the one by Bomb The Bass featuring Maureen. (Yes, Maureen.)
Those were my favourite prayers. Which one makes you get down on your knees?
