It's Prince, of course, because he knew a thing or two about changing his name.
Here then are Ten Songs Featuring Towns Or Cities That Changed Their Names. Yep, another snappily titled Top Ten. Sadly I had to leave out the town of Fugging in Austria, which up until 2021 was known by a slightly different name...
One of the reasons they changed the name was that people kept nicking the sign.
10. Switched off the TV.
He abandoned his Television after only two albums (not counting the 1992 "let's-get-the-band- back-together-for-dollars comeback record").
When The X-Files landed on TV in 1993, it was like they'd made a show just for me. Monsters, UFOs, conspiracy theories... and two leads with undeniable chemistry and a repressed "Will they / Won't they?" relationship. Yes, the show made a few mis-steps along the way, the big story arcs became more important than the (more entertaining) monster-of-the-week episodes, and the Noughties revival was a damp squib... but Mulder & Scully remain two of my favourite TV characters and I still own all the DVD boxsets even though I can watch it any time I want on Disney+.
The X-Files made a huge impact on popular culture, most memorably with The Barenaked Ladies...
Once you start searching for lyrical references to The X-Files, no one will ever find you again. So I gave up and started looking for Mulder and Scully... but even that proved an impossible task. Sifting through the hundreds of references in the hope of finding gold, I did discover that Golden Earring were still in the go in the 21st Century... which is as unbelievable as anything I ever saw in The X-Files.
When it came to picking today's winner, The Truth was definitely Out There. Of all the many, many songs that mention The X-Files, Cerys is definitely a case for Mulder and Scully (and I do love the way she sings "Scully").
Finally, stepping on the toes of Celebrity Jukebox ever so slightly, I couldn't leave today without mentioning this glorious tribute to X-Files star David Duchovny. As yet, nobody's written an equivalent song about Gillian Anderson... except in my head.
When I was a teenager, one of our dogs got scared by
fireworks and ran away from home. The dog was a Border Collie called Lad. My
dad chose the name. “When I call him, I’m just going to say ‘Come here, Lad’,
so we might as well just call him Lad.”
Lad was the son of Snow, an all-white
sheepdog who had the sweetest temperament of any animal I’ve ever met, but was
also easily scared as he’d been beaten as a pup by the farmer my dad rescued
him from. Neither of them would have been any good at actually rounding up
sheep, but that was OK because my dad only had cows. Lad’s mum was my sister’s
dog, Bess. She was a bit of a bimbo too, as dog's go, but also very affectionate. Really, Lad
had no chance when it came to brains.
Lad was missing for what felt like weeks, and we’d pretty
much given up on ever seeing him again, when one night my brother was driving home
through Marsden and saw what appeared to be a very familiar dog running around
in a farmer’s field. He stopped and knocked on the farmer’s door, asking him if
he’d found any stray dogs recently. The farmer denied having done so, and my
brother couldn’t see Lad anywhere around on the farm, so he had to abandon
his quest. He asked the farmer to get in touch if he saw Lad anywhere
around. The farmer grunted and told him not to come back.
The following morning, a little after 5am, I woke up to hear
a tractor stopping outside our house. A door slammed and then the tractor drove
away. I didn’t think much of it, but when we all got up… Lad was back! Waiting
outside the back door as if he’d never been away.
There are loads of songs about pets dying. Seven years ago,
I compiled A
Top Ten Dead Pet Songs. The Number One would be unchanged even if I did it
again today. However, there aren’t half as many songs about pets going missing.
Here are a handful, starting with the most appropriate band I could find…
Your dog got lost, you got distraught
You plastered posters all round town
The dog was found and it was fine
High time… you took those posters down
For me, that lyric sums up everything that is wonderful
about Nigel Blackwell in just four lines. But then comes the real kicker…
Ruth Gould’s been out every evening
Ruth Gould has got pneumonia
We end with not a lost cat or a lost dog… but a lost
tortoise.
I wasn’t sure about Dry Cleaning at first, but they’ve really
captured my attention with their latest album, Stumpwork. Undertones drummer
Mickey Bradley does a very entertaining show on BBC Radio Ulster (which you can
catch on the Sounds app if you have any sense). He recently summed Dry Cleaning
perfectly by saying that the band were doing their thing in the background
while lead singer Florence Shaw rings her mate and has a random conversation
about the dull minutiae of her life, oblivious to the fact she’s in a band.
Gary Ashby is the perfect example of that. You see, Gary is Florence’s
tortoise. Only he went missing during lockdown. And this is the result…
Gary Ashby
Have you seen Gary?
Family tortoise
Are you stuck on your back without me?
Dogs running free
Dad’s got blood on his head
Have you seen Gary? With his tinfoil ball He used to love to kick it with his stumpy legs
You know that it would be untrue. You know that I would be a liar. If I were to say to you... I can't remember the answers to this week's Saturday Snapshots. Although, I did have to puzzle over some of them myself this week: I blame to post-viral lethargy. Or maybe they were particularly fiendish.
Mathematics proves impossible when your head is full of gunge, so I can't work out a winner this week, though everyone had a good go. Thanks for playing as always.
10. Pork from the top of the world leads you into a talent competition.
8. Climbing beanstalks after 10 leads to a sad, horny godson.
After 10 is 11, so that would make him Jack 11. If you're going to tell me it's pronounced Lee-ven, I'm going to say: it's a visual pun, not an auditory one.
4. Sweet on your tongue, a dancing football chant.
At football matches they (apparently) shout "Oggy Oggy Oggy". This is one of the many reasons I do not attend football matches.
The extra clue I gave involved a line from Smokey Robinson's I Second That Emotion, in which Smokey sings "A taste of honey is worse than none at all".
Solipsistic gangsters would say "I Am The Mob" since they would believe that only the self exists and thereby not believe in any other gangsters. Which then begs the question why they would need to be gangsters in the first place, and that is today's homework.
Anyway, if they couldn't wake up, they may be catatonic.
Ah, Cerys, were we ever that young?
This Is The End, Beautiful Friend... at least until next Saturday.
Last week's post on Infamous (real life) Murderers was really only a warm up for this, my Halloween special for 2018. I spent far too many Friday and Saturday nights when I was growing up watching gruesome horror movies about some very unpleasant bad guys. And despite what Mary Whitehouse said, it never did me any harm...
...or did it? Mwuh-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!
Here's ten songs dedicated to the bloodthirsty "heroes" of my youth...
The greatest trick the devil ever played... was getting you to listen to a song by the Bloodhound Gang.
Did you ever read Voltaire's "Candide"? He says live life at Benny Hill freak out speed Not a quote of what he wrote but a paraphrase Make it up as you go, Keyser Soze
The Ramones were evidently fans of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its gruesome killer Leatherface. Though he doesn't get mentioned by name here, he play a big part in the song. For an actual Leatherface namecheck, check out The Wonder Years - Suburbia.
The Ramones also had a song called Pinhead... long before this dude arrived on the scene.
Patrick Bateman wasn't all bad. He was a big fan of Huey Lewis & The News, for one thing.
By the way, if you've never seen it before, I seriously recommend watching Huey's response to that scene (along with Weird Al Yankovich). No, seriously. You owe it to yourself.
No, I'm not suggesting that the Welsh Wonder is a serial killer on the side, but Cerys certainly accuses Tommy Scott of being a scary psycho...
You're worse than Hannibal Lecter, Charlie Manson, Freddy Krueger
1. The Meteors - Michael Myers
Pure psychobilly from the early 80s, paying tribute to the daddy of all movie murderers... the one who famously wears a William Shatner mask... Michael Myers. Happy Halloween!
Now I'm just going down into the cellar. Don't worry, I'll be right back...
I've never done karaoke. Not because of any muso-snobbery on my part, merely because I guess I hang out with people who wouldn't be seen dead in a karaoke contest. The frustrated pop star in me regrets this quite a lot. Maybe I ought to start a sad, middle-aged bucket-list and put karaoke at the top of the list, rather than sky diving or bungee jumping.
Anyway, here's ten songs about singing someone else's songs badly over a tinny backing track...
Someone gets run down Karaoke plays somewhere in the background, But there is no explanation What makes a grown man cry? Karaoke plays and someone gets run down
That's probably pretty deep if you think about it.
I got a renewed respect for Kate Nash following her performance in the Netflix show GLOW, so I was pleased to see she had a new record out. This is a pretty fine cut from that...
Three long-forgotten Britpop and post-Britpop bands for the price of one: all of them far more interesting than Oasis. Particularly Younger Younger 28's - why weren't they massive? All worth a listen if you dig that era.
Any excuse to play this, Elbow's rockiest moment... with a Costello-esque venom to the lyrics.
There's this whispering of jokers doing flesh by the pound
To a chorus of supposes from the little town whores
There'll be twisted karaoke at the Aniseed Lounge
And I'll bring you further roses
But it does you no good
And it does me no good
And it does you no good
1. Blur - The Universal
Gonna have to give the crown to Blur, for probably their finest hour after Song 2 (and certainly their most optimistic)... even though they disgraced themselves somewhat by letting it be used in a British Gas ad campaign. Surely you didn't need the money that much, Damon?
Every night we're gone
And to karaoke songs
How we like to sing a long
Although the words are wrong
It really, really, really could happen
Yes, it really, really, really could happen
When the days they seem to fall through you, well just let them go
Never really thought the Clockwork Orange video did the song justice, but here it is anyway...
I'm not going to go off on one about losing another hero of my youth. Last year was a bad one, but I think we all have to accept now, this is going to happen with greater frequency as we count down to our own departures. Facts of life, and all that.
Never mind, here's ten songs in tribute to The Elephant Man, Kane, Winston Smith and The War Doctor...
There will be more references to The Elephant Man in this list than any of John Hurt's other films. I'll explain the main reason for that shortly, but there's another reason. The story of John Merrick touched a lot of songwriters and became a metaphor for loneliness, bravery and prejudice.
Released in 1985, Biff Bang Pow!'s song was obviously inspired by John Hurt's starring role in the 1980 film.
From the soundtrack of the movie Scandal, in which Hurt played Stephen Ward, the man who took the rap for the Profumo affair, and ended his own life as a consequence.
Another Elephant Man reference, though Ron and Russell turn it into an ode to teenage insecurity...
Turn out the light, yeah, the light And I might have a chance I guess I look slightly worse Than the Elephant Man Whoa, oh, oh, I wish I looked a little better
Paul Heaton does the same, for a slightly older man. Full of cruel jokes, masking a much deeper sadness. Which is a great metaphor for the pain we cause when we judge others by their outward deformities.
When you feel like London And you look like Hull You think Travolta pulled Newton-John Who did John Hurt pull?
As you might have guessed, The Elephant Man is my favourite John Hurt performance, and not just because it's directed by David Lynch. A lot of actors would have turned this role into caricature; he found real pathos. I cry every time I watch it.
I already did My Top Ten Elephant Songs though, which included two songs called Elephant Man. I skipped those this time for deeper lyrical references,
But Jimmy didn't like his place in this world of ours Where the elephant man broke strong men's necks when he'd had too many pours So sad to see the grieving and the people that I'm leaving And he took the road for god knows in the morning
1. Art Garfunkel - Bright Eyes
And if you don't fill up every time you hear this, you didn't grow up in the 70s.
There's a high wind in the trees A cold sound in the air And nobody ever knows when you go And where do you start? Oh, into the dark
Fortunately, this blog never gets enough traffic to cause congestion, so this is dedicated to all those bloggers who live life in the fast lane... and then have to pay to avoid blockages.
Special mentions, of course to Traffic and The Jam (although, we'll hear from one of those in just a moment).
Can't blame the so-literal-they-hurt lyrics of this one on Weller as it's a rare Bruce Foxton composition. Not sure how well thought out his solution to London traffic jams is though...
Take a look at our cityTake the traffic elsewhereLeave the city free from trafficGive the place a chance to surviveDirt and filth cover LondonGive it a chance to breathe again
Thirty odd years later, Weller would eventually tackle the subject himself in Fast Car, Slow Traffic.
Question: were The Jam named after a traffic jam... or strawberry, raspberry and boysenberry?
Yearning melancholia from the Blue Nile frontman... or an old geezer whinging into his piano about all these new-fangled motor cars clogging up the roads? I remember when this was all fields, etc. You decide.
70s soul is always at its best when there's a long talky intro (this one even begins: "You know, baby...") and this one scores double points because both Peaches AND Herb get to have a mumble at the beginning.
While there was one ever one Herb Fame (real name... well, not really, but don't just wish it was?), seven different women filled the Peaches vacancy between 1966 and the present day. This is from their must successful album, 1978's 2 Hot (the one with Reunited on), when the third Peaches, Linda Greene, was doing her thang. Sadly, at no point in his career did Herb Fame ever consider hooking up with this particular Peaches...
...because, let's face it, that would have been monuMENTAL.
All that aside, I love this track. The lyrics feature a couple talking themselves out of an extra-marital affair because of how it'd hurt their respective spouses and kids.
Our story ends without kissing Fair thee well And a promise not to tell Because...
Leave it to Warren to hit the nail on the head always...
It's 5:00 PM on a weekday, friend I'm going home, but I don't know when I hate this traffic, and I hate this town Gotta honk my horn, try to get around I feel like going on a killing spree Tomorrow I'm going on the R.T.D. The traffic crawls, and the engine stalls I'm stuck on the edge of the urban sprawl
The Go-Go everyone remembers after Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin also released 4 solo albums, although this was her only hit single. Still it must be one of the biggest radio hits of the 80s, so I suspect she made a pretty penny from it.
Anyway, Jane likes traffic jams because it gives her an excuse to smooch her man. She obviously didn't like them enough to feature them in the video though. You can see how that meeting went...
"So, Jane, for the video, I thought we'd get a road full of cars..."
"I wanna swim with dolphins."
"Yeah, but it's about the rush hour. So I thought maybe we start with you behind the wheel of a nice, sexy Mercedes (I'm sure we can do a product placement deal)..."
"Dolphins!"
"Maybe you could stand on the hood of a Porsche playing your guitar...?"
Not, strictly speaking, about traffic jams as such, but included here for three very good reasons:
i) Traffic jams always give me road rage.
ii) Any excuse to hear Cerys's heartbroken Welsh growl again.
iii) It's a far better song than any of the alternatives I had which were more on target.
(By the way, I did reject some other fine songs which mentioned Traffic - Lloyd Cole and Ned's Atomic Dustbin come to mind - because they didn't mention jams at all.)
Incredibly, even though Slaves have only released one album to date, I had two songs to choose from for this Top Ten. The more obvious title would have been Despair & Traffic, but Do Something works better for me, from its apt chorus of 'If you're not moving: do something!" to the Fight Club-esque mantra (appropriately stolen from an advertising campaign, like most 21st Century wisdom): You are not stuck in traffic: You ARE traffic!" The band even close with a little safe driving advice, "cheers!"
Every time I think I'm getting too old for punky rackets and I'd be better off listening to nothing louder than my old Billy Joel records, a band like Slaves come along and blow the cobwebs away...
All hail James Marshall Hendrix and his tissue-paper & comb kazoo. Hendrix is often remembered only as a serious artist and guitar god, but there's a lot of humour to his lyrics too, and Crosstown Traffic is a great example. If you're going to use traffic jams as a troubled relationship metaphor, this is the way to do it...
I'm not the only soul who's accused of hit and runTyre tracks all across your backI can see you had your funBut darlin' can't you see my signals turn from green to red?And with you I can see a traffic jam straight up ahead
1. James Taylor - Traffic Jam
From James Taylor's most successful album, 1977's JT, this fun, jazzy little number is a great antidote to traffic jam blues.
No, this isn't my Top Ten Songs by the band Gene... although I was tempted, because they were amazing. (And isn't it about time Martin Rossiter released another solo album? The first one was a belter.)
Instead, it's the logical (to me, anyway) conclusion of my Jean / Jeans / Gene trilogy. Most of the songs below are about blokes called Gene or Eugene... a couple of them might be a bit more genetic.
Special mentions to Gene (obviously), Genelab, Geneva, Gene Kelly, Gene Pitney, Gene Watson and... er, Genesis. Plus a number of the gentlemen mentioned below...
A starkly beautiful cut from Stevens' latest record, the autobiographical Carrie & Lowell.
Emerald Park, wonders never cease
The man who taught me to swim, he couldn't quite say my first name
Like a Father he led community water on my head
And he called me “Subaru”
And now I want to be near you
Unlike a lot of Monkees songs which were written by other people (including Neil Diamond and Carole King), this is an original Mike Nesmith composition. Nesmith went on to have quite an impressive solo career post-Monkees... I hesitate to say he was the Gary Barlow of his day, because, obviously, he wasn't a wet git.
The Fannies pay their dues to Gene Clark, chief songwriter of The Byrds, one of the band's biggest influences. Some fantastic guitar work on this one... ironically, with nary a Byrdsy jangle in sight.
To answer Johnny Cash Jr.'s question, his dad reveals that Gene Autry was the singing cowboy... an actor who made almost 100 singing cowboy films between 1934 and 1953. Although he retired in the early 60s, he enjoyed a good old retirement, living until 1998 when he died at the grand age of 91.
Fun fact: the guitar Johnny plays in the video of his gutwrenching version of Hurt was signed by Gene Autry.
We discussed Gene Vincent in the Top Ten Jeans Songs - and here's Ian Dury mourning his decline with some Thunderbird wine: possibly the sweetest thing Ian ever recorded... for the first minute twenty... until the rock 'n' roll kicks in. Vincent died in 1971 and has been immortalised in a number of tribute records, including Gene & Eddie by the Stray Cats and Luke Haines' masterful Gene Vincent (Rock 'n' Roll Mums and Rock 'n' Roll Dads).
I have to confess that Hey Eugene is the only song I know by Pink Martini - and although it's a cracker, I kinda thought they were one "hit wonders until I did a little digging for this post. Turns out they've released 7 albums since 1997.
Hey Eugene do you remember me?
I'm that chick you danced with two times through the Rufus album Friday night at that party on avenue A:
Where your skinhead friend passed out for several hours on the bathroom floor and you told me
You weren't that drunk, and that I was your favourite Salsa dancer you had ever come across in New York city..
I obviously need to investigate further...
1. Frank Turner - Wherefore Art Thou, Gene Simmons?
As Frank explains in his intro here, he was inspired to write this tribute to the elastic-tongued Kiss frontman after reading his biography and discovering that The Demon (real name Chaim Witz) claims to have slept with 4600 women... and taken a photo of every one. What a... Romeo.
A mother said, "Beware of boys in bands
And certainly don't let them write you songs
For they will come to you on bended knee and kiss your pretty hands
When the singing's done, and the suns up they'll be gone."
While her mother has a point, I might resent the implication.
That every boy who plays guitar plays women like Gene Simmons.
Though, as Frank confesses later in the song, he's not entirely innocent himself...
Of course, I don't like dance music. Yet I always had a soft spot for Norman, as far back as his Housemartin days. This is one of his best - particularly the bit where he dips the tune in his bath and lets it slowly float to the surface.
The theme tune to The Sopranos, of course. Although I never watched The Sopranos and I was into the A3 beforehand anyway. Really. I planted that flag. Shoot me if I'm lying.
You could probably fill a horse's head with gangster rap songs. This is the only one I had space for... perhaps 'cos Ice namedrops Marvel Comics halfway through.
Remember, if you want to squeal to the FBI, they can make a deal... make it worth your while. (And they like a guy who will stab a friend.) Ha-cha-cha-chaaa!
As Stephen Malkmus says in his excellent new song: "We grew up listening to the music from the best decade ever..."
Ah, Cerys, much as I enjoy your folky solo offerings and eclectic 6Music radio show, I'll always pine for the glory days of Catatonia. No one could sing "When duty calls, I'm gonna bust some balls," in quite the same way.
You probably expected this to be Number One, knowing your host, the Top Tenmeister General. It's certainly one of Mozzer's finest moments of the 21st Century: a touching love song to his Mexican gang chums / fanbase. And it's not his only gangster record either - I could easily have gone for Ganglord or the majestic Last of the Famous International Playboys, his slightly dubious ode to Reggie and Ronnie Kray. Ah, but, but, but...
1. Paper Lace - The Night Chicago Died
Go on, admit it, you really didn't expect this, did you? Not at Number One, surely? But they don't make 'em like this any more... some might say "for good reason". Me: I say, EMBRACE THE CHEESE!
Brother, what a night it really was Brother, what a fight it really was Glory be!
Sorry, Coolio fans, Paradise wasn't half a nice as any of these! But who's your Godfather...?
It's hard to think of a Morrissey solo album that doesn't contain a fair few angry songs, though this oddity is perhaps his most direct. Only released on the US version of the Maladjusted album, it's a spoken word rant-poem aimed at his former bandmates in The Smiths (well, Mike and Andy) and the judge who sided with them in the infamous court case over royalties. You know, the judge who decided Joyce and Rourke were thoroughly decent chaps while Mozzer was "devious, truculent and unreliable"... well, you can see why he was miffed.
All that said, Sorrow Will Come In The End isn't one of the Mozfather's finest works... though it does redeem itself by going suitably mental with a fairground organ about halfway through (following on nicely from my last two Top Tens). It remains one of the strangest records I've ever heard, and that's saying something.
Costello was very much considered the "angry young man" when he first hit the punk pop scene in the late 70s... though the only song he sang about anger back then was called I'm Not Angry (it wasn't a particularly honest title). This, on the other hand, comes from later in his career... when he was supposed to have mellowed.
Alone with your tweezers and your handkerchief
You murder time and truth, love, laughter and belief
So don't try to touch my heart, it's darker than you think
And don't try to read my mind because it's full of disappearing ink
Written in support of the UK student protests of 2011 against the cuts to tuition fees - one of the angriest songs you'll ever hear.
1. The Dixie Chicks - Not Ready To Make Nice
The Dixie Chicks made a stand against George W. Bush and took a kicking in the conservative midwest as a result. They refused to apologise - this was their angry repost.
I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad, sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over?
