Yesterday's link, to be specific, was not just songs with colours in the title... there are millions of those. No, the link was songs whose title is just a colour, nothing else. Far fewer of those to choose from, but here are the ten I found...
10. The Iceman Cometh, perhaps?
"The Iceman Cometh" is a play. A cold one, presumably.
Last week, when Alyson revealed that she had 83 blog post ideas pending, I was forced to check my own drafts folder. I was ashamed to discover 345 posts waiting to be completed. Some of them are no more than a title and a couple of songs, others are drafts of posts I've already published (so they need deleting) and others I've been reluctant to tackle because I was finding it hard to narrow the list of songs down to just 10.
Well, I'm going to try and tackle a few of these over the summer, to see if I can cut my drafts down to a least... I dunno, 330? Let's start with ten songs about spies... with a special mention, of course, to the very first Billy Bragg album, Life's A Riot With Spy Vs. Spy, from which this is a superb way to kick off your recording career...
And now, onto the real spy songs. Be careful... they're watching you!
She's one of a dozen Yet you've seen the state Of the other eleven So hold onto her Stay focused Don't let your eyes stray low And watch her with interest Keep the springtime at bay
She's got spies and they're looking out for me But it's not like the KGB, it's just a game we play She's got hooks meant for catching fish at sea And she's casting them out and about to catch me unaware
Some kind of kinky role play thing going on there.
That Martin Rossiter could be a bit creepy at times...
Honey are you listening? I'll make you stay at home Can't afford the risk I want us to go on As a sign of my love I've a spy in the clubs So I'll know if you go I will know
...then again, he was probably just trying to keep his lady safe from this lot...
It has to be said that Pulp's ultimate Spying Song is Babies, in which Jarvis hides in the wardrobe of his mate's sister and spies on her until she discovers him. There are a couple more twists in that story.
But I Spy is pretty special too. And once again, only Jarvis Cocker could get away with lyrics like these...
And it's just like in the old days I used to compose my own critical notices in my head "The crowd gasp at Cocker's masterful control of the bicycle Skilfully avoiding the dog turd next to the corner shop"
Imagining a blue plaque Above the place I first ever touched a girl's chest
But hold on You've got to wait for the best You see, you should take me seriously
Very seriously indeed.
Cause I've been sleeping with your wife for the past sixteen weeks Smoking your cigarettes Drinking your brandy Messing up the bed that you chose together
And in all that time I just wanted you to come home unexpectedly one afternoon And catch us at it in the front room
You see I spy for a living And I specialize in revenge On taking the things I know will cause you pain I can't help it I was dragged up
My favorite parks are car parks Grass is something you smoke Birds are something you shag Take your "Year in Provence" and shove it up your ass!
As mentioned earlier, I could easily have gone another ten of those. Which top secret tunes would you have included?
No prizes for guessing that week 42 of our countdown would be illustrated by Level 42, though Walter did suggest Love Games as a less obvious song choice than Running With The Family or Lessons in Love.
Level 42 took their name from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in which an enormous supercomputer called Deep Thought took 7.5 million years to work out "the meaning of life, the universe and everything". The answer it came up with was 42.
The songs my own giant super-computer (i.e. you guys) came up with for the number 42 were as follows...
C kicked us off with a certain lady whose measurements were 42-39-56 (I never understood lady's measurements, but very little imagination is needed here)...
It was Alyson, however, who raised the issue of 42nd Street, so certain I wouldn't be making a stop there this week. As she says...
Of course I know it's not going to be your pick, but the song 42nd Street has been around for nearly ninety years and was written by Harry Warren, who has been mentioned often over at my place as he certainly was prolific, and wrote many of the songs covered by other artists over the decades (I Only Have Eyes For You a favourite of mine). Also the Ruby Keeler story is one that never goes away, it just gets updated for a new generation.
Although Alyson is correct that the original 42nd Street song won't be this week's selection, I did find a number of other songs that stopped off on that particular thoroughfare, including...
Fair play to 'em. I did my best to keep this song out of this Top Ten, if only because of its sheer ubiquity. That said, I can't deny it's one of the best tunes Coldplay have written in years, and a genuine earworm. I listened to a lot more paradise songs than just the ten listed here, but the only ones that were honestly better than this (in the humble opinion of my ears) are the ones listed below.
A record so monumentally awesome, it's hard to believe it only makes #3. Hell, the video's even got DLR poncing about on vertiginous cliffs, surfing a flying canoe and accompanied by a three-necked, heart-shaped guitar.
Gains extra marks for mentioning Captain America in the lyrics... but still doesn't score high enough to beat this: 1. Meat Loaf - Paradise By The Dashboard Light
Because nothing succeeds like excess.
Jim Steinman's epic tale of teenage fumblings by the light of a dashboard in which Meat and Ellen Foley play the roles of young lovers who might... or might not... go all the way. Depends how well he sweet-talks her... promises her the earth... or flat-out begs. All that and the terrible consequences of promising to love someone forever...
I reckon this'll be one of my more debatable Top Tens - there were loads of great songs left out. Which one takes you to paradise?
