Is it that time already? Time for the answers to yesterday's Snapshots. And as the link was Favourite Songs, above is an image from my favourite film as a teenager, Back To The Future.
Most of these are oldies. Well, they're oldies where I come from...
The latest album by Dawes is still playing in my car, and as often is the case when you stick with a record, new delights are unveiling themselves beyond the initial attention-grabbers.
One such track is St. Augustine At Night, which I realised this morning is an anti-Born To Run: a song about staying in the town you grew up in, rather than being desperate to run away. To be fair, St. Augustine, Florida, does look a little prettier than Freehold, New Jersey, but as a tourist destination, I suspect much of that may be facade. Could this be the American equivalent of the "seaside town they forgot to bomb"? I suppose that depends on whether you're a teenager wanting desperately to spread your wings, or an old-timer looking back on your life. Taylor Goldsmith gives us both perspectives here...
We'd count the trucks on Highway 1 on their way to Jacksonville
Wonderin' where they headed on from there
My brothers and my sister all stood spiritually still
As if those roads became the answer to their prayers
But I didn't want it any other way
This town was the one thing that felt right
All these tourists could be kings during the day
But not in St. Augustine at night
There are many great lines in this song, particularly the closing couplet in the verse below, which brought a wry smile to my face the first time I heard it in the context of the whole story...
That's when my girlfriend told me, "There's a baby on the way
And I need to know you're gonna go to bat"
Well, I never put off 'til tomorrow the things I should've done today
No, I've always waited way longer than that
Life never really goes the way we plan, and you may end up beset with regrets. But perhaps it's easier if you're at least happy where you are. I feel I've got that. I've always loved the countryside in West Yorkshire, so I guess I'm glad I never climbed on the back of Bruce's bike and rode off to find a new place to walk in the sun. Some of us were just born to stay where we are.
Life became a series of birthdays, cars, and pets
Just anything to look forward to
I don't talk about mistakes, I don't talk about regrets
At this point, I'm not sure what good it would do
And I'm not asking for anybody's help
As I gaze out where the stars dance with the lights
The latest album from Dawes has been a bit of a slow burner. I wasn't initially impressed with it enough to mention it in my year end countdown, feeling it was a bit too close to previous releases to really distinguish itself. Spending a little more time with it though has unearthed some lyrical treats, including this from the song Didn't Fix Me...
I got that book you recommended
About the spy in East Berlin
I really like the way it ended
How he forgive his friend who turns him in
And I think I see what you were saying 'bout how
Technically, it should but
It didn't fix me
It didn't fix me like I thought it would
And this, which is a proper Mid-Life Crisis song... from a band still in their 30s.
(I might play it to my Millennial Hipster buddy to make him feel old.)
If you got All Shook Up by yesterday's quiz, don't go Crying In The Chapel this Sunday morning. Here's a little Peace In The Valley instead... the answers!
Rain led to a low turn-out yesterday morning, but Lynchie nabbed the early, easy ones. Maybe this quiz is getting too difficult. Maybe it's run its course. Not far from 100... perhaps I'll retire it with the century.
In the meantime... a quick trot through the answers this week with A Little Less Conversation than usual as I'm too tired to write loads.
10. Played by Dexys' error... so good they named him twice.
When Dexys appeared on Top of the Pops singing Jackie Wilson Said, they had a huge picture of Jocky Wilson behind them. Various stories about how this happened - a mistake on the part of the production team or (more likely) Kevin Rowland's wicked sense of humour.
Anyway, Jocky Wilson was a darts player.
New York, New York was so good they named it twice, according to Gerard Kenny.
One I discovered via The Vinyl Villain... though you have to know your comics characters to get the clues. (They changed their name to Eugenius after this release to avoid getting sued by Marvel.)
Steve Rogers is Captain America.
Johnny Storm is the Human Torch. His catch phrase is "Flame On!"
7. Tin Tin's useless investigators give away their identity.
C correctly identified that the gent in the centre of this pic wasn't actually Joe Leeway from The Thompson Twins, but Eddie Grant. My bad, with apologies to all concerned.
The Thompson Twins were named after bumbling detectives in the Tin Tin comics.
2. Sound like they're Riders on the Storm... on the best mixtape you ever made.
As I've written about previously, Dawes are a pretty good band... with a very silly name, considering that they sound exactly the far more famous group from the 60s led by Jim Morrison.
It's been a fine year for new music, so as well as my Top 18 countdown, I also wanted to shine a light on some of the tunes that didn't make my final list. Here's ten great country songs I discovered this year...
With splashes of pop and even disco on her most recent album, there's a sense that Kacey hankers after following Taylor Swift to the dark side. She can still write a great song though.
Their latest album was pretty good, though I didn't love it half as much as their last one. This is from the follow-up EP, and suggests they're heading back to top form.
With his last couple of albums, Eric Church would have easily made it into my favourites of the year list. His latest record, Desperate Man, plays it a little safe and leaves the Waylon-esque outlaw stuff on the back-burner. Still some fine tunes on it though.
Dave Giles calls himself "an American artist from London", and to be fair, this was recorded in Nashville. Sounds more like Nick Lowe meets Frank Turner to me. Classic songwriting.
They call it Americana, but The Nude Party owe as much to the Stones and 60s garage rock. Whatever label you hang on it, this is a smashing pop song destined to put a grin on your face. The rest of the album is similarly fun. More here.
1. Ashley McBride - A Little Dive Bar In Dahlonega
You know how some of the best indie music is written for outcasts and losers, those down on their look and living on lonely desperation? So is some of the best country music. This is one of my songs of the year - kinda like a country version of Drugstore's Say Hello.
Stay tuned for more great country and Americana music as I continue my 2018 countdown.
I had to go outside my record collection to find one more track for this Top 10. This chunk of Swedish guitar noise will fit the bill nicely, thanks. It beats Iggy & Slash for lyrical reasons.
All the things that you have ever said All the people you've taken to bed All the books that you have ever read All the papers that you've ever shred
All the cigarettes you've ever smoked All the times you've ever told a joke All the people that you've ever met All the times you've ever been upset
All the girls that ever broke your heart All the things that you have torn apart All the music that you've ever heard All the times you've been at loss for words....
Another band I thought would be bigger than they actually were. Saw them in support, or at a festival, and bought their CD right there. This was one of their best tracks. Pretty cool video too.
Don’t waste your time cause we’re all gonna die Have fun, and everybody just clap your hands, yes Get out of your bed and get your music on Get out on the street and get some living done I think you'll probably live beyond the end of the week You've got enough time left so come spend it with me
A great little indie band from a few years back who only the blogosphere appeared to love. Shame. They have some strong tunes. And I like some of the suggestions they have for crazy ways to go: particularly "hit by a plane... while you're cycling". The Proclaimers would appreciate that.
From the album of the same name. Cheery bunch. Although this is a much sweeter song than the title suggests... it's the perfect antidote to all those songs about "oh, life on the road is so tough now we're a famous band".
So try not to get upset Everything is fine Hey, it's not that big a deal We're all gonna die
1. Malcolm Middleton - We're All Going To Die
Released as a Christmas single (and therefore one of the greatest Christmas singles ever released) though apart from having MM dressed as a very bad Santa in the video, it has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas...
And what if I don't become Famous posthumously? Maybe my story's no good
If I can take one posession It'll have to be my duvet When oblivion comes calling it'll be So cold
Great tunes to be had at #7... if you can get past the annoying band name.
7. Dawes - We're All Gonna Die
My introduction to Dawes came via their previous album, 2015's All Your Favourite Bands, which would have been near the top of my year end countdown last year... had I not discovered it in early 2016. (This often happens, and I'm sure it will again this year. By June 2017, I'll have kicked half these albums off this chart - in my head - and replaced them with more worthy discs I haven't yet heard.) AYFB was a fantastic record, channeling the Eagles, Jackson Browne and a bunch of my favourite Laurel Canyon bands of the 70s, and it had the same kind of hazy, nostalgic lyrics that make me long for a youth I never had in a far away land I might never visit. It's worth listening to the title track again now, just to show you what I mean...
OK. You know when you love an album so much that all you really want from the band's next release is another version of that record? And inevitably, if you get it... it's not what you wanted at all? A smart band knows that. And a smart band don't give you what you want. They give you something different... even though they know you might not dig it at first. A smart band hopes you'll be smart too, and you'll stick with that different record and come to love it in a different way. Turns out Dawes are a pretty smart band...
I bought We're All Gonna Die the second it came out, not just because of my love for AYFB, but because... hell, how am I not going to buy an album with that title? It deserves to be on my year end Top Ten even if I'd never played it. But from the opening chords, it's a very different record. Musically much beefier, owing more to the 80s than the 70s, throwing out the Eagles in favour of funk, fuzz-guitar, a splash of Jeff Lynne-produced George Harrison, and an occasional nod to Don Henley's solo output. It's a more diverse record than its predecessor and it doesn't fit together quite as well, but when you get past all that, Taylor Goldsmith's lyrics still shine with intricate, oddball details that suggest much bigger stories waiting to be told... as on Five Miles Away, which has disappeared from youtube since I wrote this post...
There's a stranger in the bushes Looking through the windows of a home At a woman from the movies That's been living there alone She's home at 7 in the evening He sees the code punched in the gate This is all happening right now Less than five miles away
There's another great Divorce Song in Roll With The Punches too. Because we can never have too many of those.
I still think Dawes is a terrible name for a band though.
Next, at Number #6: still rhymin' after all these years...
Air hostesses, stewardesses, flight attendants... trolly dollies, as my old friend Ian jokingly describes himself (he's allowed to use that otherwise sexist term since... hell, that's his job). They pop up in pop songs more than you might expect. Here are ten high-flying examples...
Busted make me laugh in a 12-year-old-British-lads-play-at-being-Blink-182 kinda way. You've got to admire them for getting away with it as long as they did / have (living on now as McBusted - or in lead singer Charlie Simpson's rather dull in comparison "grown-up" solo career). Air Hostess is the kind of sexist nonsense you can only really get away with if you're a teenage lad... you can't really hate them for it.
If you only know Weird Al from his amusing (in small doses) parody tunes, you may be surprised to hear one of his own compositions such as this. The lyrics are as sharp as the parodies and the tunes offer some great power-pop rockin'.
A
few weeks back, I was singing the praises of Dawes' "debut album", All
Your Favourite Bands. And nobody corrected me. Which only goes to show
that a) nobody reads this stuff or b) Bob Harris doesn't read this
stuff. Anyway, I've since discovered that AYFB is actually Dawes' fourth
long-player. This is from their third, and it encourages me to dig
further into their back catalogue...
I buckle my seat belt, plug my headset in a chair
And to the music, I watch flight attendants move
They are pointing out the exits, but it looks more like a prayer
Or an ancient dance their bloodline reaches through
He was a species on the verge of extinction She was an Air New Zealand hostess They were mystically joined, like Rawicz and Landauer Like Pinky and Perky, like Porgy and Bess
Extra points if you don't need to google 'Rawicz and Landauer'. I did. Richard Thompson: never will the word 'genius' be hyperbole.
But the fourth week, the whole thing was toast And she dragged her tail back to New Zealand With threats of High Court and revenge Meanwhile his eye did stray to the ample bustier Of a novelty dancer from Penge
I think this is actually written from the perspective of a tired-of-touring rock star (although FoW dispute they are anything of the sort), but it could so easily be a first person narrative of a fed-up-with-flying attendant.
Trade one town for another Delayed now, why do we bother? And X on the calendar square, New city - same stuff Seatbacks and tray tables up...
I guess Paul Westerberg had a bad experience with an air hostess...this was his typically grumpy response.
And the sign says, "Thank you very much for not smoking" My own sign says, "I'm sorry, I'm smokin'" Don't treat me special, don't kiss my ass Treat me like the way they treat 'em up in first class
One of my favourites from the British spoonful (google the origin of their name if you don't know it), this has a rather interesting story behind it (which you can read here, I refuse to copy and paste from iffypedia). You can hear the way it's clearly three or four different songs stitched togethed - just like Bohemian Rhapsody or Paranoid Android - and when I listen to something like this, it makes me sad that bands aren't allowed to be this experimental in the mainstream anymore.
On the surface, Learn To Fly isn't really to do with flight attendants at all. As with most of Dave Grohl's lyrics, it's all so metaphorical it could be about anything.
The hilarious video, on the other hand, suggests otherwise...
1. Hall & Oates - Las Vegas Turnaround (The Stewardess Song)
On the classic 1973 album Abandoned Luncheonette, one of the best tracks is this laid back, slightly jazzy tribute to Daryl Hall's longtime girlfriend Sara Allen, a stewardess who would go on to become a frequent songwriting collaborator for the duo. (She was also the inspiration for their breakthrough chart hit: Sara Smile.)
And any night well she's here, half way 'round the world, oh I could cry And so I know I've got to pray for delays and for days 'til she's besides me All alone in her room and her scattered clothes remind me Sara please Sara Turnaround
The Aliens were the brainchild of Lone Pigeon: former Beta Band member and brother of King Creosote Gordon Anderson. This is from their 2007 debut album, Astronomy For Dogs, and it sounds, as far as I can tell, like ELO if Jeff Lynne hadn't spent ALL his childhood listening to the Beatles.
Obscure American indie - no idea where I came across this one, but it's a cool little infidelity song.
Teeth mark bruise on your arm
That's what he gave you
No chocolates in a heart Just the same old screw
When you take off your clothes
And realize you have no more secrets I hope it's a surprise
That this is as intimate as it gets
Two weeks running for Johnny Cougar , and rarely does his live up to his reputation as a Midwest-Dickens than in this 1987 album track... it could almost be his theme song.
Sounding, as he does, very much like a Guy Ritchie creation, Mike Skinner really ought to get on my nerves. But I love his Arfur-Daley-meets-Eminem routine and I wish he hadn't packed it in.
Classic from the Welcome Home, Loser album of 2005
If you work in a whorehouse you're gonna get fucked
If you sleep in a river you're gonna get ducked
If you count all your chickens you'll die like a dog
And if you lie to me again I'll take you closer to God
While I'd given up on hearing anything new from this excellent band after they split in 2009, I was overjoyed to discover that lead singer / songwriter Steven James Adams has released two solo albums - his latest came out just last week and is now on my ever-expanding wishlist.
Every time I post a Billy Joel song, I find myself wondering why he quit. (That's become something of a recurring theme in this post, hasn't it?) As a teenager, he was one of my absolute favourite pop stars - look, if you came here muso-cred, move along now. But it's been 23 years since he released any new material (though he continues to tour) and I've never heard an explanation as to why - particularly when many of his contemporaries (Bruce, Jackson Browne, James Taylor) press ever onwards. I keep hoping for an honest revelation from the man himself - but he even turned down an offer for his autobiography and gave the publishers back their $3m advance.
Honesty is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue. Honesty is hardly ever heard. And mostly what I need from you.
Apparently Beyonce covered this. But I'm not hip so I wouldn't know.
There's something going on with youtube at the moment where a lot of the tracks I try to link to aren't working, so I'm having to link to sub-standard live versions instead. Which is a crying shame in the case of Be Honest, because the false start on the Bizarro version is classic.
So I was talking to my good friend and fellow muso Steve (not that one) Miller the other day and I happened to mention two artists I'd been digging lately were The Front Bottoms and Dawes. I went on to point out that my only problem with Dawes was their name - I even said something like "it has to be the stupidest name for a band ever (unless they were actually a Doors tribute band, in which case it'd be quite cool)". I went on to hammer my point home by saying that it was as bad as calling yourself Hoo or Smiffs or... I dunno, Ryan Adams.
Steve pointed out one slight flaw in my argument: "It's still a better name than The Front Bottoms".
Anyway, Dawes. Despite the name, I'm digging their latest album, All Your Favourite Bands, a lot. Kind of like The Eagles if they'd got Mark Knopfler in to play guitar. Which, I know, you're probably thinking sounds like a terrible idea. But it works for me.
Sadly, there's only a live version of To Be Completely Honest available on youtube, and it doesn't really do the song justice. Plus, it's nowhere near the best track on the album. But. Y'know. Still #2.
1. Sam Cooke - You Send Me
Honest you do, Honest you do, Honest you do.
I thought about not giving this the Number One because it doesn't have the h-word in the title, but honestly? It's as close to perfection as you can get and not be dreaming.
