Now then, Job Seekers... I bet you're wondering why Pauline isn't holding a camera?
Don't question, Pauline, your workshy layabouts! Lounging around on a Sunday morning when you should be out looking for WORK! Remember what Yosser Hughes said: "Gizza Job!" Now get out there...
This I Promise You: I'll Never Stop Snapshots as long as you keep playing along. And if you're struggling for the answers, It's Gonna Be Me who reveals them, along with the Music Of My Heart.
Yeah, I had to look up the song titles of good old Justin Trousersnake's band too... I guess I'm just not NSYNC with a lot of these boy bands...
10. He Felt different in new material...
That's Lawrence. He was in Felt. Then he changed to...
And if you're going to get picky and tell me that Marie wasn't a boy, well, I did my research, and Marie wasn't really in The Osmonds. She had a solo career and duetted with Donny, but "the group had its best-known configurations as a quartet (billed as the Osmond Brothers) and a quintet (as the Osmonds)."
Bill Bailey does an excellent Billy Bragg impersonation / homage / mickey take... so good, if you close your eyes, it could be Billy himself.
I wanted to free her In my dreams, I would see her Running naked through the woods round Rainham If I had some tigers, I'd train 'em To protect her From the sexual fascism that was lurking Round the gherkins
I think it's a shame Elvis Costello got a bit sniffy about his early pun-littered lyrics, because he wrote some absolute belters - and often threw them away on album tracks. This is a typically bilious rant against the tabloid press, probably only bettered by Billy Bragg's Scousers Never Buy The Sun.
If you've got something to hide, if you've got something to sell
If you've got somebody's pride she might kiss and tell
Or wind up with a fight fan in the Hammersmith Hotel
You better speak up now if you want your piece
You better speak up now
It won't mean a thing later
Yesterday's news is tomorrow's fish and chip paper
Dark and scary, it's Jarvis returning to his Sheffield roots, along with The All Seeing I's J.P. Buckle and Richard Hawley on guest guitar. They're all off on a dangerous night out in South Yorkshire, where it's not only the fish that'll get battered.
Being a full-blooded Yorkshireman, I can only grudgingly award this song fourth place. If I lived a few miles in the other direction over the Pennines, I might have made it Number One. But look, I let them win against Sheffield, just this once... because the first ever Fish 'n' Chip shop was in Oldham.
This one's a bit of a cheat since Chips Ahoy! is the name of a racehorse in the song, not a chip shop. But it would be a great name for a chip shop and this is one of my favourite Hold Steady songs. So until I get around to compiling a chart based around Horseracing Songs...
It's still one of the greatest lyrics in the history of music (and arguably the best punk song ever), courtesy of the man who would become John Shuttleworth...
I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chip shop...
1. Kirsty MacColl - There's A Guy Work Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis
Ah, Kirsty. We miss you so much.
Although They Don't Know had been a big radio hit a couple of years earlier, it failed to hit the chart due to distribution shenanigans. Which makes this, two years later, Kirsty's first chart smash. It always felt like a country song to me (despite the very British location: re-recorded for American radio as There's A Guy Works Down The Truck Stop...), but just to confirm that, Kirsty also recorded a full on yee-haw version. They don't write 'em like this anymore...
He’s a liar and I’m not sure about you...
Do you want bits with any of those? (Or scraps, if you're not from round these parts.)
Surprisingly, despite making Number One in last week's Top Ten Jean Songs, Bruce doesn't make the Songs About Jeans chart at all... despite that iconic image above. (However, a band of his biggest fans do feature at #5.)
Here are ten songs about pulling your blue jeans on and getting that denim all dirty...
Special mentions to The Swinging Blue Jeans, Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny, Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans, Mr. Little Jeans, Pissed Jeans, and Jack Jeans (I had to link to that one).
Be-Bop-A-Lula is one of the defining records of rock 'n' roll, but Gene Vincent was never really able to bottle that lightning again. This is about as close as he got, a "minor" follow-up "hit"... although this was back in the days when "minor" hits still sold a million copies even if they only made number 49 in the charts.
Unfairly labeled a poor man's Arctic Monkeys, Little Man Tate called it a day in 2009. Which is a shame, because they wrote witty, spiky guitar pop songs... the sort of thing the radio is sorely missing these days.
The 70s was obviously a great decade for songs about jeans (see below) and this is the one that famously doubled up as an advert for Brutus Jeans. It seems Dundas was a member of British nobility - his full name and title is Lord David Paul Nicholas Dundas - as his dad was Lawrence Aldred Mervyn Dundas, 3rd Marquess of Zetland (also a famous tennis player in the 40s).
Well, I never knew that.
Of course, iffypedia might have made it all up... you never know.
The song was also covered a few years back by Chungking... but sadly, I can't find their version on youtube.
Scruffy Scottish indie kids - they've had the same jeans on for four days now - with their only Top Ten hit from 2007. It's rare I say this... but it seems longer ago than that.
As previously discussed on this site, Jimmy Webb is god. Although he's more famous as a songwriter than a performer, he's also released a succession of excellent solo albums over the last 40 years, five of which were recently reissued in an extremely affordable box set on the Rhino label. Considering how rare these albums were prior to the box set, it's pretty much an essential purchase for fans of quality songwriting. This is taken from the 4th album in the 5 disc set, 1974's Land's End. Gorgeous stuff.
The Gaslight Anthem always wear their New Jersey roots on their sleeves and this one describes perfectly Bruce's famous 80s dress sense... while also throwing in a sly reference to early Tom Waits.
This track's a bit of a rarity, from the 2008 EP Señor and the Queen, but it stands up as well as some of their better known songs.
Classic spunky & punky girl-pop from the California foursome led by the female Brett Anderson. In the Suede versus Denim battle, it's hard to call a winner. The other Brett never wrote anything as bitchy as this...
You look like you've only slept for an hour You smell like you haven't taken a shower And your hair is so dirty It makes you look like you're thirty
Your pants are slung way too low I see stuff I don't wanna know I wonder why you're so moody? Is it 'cause you've got no booty?
That second Lana Del Rey album - the one with Video Games on, the one that made her a star - is still an amazing piece of work, even if she's failed to live up to its potential since. The cognoscenti may have tried to expose her as a phoney or a poseur... but what do the cognoscenti know? She has a new album out this week - fingers crossed it's a return to form.
Lawrence (he has no second name... except he does, and it's Hayward) started life in fondly remembered 80s indie band Felt. Then sometime in the early 90s, he folded up the Felt and embraced Denim - with added glam stomp. Since then, he's gone ultra lo-fi with Go Kart Mozart... but if you ask me, Denim will always be his finest hour.
1. Neil Diamond - Forever In Blue Jeans
Listen - money talks, all right? Even if it don't sing or dance or walk...
There is a popular mondgreen associated with this tune, that Neil's actually singing "Reverend Blue Jeans". Which would be wonderful... if it were true.
What can I say, if you don't appreciate a bit of classic Neil... there's something missing in your life.
Next week (if I have time) - the final part of the trilogy. My Top Ten Gene Songs.
Meanwhile, don't put your jeans back in the wardrobe just yet. Which is your Nick Kamen?
Back to my tour of the USA. There are hundreds of songs with "America" in the title, so I needed to narrow the focus. Here's ten about American music, some by American bands... others decidedly not.
Some Brits get sniffy about American music, citing the Beatles (yawn, among others) as a reason to keep it homegrown. Me, I've always had one foot on either side of the Atlantic when it comes to my listening habits.
From the album American Demo, still one of my favourite records of the 21st Century... so far.
How many British bands made the lyrics below their mission statement... no matter the consequences?
When they pin me to the wall I'll say:
I'm with America
With godless America, I'll stand and I'll fall
Though it cuts me to my soul that
It must be America
It must be America
Or nothing at all.
Could well have been Number #1, but I like to be unpredictable.
Best thing about American Pie? All the insane, crackpot interpretations that read hidden meanings into every single line. If you've got a spare year, google them for a laugh.
And now we reach the more celebratory part of our countdown. The Cougar's tribute to 60s American rock. Never fails to make me happy.
There was Frankie Lyman-Bobby Fuller-Mitch Ryder (They were Rockin')
Jackie Wilson-Shangra-las-Young Rascals (They were Rockin')
Spotlight on Martha Reeves
Let's don't forget James Brown
Quite possibly the maddest "song" (spoken word narrative) in my record collection. Jim Steinman at his most insane. He doesn't even have Meat Loaf to temper / translate his craziness here. It's just pure Steinman loony-genius. With the best punchline in the history of rock.
Or something.
On the original, ill-fated Steinman solo album (originally supposed to be Meat's follow-up to Bat Out Of Hell, but Meat had a sore throat so Captain Barking decided to record it himself), this leads straight into the classic Stark Raving Love, the melody of which JS would later disembowel to create Holding Out For A Hero for Bonnie Tyler. Just in case you're one of the two people reading this blog who looks at more than just the artist and song title.
1. Grand Funk Railroad - We're An American Band
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
We're coming to your town We'll help you party it down We're an American band
So, these are the rules - it has to be a song about America and about music. Which is top of your Billboard Hot One Hundred?
