I met up with my former boss a week or so back. There was a work-related reason to do so, but when I told Ben I was meeting her, he screamed at me through the medium of Whatsapp. Why would I want to see someone who caused me so much grief? Well, for one thing, she's moved on now and isn't working at The Bad Place, and I recognise that the pressure she put me under back then wasn't coming from her, she was but the conduit through which shit rolled downhill from upper management. We were able to talk about that and put it behind us, I think, and that was a positive thing.
But the other reason I was willing to see her is that old maxim about never burning your bridges, particularly when it comes to employment. God willing, I'll never have to go back to work in a college again, but if I ever needed to...
All of which got me thinking about songs involving burning your bridges... or not burning them, as the case may be. Let's kick off with Canadian singer Jack Scott, who Dave Marsh of Rolling Stone once called, "undeniably the greatest Canadian rock and roll singer of all time."
The Cravats came from Redditch in 1977, with lead singers Robin Dallaway and The Shend. Now, I'm trying not to be prejudiced against The Shend because his choice of name is frustratingly reminiscent of that muppet from The Irish Band. Not as Edgy though, which is good. You may be interested to learn that the Cravats are still going strong, minus Dallaway, but with the addition of Rampton Garstang on drums, Joe 91 on bass and Viscount Biscuits on guitar. I think they might be the Viz house band.
Now it way well be that you're not actually burning your bridges to cut ties with people you no longer want to associate with. You might just be burning them to keep warm. In which case, can I suggest a nice Cardigan?
Last week, to prove how uncool I am, I included a song by unfairly-reviled New Jersey rockers Bon Jovi. It proved so popular (especially with Ernie, George and CC) that I thought I'd include another one today.
Collective Soul made a brief appearance on the UK charts (at #80 in 1994) with their debut single Shine, and were never seen again. Meanwhile, in the States, they sold enough records to fill their swimming pools with caviar. This was from the same album as Shine...
Taken from the album "Clint Eastwood Sings His Classics" (!) and the soundtrack of the movie Kelly's Heroes... although in the movie, it was performed by these guys...
Can you guess the track that sprang immediately to mind when I first considered this particular idiom?
Me and my mate Rich loved this song when we were 16. I think Rich loved it in an ironic way, because he had a much cooler taste in music than me. I would say that I loved it in an ironic way too, but given what you know about my shameless taste in music then and now, nobody would believe me. There's something about the sea shanty-esque guitar refrain which is both extremely annoying and a hopeless earworm. Even now, when I listen to it, I think, "you shouldn't like this... it's wrong". But then I can't help smiling at the Quo rock their guitars back and forth in time with the music...
Blackpool's Section 25 give us our image this week, a post-punk band who have been in the go since the late 70s and are still going... having recently been sampled by Kanye West, of all people. Here's Looking From A Hilltop.
Before we begin with your suggestions for Number 25, a quick reminder of Ezekiel 25:17, for anyone who doesn't know their Bible verse (as rewritten by Quentin Tarantino).
Oh, and let's get the Christmas songs out of the way too, shall we?
That's always allowed, George. How could I disqualify those sideburns and the ultimate drinking & driving pop song? Although google informs me that the lyrics go like this...
Always got time for the DBTs, Lynchie. Channelling the Stones on that one, I think.
Now here's C to bring all us old farts into the 21st Century...
I must put in a good word for young Liverpool lad Louis Berry and his cracking song 25 Reasons. It's only a couple of years old but has that 60's R'n'B thing going on, with a pinch of Dr Feelgood too. Go for it!
Imagine that. A time when the Bobster wasn't even 25! That has featured here before. So I'm sure I must have done the "If he's sitting on a barbed wire fence, that'll explain why his voice sounds like it does" gag. If not, you can have it for free.
One more from The Swede... even though I'm starting to feel like Jez must have done in the most ridiculous excesses of The Chain (coming back soon, apparently).
Dang! I blame the time zone difference here in Canada, but when I awoke at 6:00 a.m. to get an early bid in for Dukes of Stratosphear's 25 O'Clock and Zager and Evans' In The Year 2525, I found I was a few hours behind Martin. No problem, I think to myself, I'll give it some more thought, and get the rest of my bids in during my lunch hour. Would't you know it, when I go to check at lunch there are fifteen comments now, and Rigid Digit has taken another of my sure-fire guesses in Mandela Day.
So I'll start instead with a couple clever covers. How about They Might Be Giants' cover of The Dukes of Stratosphear's 25 O'Clock? I know TMBGs get a lot of love around here, so let's go with that, for the steal...
That Ian Brown cover is my favourite. But back to Douglas...
Strangely (?), I could find no one who took on a cover of Simple Mind's Mandela Day, let alone offering any kind of hope for "improvement" on the original.
You can't improve on perfection, Douglas. Apparently.
So that leaves me with one original, and not for the first time, I find myself offering from among the oeuvre of one Paul Heaton that deal with his take on aging. How about "Prettiest Eyes" by the Beautiful South, which contain the following seasonally appropriate reference to Christmas:
Let's take a look at these crows feet, just look
Sitting on the prettiest eyes
Sixty 25th of Decembers
Fifty-nine 4th of Julys
Not through the age or the failure, children
Not through the hate or despise
Take a good look at these crows feet
Sitting on the prettiest eyes
Luckily, I have a few more years before I have to worry about any of that myself.
In the end, while it could have been Zager & Evans... or Chicago... Johnny, Mott or The Beautiful South... this week's winner's trophy actually goes to George.
Yes, George.
Who's have thought it?
But his final suggestion trumped all other contenders...
Tramp by Otis Redding and Carla Thomas. Just before the things with the Cadillacs there's a 25 cent lyric...
That's right, you haven't even got a fat bankroll in your pocket...
You probably haven't even got twenty-five cents
Greatest duet ever recorded? Could be.
I can buy you minks, rats, frogs, squirrels, rabbits, anything you want, woman!
Thank you all for your help. But if you think 25 was a big post... wait till we get to next week! Try not to get too carried away. I might just go with the really obvious one. (Or the really obvious one to me.)
Oh, one final thing. Unless they're amazing suggestions, I'm going to stop allowing lyrical 24s (and so on) as we get nearer number one. Let's face it, there are way too many. So you'll have to be really persuasive if you want to sell me on a lyrical reference from now on. Sorry.
I've never been to Camber Sands, but from the looks of all the gloriously airbrushed pictures of it on t'internet, it is a little slice of paradise.
Being a tiny village with a huge beach, it's hard to find anyone famous who comes from this idyllic locale... but it does crop up in a few songs. Fatboy Slim even named an EP after it. (Hardly Norman's most exciting 6 minutes, to be fair.)
Oh, and all hail... our first destination to find its way into a Half Man Half Biscuit song (I do check every week). Amazing that it took us six weeks to hear from "Mansfield's very own Steve Malkmus"...
However, I'm sure most of you guessed this week's winning song as soon as you saw our destination in the post title. Yes, it's this joyful little slice of seaside smut from the Squeeze siblings...
They do it in Waikiki too, you know.
640 miles north next week, to the Highlands... and a song that's bound to meet the approval of certain members of our Scottish contingent.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled programme... two days late. Apologies, we have visitors from New Zealand, the decorators and a new kitten. I haven't had time to blow my nose, let alone blog...
As usual, you pretty much worked them all out between you.
10. Len met Adam x 2. Said hi to drugs from a witch doctor.
Len (123) Barry + Ryan Adams (Adam x 2) = Barry Ryan.
Hi = hello (or 'elo!)
The Shamen (witch doctors) sang about E's being good... The Swede worked that out, also recalling that the song was written by Barry's brother, Paul. Barry Ryan - Eloise
8. Hayes goes feminine on the road to the Cathedral: won't stop listening to Bruce's longest player.
Hayes Carll is a cool Americana singer. A feminine version of his name would be Carly.
Paul had his epiphany on the road to Damascus and ended up a Saint who had a Cathedral named after him... all of which leads us rather tenuously to Paul Simon. One of my more misleading clues, but Alyson got there in the end, even though Chris was convinced this was one of the three sirens from Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
The River is Bruce Springsteen's longest album - well, it's his only double album. Carly Simon - Let The River Run
7. The Amarillo Hulk avoids the Flaming Lips' postman.
Tony Christie sang (Is This The Way To) Amarillo? Lou Ferrigno was The Incredible Hulk.
Alyson spotted the artist straight away but figured I was making a reference to George Harrison being a ghost now, so went for There's A Ghost In My House. Like I'd ever be so bad taste, Alyson!
A feuerwehrauto would be a German fire engine, which might go Nena Nena Nena (Nena being German, see).
Almost a century would be 99 years; hot air is what you get in balloons.
I figured Alyson would get this one... though Rigid Digit provided the German translation (Neunundneunzig Luftballons). Nena - 99 Red Balloons
2. Go to the chemist for gender realignment.
A chemist is a drugstore.
Gender realignment could change lead singerIsabel Monteiro into a man. Pretty simple, if you know the song. The Swede did. Drugstore - I Want To Love You Like A Man
1. Scared by basic Maths? Be polite to Quincy.
Basic Maths would involve counting.
Scare... crows.
If you were polite to Quincy, you wouldn't call him a doctor (no, it wasn't a reference to Jack Klugman), you would call him Mr.... Jones.
Another easy win for The Swede (though I'm surprised he took credit for knowing such an "uncool" band... then again why else did I make them this week's Number One?)
Thanks, as always, for taking part.
I'll be back later in the week with possibly my most controversial post yet (particularly right now): How To Be A Morrissey Fan in 2017. Despite all those who are turning against him, I will endeavour to explain why I think we need Morrissey right now... perhaps more than we ever have.
So that'll be fun.
(If it makes you unfollow this blog, well - thanks for sticking with it as long as you have!)
Special mentions to Brick (above), Edie Brickell, L7's album Bricks Are Heavy and Kate Nash's album Made of Bricks. Extra special mention to the one that got away (because it was too damned loud even for me, Bob!): Bricklayer by Hüsker Dü. Don't listen to that one with headphones on.
Sometimes you just have to start with the obvious choice.
But Pink Floyd, man... why don't I get Pink Floyd?
I mean, I listen to this and, of course, it's a classic of its age and reminds me very much of the days when it was being played heavily on the radio. And I like the message behind it, I like the bassline, I like the guitar... they even make the children's choir work, which is a rarity in rock songs.
Still, despite all that, and despite numerous attempts to get into their back catalogue, the Floyd have never quite made their mark on me. Perhaps I need a little education... or at the very least, a little thought control.
And if that wasn't enough proggy-concept weirdness for one Top Ten, here's Ian Anderson with (possibly, not definitely) the longest track I've ever featured here... all 44 crazy minutes of Tull's flute-tastic "satire" of concept albums, only one track (split over two sides on the original LP but edited together later)... but that's the point, man.
I have to confess, I was only familiar with the 3 1/2 minute edit from Tull's Greatest Hits album till today, but in the interests of completeness, I have dedicated myself to listening to the whole thing while I type this post. And it's actually quite groovy. Which only goes to prove...
On the other hand, Iggy is someone I have more and more time for the older I get. This is pretty late era Iggy in that it's only from 26 years ago, but while more focus is given to his 70s heyday, there are real gems in his 80s and 90s work too... hell, that new album produced by Josh Homme earlier in the year sounded pretty cool too.
You know I love The Jam, but occasionally Weller chucks subtlety out the window and crosses the line between Angry Young Man and Whinging Old Git. He even kicks off this track from the debut Jam album by telling us (not showing us) what the song's going to be about ("Bricks and mortar, reflecting social change") before wittering on like an Our Price Victor Meldrew about them knocking down houses to build car parks "while hundreds are homeless". Hardly Joni Mitchell, Paul.
What I like best about Bricks & Mortar though is the second verse...
Why do they have to knock them down
And leave the site dormant for months on end?
Who has the right to make that choice?
A man whose home has cost forty grand!
Those rich bastards in their forty grand mansions - you stick it to 'em, Weller!
Lionel Ritchie takes a back seat while Commodores drummer Walter "Clyde" Orange brings the vocal funk to this single from the band's 1977 debut album.
The clothes she wears, her sexy ways Make an old man wish for younger days, yeah, yeah She knows she's built and knows how to please Sure enough to knock a strong man to his knees
Shamelessly sexist lyrics, you might think - although they were actually written by a woman, Shirley Hanna-King, the wife of founding Commodore William King. So perhaps you might see this as a female empowerment anthem... or at the very least another in the long line of records praising Plus Size Ladies (there's got to be a Top Ten in that). The title is a radio friendly version of the expression Placebo used in full on this cool tune from their 1998 album Without You, I'm Nothing.
Kasey Chambers has a sound reminiscent of a lot of young contemporary Country heroines (think Kacey Musgraves or Taylor Swift before she went pop and shacked up with Loki). But she's actually Australian and a little longer in the tooth than the aforementioned ladies: this is from her second album, released in 2001, back when I dug her a lot. I've not heard any of her more recent efforts: really must try harder.
Jazzy, finger-snapping goodness from an American swing band who released only two albums in the late 90s... though they sound like they come from 50 years before that.
I've been listening to the new Mull Historical Society record a lot lately and I can't get the opening track out of my head. It's Colin MacIntyre's 7th album release since MHS's 2001 debut Loss (although a couple were released under his own name) and it continues his winning streak when it comes to writing catchy alternative pop songs. People bang on about the state of the music industry and there's no denying it would be good to see MacIntyre become a household name, but it's still reassuring that an artist like this can maintain a career in today's pop quagmire, even if it has to be largely under his own steam... he's even branched out into novel writing now as well!
1. Ben Folds - Brick
When it was released in 1997, Brick was unlike any other record Ben Folds had recorded to that point. He'd made a name for himself with cheeky, uptempo piano-stomping tunes that sounded like Jerry Lee Lewis gone indie. And this was a straightforward ballad that became a crossover hit and had his fanbase crying "sell out" at the same time. Although perhaps not too loudly once they listened to the lyrics...
Brick is a song about abortion: but weirdly neither pro- or anti-abortion, it just tells a story from the perspective of a young couple who've been through it... as Folds and his high school girlfriend did years earlier. Nothing to do with bricklaying then, but I make the rules up as I go along and may the best songs win...
Off the top of your hod... which one would be your favourite?
Happy New Year from Top Ten Towers. After all the excitement of my 2015 countdown, we now return you to your regular programming: random Top Tens plucked from my record collection. Although the first tune this week kinda breaks that rule.
2016 is a leap year, which means there's one extra day. But although February will now have 29 days, there will be no 8 day weeks... no matter what the Beatles would have you believe. All of which is an extremely tenuous way of introducing this lot...
I was genuinely surprised to discover that there is NO Sting in my record collection. And, as this blog will often demonstrate, I have some UTTER TAT in my record collection. But no Sting. Yeah, I've got The Police, and a few random collaborations, but not one solo Sting tune. I'm not quite sure why. I mean, yes, I do consider him a bit of a tosser, but it's not as though I actively dislike him in the way I actively dislike Bono or the Gallaghers. (And I own music by all three of those idiots.) My favourite Sting song is his version of Spread A Little Happiness from the soundtrack to Brimstone & Treacle, but sadly (some kind of rights issue?), this has never featured on any Sting compilations... otherwise I might have been tempted to buy it.
Anyway, Sting's Seven Days is perfectly adequate Radio 2 filler, and it would have been churlish not to have given it at least a mention once I remembered it.
Frank Black might help re-establish my indie credentials a little. This doesn't sound anything like the Pixies, but it's unmistakably Black Francis. Strange, that.
When Camper Van Beethoven called it a day, David Lowery decided to play it a little more straight with his next band, Cracker. But the old lyrical oddities still crept in...
Bug's got a job in the Catskills
Met some Fraulein along the way
Took her home, but then she had an episode
Though it did disturb him, he was strangely compelled
Hours isn't a classic Bowie album, but this track wouldn't have been out of place on Ziggy Stardust. The guitar certainly has a Mick Ronson flavour. And even though the title doesn't mention days, the chorus does...
I've got seven days to live my life Or seven ways to die...
Feeder were always a band I kind of half-liked (always loved the singles) but I never bought any of their albums. My newfound love of charity-shopping (inspired, in part, by Charity Chic's excellent blog) has increased my Feeder collection greatly. All for a quid a pop! And they say CDs are dead...
Anyway, this one was obviously made for the US market. It's not a spiky as many of their earlier tracks, but the chunky, Blink 182-esque guitars are fun.
Freddie had a typically flamboyant way of playing the piano, perfectly demonstrated on the intro to this John Deacon-written album track from the 1978 album Jazz. I've got a lot of time for John Deacon, he seems the only surviving Queen member to have kept his self-respect intact, refusing to get involved in any of the band's ridiculous post-Freddie shenanigans.
Taken from the soundtrack of the justly forgotten 1986 "comedy" Club Paradise starring Robin Williams, Peter O'Toole (who was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor) and Jimmy Cliff himself. Not sure how they roped Elvis in, but the song still works well. I reckon Elvis's voice was at its absolute best around the mid-late 80s and it blends well with Jimmy's here. I first heard this as a bonus track on the special edition one of my favourite Costello albums, Blood & Chocolate.
A cover of the old Northern Soul song by Chuck Wood from 1967... and Chuck's is a pretty damned good version... but I just love me the Dexys. This is from their first ever album, which will soon be 36 years old.
Such facts make me feel ancient and very, very tired. A good way to start the new year.
1. Animals That Swim - Seven Days
Animals That Swim were a curiously beguiling little band formed in the late 80s, though this is from their third (and final... to date) album from 2001. They remind me a lot of the quirky, literate, real life indie written by Stuart Murdoch (Belle & Sebastian) or Shirley Lee (Spearmint). This song tells of a life counted off in ten year birthdays, beginning with my favourite kind of lyrical detail...
On my tenth birthday I danced naked on the lawn Making rain fall from a red watering can. On my twentieth birthday Slumped in the corner Wearing Rhiannon's make up and pearls Clamouring 'Give me attention, please!'
And thus it continues till the narrator abruptly expires on his seventieth, followed by a pithy observation about certain special birthdays...
It seems every time It gets easier and easier to die.
What a cheerful start to 2016! I'll see you all in 7 days. Or 6. Or 8. Depending.
Linking perfectly to last week's post, Eef Barzelay's ode to a different kind of burning steak, with additional lyrical nods to Hall & Oates and John Mellencamp. More power to the puns!
Feeder's Grant Nicholas released his debut solo album last year and this is one of the stand out tracks. It has that same epic Feedery guitar sound, but a lot more beard.
I have to admit, Paddy, I've no idea what Green Isaac is all about... but I always love the way you spin those words together, like a little Shakespearian spider.
Oh, but to shine like Joan of Arc, you must be prepared to burn...
Th'Arcade Fire take aim at their more zealous fans... like, chill out, guys, we're only a band... m'kay?
First they love you Then they kill you Then they love you again And then they love you Then they kill you Then they love you again Love love love you Kill kill kill you...
OMD score extra points for releasing two consecutive hit singles focused on the same historical character... has that ever been done at any other time in the annals of pop? Unfortunately, it's not quite enough to win them the top slot, not when they're up against this little belter...
1. The Smiths - Bigmouth Strikes Again
Well, it had to be, didn't it? "How could anybody possibly know how I feel?" Morrissey once famously asked, and yet could any other artist really know what it's like to be burned at the stake quite the way he has throughout his tortured career? (Insert winking smiley face.) Of course, Saint Morrissey's Joan was rather anachronistic, worried more about her melting Walkman and the smoke getting up her Roman nose than the fate of Orleans, but maybe that's why she had no right to take her place with the human race.
