There's a new Superman film out this weekend... and although I haven't seen it yet, I can confidently predict it will be better than the last few, because Zack Snyder isn't involved. Maybe not quite up to Christopher Reeve's standards, but miracles don't happen that often.
Anyway, here are some Super Songs to celebrate...
15. UN diary reveals they're all a bunch of squares.
If you've Rushdie'd here this morning for the answers to yesterdays quiz, I hope it wasn't because you felt like a Salman swimming upstream, trying to work out the connection.
Here are ten songs named after famous novels, straight from your favourite English teacher. You might even call them "iconic", except you'd probably upset C.
Prepare yourself for some Satantic Verses... and Heavenly choruses, of course.
10. Shot in Sarajevo.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo, sparking World War I.
I can't have been the only person to hear those words echoing in my ears the moment I read about the sudden death of Jane Birkin last week. There's not many pop stars who can claim to have had a record condemned by The Vatican.
Although most will remember her for that song, and her tumultuous relationship with Serge, the English woman who became a French icon also recorded with everyone from Franz Ferdinand to Ian McCulloch, as well as being a successful actress, political activist and giving her name to a designer handbag. The number of rap songs that refer to the "Birkin bag" made compiling this feature an arduous task... but here's a few tunes that pay tribute to Jane herself instead...
Ed Harcourt is almost old enough to remember Jane at her peak (but he's still younger than me). Charlie Hickey, on the other hand, doesn't look old enough to know Jane's daughter Charlotte...
Dressed like Jane Birkin, but you look like a kid Wish you lived in a decade when you didn't exist
I play Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bambou and Jane Birkin at my party But when the radiant night is over and the sun begins to shine I kiss the simple lover who is mine
Unloved is a collaboration between soundtrack maestro's David Holmes (yes, that one) and Keefus Ciancia (no, me neither), along with singer Jade Vincent, who clearly has been chanelling a little of the Birkin mystique...
She dreams of Jane Birkin and talks in Serge's voice Mother's been a bad girl Mother had no choice
We watched the Edgar Wright movie Last Night In Soho recently, and I very much enjoyed the recreation of 1960s London, the retro soundtrack, and the performances of Thomasin Mackenzie and Anna Taylor-Joy. The film took a swerve into unnecessary melodrama towards the end, which I found a bit of a disappointment. I like melodrama, but this felt a bit rushed and didn't really match the tone of the rest of the movie. Still worth a watch though.
Among the cast was a cameo by 60s star Rita Tushingham, now in her 80s but still going strong... and those piercing blue eyes were still very much in evidence. (She won awards for her role in the movie The Girl With Green Eyes, but according to iffypedia, "as the film is in black and white the green eyes are never seen".)
Rita Tushingham made her screen debut in the 1961 adaptation of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste Of Honey, a movie which was hugely influential on a certain Stephen Patrick Morrissey. There are at least six Smiths songs on which Morrissey pilfers lyrics from Shelagh Delaney's script, including one of their best known tunes, This Charming Man. Morrissey's favourite movie was controversial at the time for a number of reasons, including one of the first interracial kisses seen on screen. How ironic. I've long stopped trying to convince anyone (including myself) that Morrissey isn't a tad racist. The truth is rarely black and white, but there are some ugly shades of grey. Unlike many former fans, I'm still able to disconnect and enjoy his old music on its original merits. If you choose not to anymore, I respect your opinion. Respect mine and we can send a message of tolerance and harmony to the man with the quiff that might one day change his ways.
A Taste Of Honey isn't the only movie to connect Rita to The Smiths. The video to Girlfriend In A Coma also features clips from her 1964 film The Leather Boys.
While no Morrissey lyrics mention Rita Tushingham directly, she can be found in songs from another pair of John Peel's favourite acts. Firstly, Martin Newell's Cleaners From Venus, who cast her alongside a number of other 60s icons...
Rita Tushingham isn't smiling
Waiting for the green electric
Train to take her
Down to London
Where she will see Mr. Wilson
Standing by the iron railings
Opposite the chestnut palings
David Hemmings will be waiting
With a job for David Bailey
And secondly, here's Rita in one of Franz Ferdinand's very best tunes...
Great Western Wind catches in your Celtic hair
Flicks it round your face like flames around the sun
In the bright cold air you seem as innocent and fair
It seems impossible, after everything that has happened in the past 4 years, that Trump will be re-elected next Tuesday. But it seemed impossible that he'd be elected in the first place. And it seems impossible that he hasn't been impeached and thrown in jail a long time ago. It seems impossible than anyone would still vote for him.
He's a demagogue Check out his rise He's a demagogue He's fatally famous He's a demagogue He plays with my fears A demagogue My shadow side dreaming The demagogue It feels so good to be dumb
From the wall straight to la cuenta Those pussy grabbing fingers Won't let go of me now Demagogue The demagogue
He's coming down the escalator With a girl from east of here He wants to make the country greater We've got nothing left to fear
Because the man in the tin foil hat Is sitting on the throne tonight It kinda feels like a coup d'etat But it's gonna be great, tremendous, amazing and all that
'Cause the man in the tin foil hat Is tweeting like a teenage girl He puts the Pluto in plutocrat But it's gonna be a huge huge huge new world He hasn't got the time for losers Unless they do as he commands He's writing checks to his accusers With those tiny little hands
'Cause the man in the tin foil hat Is gonna drain the swamp tonight And fill it up with alternative facts And it's gonna be great, tremendous, amazing and all that
Oh and I don't believe in the devil But you might make me go and change my mind You can see this whole damn world get leveled and not even lose track of time Inside your gilded walls that shine
Well another group of kids in high schools dead But you're still at your golf course teeing off at nine People marching in the streets trying to find a little peace You sit around spouting awful shit online
Well you've always been the same You ain't ever gonna change But I know it's gonna all catch up with you in time And there's a pot of gold from all the dreams you stole Inside your gilded walls that shine
On May 11th 1930, Mary Anne Macleod, from Tong on The Isle of Lewis, boarded the RMS Transylvania from Glasgow to New York City, in search of a better life. There, she fell in love with Frederick, whose father had come to America from Germany as a 16 year old barber.
The couple raised five children.
Mary Anne’s middle son would return years later to Scotland, home of his MacLeod ancestors, whose clan motto is: I burn but I am not consumed. And here - in the name of progress and profit - and executive golf - he would pit himself against time and tide. In his wake, the shifting sands at Balmedie in Aberdeenshire would never be the same.
That son of Mary Anne MacLeod is powerful.
So too is The North Sea.
The marbled, metamorphic rock of Lewis is two-thirds the age of Earth - amongst the very oldest found on our planet. It knows about power. It’s seen a lot. And so I wondered: what might that rock of Lewis have to say about the Inauguration - tomorrow in Washington DC - of the 45th President of the United States of America - Mary Anne’s middle son? This is what the rock told me.
The Dumbarton we visit today though is on the west coast of Scotland and it was the birthplace of David Byrne and Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch. Apparently Franz Ferdinand once released a remix of their song Take Me Out retitled "David Byrne Was Born In Dumbarton", but I can't find that anywhere to t'interweb.
I couldn't find any other songs that mentioned Dumbarton by name, but I did find this little beauty from Glaswegian indie band (and a band I've actually met and interviewed!), The Supernaturals.
Boghead Park (former home of Dumbarton F.C.) was the oldest football stadium in Scotland when it finally closed down in 2000, having originally been opened in 1879. Here, James McColl of the Supernaturals fondly remembers visiting Boghead as a boy...
Ground control to Major Tom - check your Saturday Snapshots answers and put your helmet on...
Let's hope Brexit (if it happems) doesn't put an end to our European friends from taking part in Saturday Snapshots... because this week saw our Danish and German blog-friends take a clear victory. Well done to Chris and Walter, who got seven of the answers before any of our U.K. contenders even got out of bed. Charity Chic, Rigid Digit and Mr. C solved the rest, but the hard work had been done by the time they (and Alyson) arrived.
