Paloma Faith introduces our final selection of songs about ladies whose name begins with P, giving me an excuse to play another tune we used to perform in my brass band days...
No, we weren't going with the Jonathan King version.
Before we go any further, I will admit that I couldn't find any songs addressed to Prunella... but I did find a band named after everyone's favourite Sybil...
Don't judge me. That's one of their better offerings. If The Verve had recorded that song (and I can hear Richard Ashcroft singing it), we'd be calling it a classic. Much as I dislike Gary Barlow, he can write the odd decent pop tune.
As far as I know, Bruce Lee had nothing to do with card games. So he's just a wild card this morning. All the songs below, on the other hand, do share a title (or part of one) with a type of card game. So let's deal out some answers, eh?
10. Sheep prefer the baa while the seals go clubbing.
Take it from someone who once went to see GnR live. Patience is something the Glastonbury viewers will need next year while they wait for Axl to turn up on stage.
I chose the late John Mahoney to usher in this week's answers for two reasons. Firstly, Martin Crane's dog Eddie features in one of the clues below. Secondly, I figured he's bring a little respectability to this post... otherwise it's in danger of being mistaken for a knocking shop.
Similar lines. Like how in Stop Me you can hear how it might be a dance song but one of the good things about it is it's restraint. Similarly, Street Spirit sounds like it could be a bombastic metal song but shouldn't.
I just spent 5 minutes investigating Sting and Shaggy duets on youtube. Sadly no covers.
When I was a teen, this compilation album started that is still going. Punk goes pop. It's not bad but incredibly mediocre. Very cut and paste pop punk covers.
It was very varied. Wang Chung did Modest Mouse, it was great. Punch Brothers covered Reptilia. Lots of stuff.
Pinball Wizard... The Who or Elton?
Elton.
Despite being raised on Mod music, I do not understand the love for The Who.Great riffs, awful songs.
I spent a full two weeks listening exclusively to Isle of Wight and still didn't get it
Love me some Elton, though. And the Elton John biopic is the best biopic out there.
I like The Who. But you chose right. Elton brings a manic nature to the song that takes it to another level.
My dad, who is now 91 and so grew up with Sinatra, pre-pop music, and has never had any interest in any pop music... had a brief flickering of interest in The Who a few years ago because he liked all the CSI theme songs. Then he caught a bit of them playing Glastonbury and changed his mind.
You really need to watch Joe Pera. There's an episode where he discovers Baba O'Reilly...
Yes. You showed me that. I just couldn't find the show anywhere.
Just checked, Joe Pera on All4. 10 minute episodes. Gentle and honest. Literally the perfect Covid comedy.
No, I couldn't find any pictures of Joe Biden holding a camera. Neither do I expect Joe Biden to be a truly great president. But at least he once worked with one (even if Obama didn't achieve everything he set out to do, he remained a decent figurehead throughout).
The main thing Biden has in his favour is that he's Not Trump. In the same way I voted for Corbyn purely because was not Not Boris. Frankly, the Democrats could have put Tom Hanks & Michael Bolton on the ticket and I'd have voted for them instead of Trump. Just as Labour could field James Corden with Bono as deputy and I'd be putting my X in their box, no matter how detestable I find them both.
I'll leave the final word today to Sam, aged 7, yet already an expert political analyst.
"I think Donald Trump is going to break all the ornaments in The White House so that when Joe Biden moves in, he's not got anything nice."
Thank you to C for suggesting this week's band... 14 Iced Bears. She says...
I couldn't tell you any of their songs any more unfortunately, although have vivid memories of ordering in their singles for some devoted indie fans at the time of their release and (in my head at least) being very disparaging about their chosen name. Now I think it's rather lovely!
I would like to back up C and proclaim that the 14 Iced Bears were awesome. Unfortunately, their sleeves were nothing to write home about. Perhaps the cover for The Importance Of Being Frank EP would suffice for art.
I'm not sure what that is above, Brian, but it was the one with the clearest 14 I could find.
Another relatively quiet week on the countdown, compared to the excesses of 16 and 17, although we're all just girding our loins in preparation for the Top Ten.
Here's what you had for me this wee, starting with Martin, who's still smarting from forgetting two Gene tracks last week...
Hats off to you Rol for putting this together as my brain is incapable of concentrating on anything at the moment. Yes, my choices above not really my thing, but fitted the brief. From the same source I have just found something called:
Interesting, as dance remakes of Welcome To The Pleasuredome go. The lyrics you quote don't appear to come from that track though, Alyson. They come from Love Song To The Earth by Sean Paul, featuring Natasha Bedingfield & Paul "anything to stay cred" McCartney. As C remarks, it's apt to the current world situation... but doesn't have any 14s in it, I'm afraid.
Time for Jim in Dubai, who also found it tough this week...
Those last two are definitely worth a click. I'll let you get back to your virtual queue now, RD... because I bet you're still stuck in it, 7 days after you left that xomment.
Lynchie appeared equally stuck for inspiration this week...
I couldn't think of any songs with 14 in the title but then I discovered...
...on which is voice sounds nothing like it did on "Tiptoe Through The Tulips". It's a pretty deep voice which led me to believe it might be an imposter. The lyrics kick off with:
Fourteen!
Fourteen girls in baggy pyjamas
What if I'd gone to the south Bahamas
...and just get weirder.
I'm only guessing here, but I don't think that's the same Tiny Tim. But thank you anyway.
Thankfully, the Swede is here to restore us to sanity...
...from The Impossible Bird. I think this is his best album, and that's saying something.
I seem to remember there was some discussion about this over at your place recently, Brian. I'd still always plump for Jesus of Cool, but those later albums are pretty special.
OK, time to scrape the dregs from my own hard-drive...
All of which brings us to this week's winner... and to be honest with you, I pretty much thought that Rigid Digit had walked away with it. I was all set to crown this the champion...
...until a final scour through the library shook out this little gem. Frankly, I'm ashamed to say I'd forgotten it... and a number of my regulars will probably share that same shame.
Take it away, Billy...
Unlucky for all of us, next week is 13. Not that we need any more bad luck at the moment. Suggestions, please...
As I mentioned last week, things are particularly fraught here as we prepare to move house. Again. I'd hoped to stay in our current home a little longer as it's the best home I've ever paid a mortgage on, but circumstances conspired to make us realise that if we could move now, we might save some money in the long-term. (The move is inevitable at some point in the next 4-5 years in order to get Sam into the High School we want him to go to... not the one I went to!)
Our house sold very quickly, which has meant there's been a mad rush over the past few weeks to find a suitable new home. We've had some pretty outrageous experiences viewing properties over the years (scarily, this will be the FOURTH house Louise and I have bought together over the last 11 years), and often that's been down to the estate agents selling them.. or the owners still residing in them.
There have been houses with dripping dungeons in the basement, houses with dead squirrels in the garden, one hi-tech Jetson's House with a bright orange shower room and the computer system from War Games in its garage... and our personal favourite, the house that was owned by Keef Richards' hippy brother, who told us: "You can't go upstairs, man - Rosie's in the bath!"
Here's ten songs that remind me of looking for a new house... and the estate agents lies that try to sell you homes you don't want.
Just in case you didn't get the message first time. Most of our moves have involved this kind of thing, one way or another. "L'enfer c'est les autres."
I was woken up at four a.m. by your screams and anguished cries Your mother was singing in the bathroom, she will never be my child Oh baby talks in her sleep so loud We're living four flights up but I swear right now it feels like underground!
Love to meet the estate agent that sold Lloyd this one!
1. The Four Tops - 7 Rooms of Gloom
I see a house, a house of stone A lonely house, 'cos now you're gone Seven rooms, that's all it is, seven rooms of gloom I live with emptiness, without your tenderness
"But, on the plus side, there is an en-suite..."
Any songs in your collection the estate agents must have lied about?
Probably the most famous example of using movie clips in a hit song... but if you strip them out, there's little else in Flash beyond John Deacon's bassline, Brian's typically OTT guitar solo... and, of course, Freddie belting out the chorus like he's strapped to a rocket hurtling into the sun. But it's the quotes that make this track... not least, Brian Blessed giving uncharacteristic understatement to the most famous line of his career: "GORDON'S ALIVE!"
If you're gonna sample movie dialogue, then at least steal from the best... in this case, Quentin Tarantino. Huey & co.'s breakthrough hit sampled numerous clips from two Tarantino classics: Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. The fact that both the movie dialogue - and Huey's lyrics - contained a variety of very bad language somehow wasn't a barrier to airplay... though the edited version did leave very little to the imagination.
Less a song, more a cobbling together of various tracks from the Batman soundtrack, this always divides both Prince and Batman fans (especially the latter who were expecting Tim Burton's 1989 movie to use Neil Hefti's famous 60s Batman theme tune). Being that I was a huge fan of both back in the day, I devoured Batdance on first hearing: bought the single, the album, the T-shirt... even went to the 6th Form fancy dress disco as the Joker with full face paint (not a good idea - my teenage acne went wild).
Listening back to it now, this track sounds utterly, utterly mental. Only Prince could have got away with it and made such a crazy concoction work in the way it does. The video is insane as well, featuring the kind of language and behaviour that again ONLY PRINCE WOULD GET AWAY WITH. There's even a bit where he appears to repeatedly shout "Get the fuck out!" but I'm reliably informed he says "funk", so that's OK. Incredibly, he took this infernal mishmash to #2 in the UK singles chart - and #1 in the States.
Partyman, from same album, is a much better song (though the video omits the Jack Nicholson quote that opened the original) but it wasn't anywhere near as big a hit.
The most famous BAD song features their most famous use of movie sampling - with a variety of quotes taken from Nic Roeg's movie Performance starring James Fox and Mick Jagger. Like many people, I used to believe the samples were Michael Caine dialogue... which made more sense of Einstein's equation, if you think about it.
This wasn't the only time BAD using movie sampling though - their entire debut album was peppered with film quotes, including The Good, The Bad & The Ugly; A Fistful of Dollars; and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it.
Well, he gets it.
I don't like it any more than you men.
Then again, I used to think that that Axl's closing question, "What's so civil about war, anyway?" was evidence of what a deep thinker he really is... so what do I know? Or Bono or Sting delivered that line, I'd be pissing myself...
The album version of Chumbawamba's biggest / only hit begins with a rousing clip from the movie Brassed Off, featuring the late, great Pete Postlethwaite giving it everything he's got.
The truth is, I thought it mattered. I thought that MUSIC mattered.
But does it bollocks! Not compared to how PEOPLE matter.
Sadly, the record company edited that off the single version and went straight into the whiskey drinks and lager drinks, making the song sound like an anthem for pissheads, which went down very nicely in the late 90s... but wasn't the band's intention at all.
We wanna be free - we wanna be free to do what we wanna do
And we wanna get loaded
And we wanna have a good time
Normally, this is the sort of thing that gets my back up, not being the biggest fan of either dance music or remixes. Credit where it's due though, Weatherall created a far more interesting record... one that virtually defined an era. More about that here, if you're interested.
Primal Scream & Andrew Weatherall pulled the same trick a few years later with Kowalski, sampling the movie Vanishing Point. Another great example of this sort of thing done right.
This post took longer than expected, but I'm pretty positive I missed out some other famous tracks featuring dialogue culled from movies. If you can think of any, do let me know in the comments.
The one they replaced it with when Woolworths refused to stock the album
because people were blowing their brains out all over the Pick 'n' Mix.
Welcome to the Glorious 10th. Thank you for playing along. I think you got almost all of them this month, although I'm sure you'll be surprised by some of the omissions.
Let's start with the ones that are in my record collection but didn't make the 10. The first person to name each of these gets a bonus point. Let's start with the one everyone thought would be there...
I need to bring back my old series The Top Ten Songs I Hated When I Was A Kid to properly discuss FGTH, although this wouldn't be the song I featured. I've had a curious relationship with this band, largely down to the fact that even as a teenager I felt I could see through the Paul Morley hype machine. I actually preferred Holly Johnson's solo work... though I did grow to give Frankie their due eventually. Not enough to squeeze them into this Top Ten though, sorry.
Steve can have 1 point for that though. And also for suggesting Welcome To The Terrordome... though I was always more of a Run DMC man than Public Enemy.
Lynchie (I'm sorry, Lynchie, I feel like I should be linking to you... is that possible?) gets a point for Manic Street Preachers - Welcome To The Dead Zone, which was a serious contender for a while. He also gets a point for another very close call, Alice Cooper - Welcome To My Nightmare. He doesn't get any points for Pink Floyd though. And neither does anyone else. However, he can have an extra point for saying that Bon Jovi - Welcome To Wherever You Are wouldn't be in my Top Ten. It is in my record collection though. (Which probably doesn't surprise any of you.) So is this, which nobody mentioned, but it's much better than Jon By-Jovi...
Oh, and before I go any further, I can honestly say that I had never heard Mr. Mister - Welcome To The Real World until you lot started banging on about it. And I don't want to ever hear it again, thanks.
Martin arrived then, desperate to reclaim his crown after last month's poor showing, swooping up bonus points for... Fleetwood Mac - Welcome to the room, Sara, The Kinks - Welcome To Sleazy Town, and Prince - Welcome 2 The Dawn. I know, I know, last month I said Prince was a shoe-in for the Top Ten, but I forgot this because of his annoying habit of using text speak in his songs. One extra bonus point to Martin for remembering it despite that.
And I'm going to stop Martin there, because I'm sure I had a rule somewhere about limiting your guesses to ten. Well, if I didn't, I do now. Some of Martin's "bubbling under" suggestions might have nabbed him points... one of them would have scored big if he'd chosen to take it off the boil and cook it properly. Oh, and I did promise him this: he loses a point for Oxide & Neutrino. I mean, really.
The Swede gets a point for Welcome To Feeling by Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop, another one from my infinite Wants List. And that's even shorter than the Dandy Warhols track above!
Martin can have a point for Tori Amos - Welcome To England, which isn't as annoying as I worried it might be. Although the video is pretty much Wicker Man meets The Omen.
Then Jez rolled up again with Summer Camp – Welcome to Condale, which I liked, and something from the Frank Sidebottom movie soundtrack which I couldn't find online, but as I never really saw the point of Frank Sidebottom, no points there.
Finally George crawled out of bed a few days after everyone else and with his usual style and aplomb went for the booby prize by suggesting Welcome To The Show by Barclay James Harvest. And because it really is as bad as George said, I'm going to give him 3 points for that.
Another pretty good Welcome To... album without a title track.
OK, enough of the runners up. Let's get to the big ten! What beat Frankie?
I figured Charity Chic might steal the points for this one since it was one of his famous bargain buys, and sure enough he not only guessed it, but also - incredibly - predicted its Number 9 placing. Which gets him 5 points!
An obvious inclusion, which I was sure Steve would get the points for... but didn't. Lynchie gets 2 for being first to suggest it. Jez, Martin & CC also get 1 for knowing it would be in my 10.
CC got a point for being the first to suggest Ballboy, although he went for the song Welcome To The New Year instead of this. It was down to George to steal the 2 point glory by remembering this lesser known track intead.
I would argue that Brandon Flowers now makes more interesting records as a solo artist than in his day job with The Killers. I don't know if Rigid Digit agrees with me, but he gets another 2 points for being the only one to mention this anyway.
What: no Son of Dork fans out there? Shame on you!
All of which brings us to The Top Five, and a pretty amazing Top Five it is, I'm sure you'll agree (though you may well disagree about the order).
Charity Chic gets 2 points here, though sadly his prediction of it being my #2 song fell a bit short. It could well have been: it is a classic.
In another world, Martin and Rigid Digit could wear a dress. They get a point for knowing it would be in my Top Ten, as does Alyson... though I suppose she already wears one.
Here's the one nobody got: and right now, a dozen Steely Dan fans are kicking themselves. I can understand why you missed it, but remember (brackets are allowed) the challenge was "to find ten songs with the words 'Welcome to...' in the title". I never said they had to be at the beginning.
Of course, this had to be in there. It could have even been #2, but when I listened to the runner-up contenders back-to-back, my actual #2 just edged it for me. Still an amazing song, whatever your thoughts on Axl Rose.
The Swede got this first - 2 points for that. Rigid Digit gets 1 too. Alyson misses out under the Martin Rule, because she made the mistake of saying it would be on my long list rather than in the Top Ten. Shame.
I was surprised how few of you suggested this. Either you all think my record collection largely stopped in the 20th Century, or yours does. This is probably Gerard Way's finest hour, a glorious slab of emo-pomp: Queen meets Radiohead meets David Lynch. And the video has everything a great pop song needs: comas, nurses, skeleton costumes, zombies, post apocaltyptic ruins, exploding televisions and overdone allegory. Eat that, Paul Morley!
Anyway, the only person I can legitimately award points to for this is Jez. Martin misses out for over-guessing and suggesting this would be "bubbling under". No way, this is boiling over!
1. Elvis Costello - Welcome to the
Working Week
Well, there could only be one winner, and if Elvis had a song on his first few albums that fit the bill, chances are it would be him. One minute 24 seconds of sheer audio bliss: now that's how to write a pop song!
Now that your picture's in the paper being rhythmically admired And you can have anyone that you have ever desired All you gotta tell me now is why, why, why, why?
Indeed. The Swede gets 2 default points for being the first to mention it, but everyone who thought it would / should be Number One gets 5 points. So that's 5 points for Charity Chic, Martin, C, Alyson and Brian. Rigid can have a point too, though he didn't number his predictions.
Points, then. And what do points make? Well, in this game they make points. (The usual apologies if I've added them up wrong.)
Steve - 2 points (play properly next time)
Lynchie, Jez & George - 5 points
Brian - 6 points
The Swede - 7 points
Alyson - 8 points
C & Rigid Digit - 9 points
Martin - 11 points
But this month's undisputed champion, with a peerless 15 points is...
Charity Chic.
Well done, Stevie.
Thank you all for playing. Next month's challenge will be along any second.
