My Top Ten Dinosaur Songs (Volume One)

As there's a new Jurassic Park World movie out this week, it seems an appropriate time to dust off a Top Ten that's been sitting in the cupboard for a while now.

This is part one though... next week, I'll do tens songs about specific dinosaurs (or at least ones that mention specific dinosaurs). I have a fair few pterodactyls, brontosauruses and (obviously) T-Rex, but your suggestions are welcome.

In the meantime, special mention must obviously go to... Dinosaur Jr, The Last Dinosaurs, Brontosaurus Chorus, Jurassic Five and... Marc Bolan.


10. We Are Scientists - Dinosaurs

They are scientists, so obviously they understand natural selection.

9. King Crimson - Dinosaur

Because if I didn't include this, somebody would be complaining.

I'm a dinosaur, somebody's digging my bones

8. The Stills - Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs as a metaphor for the end of a relationship, presumably.

7.  Hank Williams Jr. - Dinosaur

He is a dinosaur - and proud of it!

6. Low - Dinosaur Act

God bless the Mormons. At least they're not Creationists.

See also Matthew Sweet - Dinosaur Act - not the same song.

5. Emmy The Great - Dinosaur Sex

Speaking of evolutionary theory...

And dinosaur sex led to nothing
And maybe we will lead to nothing
And dinosaur sex led to nothing
But we will lead as far as we can lead

4. King Missile - Dinosaurs

I wanna know
About the dinosaurs
I don't know about the dinosaurs
I wanna know about the dinosaurs
Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs

Make up your mind, guys.

Beyond that indecision, this is proper mental. Hence: very good.

3. Weird Al Yankovic - Jurassic Park

Want another reason to love Jimmy Webb? He had final approval on this glorious MacArthur Park parody... and he thought it was hilarious.

Someone let T-Rex out of his pen...

2. Johnny Cash - Dinosaur Song

The wonder of Johnny Cash - he could even make kids' songs sound cool.

One was called Diplodocus
One was bigger than your school bus
One was called a Triceratops
Three horns to stop anything that hops

See also Dinosaur Pet by Neil Sedaka, sung to the tune of Calendar Girl. Obviously.

1. Was (Not Was) - Walk The Dinosaur

Well, it had to be really, didn't it?

Boom boom, acka-lacka-lacka boom!

Any more dinosaurs in your collection? (And no, I don't count Bob Dylan.) Specific dinosaurs would be welcome for next week.

My Top Ten Tribute To Molly Part 1: Cat Songs

We lost an important member of our family yesterday. Molly the cat... silky ears, twitching whiskers, inquisitive meow (not to mention a full-on demanding MOWRRRR at meal times).

I loved how you thought you were a human, not a silly cat. How you'd talk back. How you'd show workmen round the house and offer your opinion. How you'd never quite settle down, and if you did, that's when the claws would come out, milking us for warmth. How sometimes you'd sit with your tongue peeping out. How loud you could purr.

There are so many Molly stories I could tell. You were such an incredible character. The time you reached out through a barely open bedroom window and pulled in a bird. (That jingling collar we had to buy you must have sounded like the Jaws theme to the local avian gangs.) The way you just had to find a carpeted area to puke furballs onto: a nice, easy to clean kitchen floor was never good enough. The way you made me feel welcome in Louise's house the first time I visited. You were one of the friendliest cats I ever met. It was amusing watching neighbours and schoolkids stop outside the house to give you a stroke on their way home.

Many more stories, but I'm filling up at the typewriter so... another time, Mols.

I'll especially miss going out last thing at night to find you (usually scavenging round the back door of the nearby hotel, where you'd managed to sweet-talk the kitchen staff into feeding you scraps), then carrying you home on my shoulder, purring, claws catching in my jumper.


10.  Sonic Youth - Purr

I love you baby yeah, you're superfine
A-claw me down, too
A purring, whirring, fuzzy like today
Switching sunlight
I chase you kitten, catch you every time
Funny how it flies

9. Marc & The Mambas - Boss Cat

Molly was certainly the boss round here...

Mee-ow, oh wow!
Mee-ow, oh wow!
Mee-ow, oh wow!
Mee-ow, oh wow!

8. Paul Heaton - Life Of A Cat

Oh, for the life of a cat!

7. Squeeze - Cool For Cats

Not really about cats at all, but Molly was definitely too cool for school.

6. Ray Charles & Hank Williams Jr. - Two Old Cats Like Us

We've been down a whole lot of alleys
Shook a whole lot of cans
There ain't too much about prowlin' or howlin'
That we don't understand

Had a few doors slammed on our tails
We've been kicked and cussed
But everything's cool for two old cats like us

5. Colin Clary - Meow Meow

Excuse the early Christmas song, but this one always makes me think of Molly. This song's for life, not just for Christmas.

4. Billy Joel - Cat

Very early, very jazzy Billy. But so many of the lyrics are spot on...

She walks with a grace of a lion
Her eyes are the color of a shade gleam
She takes her pleasure in the nighttime
Absolutely unconcerned about anything

She’s a cat and she's as free as the wind
You never know what kind of trouble she’s in
She’s a cat
Rest assured that she doesn’t need you

3. Elvis Costello - Pads, Paws & Claws

Maybe Elvis's song isn't about an actual cat, but Molly was certainly a feline tormenter and she definitely did the pads, paws and claws routine.

2. Prefab Sprout - Farmyard Cat

But you can be the feline elite and still go scrounging scraps down a dead end street, Paddy.

I'll be back to talk in more detail about this song some other time.

1. The Cure - Love Cats

So wonderfully
Wonderfully
Wonderfully
Wonderfully
Pretty...

My Top Ten Molly Songs will follow very soon, obviously...

My Top Ten Weather Forecast Songs

There are, of course, millions of songs that predict the weather... from A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall to Here Comes The Sun. None of those are allowed in this Top Ten.

To be included here, you have to actually mention weather forecasting... or forecasters.

Special mentions to The Forecast... and Weather Report. (Hmm.. Jazz. Niiice.)


10. Jason Mraz - The Forecast

Jason swears he's no weatherman... but he doesn't half go on about it.

This song bears mention purely down to one of the most bizarre metaphors ever written...

But your mouth is my umbrella now
And I'm holding your tongue

W. T. F.? (Weather: The Forecast.)

9. Sheryl Crow - Weather Channel

When Sheryl gets depressed, she watched the Weather Channel. It doesn't appear to cheer her up.

8. Tom Waits - Emotional Weather Report

Not a song so much as the jamming intro to Tom's classic live album Nighthawks At The Diner. But there's plenty of forecasting to go around...

And a line of thunderstorms was developing in the early morning
Ahead of a slow moving cold front
Cold blooded
With tornado watches issued shortly before noon Sunday, 

For the areas including...
The western region of my mental health
And the northern portions of my ability to deal rationally 
With my disconcerted precarious emotional situation

7. Hank Williams Jr. - The Weatherman

Hank Jr. needs a good forecast tonight...

6. Spearmint - The Weather Forecaster

It always upsets me when I can't find links to Spearmint records on the internet. This is a gorgeous little story by Shirley Lee about a young man who learns to predict the weather as a way of controlling everything that might happen in his life...

If you know what the weather will be like
There's no danger
You're in control

But then, inevitably, he meets a young lady... and the forecast becomes unpredictable.

Oh, just go buy the album. 

5. The Weather Girls - It's Raining Men 

Get ready, all you lonely girls - and leave those umbrellas at home!

A song so great, even Geri Halliwell couldn't kill it. (Though she gave it a damned good try.)

4. A Tribe of Toffs - John Kettley Is A Weatherman

Ah, 1988 in the UK charts... a terrible time for music. During the dark days of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, Bros, Bomb The Bass, Brother Beyond and the Wee Papa Girl Rappers... I was 16. Everything was wrong with the world. And then there came the Tribe of Toffs, a silly group of lads with a jangly guitar pop novelty record full of terrible rhymes about minor British TV personalities of the day (and Johnny Marr). It may have only reached number 21 in the charts... but it was better than Another Day In Paradise.

Debbie Thrower's got a lawnmower,
Johnny Marr he plays guitar,
David Steel lives in Keele,
John Kettley... John Kettley... John Kettley:
He's a weatherman.

3. Fountains of Wayne - Traffic & Weather

A love story unfolds among the Channel 6 news team...

Ooh, we belong together - like traffic and weather...

Any song that contains that timeless chat up line "I like those shorts - I'd like them even more on my bedroom floor" get my vote.

2. Blur - This Is A Low

Damon lies in bed listening to the shipping forecast: the end result is one of their most moving records. Don't spend too much time studying the lyrics though, or the magic is lost. 

1. ELO - Mr. Blue Sky 

Wait a minute, Rol, I hear you cry... isn't this one of those songs you outlawed at the top of the page: like A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall or Here Comes The Sun? Ah, I reply... ahhhh... yes, but listen again to that timeless intro:

Morning - today's forecast calls for blue skies...

However, if you're looking for Dylan or the Fab Four... close your eyes and listen to Mr. Blue Sky one more time. Not only is it one of the greatest pop records ever recorded... doesn't it just sound like "What if Bob was lead singer of the Beatles?"



...but which is your Michael Fish?