Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts

Sunday, 27 October 2024

Snapshots #367: A Top Twenty Songs Named After Horror Movies


Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y’all’s neighborhood
And whosoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the Hounds of Hell
And rot inside a corpse’s shell
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the SNAPSHOTS!
AH HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA

Thank you, Vincent. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

It's Halloween this week, and when I started looking for songs that share their names with horror movies, I hit a bumper bundle. But did you guess them all?


20. Bad jingles get me in such a tizzy. 


"Bad jingles" was an anagram...



19. Lost inside Outwood Golf Course.


In case you're wondering, Outwood is just down the road from where I work in Leeds. Fortunately, I've never spotted u-two while driving through there...



18. Ttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssss iiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssss ttttttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeee ccccccccccccccllllllllllllluuuuuuuuuuuuueeeeeeeeeee.




17. The Haiti dollar hides a silly secret. 


The Haiti dollar, Silly Billy.



16. Boopadoop.

Named after Chic Young's Blondie comic strip: her surname was Boopadoop.

Blondie - Island Of Lost Souls

15. Noughties boy band, aphrodisiac, Ian Astbury.

Noughties boy band = Blue.

Aphrodisiac = Oyster.

Ian Astbury = The Cult.

Blue Öyster Cult - Nosferatu

14. Frippette?

She's married to Robert Fripp...

Toyah - Alien

13. They're ghosting you.

The Phantom Band - The Howling

12. Can you hear them?

The Sonics - Psycho

11. ...is a V. smarmy DJ mix.

..."is a V. smarmy DJ" was an anagram...

Sammy Davis Jr. - The Candyman

10. A wing and a guitar.

A Fender is what we Brits would call the wing on a car... and it's also a type of guitar.

Sam Fender - Poltergeist(s)

9. Just desserts.

The Sweet - Hellraiser

8. Read one section of your home. 

Chapterhouse - Don't Look Now

7. This guy, and another four droplets.

A tough one this, and probably not one you could guess from the clue alone... but once you worked out the theme... maybe?

Anyway, the photo above is Bernie Nee, the singer on the track below. The rest of the Blobs were session musicians, so no photo exists of the "band" itself...

The Five Blobs - The Blob

6. Bitten by a green bird that wishes it could fly.

Orville might have wished he could fly, but he could at least peck.

Orville Peck - Dead Of Night

5. Used to make soup for Alice and the Queen.

Then the Queen said to Alice, "Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?"

"No," said Alice. "I don't even know what a Mock Turtle is."

"It's the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from", said the Queen.

(From Alice In Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.)

The Mock Turtles - Wicker Man

4. A carpenter and a great hangman. 

The Great Hangman is a cliff. Richard was a Carpenter.

Cliff Richard - Carrie

3. Chest, pea, dough.

Chestnut, peanut, doughnut...

Nut - Scream

2. What do Jennifer Anniston, Julie Andrews and Jane Austen cook their eggs in?

In the J.A.pan, of course!

Japan - Halloween

1. Lad-ra-doodle.


It's not often you see Damon Gough without his hat on...

Badly Drawn Boy - The Shining

Not Number One because it's my favourite song... but it is my favourite horror film.


Such a bounty of horror-film-related songs did I find, that there will be more to share later in the week... and a much less scary Snapshots will be back next Saturday. 


Monday, 12 February 2024

Idiomusic #3: Burning Bridges

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. 

Jon By Jovi once famously stated that he'd seen a million faces and he'd rocked them all. That was in his younger days though. He's grown up since then...

I've seen a million faces and I've lived a couple lives

Not quite as catchy, is it, Jon?


I think he might have watched The Sound Of Music before writing that one.

OK, the three fine gentlemen mentioned above clearly aren't fans of Mr. By Jovi. But I bet they like this guy...


Lots of bridges getting burned in the world of country music, it seems...


And here's a lady I'm very much looking forward to seeing at our local village hall next month...


Meanwhile, I hope the Walker Brothers didn't burn their bridges while their ship was coming in...


While here's another sailor who needs to keep his boat away from them...


There are a heck of a lot of bridges that could be burned in Japan...


But if you choose to burn your bridges, let's hope there's a Survivor...


And if you're near a burning bridge, chances are you could get scorched... unless you stick with these guys...


Looking for someone to blame your bridge burning antics on? You could always say it was UFO-related...


Here's the Welsh answer to the Foo Fighters, slightly more interesting for that...


Next, one for Brian...


Laughing Clowns were an Aussie post-punk band in the 80s, influenced by free jazz, bluegrass and krautrock. Which might explain this...


If your ears need soothing after that, here's the divine Ms. B...


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...


And now... something to make your day.


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...


Almost at the end now. Time for the band that won New Faces in 1974. I was only two, but I'm sure the rest of you remember them well...


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...
 

At least Jez will be happy.


Sunday, 30 October 2022

Snapshots #264: A Top Ten Ghost Songs

This week, we were haunted by ten songs about ghosts. Did you see them too, or were they all just in my imagination?


10. 6852 islands.

There are 6,852 islands in the archipelago of Japan.

Japan - Ghosts

9. Alas, it's grubby.

A Las Vegas... gets dirty.

Dirty Vegas - Ghosts

8. Que sera, John Wayne.

Que sera sera was Doris Day's mantra. John Wayne was The Duke.

Doris Duke - Ghost Of Myself

7. Woman joins video game movie.

The video game movie was Tron.

Ladytron - Ghosts

6. Cauliflower, fried egg, lion's mane, pink meanie.

They're all types of jellyfish.

Jellyfish - The Ghost At Number One

5. Hallucinogenic coats.

The Psychedelic Furs - The Ghost In You

4. King in need of horse meets twins in need of doctor.

Richard III would give his kingdom for a horse. The Thompson Twins wanted a Doctor.

Richard Thompson - The Ghost Of You Walks

3. Peggy throws in the towel.

Peggy Suicide. Throws in the towel being a euphemism for taking your own life.

Suicide - Ghost Rider

2. Teary Ronald.

Anagram!

R Dean Taylor - There's A Ghost In My House

1. Volunteer police.

Special constables, or simply Specials.


Can't go on no more?

Don't worry, Snapshots will be back next Saturday.



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