Celebrity Jukebox #139: Brian Wilson (Part 3)

We conclude our tribute to the late Brian Wilson today with a few lyrical tributes...

Let's start with some Jon By Jovi... because we don't hear his name enough around these parts...

You always lose the girl (Ooh)
In a Brian Wilson world

Bon Jovi - Last Cigarette

The Beta Band are up next, with a spot of critical evaluation...

I listened to the Beach Boys just a minute ago

"Wild Honey", it's not their best album but it's still pretty good

They've got some funny little love songs on there

But its not mainly a Brian Wilson production

So it's probably not as good as something like "Pet Sounds"

The Beta Band - Round The Bend

Elton's Postcards From Richard Nixon is a song about his first experiences of the USA, but Brian makes a fine contrast to Tricky Dicky...

And all around us suntanned teens, beauty like we’d never seen

Our heroes led us by the hand

Through Brian Wilson’s promised land

Where Disney’s God and he commands

Both mice and men to stay

Elton John - Postcards From Richard Nixon

And that's not the only time Elton has dropped Brian's name...

Now I know what Brian Wilson meant

Every time I step outside

I see what heaven sent

There may be seven wonders

Created for this world

But one is all we need

Since God invented girls

Elton John - Since God Invented Girls

Brian Wilson is a good name to throw into a list song, and in this track from The Church, he's in legendary company...

Brian Wilson and William Tell

We welcome you

Harry Belafonte and Alexander Bell

We welcome you

Archangel Gabriel and Richard Hell

We welcome

And Tom Miller

The Church - Welcome 

Brian finds his way into another list here, but among far less obvious company. Clear evidence though that his influence crosses all genres...

Paul Johnson

DJ Funk

DJ Sneak

DJ Rush

Waxmaster

Hyperactive

Jammin Gerald

Brian Wilson

George Clinton

Lil Louis

Ashley Beedle

Neil Landstruum

Kenny Dope

DJ Hell

Louis Vega

K-Alexi

Daft Punk - Teachers

More evidence of that from The Beastie Boys...

Made a noise invented a sound

When Brian Wilson used it 

A hit was found

Beastie Boys - Square Wave in Unison

Quite a few songwriters choose Brian as a metaphor for the fine line between genius and madness. Take this one from Brendon Urie...

She said, "You're just like Mike Love
But you wanna be Brian Wilson, Brian Wilson"
Said, "You're just like Mike Love
But you'll never be Dennis Wilson"
And I said
(Hey! Hey!) If crazy equals genius
(Hey! Hey!) If crazy equals genius
Then I'm a fucking arsonist (Hey!)
I'm a rocket scientist (Hey! Hey!)

Panic At The Disco! - Crazy = Genius

Or this from Will Toledo...

I used to think there was an answer
In the music of my youth
But I just read Brian Wilson's biography
And now I know the truth
Because his father never loved him
And the band just wanted the money
And Dennis was an alcoholic
Who drowned looking for treasure
And everyone who was around him
Just gave him drugs and took his money
He was dependent on social acceptance
Just like every other human

Car Seat Headrest - Kimochi Warui (When? When? When? When? When? When? When?)

Here's one of Ben's favourite songwriters, Jeff Rosenstock...

I've never been in love but I saw Brian Wilson once

I was drunk and screamed too loud over the falsetto in "You Still Believe in Me."

And I thought about the way his catastrophes made everything okay

Bomb The Music Industry! - You Still Believe in Me?

And one of my favourite songwriter, Stephin Merritt...

Brian Wilson, 1960 and Vine

Summer kisses

In a Pendleton shirt, songs and gentle words

Granted wishes

The Magnetic Fields - You and Me and the Moon

Richard and Karen, on the other hand, saw Brian as the living personification of summer...

Bare foot, coconut and super mild

Jamaica, take a look at your own child

Forget not

Brian Wilson songs are never left behind

Don't you worry, baby, you're a friend of mine

For so long

The Carpenters - Boat To Sail

Not to mention the sea...

Seahorses

Sharks circling

Brian Wilson, inspiration

Smart dolphins

Waves crashing

Jill Sobule - Palm Springs

And love... Brian always represents love, in all its forms...

She made lasagna

And I sang her a song by Brian Wilson

Cause I knew her favourite band was The Beach Boys

Bowling For Soup - Rhonda Lasagna

As well as happy times though, Brian can also remind us of sad times...

This was the summer of your dad at the UN

And the voice of Brian Wilson

And the rain

Maybe she'll come back to you now

She could turn around on Friday

Maybe she'll realize it then

Shouldn't your friends know better now?

Maybe they say these unkind things

Never dreaming they hurt you

And she may turn around

And see a clearer day

The Innocence Mission - She May Turn Around

Love and lost love...

God only knows

What Brian Wilson meant

Pick out your clothes

With some real intent

You don't seem to care

That I've been waiting here

Pulling out my hair

For you to come

My dear

Snow Patrol - Batten Down the Hatch

The sun and the rain, light and darkness...

It's coming down in sheets of rain

Water's running in the drain

I lie with candles by my bed

Brian Wilson in my head

Dennis Wilson, Sharon Tate

Dark Pacific Palisades, yeah

Wait for the summer

It'll come round again

Ash - Pacific Palisades

And to close, a track which would have fit very well into Snapshots #400... Brian Wilson singing Brian Wilson, a cover of the Barenaked Ladies song...

Celebrity Jukebox #136: Jill Sobule

American singer-songwriter Jill Sobule wasn't particularly well known over this side of the pond, even among music fans... unless you remember her as one of Lloyd Cole's band The Negatives back in 2001...

Lloyd Cole & The Negatives - Negative Attitude

I guess Jill was a little more well known in the States, where she had a couple of minor hits from her self-titled 1995 album, including one that BBC News claim was "widely considered the first song with openly-gay themes to crack the Billboard Top 20"... although iffypedia says it got to #67, so take your pick who you believe...

That's not the Katy Perry song, by the way... Katy just re-used the title. Jill got there 13 years earlier.

Anyway, I considered myself a fan of Jill's back in the day, though I had rather lost touch with her work in more recent years. I was still shocked to hear of her death last week in a house fire, aged just 66. Lloyd led the tributes: "I'm really too numb to post much of anything. We loved her. She loved us."

The song above was used in the soundtrack of the movie Clueless. That and I Kissed A Girl were the songs most tributes led with. But this was the first Jill Sobule track I thought of when I heard the news...

Celebrity Jukebox #9: Ernest Borgnine

What a career Ernest Borgnine had. After fighting in the Navy in WWII (and winning a bunch of medals in the process), he ended up fighting alongside Burt Lancaster in From Here To Eternity, William Holden in The Wild Bunch and Lee Marvin in The Dirty Dozen. He was on board The Flight the Phoenix, survived the Poseidon Adventure and chased Kris Kristofferson's Convoy... all long before he took the co-pilot seat in Stringellow Hawk's Airwolf. 

He was married five times. His shortest period of wedlock was 42 days, to Ethel Merman. Iffypedia says "their time together was mostly spent hurling profane insults at each other", which sounds familiar. His final marriage lasted 4 decades though, so I guess he got that one right.

He died in 2012 at the age of 95, having being on screen for 6 decades, including the years spent voicing a Spongebob Squarepants character. What a guy.

In song, we find him spending time in Jill Sobule's Loveless Hotel...

And the stars upon the walls look down at me like gods

There's Ernest Borgnine and Billy Ray Cyrus and my favorite Minnie Pearl

Turning his hand to writing (or not)...

Furiousball - The Short Stories of Ernest Borgnine

Talking with a friend of mine

Bout Ernest Borgnine

And the short stories he never wrote

Joining a parade...

The Badlees - Leaning On The Day's Parade

He'd eat at KFC

Wore salad clothes and smelled like turpentine

He talked alot about his art

With a spitting image of Ernest Borgnine

They found him dead the other day

Out where the punks and school kids play

And a mere in the shade

Leaning on the day's parade

He even gets a mention in Weird Al's horoscopes!

Weird Al Yankovic - Your Horoscope For Today

Sagittarius

All your friends are laughing behind your back (KILL THEM)

Take down all those naked pictures of

Ernest Borgnine, you've got hanging in your den

But the greatest tribute to Ernest Borgnine in song comes from John Grant, who uses the great man as an inspirational figure when times are really tough...

I got to meet him once, and he was really, really cool.

And when I think about everything's that he's been through,

I wish he'd call me on the phone and take my ass to school.

I wonder what Ernie Borgnine would do.

Next time I'm having a bad day, I'm going to ask myself that very question.

What would Ernest Borgnine do?

My Top Ten Parade Songs

Because everybody loves a parade... don't they?

Special mentions to The Electric Soft Parade (who have a new album out called Idiots... which sells it to me) and The Hit Parade.


10. Jill Sobule - Rainy Day Parade

Jill beats Macy's Day Parade by Green Day (in which Billy Joe Armstrong plays Gripper Stebson) into the Top Ten through the power of positive thinking.

I used to live with someone who loved me
But somehow they ran out of patience
I regret those things I said
They were so uncalled for

9. Randy Newman - Jolly Coppers On Parade

Pure sarcasm. Bliss.

8. Del Amitri - Some Other Sucker's Parade

When the going gets tough, the tough get boozin'...

I must've had a million damn unlucky days
But there ain't no cloud that a bottle can't chase away
I've done my deal of living, ran from place to place
But when the roof comes in I don't wanna take it straight

7.  Fountains of Wayne - A Fine Day For A Parade

And here's someone else with no lock on her liquor cabinet...

Mrs. Carver says she's sorry 
She knows enough not to worry 
But what does she know about crime? 
Believes the town is sinking 
The price of forward thinking 
You stay up all night half the time 
Racking your mind 
Alone in the night 
While all your neighbors sleep tight

6. The Magnetic Fields - Parades Go By

It's notoriously difficult to make a decent double album without resorting to filler... Stephin Merrit's Magnetic Fields may be the only band I can think of to create a truly indispensable TRIPLE album.

5. Prince - Christopher Tracy's Parade

Not on youtube, natch. Still, I could hardly leave it out.

4. The Blue Nile - Headlights On The Parade

From the album Hats, the best musical insomnia cure you can buy. (And I mean that as a compliment.)

See also Easter Parade, also by the Blue Nile. Also good for nodding off to.

3. Elvis Costello - Invasion Hit Parade

I have much love for Elvis's infamous beardy album, Mighty Like A Rose. Here's one reason why...

Her transistor offers no salvation or regrets
No pool, no pets, no cigarettes
Just non-stop Disco Tex and the Sex-o-lettes

See also London's Brilliant Parade and Jack Of All Parades, completing Declan's Parade Hat Trick. 

2. My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade

MCR had many fine moments before calling it a day earlier this year, but this sumptuous rock opera could well be their finest... one of the best Number One singles of the 21st Century. I'd pretty much convinced myself it would be Number One here too... until I remembered...

1. The Doors - The Soft Parade

One of the greatest spoken word intros ever put down on tape...

You cannot petition the lord with prayer!

The other 8 minutes aren't too shabby either.

When I listen to Jim Morrison here, I start to realise where that other crazy Jim (Steinman) got so much of his insanity from...and I swear the opening verse reminds me of Neil Hannon too.

When all else fails
We can whip the horse's eyes
And make them sleep
And cry...

But... which parade would you stand out in the rain to watch?

My Top Ten Wrestling Songs

Easy! Easy! Easy! Easy!


10. Does It Offend You, Yeah? - The Wrestler

I'm getting too old for this shit.

9. Reverend & The Makers - The Wrestler

The Reverend gets pinned down by his conscience.

8. Hot Chip - Wrestlers

The gloves are off...

Hang on, do wrestlers wear gloves?

7. Superman Revenge Squad - Kendo Nagasaki

You may be surprised to learn that this is not the only song about Peter Thornley in this Top Ten.

I don't often steal an entire song's lyrics... but these are worth repeating.

I caught myself crying in the mirror

I was pathetic, I was the angriest dog in the world, 
I was Kendo Nagaski looking back over a lifetime just spent sweating in the ring, in a mask, and feeling ashamed.

I put your postcard on the side

And it makes me happy that you're not happy – it makes me smile

Was in your top eight friends on myspace for half a week, but Thursday night I'd disappeared, but you made me feel special for a while.

I guess everything leads to loneliness
And Weatherspoons meals are cheaper when there's two
We're gonna gather all the lonely people, let them enjoy the two-for-one
Then go back to being strangers when they're through
And maybe one or two won't be strangers anymore

And it makes me happy that you're not happy – it makes me smile

Find out more about Superman Revenge Squad here.

6. Jill Sobule - Mexican Wrestler

Sometimes I wish that I was a wrestler
A Mexican wrestler in a red vinyl mask
And I might grab you, body slam you, and maybe cause
Physical harm

No, really, it's a love song.

5. Art Brut - Unprofessional Wrestling

Art Brut have just released a two-disc best of compilation. Great - like I don't have little enough money as it is. (Unprofessional Wrestling isn't on it, by the way.)

4. Frightened Rabbit - The Wrestle

Apparently, this is about sex...

I'm torn limb from limb
There is bone, there is gristle, and spit
In the clotheless wrestle
The clotheless animal
Animal, animal, animal 

..I must be doing it wrong. (Thankfully.)

3. Carter, The Unstoppable Sex Machine - Is Wrestling Fixed?

Am I un H A P P why?
Does a new born baby cry?
Did Little Red Riding wear a hood?
Did the three bears shit in the woods?
Was Humpty Dumpty fat?
Does the Pope wear a funny hat?
Is wrestling fixed?

Probably.

2. Bruce Springsteen - The Wrestler

One of Bruce's best songs of the 21st Century, hard not to picture a battered Mickey Rourke when you hear it.

1. Luke Haines - Inside The Restless Mind Of Rollerball Rocko / Big Daddy Got A Casio VL Tone / Haystacks In Heaven / Gorgeous George / I Am Catweazle / etc.

Only Luke Haines could write an entire album about spending Saturday afternoons watching wrestling on World of Sport (as I did, in my distant childhood). If you don't believe me, I suggest you track down a copy of Nine and a Half Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s & early 80s.



Which one takes you down?

My Top Ten Gymnastic Songs

10. Jill Sobule - Lucy At The Gym

OK, so strictly speaking, Lucy doesn't actually appear to be doing gymnastics at the
gym. But look at her ribs - they show through the spandex. And she's working so hard... to conquer her loneliness. Give her a break, will you?

9. Culture Club - I'll Tumble 4 Ya

Culture Club are one of those bands I hated at the time, yet I've grown to nostalgically respect over the years.

8. Dobie Gray - Out On The Floor

Classic Northern Soul belter.

7. The Divine Comedy - Can You Stand Upon One Leg?

(It's harder than you think.)

6. Depeche Mode - Get The Balance Right

You think you've got a hold of it all
You haven't got a hold at all
When you reach the top, get ready to drop
Prepare yourself for the fall, you're gonna fall

Nothing like a positive mental attitude.

5. David Bowie - Boys Keep Swinging

Worth watching the video to the end if you're a Kenny Everett fan.

4. Rocket From The Crypt - On A Rope

The video features puppies and goats. Not quite as rock 'n' roll as the song suggests.

3. Maximo Park - Acrobat

One of my favourites from this mob, perhaps because it reminds me of Belong by R.E.M.

I am not an acrobat,
I cannot perform these tricks for you,
Losing all my balance,
Falling from a wire made for you

2. Chairlift - Bruises

I tried to do handstands for you
But every time I fell on you

1. The Beatles - Twist & Shout

This is the first time I've ever given a Beatles song the Number One position, but while this may not be a Lennon & McCartney original, theirs is still the definitive version. I blame Ferris Bueller...



Those were my gymnastic classics... which one gets a 10.0 from you judges?