And while I couldn't find any songs with Parlophone in the title, I then remembered this...
Just when the Beta Band was about to start It all started in London town When we gave our demo to Phil Brown Then we met Miles at Parlophone And let him hear "Dog's Got a Bone" He said go to Chalk Farm and put it on wax The next few weeks was spent cutting four tracks
Ben messaged me to ask, "Did you do a blog post for Ace Frehley?", to which my shameful reply was, "No. I meant to, but never got round to it."
Still, better late than never.
As "Spaceman", the original guitarist in Kiss, Paul Daniel "Ace" Frehley clearly left a sizable crater in the history of rock 'n' roll... even though he eventually left to pursue a solo career / was kicked out for excessive substance abuse, depending on which version you believe. Bridges were rebuilt in the late 90s and the remaining Kiss members had nothing but good things to say about him in eulogy, while Alice Cooper remarked, ""He always brought it every night. He did it every night. And it's just hard to see somebody like that go. Ace was an ACE."
Growing up among a family of builders, there was always the opportunity to wreck things. Before side-stepping into building houses, my brother specialised in demolition. I never really accompanied him on any of these wrecking jobs, but I'd see him knocking stuff down for my dad around the farm every now and then. My greatest memory of his destructive tendencies involved my first bike, which he drove over with his JCB when I made the mistake of leaving it in the yard. My sister carried it back into the house and held it up to show me what had happened... but it wasn't until she turned it side on that I realised it was flat.
My dad was a joiner by trade, but he could turn his hand to most jobs. He built sheds, turned our old barn into the house my Mum still lives in today, and single-handedly wood-panelled the house I grew up in to within an inch of its life. Wood panelling was very big back in the 70s, especially if you were a joiner. There was always some DIY project ongoing, despite the fact he had a full time job at the car auctions and also managed the farm.
I do have one specific memory of a demolition job that I got involved in, and this was when I was very young... maybe 4 or 5. There was a wall down the side of the staircase that my dad had started knocking down so that he could make the small sitting room a bit more open plan. This was an old farmhouse, so all the walls were built of stone - no plasterboard when that place was built. Removing the wall was taking him some time (in between all his other jobs), but one morning he and my Mum woke up very early to the sound of hammering... only to discover me sitting on the stairs with a lump hammer in my hand, cheerfully knocking out the bricks. I guess I wanted to be like my dad...
And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain...
My Way is such a famous song, it's hard to believe that the Beatles were on the verge of breaking up when Frank first recorded it. It feels like it must have been around well before 1969. But the French song, "Comme d'habitude", it was based on was only written two years earlier. The lyrics to that are very different from the ones Paul Anka wrote for Frank though... after old blue eyes told Paul he was quitting the music business because he was sick of it. Talk about a comeback...
Frank apparently came to hate My Way though, and Leonard Cohen only liked Sid Vicious's version. Call me a traditionalist, but I still think Frank's take is unbeatable... although I do have a fondness for Shane MacGowan's version. Not to mention Elvis and Willie. Each one can bring a tear to my eye, if the wind's blowing in the right direction. However, they all follow the same Frank's template... unlike Maxine Weldon, who really took it her own way in 1975...
There are a few songs called My Way in my collection that have nothing to do with the infamous karaoke staple. They were all written long after, and all suffer in comparison...
Eddie Cochran had been dead almost a decade when Frank first faced his own final curtain. So Eddie had nothing to live up to when he recorded this little beauty in the late 50s...
Every gambler knows that the secret to survival is knowing what to throw away, and knowing what to keep. Because every hand's a winner, and every hand's a loser, and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.
Wiser words have seldom been sung. Here's this week's full house...
As this is the Hot 100, there was no finer band to illustrate Number 8 on our countdown than the Hot 8 Brass Band. If this doesn't put a smile on your face, rigor mortis may have set in...
Just noticed your request regarding artist first and title second. Sorry! I'll make sure to do that next week if I come up with anything - gotta run now!
That's OK. I'm used to being ignored.
Couple missing from The Swede's list there. We may come back to those later.
George can't get up quite as early as The Swede. I'll put that down to the time difference.
And Douglas McLaren picked out an all-time favourite of mine... and Styx.
You know the 80's lover in you is having a hard time choosing a winner between Tommy Tutone's "867-5309 (Jenny)" and Styx, "Pieces of 8" (though that one came out late '79 I think). Oh well, if R.E.M. or The Byrds win out (as in justice they should), at least Tommy Tutone has a chance almost every week upcoming! And if you listen to the opening jangly guitar intro, you might almost think it was going to be an early era R.E.M. song. Until the Big Dumb Eighties production values kick in, and Tommy opens his mouth and utters the absurd pick up line lyrics.
(Have you noticed how since I asked The Swede to put the band names first, everybody has switched to doing it song titles first? Oh well, more work for the wicked.)
John Medd, meanwhile, was still smarting over my rejection of ELP last week. But once he'd got over that...
All of which brings us to the debate over this week's winner, which comes down to two songs, both of which were initially identified by early bird The Swede. First, this...
Leave it to Brian to find another version... one which I'm surprised The Swede didn't mention...
I will go along with Eight Miles High, but I'm going to throw the version by Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians into the mix. Terrific B-side to So You Think You're In Love.
But it did seem like Eight Miles High was going to walk away with the crown this week.
And then came The Swede's other big suggestion...
REM - Driver 8
Martin:Good call, Driver Eight by REM would be my nailed-on choice for this week.
Swiss Adam:R.E.M. from the 80s seem to be all over this end of the countdown don't they?
Perhaps not quite as many votes as The Byrds, but...
Driver 8 was one of the first pre-Green REM songs I really became aware of (apart from The One I Love, obviously). This was because one of my favourite comics of the late 80s / early 90s (Doom Patrol) which featured a minor character called Driver 8, and that brief reference made me go hunt down the song.
I saw a treehouse on the outskirts of the farm
The power lines have floaters so the airplanes won't get snagged
Bells are ringing through the town again
The children look up, all they hear is sky-blue, bells ringing
Next week... the most popular lucky number in the world.
I've got your picture for next week sorted, said Charity Chic. I have an album by a band called 16 Horsepower.
And you know what? I thought I did too. But it appears to have disappeared from my music library. Anyway, thank you for the reminder.
The biggest problem about the Number 16 on our countdown was summed up by Lynchie that many suggestions might be "a bit dodgy - older men singing about mid-teen girls."
In more cynical / enlightened / post-Glitter & Saville times, we may now find these songs creepy... but part of me thinks they were never actually meant that way. Oh for a return to innocence...
For your information though, Charmain Carr was 23 when that was filmed. Which takes us back to a point I raised last week. (Go look it up yourself, it takes me long enough to write all this stuff down once without going back and reading it again.)
Looking back on being 16 is something that gets harder as the years go by. There are a few songs written from that perspective, and C was the first to offer this very popular suggestion, saying, So good, in so many ways, and no dodgy lyrics about young girls! First heard when I was still 14 and sixteen sounded old...
The Swede also nominated this one. Brian added: It was No. 15 on my Festive 50 for 2019, and indie couple Amelia and Rob deserve a moment on top of the heap.
A new band to me, but one that immediately went on the Check Out pile...
That has to be the strangest video I've seen in a long time, featuring some reasonably big name actors, in some kind of bizarre SNL sketch that doesn't fit the song at all.
Anyway... the winner. Which will probably be obvious by now. It was first suggested by Lynchie, then seconded by Swiss Adam, though I'm sure a few others would have given it consideration.
While waiting for inspiration to strike (and free time to ponder), I'm going through the backlog of old ideas for Top Tend I never got round to writing up. This one is pretty self-explanatory, other than to say that although Cyndi's album was called She's So Unusual, there wasn't a title track...
Aliens don't need to come to earth in spaceships anymore to find out about human life. They can just watch old youtube videos. Of Kiss. And vow never to come near this scary, scary planet called Earth.
And even scarier than Kiss, there's Cliff. Video must be watched. Those pants are too tight, Cliff. And why is that baby flying on a wire? Safeguarding!
One of those Beatles song I'm kind of on the fence about. On Abbey Road, it works. On its own... it just sounds like them mucking about in the studio for seven and a half minutes without much of an idea of a tune.
As I compile these results, nobody has got this. I fully expect Martin to swoop in at the last minute and nab it.
UPDATE: Just before I was about to turn off the computer and go to bed (hey, listen, 9.30 is all I can manage on a Saturday night), my prediction came true. I knew I could count on you, Martin!
7. Beware of this (unabbreviated) spinning lady... she's coming for New York!
A Spinning Jenny, unabbreviated, would be Jennifer.
General agreement that this must be The Alexander Brothers with Nobody's Child... a song I'd never heard before, but I can see why you might think I'd like it. Having watched the video, I reckon there's a distinct possibility Aiden & Malcolm posed for that photo with said brothers in mind.
It took my extra "Think Belle & Sebastian" clue to direct RD to the correct answer.
1. What Bond got LOADS.
Sometimes the clues just write themselves.
George took a couple of shots, but nailed his target in the end.
Congratulations to this week's undisputed champion: Charity Chic. Thanks, as always, for playing along.
Back next Saturday with ten more badly disguised "classics" from the depths of my music library...
Another song about being on tour and missing your girl back home... but I like to think Neil managed to keep it in his pants while he was away. (I may be wrong.)
Still one of the most unsung songwriters of his generation...
Two lovers stop you and ask
You to take their photo
Tears streaming down your face
They go and stand by the rail
The Bay behind them
Angel Island
And you’re already gone
You’re already gone
You’re already gone away…
Bob prepares to welcome back an old friend who left for the big city lights ten years back... and may well be coming back with his tail between his legs.
So it turns out there are two completely different Fleetwood Mac songs with this title... and neither of them sound like anything you'd expect a Fleetwood Mac song to sound.
The first is from the group's original incarnation in 1968, when they were Peter Green's British blues band (although the eponymous Mick Fleetwood and John McVie were knocking around on drums and bass respectively).
The second is even more bizarre. Taken from the band's NINTH album in 1974, this was written by then lead singer Bob Welch (who was soon after replaced by Lindsey Buckingham) and it sounds like some kind of trippy psychedelia. Still, it was the first Mac album to crack the American charts... so I guess they were heading in the right direction.
To the tune of He's Got The Whole World In His Hands, Nigel Blackwell prepares for the visit of some annoying neighbours / friends / relatives. Who they are or why they're coming to call is unimportant... but he gives us plenty of reasons to dread their arrival.
They were due on the Crystal Maze
Yeah, they were due to go on the Crystal Maze
Yeah, they were due on the Crystal Maze
But they got mugged in Florida
