Brian was the next person to pick a random CD number for me to write about (from the 177 and counting compilation CDs I have created to introduce my son to the wonderfully diverse world of popular music) . Brian's was a random choice, as with everyone else's, but I've got to say there are some particularly dubious selections on this CD. A couple of moments where I was left scratching my head and asking myself, "Why the hell did I put that on here?" Then again, as readers, you probably ask the same question every time I do one of these posts. Oh well, let's see how I can justify myself this time...
Track 1: The Cure - Inbetween Days
Fortunately, we start on safe ground with another Cure song. Interesting that I've only written about four of these CDs so far, and yet The Cure have kicked us off 50% of the time. I wouldn't read anything into that beyond the fact that statistics are utter bollocks. Still, in Bob Smith we do have the 80s miserabilist who it's still cool to like... so that's something, at least.
Of course, miserabilism will only take you so far... unless you're miserable with a smile on your face, or a jaunty tune in the background... and then I'll love you forever.
Yesterday I got so old
I felt like I could die
Yesterday I got so old
It made me want to cry
I'm not sure how old Bob was when he wrote those lines, but he's a damned sight older now. Aren't we all?
Inbetween Days was the first Cure song to crack the Billboard Hot 100. It reached #99. While in the UK, it managed a paltry #15. What's wrong with the world?
Track 2: Men At Work - Who Can It Be Now?
The first of the head-scratchers, since this wasn't a UK hit (Down Under was the only time they troubled our charts) and I have no recollection of it at all from 1981. Then again, I was only 9, and I wasn't paying as much attention as I would later on. It was a Number One hit on Billboard though (which, in all fairness to Men At Work, doesn't seemed entirely equitable when Inbetween Days could only manage #98 four years later). It's not a bad song at all - I'm just not sure why I decided Sam needed to know it. Unless I was thinking it might come in handy if he ever went to visit his Uncle Adam who lives Down Under.
Track 3: Vicki Lawrence - The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia
Another one which may well be met with a fair amount of head-scratching, though I think I have a slightly better justification this time... it's a classic story song, and I love a story song. I want Sam to love story songs too. Even better, it's a story with a murky twist at the end... or, as iffypedia describes it, "a Southern Gothic murder ballad".
Written by Bobby Russell, the man who gave Honey to Bobby Goldsboro and Little Green Apples to Roger Miller, though this is much darker than either of them.
Don't trust your soul to no backwoods Southern lawyer,
'Cause the judge in the town's got blood stains on his hands.
It's rather odd then that such a dark tale would be sung by a comedy actress famous for her portrayal of the cantankerous senior citizen Thelma 'Mama' Harper on the Carol Burnett Show and later spin-offs. Burnett was 18 when she first appeared on the show, and 25 when she started playing a grumpy pensioner... although to be fair, that was a year after she'd killed her brother's adulterous wife and her lover in this tune. And she got away scott free, although her brother carried the can.
Apologies if I just spoiled the twist for you.
Track 4: 10cc - The Dean & I
There's still time to contribute your thoughts on Dreadlock Holiday for the final edition of Cancel Culture Club, if you haven't already done so. But in the meantime... here's a far more respectable tune from Stockport's finest.
I went through a brief 10cc phase in my 20s in which I bought a few of their albums and poured over the lyrics. Iffypedia describes The Dean & I as a parody of 50s "sock hop" romance songs such as High School Confidential by Jerry Lee Lewis. It's about how teenage romances that stay together may well end up with "hum drum days and hum drum ways". It's a mid-life crisis song, then! No wonder I dug it in my 20s. Sam is probably / hopefully still too young to appreciate the irony though. There's a further twist at the end when the narrator finds happiness through unexpected riches... what, did he kill the kid's mum and claim the life insurance? Or have I been listening to too much Vicki Lawrence?
Like a lot of 10cc songs this feels like a bunch of tune ideas glued together to make a whole, but they made it work. It still brings a smile to my face.
Today's post was brought to you with monochrome lettering because the colour letter function wasn't working on blogger.
