Here are some more songs about struggling through 'til payday... starting with the obvious one, clocking in at less than 90 seconds... Album #1, Side #1, Track #1...
Shelley Winters won two Oscars and was nominated twice more. She appeared in Pete's Dragon, Lolita, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Night of the Hunter, opposite inaugural Celebrity Jukeboxer, Robert Mitchum. But for me, she'll always be most famous as Belle in The Poseidon Adventure, saving Gene Hackman's life then dying of a heart attack. Tragedy. Shelley did her own stunts in that movie, though she never lost the weight she put on for the role. Double tragedy.
The Poseidon Adventure gets name-checked in both My Name Is Prince by TAFKAP, as he would soon decide to call himself... and Release Yo' Delf by Method Man. But it gets a full retelling from Killdozer...
But today's winner... and OK, some might dispute this... comes from Merle Haggard. Seriously, I'm not buying this as an accident or a coincidence. Merle knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote this tune. Clearly he was a fan...
The poster above is from the late 1980s. HMV were barking mad, because they were selling new chart CDs for £9.99 in their sale.
35 years later, I still balk at paying more than a tenner for a new CD. Inflation is in the news a lot these days, but the cost of a CD seems to have been immune to 30+ years of price increases. Of course, CDs were grossly over-priced back when they were first released, especially compared to the mass-produced market-leader, vinyl. That's turned on its head now as well. The renaissance in record collecting, combined with a world wide vinyl shortage, means you're now paying up to three times as much for an new vinyl album as for a CD... which would have been unthinkable in the late 80s.
I can never get my head around inflation. The idea of paying nearly a pound for a bar of chocolate (that is smaller than the ones I paid 15p for when I was a kid) is almost enough to put me off chocolate forever. So I guess I should be grateful that CDs appear inflation-proof. For now, at least... until the hipster collectors ruin it for us all. Watch out. That day is coming.
From 1980, here's the only single (though it was a double A side) from Irish punk band The Threat. I'm not sure it was ever released on CD.
And here's something a little more like the kind of nonsense you expect from this blog, from Don Henley & Merle Haggard...
Ah, my old friend, Jack. So long parted.... 20 years since we spent any real time together. Not that I think you'd do me any good if you and I were still together. Not right now, anyway.
Lynchie pointed us in the direction of the Frankie Miller version, which is damned fine... as is the original, by Moon Martin... but I have an undeniable soft spot for Batley Bob. Local lad and all that.
5. French sea gets gender switched around, ends up looking exhausted. Dad couldn't help, but...
La Mer is the French Sea. Change its gender and it becomes Le Mer. Switch that around and you get Merle... looking a bit haggard.
