Fun Fact Friday #6: If I Had Words...

Here's another Friday brainteaser / time-waster for you, based on a quiz I compiled at work. It's about words from other languages... words we don't have a direct translation for in English, but we really ought to get one. Because each of these is an excellent word, and would be very useful.

Scott Fitzgerald & Yvonne Keeley - If I Had Words 

What do these words mean in English?

Let's start with one that I'm sure Walter will be familiar with...

1. What does the German word “Backpfeifengesicht” mean in English?

A) A face badly in need of a fist.

B) Looking backwards while walking forwards.

C) Snow that falls after Easter Sunday.

Super Furry Animals - The International Language of Screaming 

2. What does the Italian word “Slampadato” mean in English?

A) The orangey bronze glow that comes from being addicted to tanning salons.

B) The sound that’s made when you drop a sack of potatoes.

C) A car crash where nobody will accept responsibility.

Meat Loaf - You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth

3. What does the French phrase “Chanter en yaourt” mean in English?

A) Ordering yoghurt in a restaurant when it isn’t on the menu.

B) Racing to be first into a concert or gig, to get the best seat or place to stand.

C) Singing made-up words or sounds when you don’t know the lyrics to a song.

The Christians - Words

4. What does the Indonesian Word “Jayus” mean in English?

A) How you feel when the alarm goes off and you’ve been awake all night.

B) The happy feeling you get when you hear birds singing. 

C) A joke that is so unfunny or told so badly you just have to laugh.

Thin Lizzy - Don't Believe A Word

5. What does the Japanese phrase “Age-otori” mean in English?

A) Looking worse after a haircut.

B) Feeling really old when you enter a nightclub.

C) Missing the last bus and having to walk home in the rain. 

My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words

6. What does the Finnish word “Hyppytyynytyydytys” mean in English?

A) Sleeping all through Sunday after a hectic Saturday night.

B) The pleasure derived from sitting or bouncing on a springy cushion.

C) Sneezing three times in a row.

Scritti Politti featuring Ranking Ann - The Word Girl

7. What does the Hawaiian word “Akihi” mean in English?

A) When you wake up in the morning and you’re not sure where you are.

B) When you go to another room, then can’t remember what you went there for.

C) When you ask someone for directions, walk away, then immediately forget what they said. 

Propaganda - Heaven Give Me Words

8. What does the Easter Island word “Tingo” mean in English?

A) The feeling you get when you suck on a lemon.

B) Borrowing items from a neighbour and not returning them, gradually stealing everything they own.

C) The smell that comes from someone who has fallen into a dung heap.

The Stylistics - Na Na Is The Saddest Word

9. What does the Tagalog word “Gigil” mean in English? (Tagalog is the national language of the Philippines.)

A) The feeling you get when you see something unbearably cute and want to squeeze it.

B) The feeling you get when you’ve climbed a huge mountain and immediately want to go back down.

C) The feeling you get when you want to do something quickly, but everything is going SLOW.

Cameo - Word Up

10. What does the Tulu word “Karelu” mean in English? (Tulu is one of 19,500 languages or dialects spoken in India.)

A) An insect whose bite is only cured by music.

B) A game in which you cover your eyes and have to guess who’s hit you.

C) The mark left on your skin from wearing something tight, such as jeans, socks, or a watch.

Self-Help For Cynics #30: Anti-Social Media

Back to our old friend Tiberius. 

Alabama 3 - Facebook.con

Tiberius isn't on Snappychat or Instagrass or any of the newer-fangled social networking sites. He checks in with the Book of Faces once or twice a day, mostly to keep up with old friends, drop the occasional witticism and play along with the daily quizzes one or two of his more eccentric peers post. And he quit Tweeter (which he'd rarely used anyway) when Elon Musk turned it into a dystopian autocracy named after an LA band featuring Exene Cervenka, John Doe, Billy Zoom and D. J. Bonebrake. 

X - Burning House Of Love

In terms of the pressures of social media then, Tiberius is living quite a mentally-healthy life. Unlike the average teenager...

My Chemical Romance - Teenagers

A survey published earlier this year suggests that almost half of British teenagers are addicted to social media. Here's a selection of comments from the mouths of actual teenage young people in The Times of London last month...

“If I went an hour without my phone, I would be really stressed.”

“I was talking to people online when I was ten.”

“I would much rather have been born in the Eighties. I would have been working a lot harder.”

“You get a buzz if someone likes your comment. So a phone does give you quite a lot of validation, which is unhealthy in large doses – but it does feel good.”

That last one brings us back to Tiberius. Because, as previously mentioned, Tiberius does write a blog. Something which he claims he only does as a way of relaxing and focusing his mind on his two main interests - music and writing. Tiberius frequently states that he does this purely for himself, that it doesn't matter if other people read his witterings or leave an agreeable comment, and yet... and yet...

Remember our discussion about the benefits and pitfalls of writing?

Remember our brief look at that wonderful feel-good brain chemical dopamine?

Alex Cameron - Internet

According to Dr. Anna Lembke of Stanford University’s dual diagnosis addiction clinic, we are all dopamine addicts when it comes to social media (and that must include blogging). According to the Grauniad...

She calls the smartphone the “modern-day hypodermic needle”: we turn to it for quick hits, seeking attention, validation and distraction with each swipe, like and tweet.

Stefan Dennis - Don't It Make You Feel Good?

(I couldn't resist slipping that one in. I know: I'm beyond hope.)

Social media, and the internet at large, is directly responsible for the rise in unhappiness in the developed world over the past 30 years. Could the microcosm of the blogosphere be just as responsible for this as TikTok, Tinder and Pornhub? Surely it's not as bad as those appalling supervillains? Well, if it's encouraging our dopamine addiction... maybe.

Lora Logic - On The Internet

Dopamine causes addiction because of how the brain works in response to it. After any pleasurable experience (which causes a dopamine release), the brain responds with a process called homeostasis. Which basically uses the lyrics of Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn! (or the Book of Ecclesiastes, if you want to get Biblical) as a template for self-regulation.

A time to build up, a time to break down

A time to dance, a time to mourn

A time to cast away stones

A time to gather stones together

The Byrds - Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)

Or you might say it's following Newton's Third Law, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In other words, for every up... there must follow a down. Or a downer, to be more precise.

When we binge on pleasurable things, homeostasis means “our brain compensates by bringing us lower and lower and lower,” says Lembke. Each time the thing becomes less enjoyable, but we eventually become dependent on those stimuli to keep functioning. We spiral into a joy-seeking abyss. 

Carter USM - The Final Comedown

And when it comes to the internet, there's nothing to stop us feeding our addiction. If we're hooked on booze or drugs, eventually we'll run out of the substance in question, or run out of the funds needed to procure them. If you're addicted to social media because of the tiny dopamine spikes that come from a like or a thumbs up or a smiley... or a blogging comment... then short of them turning off your electric (and the batteries on all your mobile devices dying simultaneously), there's nothing to stop you gorging yourself to the point of gluttony. 

Depeche Mode - Just Can't Get Enough

Which makes Tiberius question... how much blogging is too much blogging? Is up to (and sometimes over) a thousand words a day just too much? In devoting so much time to the dopamine-inducing thrill of blogging, is he denying himself the comedown? What is that doing to his brain?

More on this next time...

Saturday Snapshots #63 - The Answers

Hey There! What Kind of Fool Am I? I almost forgot to post this week's Saturday Snapshots answers. To be fair, it has been a very stressful week. Ofsted never actually stepped into my classroom, but the constant anticipation of them doing so nearly killed me. That was Too Close For Comfort. Still, it's over now.

I think Chris deserves the crown this week for solving the ones nobody else could. Alyson was the Early Bird; it was good to have Lynchie back, CC & C were beaten to the punch.

Time to play The Candyman again and hand out these sweet goodies...


10. Bambi's mum has a special milkman. Spice approaching!

Ernie was the fastest milkman in the West.

Special K.

A female deer is a doe.

Lynchie claimed he only knew one Ernie K. Doe song. Surely you know this one too?

Ernie K. Doe - Here Come The Girls

9. A Black Widow gets lost in translation, singing je t'aime solo.

Scarlett Johansson is the Black Widow, and gets Lost In Translation.

Scarlet - Independent Love Song

8. Adam's lady gets in a fight with Mutton Batman.

Adam's lady was Eve.

A fight is a war.

Mutton Jeff + Bruce Wayne =

Jeff Wayne - Eve of the War

7. Drippy waterfalls.

The Cascades - Rhythm of the Rain

6. "Oh no, I wouldn't."

"Oh, yes..."

The young man has an admirer.

Oh yes, Yearwood.

Trisha Yearwood - She's In Love With The Boy

5. Doubly definite, Kerouac is defeated.

The definite article is The.

Kerouac inspired the Beat Generation.

Defeat is getting beaten.

The The - The Beat(en) Generation

4. Parents can still call the request line for romantic tunes.

The Mamas & The Papas - Dedicated To The One I Love

3. Going on a date with Dettol generates confusion. (That may be my favourite clue of the year.)

A date with Dettol would be a romance with chemicals.

"Generates" mixed up is teenagers.

"Do they have a song called Teenagers?" asked Rigid Digit, refusing (nobly) to resort to googling (it is a verb now).

Yes, they do... and it's a blinder.

My Chemical Romance - Teenagers 

2. Lots of blue and a few splashes of white for the time we preferred not to drive.

Blue and white are the colours of the ocean.

Ocean Colour Scene - The Day We Caught The Train

I don't care what you think about Ocean Colour Scene: that is a great tune.

1. Renato's lady is led astray by two pairs of jumpers.

Renee was with Renato.

Two pairs of jumpers would be Four Tops.

This song sends shivers down my spine...


If My Friends Could See Me Now, they'd realise next week will be our annual Seasonal Snapshots. I'll see you then, with bells on.

My Top Ten Sing Songs

Sing something simple. Here's ten songs where singers tell us to sing. Lazy buggers: they want us to do our job for them. Or... maybe they just want to remind us how good it feels to sing sometimes.

Ten songs that celebrate singing. Go!


10. Mel Tillis - Come On & Sing

A recent discovery... from the distant past... by a country songwriter perhaps more famous for the songs he wrote than for singing them.

9. My Chemical Romance - Sing

A much-missed band. Well, by me, anyway.

8. Stylistics - Sing Baby Sing

A song celebrating the fact that the world is getting better every day...

Wait, come back!

7. Blur - Sing

From the soundtrack to Trainspotting.

6. Kevin Ayers - Sing A Song In The Morning

Kevin Ayers' backing band on this track is The Whole World. It's nice to have friends.

5. Travis - Sing

Travis at their most singalong.

If you can't handle that, you may prefer the Glen Campbell version. If I were Fran Healy, I'd consider my job done once Glen Campbell had recorded one of my songs.

4. Aretha Franklin - Sing It Again - Say It Again

Funky in the extreme - sounds like the theme to a 70's cop show with added Aretha.

3. Martin Rossiter - Sing It Loud

The other day, Martin (not Rossiter) was lamenting the fact that this Martin has only ever recorded one solo album. I couldn't agree more. This was a cracker. We demand more!

2. Morrissey - Sing Your Life

Could this be the happiest song Morrissey ever recorded?

Don't leave it all unsaid

Somewhere in the wasteland of your head, 

And make no mistake, my friend

Your pointless life will end

Well, maybe not...

But before you go

Can you look at the truth ?

You have a lovely singing voice

A lovely singing voice

And all of those

Who sing on-key

They stole the notion

From you and me

So, sing your life...

It always makes me happy though.

1. The Carpenters - Sing

Come on, it had to be, didn't it?

(What else were you expecting? REO Speedwagon?)


Sing to me in the comments, if you will...

My Top Ten "When I Grow Up..." Songs

The other day I received a text from the better half that made me tear up:

"Sam just said 'daddy fixes EVERYTHING doesn't he?' and 'when I grow up, I want to be like daddy'"

The tragic irony of this is almost crushing.

When he does grow up and realises his Daddy isn't McGuyver, what a huge disappointment I will be.

Here's ten songwriters considering what they want to be when they grow up...


10. The Humblebums - Rick Rack

Gerry Rafferty before Stealer's Wheel & Baker Street.

Billy Connolly before stand up comedy fame.

Together, they were humble bums who dreamed...

When I grow up I want to be an engine driver
But if I can't be that I'll be a deep sea diver

9. The Byrds - I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician

You can imagine young Donald singing this back in the 60s...

(Though more than likely he was listening to this.)

8. Style Council - Confessions Of A Pop Group

Even when he was doing lite pop soul, Weller was a grumpy old cuss...

When I grow up I want to be
All the things you've never been
And your opinion will count for none.

7. First Aid Kit - When I Grow Up

A cover of the Fever Ray song. I'm sorry, but First Aid Kit win this one hands down for me.

Whichever you prefer, they both want to grow up to a forester. Better than growing up to be a Forrest Gump, anyway.

6. Morrissey - All You Need Is Me

Oh, bloody hell, it's him again. Do I need to print the disclaimer?

And then you offer your one and only joke

And ask me "What will I be,
When I grow up to be a man"?

Me? Nothing!

Self-deprecating comic irony at its Mozziest. And here's a few words for those who have left him behind...

There's so much destruction
All over the world
And all you can do is complain about me!

I was a small fat child in a welfare house
There was only one thing I ever dreamed about
Fate has just handed it to me

Whoopee!

You don't like me but you love me,
Either way you're wrong
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone

5. My Chemical Romance - The End

A classic anti-growing up song. When I grow up I want to be nothing at all!

4. Frank Turner - Eulogy

Frank Turner + brass band. What else do you need?

Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut,
Not everyone was born to be a king,
Not everyone can be Freddie Mercury,
But everyone can raise their glass and sing.

Well I haven't always been a perfect person,
Well I haven't done what mum and dad had dreamed,
But on the day I die, I'll say at least I fucking tried.
That's the only eulogy I need,
That's the only eulogy I need.

3. Michelle Shocked - When I Grow Up (I Want To Be An Old Woman)

Pure class. Don't be shocked.

2. The Pixies - Debaser

Wanna grow
Up to be
Be a debaser.

'Nuff said.

1. Beach Boys - When I Grow Up To Be A Man

I could have saved this for one of my mid-life crisis posts...

Will I dig the same things that turn me on as a kid?
Will I look back and say that I wish I hadn't done what I did?
Will I joke around and still dig those sounds
When I grow up to be a man?

Will my kids be proud or think their old man is really a square?
When they're out having fun yeah, will I still wanna have my share?

Won't last forever
It's kind of sad
Won't last forever
It's kind of sad

What do you want to be when you grow up?

The Glorious 10th - Welcome To...

The original album cover.

The one they replaced it with when Woolworths refused to stock the album 

because people were blowing their brains out all over the Pick 'n' Mix.

Welcome to the Glorious 10th. Thank you for playing along. I think you got almost all of them this month, although I'm sure you'll be surprised by some of the omissions.

Let's start with the ones that are in my record collection but didn't make the 10. The first person to name each of these gets a bonus point. Let's start with the one everyone thought would be there...

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome

I need to bring back my old series The Top Ten Songs I Hated When I Was A Kid to properly discuss FGTH, although this wouldn't be the song I featured. I've had a curious relationship with this band, largely down to the fact that even as a teenager I felt I could see through the Paul Morley hype machine. I actually preferred Holly Johnson's solo work... though I did grow to give Frankie their due eventually. Not enough to squeeze them into this Top Ten though, sorry.

Steve can have 1 point for that though. And also for suggesting Welcome To The Terrordome... though I was always more of a Run DMC man than Public Enemy.

The Swede then gets a point for Jim Reeves - Welcome To My World, recalling my hospital radio days. Although obviously I prefer the Elvis version.

Lynchie (I'm sorry, Lynchie, I feel like I should be linking to you... is that possible?) gets a point for Manic Street Preachers - Welcome To The Dead Zone, which was a serious contender for a while. He also gets a point for another very close call, Alice Cooper - Welcome To My Nightmare. He doesn't get any points for Pink Floyd though. And neither does anyone else. However, he can have an extra point for saying that Bon Jovi - Welcome To Wherever You Are wouldn't be in my Top Ten. It is in my record collection though. (Which probably doesn't surprise any of you.) So is this, which nobody mentioned, but it's much better than Jon By-Jovi...

Oh, and before I go any further, I can honestly say that I had never heard Mr. Mister - Welcome To The Real World until you lot started banging on about it. And I don't want to ever hear it again, thanks.

Meanwhile, Charity Chic gets a bonus point for Welcome To Paradise by Green Day, from the excellent album Dookie. Another contender for the prized #11 slot.

Martin arrived then, desperate to reclaim his crown after last month's poor showing, swooping up bonus points for... Fleetwood Mac - Welcome to the room, Sara, The Kinks - Welcome To Sleazy Town, and Prince - Welcome 2 The Dawn. I know, I know, last month I said Prince was a shoe-in for the Top Ten, but I forgot this because of his annoying habit of using text speak in his songs. One extra bonus point to Martin for remembering it despite that.

And I'm going to stop Martin there, because I'm sure I had a rule somewhere about limiting your guesses to ten. Well, if I didn't, I do now. Some of Martin's "bubbling under" suggestions might have nabbed him points... one of them would have scored big if he'd chosen to take it off the boil and cook it properly. Oh, and I did promise him this: he loses a point for Oxide & Neutrino. I mean, really.

Last month's winner C arrived then and stole a bonus point from Martin for putting Welcome to the Real World by ABC in her Top 10. She also nabbed a point for Ryan Adams - Welcome To New York, though she'd have doubled that up if she'd mentioned the Taylor Swift original. 

Alyson gets a point for Brad Paisley - Welcome To The Future, which really did come close to making the ten. Good guess, Alyson. Hope you're fully recovered now. And you can have a point for The Music - Welcome To The North as well.

Finally, Jez rolled along with Hot Club De Paris - Hello, I Wrote A Song For You Called ‘Welcome To The Jungle’, which I'd forgotten all about, but it's pretty cool.

Surprised nobody suggested the title track from this. 

Although it is only a minute long.

What about points for good songs that aren't in my record collection?

Brian can have a point for Welcome To My Revolution by Utopia. Love Todd Rundgren. Must check out some more Utopia.

C gets 1 point for Welcome To The Jungle (Jim) by They Might Be Giants. I love TMBG too but I'd never heard this one before. It's great. And a point for Welcome To My World by Depeche Mode, because the lyrics made me smile.

The Swede gets a point for Welcome To Feeling by Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop, another one from my infinite Wants List. And that's even shorter than the Dandy Warhols track above!

Martin can have a point for Tori Amos - Welcome To England, which isn't as annoying as I worried it might be. Although the video is pretty much Wicker Man meets The Omen.

Rigid Digit also steals "that's pretty cool" points for Stiff Little Fingers - Welcome To The Whole Week and Welcome to the World of Plastic Beach by Gorillaz, mainly because it features more Snoop than Damon. 

Then Jez rolled up again with Summer Camp – Welcome to Condale, which I liked, and something from the Frank Sidebottom movie soundtrack which I couldn't find online, but as I never really saw the point of Frank Sidebottom, no points there.

Finally George crawled out of bed a few days after everyone else and with his usual style and aplomb went for the booby prize by suggesting Welcome To The Show by Barclay James Harvest. And because it really is as bad as George said, I'm going to give him 3 points for that.

Another pretty good Welcome To... album without a title track.

OK, enough of the runners up. Let's get to the big ten! What beat Frankie?

These guys...


10. Rufus Wainwright - Welcome To The Ball.

Rigid Digit  gets two points for being the only person to guess this. Camp as a row of glamping tents.

9. Plan B - Welcome To Hell

I figured Charity Chic might steal the points for this one since it was one of his famous bargain buys, and sure enough he not only guessed it, but also - incredibly - predicted its Number 9 placing. Which gets him 5 points!

8. R.E.M - Welcome to the Occupation

An obvious inclusion, which I was sure Steve would get the points for... but didn't. Lynchie gets 2 for being first to suggest it. Jez, Martin & CC also get 1 for knowing it would be in my 10.

7. Ballboy - Welcome To Växjö

CC got a point for being the first to suggest Ballboy, although he went for the song Welcome To The New Year instead of this. It was down to George to steal the 2 point glory by remembering this lesser known track intead.

6. Brandon Flowers - Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas

I would argue that Brandon Flowers now makes more interesting records as a solo artist than in his day job with The Killers. I don't know if Rigid Digit agrees with me, but he gets another 2 points for being the only one to mention this anyway.

What: no Son of Dork fans out there? Shame on you!

All of which brings us to The Top Five, and a pretty amazing Top Five it is, I'm sure you'll agree (though you may well disagree about the order).

5. The Wonder Stuff - Welcome To The Cheap Seats

Charity Chic gets 2 points here, though sadly his prediction of it being my #2 song fell a bit short. It could well have been: it is a classic.

In another world, Martin and Rigid Digit could wear a dress. They get a point for knowing it would be in my Top Ten, as does Alyson... though I suppose she already wears one.

4. Steely Dan - Any World (I'm Welcome To)

Here's the one nobody got: and right now, a dozen Steely Dan fans are kicking themselves. I can understand why you missed it, but remember (brackets are allowed) the challenge was "to find ten songs with the words 'Welcome to...' in the title". I never said they had to be at the beginning.

Another album-title-only contender.

3. Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle

Of course, this had to be in there. It could have even been #2, but when I listened to the runner-up contenders back-to-back, my actual #2 just edged it for me. Still an amazing song, whatever your thoughts on Axl Rose.

The Swede got this first - 2 points for that. Rigid Digit gets 1 too. Alyson misses out under the Martin Rule, because she made the mistake of saying it would be on my long list rather than in the Top Ten. Shame.

2. My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade

I was surprised how few of you suggested this. Either you all think my record collection largely stopped in the 20th Century, or yours does. This is probably Gerard Way's finest hour, a glorious slab of emo-pomp: Queen meets Radiohead meets David Lynch. And the video has everything a great pop song needs: comas, nurses, skeleton costumes, zombies, post apocaltyptic ruins, exploding televisions and overdone allegory. Eat that, Paul Morley!

Anyway, the only person I can legitimately award points to for this is Jez. Martin misses out for over-guessing and suggesting this would be "bubbling under". No way, this is boiling over!

1. Elvis Costello - Welcome to the Working Week

Well, there could only be one winner, and if Elvis had a song on his first few albums that fit the bill, chances are it would be him. One minute 24 seconds of sheer audio bliss: now that's how to write a pop song!

Now that your picture's in the paper being rhythmically admired
And you can have anyone that you have ever desired
All you gotta tell me now is why, why, why, why?

Indeed. The Swede gets 2 default points for being the first to mention it, but everyone who thought it would / should be Number One gets 5 points. So that's 5 points for Charity Chic, Martin, C, Alyson and Brian. Rigid can have a point too, though he didn't number his predictions.

Points, then. And what do points make? Well, in this game they make points. (The usual apologies if I've added them up wrong.)

Steve - 2 points (play properly next time)

Lynchie, Jez & George - 5 points

Brian - 6 points

The Swede - 7 points

Alyson - 8 points

C & Rigid Digit - 9 points

Martin - 11 points

But this month's undisputed champion, with a peerless 15 points is...

Charity Chic.

Well done, Stevie.

Thank you all for playing. Next month's challenge will be along any second.

My Top Ten Na Na Na Songs

Whenever I write these lists, I end up talking a lot about lyrics. I've always been a lyrics man, ever since I was a lonely teenager sat with his headphones on studying the Steinbeckian stories of Bruce Springsteen, trying to puzzle out the puns of vintage Elvis Costello or wondering (in my 20s, sadly, as I came to him late) how Morrissey could write so incisively about my life when he'd never even met me.

But... there is an alternative. Those jubilant singalongs where the lyrics don't matter - all you need is a good nananana! Don't even start me on the sha-la-las, lalalas, shooby doos or woo-hoos...


Be warned, this Top Ten starts off scary... and then goes places you really won't want to believe.


10. Bananarama - Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye

Originally by Steam, who had an unfortunate habit of being photographed like this...

...hence why I went with the Bananarama version. Well, that and they have nana in their name.

9. Opus - Live Is Life

Na-na na na-na.

"Formed in 1973, Opus remain active today."

Just you try to sleep tonight with that little factoid pinging around in your cranium.

8. Blur - Charmless Man

Nana nana naa na-naa-aa...

I bet Damon Albarn knows his claret from his Beaujolais. 

7. King - Alone Without You

Na-na. Na n-na. Nana na na na n-na.

Ah, the 80s. So much to answer for. What do you get when you cross a quiff and a mullet? A quillet or a muiff? Surely you must be paulking!

6. blink-182 - All The Small Things

 Nana nana nana na nana naa. Nana nana nana na nana naa.

Always loved the video to this, where the pop punk rascals pretend to be NSYNCH.

5. The Beatles - Hey Jude

Little-remembered beat combo from the 60s. Apparently the lead singer went on to form Wings. Don't know what happened to the rest of them.

4. My Chemical Romance - Na Na Na

Before they imploded and Gerard Way converted to pseudo-Britpop solo albums (!) and comic book writing, MCR became one of the more interesting pop bands of the 21st Century. Emo? What's emo?

3. Wilson Pickett - Land Of 1000 Dances

Na. Nana na naa. Nana na naa nana na nana na. Nana na naaa.

Already featured (in far more detail!) in My Top Ten Mashed Potato Songs, but too good to miss out.

2. Pink - So What

Nana nana na na naa, nana nana na na.

I love Pink. And I don't care who knows it.

She does scare the bejeebus out of me though.

1. J Geils Band - Centrefold

John Warren Geils Jr (pictured above) died earlier this week at the age of '71. He was the lead guitarist of the band that took his name, although lead singer Peter Wolf co-wrote a lot of the bands biggest hits along with keyboardist Seth Justman. In the UK, they're really only known for one song... but what a song!

Na na nana na na. Na na na nana na na na.

Their harmonica player was called Magic Dick.That will be all.




This was a re-post (edited somewhat to act as a tribute to the late J. Geils) from my old blog (December 2010). The scary thing is, the original post was a Top 20. So be warned... I have a volume 2 on standby if you say anything too hurtful in the comments section...