Yesterday was May 4th - Star Wars Day. (Because: May The 4th Be With You. Don't blame me. I didn't come up with that.) Did you need The Force to crack these clues...?
12. Flaming satellite.
Named after a Russian street gang, the "sigue sigue" meaning "burn burn"...
6. Home security camera rotates more than half way.
I've got Blink security cameras on Top Ten Towers, in case you were thinking of coming round to steal my CD collection. If you rotate something through half a turn, that's 180 degrees. Just over that would be...
I think it's fair to say that Raquel Welch must be the oldest actress I've ever featured here. After all, she has been acting since One Million Years BC.
When Stephen King wrote the novella that The Shawshank Redemption was based on, the poster on Andy DuFrense's cell wall was Rita Hayworth. In the movie, to better show the passage of time, he has three posters: Hayworth, Marilyn... and the iconic image above of Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC, surely one of the most famous posters ever printed... after that one of the tennis player scratching her arse. Iffypedia tells us "Welch helped transform America's feminine ideal into its current state", a statement which is as questionable as it is disputable. To her credit, Welch herself once said, "I was not brought up to be a sex symbol, nor is it in my nature to be one. The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding".
Whatever you think of Raquel Welch, it's fair to say that poster may well have decorated the bedroom walls of many of the songwriters below...
Not actually about Raquel Welch, just a girl with the same first name as her. However, Ms. Welch does get a mention... and extra points for rhyming her surname with "squelch".
(In case you're wondering, Gruff did his research. Raquel's parents are Bolivian daddy Armando Carlos Tejada Urquizo and Irish mummy Josephine Sarah Hall.)
OK, so those are the only songs I found with Raquel in the title. What about lyrical nods?
Oh, look, here's a song with Two Parts! You have to scroll through to the beginning of Part 2, around the 4 minute mark, to hear a brief reference to Raquel... but I think it's just a playful nickname for Freddie's co-singer.
Loana was the name of the character Raquel played in One Million Years BC. Clearly they're not Christian fundamentalists, otherwise they'd be rubbishing the film's depiction of dinosaurs which, clearly, never existed.
Oh, and here's our token Mark Kozelek track for this week...
Following on from this weekend's Snapshots, featuring songs named after famous actors, I had something of an overspill... so here are some of the runners up.
Watching the sky for a sign The FBI is on my mind I'm waiting for the day When my lucky stars align In the form of... David Duchovny floating above me In the alien light of the spaceship of love
I want seven screaming virgins on a sacrificial altar Hell and God, screeching doors, zombies, aaaaah! It feels so good to be afraid Vincent Price is back again
Oh, the great sequin cowboy who sings of the plains
Of roundups and rustlers and home on the range
Turn on the TV, shut out the lights
Roy Rogers is riding tonight
And my personal favourite...
I want to be your hero,
Kurt Russell, Eastwood and me
There's no doubt plenty more where they came from, but that's enough actors for today. Drop me a comment if I've missed one of your favourites and I might do a follow up post... but remember, we're leaving the ladies for another day.
I don't really want to turn this blog into an obit list: the world is forcing that upon me. I've had no time to catch my breath after my tributes to Rick Parfitt and George Michael, but I still wanted to write something for Carrie Fisher, because she was my first real heroine. I was six when I saw Star Wars for the first time and Carrie taught me from a very young age that girls can be just as tough and heroic as boys (arguably more so, because they have to fight against centuries of patriarchal oppression while they're doing it... and when your dad's Darth Vader, they don't get much more patriarchal or oppressive). But Princess Leia was never Dale Arden. She never screamed for the chistle-jawed hero to come save her. She stood up to Vader, acted tougher than Luke from the outset, and took none of Han's bullshit. Of course, Carrie was much more than Leia: but she'll always be Leia to me.
George has tried his best to bury the ill-advised Star Wars holiday special, and having sat through it once on a dodgy pirate copy many years ago, I can understand why. It's still arguably a better piece of entertainment than Chapters I, II or III... and Carrie does her very best to keep a straight face while singing the awful lyrics that have been scored over John Williams' classic theme.
...and also
contributed lyrics to Harper Simon's The Shine. (I understand her ex, Harper's Dad, might
have had a hand in this one too. But more of him later.)
Sadly, we must also take a moment to remember Carrie's mum, who died just a day after her daughter. Although mostly known as an actress, she started out as a nightclub singer and had a number of hit records from the musicals she appeared in during the 50s.
And a nod to her dad, who died a few years back, but was a huge teen idol in the 50s and sold more pre-rock 'n' roll pop singles in the first half of that decade than just about anyone else.
The first of three from Carrie's former / only husband. They were apparently together (on and off) for many years but only stayed married for 11 months. I guess this one was written when it was finally over.
I know the reason I Feel so blessed My heart still splashes Inside my chest, but she She is like a top She cannot stop She moves on
I used to work with a DJ who always said "stupid name for a dog" when he played his song.
Recorded while Paul & Carrie were together: she appears in the video, though it's pretty hard to tell because it's appropriately surreal.
1. Paul Simon - Hearts & Bones
The big one that Paul wrote about his relationship with Carrie. A classic.
One and one-half wandering Jews Returned to their natural coasts To resume old acquaintances Step out occasionally And speculate who had been damaged the most Easy time will determine if these consolations Will be their reward The arc of a love affair Waiting to be restored You take two bodies and you twirl them into one Their hearts and their bones And they won't come undone
Let's hope this is the last one of these I have to write in 2016...
Here's a Top Ten theme I originally came up with about seven years ago (for the old blog) but never got round to posting it. I'm not going to run them consecutively as that'd get boring, but I'll drop one in every now and then over the next few weeks.
The first deadly sin is lust. Turns out there's enough songs with lust in the title that I don't have to cast my net any further. That won't be the case with the rest of the sins...
Wakefield's finest contemporary beat poet stumbles across a girl he fancies in the local pub... then gets beaten up by her boyfriend for his sins.
It's the kind of look that shits you up In so many different ways It's the size of his eyes and he won't give up Transfixed with a piercing gaze I can get the gist This guy's pissed And if I don't move, he'll use his fists See that the violence stops
Dave Gahan sits one out and lets Martin Gore (with his pink mushroom cloud hair) sing this one. Their follow up single was A Question Of Time. The third in the trilogy, a proposed duet with David Coleman, Emlyn Hughes and Bill Beaumont, sadly never made it to the studio*.
With the news that George Lucas has sold Star Wars to Disney, there's a whole new trilogy to look forward (?) to in a few years time... we can but hope they'll be better than the last three.
Still, here's 10 songs you might hear covered by the Cantina band... but be warned, most of these are pretty damned obscure.
The opening track on their debut release begins with the sound effect of a Tie Fighter. The album is called 1977... the year Star Wars was released and Ash were born.
Good old disco: never shy to jump on a bandwagon. The Real Thing had three great singles. This was the third, and least. But I'll let them have a pass because the other two were stone cold classics.
3. The Supernaturals - Star Wars
Sadly unavailable anywhere online, this obscure Supernaturals b-side (from their excellent single I Wasn't Built To Get Up) tells of a young man forced to choose between Star Wars and his girlfriend. Turns out it's no competition...
