Those of you who like watching celebrities dance on TV may well be horrified to have learned that the new Strictly host is Josh Widdecombe. Not a patch on the former host, old Wink' (Claudia Winkelman).
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.
Shake It Out - The Dog Days Are Over, the answer days are here! Thanks for playing Saturday Snapshots again this week... well done, Lynchie for another well-deserved victory. We might have to start giving him a handicap!
When Gibbard's girlfriend moved out, to a whole different district of Washington, this was his response.
You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex
A stranger with your door key, explaining that I am just visiting
And I am finally seeing
Why I was the one worth leaving
Glossy and as shamelessly bling as the worst of contemporary r 'n' b, it's hard to explain why I dig the poppiest artist in modern country music as much as I do. This one's an outrageously schmaltzy power ballad that harkens back to the 80s (with 21st Century production values) and, frankly, the video made me choke on my Wotsits. But Blake Shelton can do no wrong in my eyes, because he writes pop songs that are catchy as the plague and TELL ACTUAL STORIES. I have no further defence.
Tells basically the same story as the Blake Shelton number, but without the glitz. You see, you can't really believe Blake Shelton would be the guy in this story. Dennis Locorriere, though? He's a true hard-luck hero.
Every time I think there might be a little justice in the world, I remind myself of Harry Chapin: a supremely talented singer-songwriter from the 70s who should have been as big as Elton John or Billy Joel, but for whatever reason never quite made it. (The same could be same of Harry Nilsson. Maybe there's a curse on Harry's. Maybe Cliff was right to change his name.) There's A Lot Of Lonely People Tonight is from the excellent album Short Stories, and while it's nowhere near the best track on there, it's still beautiful. There's a fragility to Chapin's work you don't find elsewhere. You feel like he's lived these stories, every one of them.
Top Charity Shop Buy of the week, the 2012 album Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now by Steve Earle's son, Justin (his middle name is a tribute to legendary country singer Townes Van Zandt). Excellent acoustic Americana that reminds me very much of Ryan Adams' debut (and best) album, Heartbreaker. The CD cost me 75p, but I'll definitely be buying more of this artist's work in the future. If I ever have any money again.
Nobody else does loneliness like Sheffield's answer to Roy Orbison. This is from his first full-length album, released in 2001... though it could just as easily have been released in 1957.
Originally written in 1927, and recorded many times before The King got his hands on it, Are You Lonesome Tonight? was a huge hit in 1960... but is arguably remembered more for the live version recorded in Vegas in '68 where Elvis cracks up laughing and can't make it through the song.
A single from probably my favourite Mellencamp album, 1985's Scarecrow, this was apparently inspired by the Paul Newman film Hud. Apparently, the wife of one of JM's pals told him not to feature "pretty girls" in the video as it wouldn't be realistic to suggest they had lonely nights. Mellencamp responded by offering her a role. She accepted, and played his girlfriend.
She calls me baby She calls everybody baby It's a lonely ol' night But ain't they all?
Now. Is it a better song than Elvis's masterpiece? Definitely not. But it means a little bit more to me - and that's what this blog is all about.
1. Paul McCartney - No More Lonely Nights
Well, here's a first. As previously mentioned, I have a kind of love/hate relationship with Sir Paulius Thumbs-Aloft, and though I respect all he's given us... sometimes, he doesn't half get on my wick. No More Lonely Nights - a majestically schmaltzy slice of 80s balladeering that Collins would have given his right drumstick for - really ought to be awful. You may well argue that it is. And yet, I have a huge fondness for it, from the shiver-inducing a cappella intro to the Dave friggin' Gilmour guitar solo at the end. Plus, if you read between the lines, it's as good a stalker anthem as Every Breath You Take...
And I won't go away until you tell me so No, I'll never go away...
The video, which begins with a long sequence in which Macca plays some kind of lonely but jolly Clive Dunn character working the nightshift as a projectionist in a low rent cinema... before jumping into a Victorian dream sequence in which Ringo goes over a waterfall in a rowing boat (and then things get really weird)... almost made me bump it down to #2. (Although it's not as bad as the video to One Lonely Night by REO Speedwagon, which was SO bad it got them disqualified from this whole Top Ten.)
Hopefully, those ten songs made you feel a little less lonely tonight...
