Here's a famous organ player - Booker T. Yesterday, Ray Manzarek introduced our quiz. But neither of them played the kinds of organs you'll hear below...
15. Charles, could be another #4.
Charles Mansun would be in good company with the names listed in Clue 4.
The AI says, "Yes, individual muscles are considered organs because they are structures composed of different tissues working together to perform a specific function, like movement."
Welcome back to the Hot 100. Before Christmas we got as far as #27, so basic accounting dictates we move on to number 26, as illustrated by Australian band... erm... 26. Appropriately enough, here is their song A New Beginning. Muse fans may want to give that a spin.
"If, like me, you are a bit of a sucker for just about anything sung in French, then I give you Stereolab's OLV 26."
And then came Douglas, still freezing his elbow patches* off on the picket line...
(*I'm presuming Canadian teachers have elbow patches on their threadbare blazers, just like teachers in the UK.)
"I don't recall if it has been mentioned many times already for other numbers, but Roger Miller's song Got Two Again is chock full of numbers and sums, including this verse containing our beloved number 26:
For the second verse
I need someone to give me a number
Between 12 and 14, I'll make a verse (13!)
13, ah, 13, well, 13 multiplied by 1
You still got 13 but wasn't that fun?
Now, take that same 13 multiply by 2
26 hours the train's overdue…
Never heard that before, Douglas, but I approve.
"And if the train is indeed 26 hours overdue, then that would make R.E.M.’s 26 hour road trip described in the song Departure unfortunately twice as long, at 52 hours (keeping with the sums theme, though I suspect that if they are going via Singapore and Spain to Salt Lake City I suspect their mode of travel is more likely a plane?):
Just arrived Singapore, San Sebastian, Spain, 26-hour trip
Salt Lake City, come in spring
Over the salt flats a hailstorm brought you back to me
Salt Lake City, come in spring
Over the salt flats a hailstorm brought you back to me
"And that's all I got, folks."
Both good suggestions. Not heard Departure in ages.
Finally, Rigid Digit returned with another fine lyrical offering...
However, for this week's suggestion I'm going with 12 minutes of protest song, from Gil Scott Heron, reacting to the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Listen to this today and change a few names and statistics and it can surely apply to a couple of more recent election results as well..
Well, the first thing I want to say is..."Mandate My Ass!"
Because it seems as though we've been convinced
That 26% of the registered voters
Not even 26% of the American people
But 26% of the registered voters form a mandate...
Or a landslide...
The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia
They want to go back as far as they can ...
Even if it's only as far as last week
Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards
Next week, we reach the last quarter in our century. Your 25s will be much appreciated...
We all know what Dave Grohl did after the sad death of Kurt Cobain and the end of Nirvana. Bassist Krist Novoselic was slightly less successful in maintaining a career in the music industry. His own post-Nirvana band Sweet 75 lasted one album, but it does give us an image to open this week's entry in the Hot 100...
Onto your suggestions for #75, the most popular of which was this...
A fine tune, but is it a 74 song or a 75 song? What a dilemma. It's definitely a year song. I'm not saying I won't use it next week if I get desperate... but it's not my obvious winner this week.
As well as suggesting this, Martin also offered the following. I'm not sure if any of them are in his record collection, or whether he's just resorting to google. If he does own them all, well...much respect.
Joe Nichols - Sunny & 75 (Martin told me not to youtube it. I did. I think I liked it more than he does. But then, I love cheese. Joe Nichols does seem a bit smug in the video though... but I guess I would too if I was him.)
Aaron Lewis - 75 ("Better", says Martin, "if you like that kind of thing". Aaron Lewis is the lead singer of metal band Staind, but this track is acoustic country if anything. Whisper it, but I think I enjoyed Joe Nichols more.)
Brenda and Eddie were still going steady in the summer of '75...
...and to be honest, this would have been in serious contention most other weeks. But lyrics will always be trumped by titles, if the title song is good enough. That's not to say this week's winner is better than Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, since clearly few songs are. But the selection process is very complex in this feature. I can't even begin to explain the hierarchy of it all.
Sticking with lyrics, The Swede had another T-Rex suggestion this week (Mr. Bolan is doing very well out of this feature)…
If I'm honest though, I'm not sure I get Stereolab. They're one of those bands I own music by because people in the know keep telling me I should dig them.
This, on the other hand, I love. One of the bands that rode the coat-tails of the Arctic Monkeys (they were both from Sheffield) but failed to make it out of their shadow. I still have great affection for the music they recorded before they packed it all in though.
So then... do I award week 74 to The Connells? Or do you (or I) have a better suggestion? Answers on the back of a stuck-down envelope, please...
No, this isn't a chart full of Serge Gainsbourg and Plastic Bertrand (don't tempt me). Instead, it's ten songs about French things. And no, Lost In France doesn't count. And neither does Parisienne Walkways. Look, it's got to have French in the title, OK? Do try and stick to the rules.
Special mentions to The French Impressionists, The French Horn Rebellion and Everybody Was In the French Resistance...Now! I swear I'm not making them up.
The obvious one. Debbie Harry's biggest solo hit, yet hardly her finest moment. Apparently, this was written by the creator of the sitcom Two & A Half Men. Which would explain a lot, if it's true.
The sultry Sarah Nixey has an icy sangfroid which is definitely verging on the Gallic. Here she tells us how a little la la la saved her life...
I was at my wit's end Things were looking black It was getting pretty obvious I was never coming back I threw open window And I stood out on the ledge When the sweetest sound I've ever heard Pushed me back from the edge
Written by John Moore and Luke Haines, from whom we'll hear more shortly...
Another artist I've been listening to a lot in my dotage. Back when I had money, I bought a cheap box set of his early albums which has sat on the shelf gathering dust until poverty and desperation led me to dig it out. Wow. Thank you, poverty and desperation.
I'd always considered myself a Greatest Hits fan of Zevon but had never listened to any of his full albums. What a songwriter! Witty, acerbic, world-weary lyrics tied to some marvellous melodies... with a host of famous names helping him out in the studio. The French Inhaler is from his self-titled 1976 album and it features Glenn Frey and Don Henley on backing vocals. Elsewhere on the record are Phil Everly, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Carl Wilson and half of Fleetwood Mac. And yet, this was never a hit. It's a great shame Zevon will go down in history as just the "Werewolves Of London" guy (great song though that is) because there was so much more to enjoy.
The French Inhaler is a bitter, post-break-up kiss-off to an ex. Yet despite the lyrical rancour, there's a real tenderness to the way Zevon sings it... even the lines below.
Loneliness and frustration We both came down with an acute case And when the lights came up at two I caught a glimpse of you And your face looked like something Death brought with him in his suitcase...
See also French Inhale by Snoop Dogg, which goes into rather too much detail about the whole filthy process for my liking. Still, it's Snoop.
