So last week, Martin set me a challenge (perhaps jokingly) to see if I could come up with 10 songs featuring toasters. Well, I always like a challenge... here's the best I could pop up. No burnt offerings. Etc. Etc.
Let's start with the obvious one to make things harder. Before he started laying his hat in the lap of the common people, Paul Young was in a bunch of different bands (including Kat Kool & the Kool Cats and The Q-Tips). Some still consider this novelty b-side (flipped into a hit by Kenny Everett) to be his greatest moment.
See also Yeah, Toast!, which the internet claims is by Arcade Fire. I'm not sure I believe the internet though...
Lately I've been thinking bout' stickin' my hand in a toaster...
...sings lead Atari Kris Rose on this track from the band's punky (if not Punky - that's #6) debut album from 1997. Woman problems, obviously. Sadly, the live version on t'internet doesn't do it justice.
Great female empowerment tune from the fourth Squeeze album, East Side Story, in which a housewife has enough of housework...
Press the button on the toaster, it's a woman's world Tuck the sheets in on the bed, it's a woman's world Take your apron from your holster, it's a woman's world Shoot the crown off of your head, it's a woman's world
Sometime member of Robert Pollard's US indie band Guided By Voices, Tobin has also released a loaf of solo records over the years. This was his debut solo single from 1995.
Sadly the toaster in question is someone making a toast, rather than making toast. Still, it was the only song I could find that was actually called Toaster, so it deserved a place.
Even when he was writing piffle, Paul Simon still made gold. This was submitted for The Graduate soundtrack but the producers rejected it - perhaps it was a bit too goofy for them, but it still sounds great to me. Somehow far less annoying than when Paul McCartney wrote the same kind of nonsense...
Wish I was an English muffin ‘Bout to make the most out of a toaster I’d ease myself down Comin’ up brown I prefer boysenberry More than any ordinary jam I’m a “Citizens for Boysenberry Jam” fan
I wanted to include Henley's earlier song Long Way Home in which Don moans...
The heat don't work The toaster don't work The car don't work And I guess I know why This house don't work and this dream don't Work no more And lover, neither do you and I
...sadly, it's not available on youtube (not in this country, anyway), so I had to settle for using the grill... which, given the toaster isn't working, seemed like a viable option.
A delicious slice of whimsy written by cartoonist and children's author (not to mention the songwriter who gave Johnny Cash A Boy Named Sue and got Dr. Hook to call Sylvia's Mother) Shel Silverstein. When Bobby's girl leaves him for another man, he goes down to the cellar and cobbles together a mechanical replacement. You can guess the rest...
She always did what she was supposed to Right up to this evening but then She had an affair with a toaster And they ran off and left me again.
See also Tim McGraw's What She Left Behind, in which Tim's lady buggers off and takes the toaster with her. Tim's not smart enough to build a replacement.
Some serious Health & Safety advice from the Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm dudes...
If your toast gets stuck in the toaster Do not put a fork in the toaster while it is hooked up, or look out I did and I got caught in the current Pulled me in and shook me while it held me tight...
A song about the frustrations of being a mother, particular if all Daddy does is breeze in every now and then and your toaster is constantly on the blink.
Pay the grocer You fix the toaster You kiss the host goodbye Then you break a window Burn the soufflé Scream the lullaby
If you can get past the big hair and 80s power-drums, this is still a classic. If you can't, try this cool cover by Ash.
1. Grandaddy - Broken Household Appliance National Forest
Possibly Grandaddy's finest hour, an epic protest song about people dumping their old electrical appliances in areas of natural beauty. You might think that's not a fitting subject for a rock song, but if you ask me, it's a lot more relevant than anything Sting or U2 ever wrote.
Sit on the toaster like a rock No need to worry about a shock All of the microwaves are dead Just like the salamander said The refrigerators house the frogs The conduit is the hollow log...
And now she's living in a shack on the firing line,
With a fridge filled with French bacon,
Mouthing all the words of a famous mime,
For whom she's commonly mistaken. I love her, I knew her,
I knew she couldn't hang,
And now she's dying in a ditch on the county line,
From a device of her own making.
Woke up this morning and all I had was Sunny Delight...
(Not really. I hate Sunny Delight.)
6. James - Coffee & Toast
One of my favourite James songs, frustratingly unreleased except as a bonus download from one of their later albums. They should have made it a single.
OK, so it's probably got very little to do with Mr. Kelloggs' greatest invention. But it's a mighty, mighty tune nevertheless. Video's a bit weird though.
