Snapshots #444: Songs About Record Labels

As Half Man Half Biscuit reminded us on Friday, yesterday was Record Store Day. And so, to celebrate, rather than taking out a second mortgage (the first one's bad enough), I dug out 15 songs about record companies. They're rarely complementary...

15. Soft focus.

I know, I know, these guys only featured here a couple of weeks back, but I couldn't not include this...

Blur - The Universal

Or this...

Blur - B.L.U.R.E.M.I.

14. Inflexible pinkies.

Stiff Little Fingers - Rough Trade

13. Pigswill company loses a litre, but finds a band inside. (Presumably a rather smelly band.)*

(*This clue was inspired by the latest edition of Ernie's Pun Fun.)

Pigswill company... minus one L.

Wilco - Capitol City

12. Spidey unmasked by Norton!

Graham reveals that he's Parker!

Graham Parker - Mercury Poisoning

11. Paints pictures about how it's gonna be... home, kitchen, earthen.

Joshua Kadison told us that Jessie paints pictures about how it's gonna be. Homeware, kitchenware, earthenware...

Jessie Ware - Swan Song

Swan Song was Led Zeppelin's own record label.

10. Dragon Lady.

The Lockheed U2 aircraft was nicknamed "Dragon Lady".

U2 - Vertigo

9. BAD boys.

Big Audio Dynamite - Sony

8. Egyptian life force, German affirmation, Iris's Dolls.

Ka is the Egyptian life force. Ja is German for yes. Iris was a song by the Goo Goo Dolls.

Kajagoogoo - Big Apple

7. Austrian poet.

Rainer Maria - Atlantic

6. Polish sextets in disarray. 

"Polish sextets" was an anagram.

The Sex Pistols - EMI

5. Ape king found in whale.

Jonah was found in a whale. The ape was King Louis.

Jona Lewie - Be Stiff

Originally by Devo, who also started out on Stiff.

4. Sistine, Lady, Fallen. 

The Fallen Madonna with The Big Boobies, for anyone who remembers 'Allo 'Allo. My dad used to work with Gordon 'Renee' Kaye, before he became famous.

Madonna - Like A Virgin

3. Clear victors in the Dads Vs. Lads match.

Boys: 2, Men: well, I'm guessing nil.

Boyz II Men - Motownphilly

2. Winners of the 1973 "Longest Band Name Without Any Vowels" competition. (Semis not counted.)

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Workin' for MCA

Some people class 'y' as a semi-vowel. I do not.

1. Found confused, but only after rehab.

"Only after rehab" was an anagram.

Two Record Labels for the price of one in this tune...

Harry Belafonte - Island In The Sun

More of this tomfoolery next Saturday.

Snapshots #398: Songs Named After Hitchcock Films

Good evening. My name is Alfred Hitchcock... and these are my films, set to music.

15. Insomniacs before a Beckham.

Not David or Victoria, but Brooklyn Beckham...

And these guys had no sleep till they met him.

The Beastie Boys - Sabotage

Anyone shouting at their computer, "but the Hitchcock film was Saboteur!" You're right. Saboteur was his 1942 movies, starring Robert Cummings, Priscilla Lane and Norman Lloyd. But six years prior to that, he also had a film called Sabotage, starring Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, and John Loder.

Thank you, Ghost of Barry Norman. 

14. Lacking substance or importance.

It's Immaterial - Rope

13. Unhappy aphrodisiacs at Heaven's Gate.

Heaven's Gate was a cult. 

Blue Oyster Cult - Dial M For Murder

12. Nick was a big fan of her movie band.

Nick Lowe loved the sound of breaking glass... which was the name of Hazel's band in the movie of the same name.

Hazel O'Connor - Rebecca

11. Can be good, but I was never any good at them.

Be a good sport, will you?

Sports - Strangers On A Train

Love that video, it's so 1980.

10. I'm with them.

"I'm with the band."

The Band - Stage Fright

9. Could she be a robot, then?

"Robot, then" was an anagram...

Beth Orton - Shadow Of A Doubt

8. Kojak's full name.

Kojak was Telly, so this must be...

Television - Torn Curtain

7. Accept no substitutes.

The Originals - Suspicion

6. Fancy a joint?

Elbow - The Birds

5. Ripper in a Jewish robe.

A kittel is a Jewish robe, worn by Jack...

Jack Kittel - Psycho

There are, of course, two other versions of this famous song... but they've both featured here before.

4. Aaaaah! -Z. Stranger town. 

A scream, Jay-Z and Hawkins, the town in Stranger Things. But I imagine the photo was enough...

Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Frenzy

3. Second person.

Second person stories are written about you. Second is also 2.

U2 - Vertigo

2. Basie & The Unisex Shoes... unpeel that one!

Anagram! (Obviously.)

Siouxsie & The Banshees - Spellbound

1. Duffy defected.

Their original singer was Stephen Duffy. He left, to be replaced by Le Bon.

Duran Duran - Notorious

Set your compass North by North West and it should steer you in the direction of more Snapshots next Saturday...

Snapshots #367: A Top Twenty Songs Named After Horror Movies

Darkness falls across the land

The midnight hour is close at hand

Creatures crawl in search of blood

To terrorize y’all’s neighborhood

And whosoever shall be found

Without the soul for getting down

Must stand and face the Hounds of Hell

And rot inside a corpse’s shell

The foulest stench is in the air

The funk of forty thousand years

And grizzly ghouls from every tomb

Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive

Your body starts to shiver

For no mere mortal can resist

The evil of the SNAPSHOTS!

AH HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA

Thank you, Vincent. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

It's Halloween this week, and when I started looking for songs that share their names with horror movies, I hit a bumper bundle. But did you guess them all?

20. Bad jingles get me in such a tizzy. 

"Bad jingles" was an anagram...

J. Geils Band - Fright Night

19. Lost inside Outwood Golf Course.

In case you're wondering, Outwood is just down the road from where I work in Leeds. Fortunately, I've never spotted u-two while driving through there...

U2 - The Fly

18. Ttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssss iiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssss ttttttttttttttttthhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeee ccccccccccccccllllllllllllluuuuuuuuuuuuueeeeeeeeeee.

Slow Readers Club - Lost Boys

17. The Haiti dollar hides a silly secret. 

The Haiti dollar, Silly Billy.

Billy Idol - Eyes Without A Face

16. Boopadoop.

Named after Chic Young's Blondie comic strip: her surname was Boopadoop.

Blondie - Island Of Lost Souls

15. Noughties boy band, aphrodisiac, Ian Astbury.

Noughties boy band = Blue.

Aphrodisiac = Oyster.

Ian Astbury = The Cult.

Blue Öyster Cult - Nosferatu

14. Frippette?

She's married to Robert Fripp...

Toyah - Alien

13. They're ghosting you.

The Phantom Band - The Howling

12. Can you hear them?

The Sonics - Psycho

11. ...is a V. smarmy DJ mix.

..."is a V. smarmy DJ" was an anagram...

Sammy Davis Jr. - The Candyman

10. A wing and a guitar.

A Fender is what we Brits would call the wing on a car... and it's also a type of guitar.

Sam Fender - Poltergeist(s)

9. Just desserts.

The Sweet - Hellraiser

8. Read one section of your home. 

Chapterhouse - Don't Look Now

7. This guy, and another four droplets.

A tough one this, and probably not one you could guess from the clue alone... but once you worked out the theme... maybe?

Anyway, the photo above is Bernie Nee, the singer on the track below. The rest of the Blobs were session musicians, so no photo exists of the "band" itself...

The Five Blobs - The Blob

6. Bitten by a green bird that wishes it could fly.

Orville might have wished he could fly, but he could at least peck.

Orville Peck - Dead Of Night

5. Used to make soup for Alice and the Queen.

Then the Queen said to Alice, "Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?"

"No," said Alice. "I don't even know what a Mock Turtle is."

"It's the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from", said the Queen.

(From Alice In Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.)

The Mock Turtles - Wicker Man

4. A carpenter and a great hangman. 

The Great Hangman is a cliff. Richard was a Carpenter.

Cliff Richard - Carrie

3. Chest, pea, dough.

Chestnut, peanut, doughnut...

Nut - Scream

2. What do Jennifer Anniston, Julie Andrews and Jane Austen cook their eggs in?

In the J.A.pan, of course!

Japan - Halloween

1. Lad-ra-doodle.

It's not often you see Damon Gough without his hat on...

Badly Drawn Boy - The Shining

Not Number One because it's my favourite song... but it is my favourite horror film.

Such a bounty of horror-film-related songs did I find, that there will be more to share later in the week... and a much less scary Snapshots will be back next Saturday.