Snapshots #387: Fifteen + - x ÷ Sum Songs

Put your clothes on, Carol - we need your help with the complex musical equations below... specially compiled for any Maths teachers in the audience.

15. See #3 for a red hot clue.

#3 is Jason, and also includes the word "scorcher". Could I be more helpful?

Jason & The Scorchers - 2+1 = Nothing

14. Watson, Carter or Dolittle?

Dr. John Watson, Dr, John Carter (E.R.) or Dr. John Dolittle?

Dr. John - Me - You = Loneliness 

13. Before he took to hunting werewolves, he was part of a different network.

Before Bob got his Silver Bullet, he had a System.

The Bob Seger System - 2+2=?

12. Very super: electric alternative, actually. Please!

Every word is the title of a different album by the...

Pet Shop Boys - Two Divided By Zero

11. Number 3 was one... and even LA gets confusing sometimes.

#3 played Scott in Neighbours. "Even LA" was an anagram.

Scott Lavene - U + Me = Everything

10. Useful in a list, when going in and out.

The comma... doors.

Commodores - Three Times A Lady

9. A Rock, in the reading room.

Mr. Rock Hudson, in his library.

Mr Hudson & The Library - 2x2

8. Just a campanologist.

Just William, the bell ringer.

William Bell - One Plus One

7. Found in the zoo tiger enclosure... Springfield's early days.

Rick Springfield's early band, found in the ZOO Tiger enclosure.

Zoot - 1 x 2 x 3 x 4

6. Look out, guys! Adele's running after you!

Adele, of course, is famous for Chasing Pavements...

Pavement 5-4 = Unity

5. Are you going to Fleetwood, Skeeter?

Fleetwood Mac + Skeeter Davis...

Mac Davis - Two Plus Two

4. Don't make her... You wouldn't like her when she's... 

Fans of the old Incredible Hulk TV show will recall that Bill Bixby frequently told investigative reporter Jack McGee: "Mr. McGee, don't make me Ann Lee... you wouldn't like me when I'm Ann Lee."

Ann Lee - Two Times

I will confess that I had never heard of Ann Lee before compiling this list. However, I was short on ladies this week and Ann did get to #2 in the charts in 1999 with the two times tune above.

3. That sunshine's a scorcher, Superman.

Donovan sang about a Sunshine Superman. Jason, as seen above (at #15, if not in the photo) was a Scorcher.

Jason Donovan - Nothing Can Divide Us

Another one of those Jason Donovan songs that me and my mate Richard used to sing along to on the school bus when we were 16. Richard was a big fan of the Pet Shop Boys and The Smiths. I liked Springsteen and Huey Lewis. We would have told you we were just being ironic. But were we really?

2. Living in Portugal, DuBois.

Our resident Maths teacher lives in Portugal. Benson Dubois.

George Benson - Love X Love

1. Bad crash: Cher and Odie unhurt!

"Cher and Odie unhurt" was a car crash of an anagram...

Haircut 100 - Love Plus One

Where do we go from here? Is it down to the lake, I fear?

Well, wherever you go, make sure you're back in time for more Snapshots next Saturday.

Neverending Top Ten #6.8: Cup Final

Sunday was the first time in my life I've had a vested interest in a Cup Final.

James - Goal Goal Goal

By hook or by crook, Sam's football team, The Hawks, made it into the local cup final. They were very much the underdogs, and had been all season. It was easy to tell him to relax and enjoy it, that it was just another game, and it didn't matter if his team won or not. What an achievement it was getting to the final anyway! We were proud of him whatever the result. All these things were true, but they were far more true for us, his parents, than for Sam himself. At his age, you still believe that life is fair and that if you try your hardest, the underdogs will come out on top... just like in the movies. Winning is everything.

William Bell - Everybody Loves A Winner

The opposition were a better team though, so the result was inevitable. They also had some particularly unpleasant supporters (mostly older brothers, I guess) who heckled Sam's team from the sidelines and made the final even harder. They were playing in a proper stadium too - well, there were stands on one side, so it was more like an actual stadium than anywhere they'd ever played before. Sam told me later that this in itself made the game tougher - he'd rather just be on a field in the middle of nowhere, like usual.

The Nazz - Only One Winner

Regardless of all this, the Hawks did OK. They didn't win, but they had some good chances and kept the effort up right to the end. They played better football at times, but the goals just didn't come. Still, a 2-0 defeat wasn't the worst they've suffered this year, and we all felt they could hold their heads up high. (Look at me, writing about football: using the vernacular!)

Holly Golightly - Second Place

Although initially sanguine in his defeat, Sam felt the disappointment later in the afternoon. He bounced back pretty quickly though. I admire his resilience... I hope the world doesn't beat that out of him. It's easy to say that losing in a situation like this is a better life lesson than winning... but that's no consolation for a ten year old. 

Self Help For Cynics #18: Why Do You Come Here?

Why do you come here?
And why, why do you hang around?

Morrissey - Suedehead

Nothing too heavy or existential for our final Cynical Self-Help post of 2023, though it is about something our brain does, and I imagine it's something we all experience from time to time... probably with greater frequency as time goes by.

S.E. Webster - The Doorway

You go upstairs to get something from the bedroom. By the time you reach the bedroom, you can't recall for the life of you what it is you want or why you came upstairs in the first place.

William Bell - All The Things You Can't Remember

It doesn't have to be upstairs - it can be as simple as going from the lounge into the kitchen. Or even opening the fridge door. Why did I come here? What did I want?

And I thought we had a chance for love

A rare and special kind of love

Well you opened a door then shut it again

I lost your love and I lost a friend

BMX Bandits - Doorways

For a long time, I believed this frustrating phenomenon was the result of advancing years. Then again, considering that it's been happening for as long as I can remember (although, as we've just discussed, "as long as I can remember" is a relative term), I've long worried my years actually started advancing at a very early age. 

Elvis Presley - I Forgot To Remember To Forget

Turns out it's nothing to do with old age at all though... it's what scientists call The Doorway Effect. A series of experiments by Gabriel A. Radvansky and David E. Copeland which commenced in 2006 concluded that... 

Memory was worse after passing through a doorway than after walking the same distance within a single room.

Jackie DeShannon - When You Walk In The Room

One explanation for this effect is down to what neuroscientists call episodic memory...

Episodic memory involves the ability to learn, store, and retrieve information about unique personal experiences that occur in daily life. These memories typically include information about the time and place of an event, as well as detailed information about the event itself.

Drugdealer (feat. Ariel Pink) - Easy to Forget 

Simply put: if you have a thought in one room, then try to carry that thought to another room, it becomes harder to remember. You wouldn't have forgotten what it was you were looking for if you'd stayed in the room where you first realised you'd lost it. Of course, that causes something of an issue when it comes to looking for them...

Bobbie Gentry - Find 'Em, Fool 'Em And Forget 'Em

Louise gets very frustrated when she asks me to do a job, or add an item to the shopping list, and the first thing I do is run for a notepad to write it down.

"Why can't you remember?"

At last - I have an answer to that question! But will I be able to remember it when I go downstairs to tell her?

Eggs Over Easy - Forget About It

Another potential explanation for the doorway effect involves a slightly more complex understanding of how our brains are organised. BBC Science expounds...

As we move through our days, our attention shifts between [different levels of thinking] – from our goals and ambitions, to plans and strategies, and to the lowest levels, our concrete actions.

Bob Luman - Let's Think About Living

At concrete action level, I am hammering on a keyboard right now.

The strategy involves transfering the ideas in my head onto a computer screen.

My plan is to explain complex mental health issues to myself (and anyone else who might be interested).

My goal is to help me understand my own mental health.

My ambition is to feel better.

Kurt Wagner & Cortney Tidwell - Let's Think About Where We're Going

That's a clumsy generalisation of the different levels of thinking, but the fact is that our brain switches effortlessly between these different levels throughout the day. That's why we can drive home some days without thinking about the journey (or the mechanical process of changing gear or swapping pedals) at all. Other days though, our thoughts might be dominated by those things - if traffic is bad or our car is making a strange noise. 

Charles Drain - Stop And Think About It Baby

The Beeb continues...

The way our attention moves up and down the hierarchy of action is what allows us to carry out complex behaviours, stitching together a coherent plan over multiple moments, in multiple places or requiring multiple actions.

They liken this to the old metaphor of spinning plates... but every so often, a plate falls and we can't remember what we're doing or why we're doing it.  

Radiohead - Like Spinning Plates

Our memories, even for our goals, are embedded in webs of associations. That can be the physical environment in which we form them, which is why revisiting our childhood home can bring back a flood of previously forgotten memories, or it can be the mental environment – the set of things we were just thinking about when that thing popped into mind.

The Doorway Effect occurs because we change both the physical and mental environments, moving to a different room and thinking about different things. That hastily thought up goal, which was probably only one plate among the many we’re trying to spin, gets forgotten when the context changes.

If you want to remember more - stay exactly where you are! (Sidebar: would I have done better in my GCSEs if I'd done all my revision in the hall where I eventually sat the exam?)

Deee-Lite - Stay in Bed, Forget the Rest

Sorry, I just popped downstairs to make a cup of herbal tea. What was I writing about? The Doorway Effect? What was that again...?

Soul Asylum - Standing In The Doorway

Does it, I wonder, have anything to do with The Staircase Effect... or what the French call "l'esprit d'escalier"? 

Jet - L'esprit D'escalier

No. This is the frustration we feel when we leave a room after an argument or contentious conversation and - too late! - come up with the pithy reply or put-down we should have used at the time. I'm kicking myself I didn't say...

Lindisfarne - The Things I Should Have Said

A fire officer came to visit our workplace last week. When he looked at our fire plan, he complained that it wasn't a procedure, it was just a series of actions. I wish I'd thought to hand him a dictionary and ask him to look up the actual definition of "procedure". Too late now...

Snapshots #291 - A Top 25 King Songs

In lieu of pledging allegiance to our new King, which I'm not about to do because I'M NOT A 17TH CENTURY KNIGHT, here are 25 songs in his "honour"...

25. Slip severely and jumble.

"Slip severely" is an anagram.

Elvis Presley - King Creole

24. Trendy appliance.

Fad Gadget - King of the Flies

23. Stare at the text closely.

Stare at the teXT Closely.

XTC - King For A Day

22. Musk without Nitrogen.

Take the N from Elon...

ELO - Rock n Roll Is King

Now that's a king I will pledge allegiance too!

21. This is what happens when you go out in the cold without a proper top on, ladies.

The Nipple Erectors - King of the Bop

Shane MacGowan's first band!

20. They say it all started in Wuhan...

China Crisis - King In A Catholic Style

19. They were probably mild-mannered.

Remember Penry, the mild-mannered janitor...?

The Janitors - Good To Be The King

18. A peach from the same town as John's angel.

John Prine sang of an Angel From Montgomery. Peach Melba.

Melba Montgomery - King of Kings

17. Derek Dick's having a wobble.

Derek Dick is Fish. Jelly wobbles.

Jellyfish - The King Is Half Undressed

16. Their leader crashed his bike.

Look out, look out, look out!

The Pack - King of Kings

15. What will you find inside Bob's adequate box?

Bob'S ADEquate box.

Sade - Your Love Is King

14. Eureka! Reno is where you'll find the solution.

EureKA REN O

Karen O - King

13. Hi-didly-ho, Glenn & Roger!

"Hi-didly-ho," is what Ned Flanders might say to Glenn & Roger Miller.

Ned Miller - From A Jack To A King

12. Brendan, all a muddle.

"Brendan" is an anagram.

Dan Bern - King of the World

11. Candy, Denver, Legend.

The Three Johns - King Car

10. Maybe she's caught a chill.

She looks a bit shivery to me.

Shivaree - Cannibal King

9. Michael Holliday had something similar.

Michael Holliday sang about the Story Of My Life.

My Life Story - The King Of Kissingdom

8. A big hit out of Radio Nowhere.

RaDIO Nowhere

Dion - King of the New York Streets

7. Tips for colouring.

Felt Tips are good for colouring.

Felt - Dismantled King is Off the Throne

6.  Anagram? Shh!

Graham Nash - I Used To Be A King

5. Sounds like Jack's aircrafts.

Jack White has quite a few planes by now, I'd imagine...

White Plains - When You Are A King

4. Thinly plot a mix up.

"Thinly plot" is an anagram.

Phil Lynott - King's Call

3. Where the Green Giant's son lives.

The Green Giant's son was called Sprout. He was like the Scrappy Doo of sweetcorn adverts.

I understand he lived in a prefab.

Prefab Sprout - The King of Rock n Roll

2. Something that gets passed down in the family.

Genes are hereditary.

Gene - We Could Be Kings

1. He tolls to conquer.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for William the Conqueror...

William Bell - A Tribute To A King

Just ten Snapshots for you next Saturday morning. I do like to get out of the house occasionally.

My Top 22 of 2022: Prelude

I’m in two minds…

About what?

This new Bruce Springsteen album. The Boss covering a bunch of old soul songs. It’s all a bit…

Rod Stewart?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, his voice sounds amazing. It’s some of the best singing he’s ever done. On 7 Rooms of Gloom, he even gives Levi Stubbs a run for his money…

Bruce Springsteen - Seven Rooms Of Gloom

The Four Tops - Seven Rooms Of Gloom

But?

But it’s not Levi Stubbs, is it? Many of these songs… the originals are so strong, so well-entrenched in my mind, in my heart, no cover’s ever going to come close. Not even Bruce.

Is it just that… he’s getting on a bit now… he’s reached the karaoke stage of his career? Dylan’s done covers albums. Willie Nelson… ahem… Rod Stewart… don’t they deserve to sit back and put their feet up rather than still be re-inventing the wheel?

You might argue that… if Dylan hadn’t just produced one of his best albums in years off the back of his karaoke sets. Bruce too… Western Stars showed he can still cut it. It was his best album of the 21st Century, easily up there with his best, without trying to recapture old glories. (I enjoyed Letter To You a lot too, but much of that was a reworking of old E Street numbers from back in the day that never got recorded, so it didn’t really speak to where he is now, creatively.)

Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars

Your problem then is the songs he’d chosen to cover? They’re too iconic to mess with?

Well, to be fair, he’s not messing with them. The arrangements are very faithful to the originals (if a bit Saturday Night At The London Palladium in places)… but then you start to wonder why you’re not just listening to the originals. I mean, at least Billy Idol made William Bell’s I Forgot To Be Your Lover his own. 

William Bell - I Forgot To Be Your Lover

Billy Idol - To Be A Lover

Bruce Springsteen - I Forgot To Be Your Lover

What about the less well-known tracks?

They work better. The two Jerry Butler songs, the title track and Hey, Western Union Man, are definite highlights. But then I went straight out and added The Very Best of Jerry Butler to my wishlist. 

Bruce Springsteen - Only The Strong Survive

Jerry Butler - Hey, Western Union Man

Bruce Springsteen - Hey, Western Union Man

Who’s this record for then?

Good question. I can tell you who it’s not for: Soul music fans. Even if you love Bruce as much as you love Motown, Atlantic et al. Maybe this is a record for Bruce fans who don’t know a lot about soul music. If it turns them onto that genre, I’m sure they’ll be eternally grateful… and this might well be Bruce's aim. His love for these old records is infectious, his voice sounds great, and he’s clearly having a great time. Despite the preponderance of lost love songs (What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, When She Was My Girl), the performances are almost jubilant. But they’re not Jimmy Ruffin, The Walker Brothers or The Four Tops. And Someday We’ll Be Together as a closer? Ouch. Diana Ross is untouchable on that.

So I'm guessing this won't quite make your Top 22 Albums of 2022 then?

Sadly, no. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I don't think I'll still be listening to it in the new year...

My Top Ten 2018 Discoveries

My final countdown of songs I listened to in 2018... regular features will return next week. Here's a bunch of tracks and artists I only discovered last year, even though the recordings were (mostly) made much earlier.


10. Deer Tick - Miss K.

One that Charity Chic turned me onto. They remind me of the Drive-By Truckers at times, although apparently they prefer to be labelled rock rather than country-rock. Further investigation required...

9. Creep Show - Modern Parenting

A John Grant side-project which was actually released this year so I should have included it elsewhere, but who's going to hold me account? Only very recently discovered this, but it's John Grant, so I'm digging it a lot.

8. Freebo - She Loves My Dog More Than Me

A former member of Bonnie Raitt's band and a popular session musician, Freebo has released 5 solo albums over the last 20 years. This is from his most recent, 2015's If Not Now, When. Best way to describe this? Fun.

7. Jesse Colin Young - Ridgetop

I'll admit this here and probably never mention it again, 2018 was the year I finally gave in to streaming. It won't stop me buying records (when I can afford them), but it seemed to be cutting my nose off to spite my face to deprive myself of all that music when 80% of the rest of the world were doing it. It also allowed me to check out some records by artists who have been on my list for donkey's years, but I've never had enough money to get to them. Jesse Colin Young was the lead singer of 60s band The Youngbloods, but his solo 70s output produced some real gems, including this delightfully misanthropic ode to getting out of the city, with shades of Steely Dan.

6. DMA - Believe

Contemporary Australian indie band who are making a name for themselves as Britpop-revivalists. Not 100% sure about their own material, which at times sounds like a more melodic, much-less annoying Oasis, but their live cover of Cher's Believe reinvents that track - minus the dodgy vocoder - to wonderful effect.

5. John Stewart - California Bloodlines

Former member of 60s folkies The Kingston Trio... and the man who wrote Daydream Believer, which surely grants him immortality... Stewart went on to enjoy a successful career as a singer songwriter (with a voice not a million miles from Johnny Cash at times) in the 70s. This is the title track from his 1969 solo album debut, which I listened to a lot this year. Much more to investigate though...

4. The Strumbellas - Young & Wild

Canadian folk-country, slightly reminiscent of Mumford & Sons before they forgot how to write tunes. Their 2016 album Hope comes highly recommended if you like this track.

3. William Bell - Mississippi Arkansas Bridge

I didn't discover William Bell this year. I've had a collection of his 60s Stax soul songs for ages and it includes some classic tunes, including the timeless I Forgot To Be Your Lover, A Tribute To A King (about Otis Redding) and his duet with Judy Clay, Private Number.

What I didn't know was that Bell was still making music, and that in 2016 he'd returned to Stax to record a new album, This Is Where I Live. I'm glad I discovered it this year... because it's a belter.

2. Lucero - Went Looking For Warren Zevon's Los Angeles

Lucero describe themselves as "a country-punk rock band" from Memphis. They're also big Warren Zevon fans. What else do you need?

1. Jerry Reed - The Preacher & The Bear

Even though I was familiar with his theme tunes to the Smokey & The Bandit movies, I reckon I knew Jerry Reed better as an actor than a singer. I think it was Lynchie who recommended I dig a little deeper into his recording career, and I'm so glad I did. Beyond the fact that Reed wrote a couple of my favourite songs - Elvis's Guitar Man and Johnny Cash's A Thing Called Love - there's a rich seam of material to tap into in his back catalogue. Warm, witty country rock that presents Reed as a very likeable performer indeed. If you're not smiling by the end of The Preacher & The Bear, I recommend getting your zygomaticus major checked out.

Saturday Snapshots #55 - The Answers

If you wannabe my lover, you've gotta get solving my Saturday Snapshot clues. Luckily, none of these proved Too Much for you...

First out of bed yesterday morning was Rigid Digit, narrowly beating Lynchie to the crown by half a point.

Actually, I don't think these clues need a lot of explaining this week...

10. Admiral Johnson goes out for another drive.

Admiral Nelson.

"We'll cut off your Johnson, Lebowski!"

Willie Nelson - On The Road Again

(Or it might be Martin Freeman.)

9. Easy to solve even if you don't know the answer... Lady Liberty.

The Guess Who - American Woman

8.  A Drama II: Take your clothes off and she might fancy you.

Ida Maria - I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked

7. Charlie's band makes a killing with their sex-change.

Charlie Mansun was a killer.

(Yes, Mansun had more songs than just Wide Open Space. Quite a few of them were better too!)

Mansun - Being A Girl

6. Bumbling coach refuses to release Bob's farmer.

Bob Dylan sang about Maggie's Farm.

Honeybus - I Can't Let Maggie Go

Not Honeybuns, although that might have been a better name.

5. Mend your jeans with Cooper and a bow tie.

Lee Cooper jeans. You mend jeans with patches. Well, unless you're a young person. Don't get me started on that.

A bow tie is a dickie.

Dickie Lee - Patches

4. Old Nick is scared of four Italians stealing his car, so adds extra security.

Old Nick is the devil. If he wanted to protect his car, he might put a gate on his drive.

Four in Italian is Quattro.

Suzi Quatro - Devil Gate Drive

3. The do of the century, from fabulous dawn to brilliant dusk.

Haircut 100 - Fantastic Day

Video of the week.

Have I mentioned how I met Nick Heyward once?

Have I mentioned what a nice man he was?

2. Rings like a legendary marksman, but suffers an amnesiac heart.

The legendary marksman would be William Tell.

William Bell - I Forgot To Be Your Lover

Bloody classic, that is.

1. I am called Chocolate Peanuts.

Too easy.



Goodbye. But only until next week. Say You'll Be There for more Saturday Snapshots then...zigazig ah!