Tuesday 14 May 2019

Hot 100 #40


Only one band could illustrate the moment that Life Begins in our Hot 100 Countdown (even though, like Benjamin Button and the hero of Martin Amis's Time's Arrow, we're aging backwards). I was never s huge UB40 fan, and I prefer the Neil Diamond original of the above song to their hit version, but I always quite liked their famous "I'm a prima donna" mondegreen. (Apparently they sing "Ivory Madonna"... but I don't believe it for a second.)

(Speaking of UB40, Rigid Digit found one in The Bangles - Going Down To Liverpool...

Hey there
Where you going with that UB40 in your hand?

...which is always welcome here because it features Leonard Nimoy in the video. And if you're wondering how The Bangles know what a UB40 is/was, they probably didn't. The original was by Katrina & The Waves.)

Anyway, as you can imagine, there were a hell of a lot of songs with the number 40 in the title. I'm not even getting onto lyrical nods this week, unless you guys specifically brought them up. Let's see how quickly we can rattle through the list...

Starting, as if often the case, with The Swede, who kicked us off with a serious contender...

Jimmy Buffet - A Pirate Looks At 40

Longtime readers will know that I've always got time for Jimmy B - I may even be a parrothead. As with many of Jimmy's songs, this one has a nautical theme... yet it also tackles the mid-life crisis in a beautiful way.

Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder
I'm an over-forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late

Ian McNabb does a pretty cool version of that too, but sadly I can't find it on the interweb and don't have time to upload it right now.

Onto The Swede's other fine suggestions, the last of which opens up a whole avenue of possibilities...

Cotton Mather - 40 Watt Solution

The Shins - 40 Mark Strasse

Matt Elliot - Forty Days

As Lynchie points out, "there's a lorra, lorra songs with the title "40 Days and 40 Nights", although my favourite is by Scruffy the Cat."

Alyson offered another one of those...

The Enemy - 40 Days And 40 Nights

And then there were these...

The Exploding Boy - 40 Days

Steppenwolf - 40 Days & 40 Nights

David Knopfler - Forty Days And Nights

The Piney Gir Country Roadshow - 40 Days & 40 Nights

Meat Loaf - Forty Days

Roddy Frame - 40 Days of Rain

Along with a couple of twisted variations on the same theme...

The Donnas - 40 Boys In 40 Nights

Badly Drawn Boy - 40 Days 40 Fights

And if 40 days wasn't enough for you... try 40 years!

Attila The Stockbroker - 40 Years

Wreckless Eric - 40 Years

(Great lyrics on that one.)

Rodney Crowell - Forty Winters

Phew. After all that, you probably need...

Frazier Chorus - 40 Winks

Or, at the very least...

Ella Mae Morse - 40 Cups of Coffee

(My average daily intake.)

Back to your suggests, and both Lynchie and George reckoned this would be a solid contender...

Duane Eddy - 40 Miles Of Bad Road 

While Rigid Digit dared to mention the Unmentionables... but then redeemed himself with this...

Franz Ferdinand - 40

And also offered this, which breaks the rules, but still deserves a spin, if only for its title...

Traffic - Roamin Through The Gloamin With 40,000 Headmen

And now I shall hand you over to our Canadian correspondent, Douglas McLaren, making a welcome return this week with a whole bunch of fine suggestions...

I felt like I had to keep up the Canadian side once again when we hit 40. A fun one, for starters, is by Canada's (former) house band... 

The Tragically Hip - Coconut Cream 

There's a cannon shooting
Coconut cream
40 gallons in a steady stream
There's a cannon shooting
Coconut cream
40 gallons at a steady stream...

Then there is, of course, the granddaddy of Canadian folk rock, Gordon Lightfoot, who can teach you how to be an Auctioneer

And no, we don't actually have a forty-five dollar bill here in Canada. 

Perhaps that's because the original came from the USA, Douglas (it's featured here before as my dad used to be an auctioneer when I was a boy).

Leroy Van Dyke - The Auctioneer

Back to you, Douglas...

If neither of those floats your boat, and Canadian music ain't your thing, perhaps you might be inspired by... 

Johnny Cash - Forty Shades of Green

A fine tune, Douglas... as is this version...

Dexys - Forty Shades of Green

Speaking of Johnny Cash though, I'm surprised nobody suggested this one...

Johnny Cash - When It's Springtime In Alaska (It's Forty Below)

Sorry, Douglas, I keep interrupting you...

Or perhaps... 

John Lennon - Life Begins at Forty

....though that might be a bit depressing for some:

They say life begins at forty
Age is just a state of mind
If all that's true
You know, that I've been dead for thirty-nine...

A fun demo, that, though as John Medd points out, it became tragically ironic.

John Winston Ono Lennon (1940-1980)

But Douglas isn't done yet...

If that's too long for you... 

They Might Be Giants - Stormy Pinkness

...clocks in at just a-minute-and-nine, with the following typically nonsensical lyrics:

Your progression
My digression
Forty days this afternoon

Finally, in the spirit of cheating just a little, perhaps a shot at a real favourite of many would be...

REM - Texarkana

The lovely lyrics contain 40,000. That's not far off 40, is it? Just 39,960 or so.

Forty-thousand stars in the evening
Look at them fall from the sky
Forty-thousand reasons for living
Forty-thousand tears in your eyes

A belter that. And I'll see your REM, Douglas and raise you...

REM - 40 Second Song

From Canada we then journeyed halfway round the world to Australia, with another welcome
return from my old pal Deano who's just about to celebrate a rather relevant birthday. Remember, Deano - "life begins!" Cough cough.

He describes his first offering as "a silly, but oh so much fun, one hit wonder from New Zealand." Sounds perfect!

Dave and the Dynamos - Life Begins at Forty


Next, "a Tasmanian-via California-via Nashville country singer that I have really started to enjoy recently. She’s lived those forty years (“I got battle scars around my eyes. I got old boyfriends with bitchy wives. I look back and I wonder why.I’m forty.”) Sadly, she died young after a cancer

Audrey Auld - Forty

That's lovely.

Deano's final offering comes from a classic country songwriter: "In the process of discovering Tom T Hall at the moment, and enjoying every moment of it. What a songwriter. In this one, he talks about a funeral, and reflects on the fact that the dead guy owed him $40."

Tom T. Hall - The Ballad of Forty Dollars

(Speaking of Forty Dollars - you could also try The Twilight Singers - Forty Dollars.)

Staying with country,  George came back with "a belter of a country song"...

Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton - 40 Miles from Poplar Bluff

Brilliant. And here's a little more classic country...

Boxcar Willie - 40 Acres

All of which leaves me with just a handful of my own selections that nobody else mentioned, so I thought I'd make this post even longer by counting down my Top Five 40 Songs. I actually did a Top Ten 40 Songs seven years ago when I did turn 40 and three of these (as well as a bunch of your suggestions) featured there. That was on the old blog though which exists now only in my archives, so no link, I'm afraid.

5. Wire - 40 Versions

Schizophrenia writ large.

4. Frank Turner - Love Forty Down

Anyone for a tortured tennis metaphor?

Quite an amusing video though, once you realise Frank is playing tennis against Jason Isbell.

3. Ocean Colour Scene - 40 Past Midnight

Yeah yeah yeah, say what you like about Ocean Colour Scene, but when they nailed it - they nailed it.

2. Robert Palmer - Top 40

Batley Bob goes Sinatra. Classic!

1. Mercury Rev - Opus 40

Swirling, majestic hippy-tastic nonsense. The Rev at their (almost) best. Trippy!



Phew. Definitely need 40 winks after all that. Luckily, next week's winner is a shoe-in... unless you know different.

10 comments:

  1. How about 'Hard Luck Story Number 39' by the Television Personalities?

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Primer mi carucha (Chevy '39)
    Going to El Monte Legion Stadium
    Pick up on my weesa (she is so divine)
    Helps me stealing hub caps
    Wasted all the time"

    The above are the opening lyrics to "Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague" by The Mothers Of Invention. The vocals are stupendous, especially Nelcy Walker's soprano voice backed by Ray Collins & Roy Estrada. This track led me to purchase "Cruising with Ruben & the Jets" - an earlier Mothers' album which has some of the best doo-wop songs ever recorded.


    From Bruce Springsteen's gorgeous "Valentine's Day", there's:

    "And that great jukebox out on Route 39"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Of course Spanish Bombs will not be featuring.........

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have nothing against the Clash... though I don't hold them in the same reverence as many other people do.

      Delete
  4. Douglas McLaren14 May 2019 at 16:59

    Darn. Got beaten to the Boss, which I am guessing is the "shoe-in". Oh well. Though Valentine's Day is (in my opinion) the better song, Springsteen's "Stand On It" is a rollickin' great-balls-of-fire b-side belter that also refers to Route 39.

    But a few other offerings as outside chances. For starters, there is last week's poster boys, UB40, with "Hold Your Position, Mk3". Not the biggest UB40 fan, but that one sits in the record collection. Lyrics mention "39 Acker Tree, Frontline"...not sure if that is an address or what?

    I feel I should mention Canada's Own Gordon Lightfoot again this week, as his offering for "40" went down fighting. The song "Drink Yer Glasses Empty". A typically Lightfoot song, semi-autobiographical I suppose given that he was in fact born in 1938, but timeless considering the world today:

    Better drink yer glasses empty now
    It's time to rise and shine
    There's one less cause in the world
    To be leaving for
    It was back in 39
    When I was one year old
    Sitting by the backyard fence
    And the world had turned so cold...

    Another one that actually sits in the collection since I picked up a vinyl copy at a charity shop, but I am not actually all that fond of myself (outside chance perhaps?) is World Party, "The Ballad of The Little Man". The Latin Teacher in me appreciates the Classical allusion in the lyrics, though:

    He's an animal but he thinks he's God
    Gets him mixed up with him
    And we're all at the mercy
    Of this little man within
    He was doing fine in 39
    Thank God he did not win
    He kept playing on his fiddle
    As he watched old Rome cave in...

    Alright, the most outside outside chance of all? Weird Al, "The Biggest Ball of Twine In Minnesota":

    Well, we crossed the state line about 6: 39
    And we saw the sign that said, "Twine Ball exit, fifty miles"
    Oh, the kids were so happy they started singing
    "99 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall" for the twenty-seventh time that day...

    It reminds me of my summer vacations as a kid. Every last one of them. And at least by mentioning in now it pre-empts its obvious chances of being a take-all winner in 12 weeks time when number 27 comes up.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Cure - 39

    White Stripes - Hotel Yorba
    "I said 39 times that I love you, to the beauty I had found"

    For the third and final time:
    AC/DC - Whole Lotta Rosie
    "42 39 56 - you could say she's got it all"

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Rol

    For next week, I would recommend:
    You're 39, You're Beautiful and You're Mine - Paul Kelly
    A beautiful ballad where Kelly shows that love songs don’t just have to be about the young ones…

    I suspect its going to be Queen’s week though.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rol - do you still check your account over at Zuckerberg's? There may be a message waiting there.

    ReplyDelete

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