Celebrity Jukebox #67: Brigitte Bardot (Part 1)

Of all the celebrities featured in the Jukebox since it began, Brigitte Bardot must surely be one with the most songs written about her. So much so, I've no chance of squeezing them all into one post.

It's ironic then that I know very little about Bardot beyond her iconography. Despite being quite the cinephile in my younger days, I'm not even sure I've ever seen one of her films. Clearly I need a crash course in Bardot. Let's see what I can learn from her many, many fans...

Let's start with another Wild Thing - Mr. Chip Taylor. He usually knows what he's talking about...

And the moving pictures move in sexy ways

These days

Son, lay low

Don't go...

To see Bardot

If I heed Chip's warning, this post won't go any further. 

Maybe I'll ask Chrissie Hynde...

When love walks in the room

Everybody stand up

Oh, it's good, good, good

Like Brigitte Bardot

The Pretenders - Message Of Love

Let's see what a Big Jessie thinks of Ms. B...

And if you use your...use your 'magination,

Baby, I dance jus' like Brigitte Bardot.

Joshua Kadison - Jus' Like Brigitte Bardot

Next, a California band who are obviously Francophiles...

Summer nights in Saint-Tropez

All the charlatans game play

I saw Brigitte Bardot

In a blue shuttered window

SSQ - I Saw Brigitte Bardot

What about old Grumpy Pants? What has he got to say for himself?

Well, my telephone rang it would not stop

It's President Kennedy callin' me up

He said, My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?

I said my friend, John, Brigitte Bardot!

Everyone's got an opinion on this lady - even the fleas!

Well, the doggie went to see a show

And there he saw Brigitte Bardot

The naughty flea said, "What a feast!

She really is a delicious beast."

Miriam Makeba - The Naughty Little Flea

From a Flea to a Fish...

The surgeon checks your plastic on the telephone

A Casio concerto entertains you while you hold

Your credit rating's good for a Madonna or a Bardot

A Dali or Picasso for his wall

Fish - Big Wedge

And what about the Ants?

What had passed the night before

Room 1206 on the floor

Beautiful, his Bardot

And though he's spoiled

She likes him so

Adam Ant - Montreal

And Lloyd, of course, loves his old movie stars...

Julie got a facelift you know she's only 33

Jesus, may I give thanks to Brigitte Bardot

Lloyd Cole - The Steady Slowing Down of the Heart

From Lloyd to Laurie...

Brigitte Bardot's toes

Turning the taps on the bubble bath

Carrie Fisher’s gold bikini

Diane Keaton’s laugh

Audrey Hepburn in her pyjamas

Anne in 'Day of Wrath’

Oh, they are nothing

Oh, they are nothing

But just Technicolor stills

Passing cinematic thrills

Oh, yeah, you are the one for whom I reserve chills

Laurie Shaw - Comparative Essay

...to Little Feat...

She used to model as a child

With Bardot's looks and Gigi's laughter

Enfant terrible creation

Of a sockless adman's mind

Little Feat - The Ingenue

Liz?

And I was pretending that I was in

A Galaxie 500 video

The stewardess came back and checked on my drink

In the last strings of sunlight, a Brigitte Bardot

'Cause I had on my headphones along with those eyes

That you get when your circumstance is movie-sized

Liz Phair - Stratford On Guy

Is that enough for today?

One more?

How about Mr. Gedge... and Terry de Castro?

You don't have to flirt with everyone just because you can

You're like Brigitte Bardot in 'And God Created Woman'

You know exactly what I mean

Your behavior borders on the obscene

In terms of jukebox tunes, Brigitte Bardot is the gift that keeps on giving.

More of these next week.

My Top Twenty Five of 2025 - The Last One!

I feel like I spend more time in these countdowns justifying my choices than actually talking about the records themselves. And here we are again...

1. Half Man Half Biscuit - All Asimov and No Fresh Air

I mean, what does it say about me that my favourite record of the year is one that starts like this...?

Horror Clowns are dickheads

You know it’s true

And if you’ve got a phobia of them

You’re a dickhead too

Chainsaw-wielding evil freaks who chase you through the station

Or just some boring no-accounts with poor imagination

I spent a lot of time justifying the fact that I chose their last album, The Voltarol Years, as my favourite album of 2022 because there was a newfound maturity and sensitivity to Nigel Blackwell's songwriting that lifted the band one step beyond the "comedy post-punk" label they've been saddled with their whole career. And they they come back with this...

Mother Mary, meek and mild, got lost at Farmaggedon

Toe-to-toe with Pennywise she kicked his fuzzy head in

But the thing with HMHB is, even when they're going for the straightforward gags, there's a subtlety to Blackwell's wordplay that lifts their lyrics into pure poetry. Brian Bilston would do well to study the Blackwell canon, because although Brian's record was an immediate hit that soon paled... All Asimov & No Fresh Air is an album I initially thought was going to be a bit disappointing (high expectations again), but its appeal just kept growing. 

Whenever I hear a news report of an avalanche involving British skiers

I listen in with interest in the hope that I might catch the name Ben Shephard

Layers, see. Like an onion. Not everything is obvious. The more you listen, the more it unveils new treats. Like the closing classic, Possible Side Effects, which starts with a typical HMHB celebrity assassination...

...I mean, come on - that was perfectly timed this year, wasn't it? But this song just gets better and better...
  

If I were a carpenter

I’d doubtless have a hammer

And I’d hammer in the morning

On the door of Alan Sugar

Alright mate, I’m just working on the property opposite, and I noticed you have a couple of slates that – oh, it’s you! Any road, I’ve got some tiles in the van if you want me to get up there. I’ve got a load of kiln-dried logs too if you’re interested. I’m thinking of sponsoring a gorilla at Bristol Zoo, what d’ya reckon? Do you need any face-cloths?

That's a comedy writing masterclass right there... but there's much more to it than that...

...because then it morphs into a love song, using the 1964 TV adaptation of Robinson Crusoe as a metaphor for heartbreak. I've never seen it, but I still appreciate the reference.

I still love you, Lucy Anne

And I’m not a rock

Nor am I an island

Try to picture, if you can

Robert Hoffmann

Scanning the horizon

Genius is a term oft-overused, etc. etc. etc...

That's the thing about Blackwell though - he's got so many ideas, he's not content to limit them to one per tune. Take Rawlplugs Of Yesteryear (Breaking The States), a song that is quite literally about the history of rawlplugs...

In the 1960s the jute fibre was replaced by a thermoplastic device

An improvement, doubtless, though nowhere near as romantic

...but also about a band desperately trying to write themselves a hit that will make their name in the US...

Breakin’ the USA

Breakin’ the USA

You’ve gotta press the flesh and tour the country wide

Breakin’ the USA

Breakin’ the USA

You’ve gotta get those college radio jocks onside

Jocks onside

The two ideas really shouldn't co-exist in the same ditty... yet Nigel makes their synergy seem effortless.

And when he does stick to just one idea, the results can be very special indeed. Like pitching the best ITV detective show ever over a frantic Legend Of Xanadu backing track...

Now McCalliog is a poultryman who walks many a mile

And he also does some admin work for Devon CID

But admin work is wasted on a man who has the gift

Nail crooks in minutes with

McCalliog and His Hens

 I could easily write about every song on this album, from the one that starts like this...

I saw Badly Drawn Boy in a badly parked car

With a badly grazed elbow

What can you do?

HMHB - Goodbye Sam, Hello Samaritans 

...to the one where Nigel challenges himself to use every rhyme in the dictionary for the word "yours"...

I’m still confined yet the spirit endures

We’re not entwined ‘cos you’re in The Azores

I’m way behind with my household chores

Ever designed to be on all fours

Going out of my mind trying to get into yours

Going out of my mind trying to get into yours

Don’t eat the rind if it’s covered in spores

I'm going out of my mind...

Can't find a link for that one - what the hell's wrong with the tube of you?

And I've not even mentioned the one I'm saving to post just before Saturday the 18th of April, 2026. Or the one that gives the album its title, about rival gardeners persecuting know-it-all science fiction author Isaac Asimov on his allotment. Or the typically Blackwellian character assassination of Jack's Been To The National, in which every line is a treasure...

That’s Jack

Back on track

Practising his golf swing

In the car park

F1 chat down the fairway

I dare say all is well in his world

Got property in Mobberley

Probably

Ridiculous gate

It’s all about salary

And playing to the gallery

He’s never heard of George Leigh-Mallory

On his phone at the lights

On his own most nights

You see he’s trying to win his wife back

She’s never coming back Jack

She took her stuff back

Take your shot Jack

Bile, spite, hatred and vitriol

That’s all she’s got left for you

And the Himalayan salt lamp

The Navajo headdress

We don’t care about

How much you can bench press

Out of bounds on the left

It’s a right old trail of tears

I don't know what it says about me that no other record as given me as much pleasure as this one in 2025. Perhaps I shouldn't care. I can't even pick a favourite track, but if you put a gun to my head, I'd probably choose the tale of the bloke who was made redundant and bought himself a ventriloquist's dummy that looked a bit like Pete Murphy. It even inspired me to write a comic strip, and I don't do much of that sort of thing anymore.

Happy New Year. I hope it's a better one than 2025, but as there'll be no new Half Man Half Biscuit album to console us, it's already looking like an uphill battle.

My Top 25 of 2025 #8

We're here. At last. The end of this nonsense. My top three albums of 2025.

At various points throughout the last couple of months, I considered naming each one of these my Album of the Year. They're each so different, there's no way to compare them... and choosing which one goes on top inevitably says more about me than it does about the record in question. Maybe the easiest thing to do would be to say they're all the top, in their own distinct way...

3. Panic Shack - Panic Shack

Panic Shack are four young women from Cardiff, and they sound like that on every song. There's a pop punk thing going on in the music, equal parts Ramones, Runaways and Donnas, with maybe a splash of Cerys, and not just because they're Welsh. 

Panic Shack - Pockets

When I started this countdown with Wet Leg at #25 (although actually it turned out to be #26... so strictly speaking, Wet Leg didn't even make this list), I said how much I'd been looking forward to their second album... and how disappointed I was that it wasn't half as much fun as their debut.

Panic Shack - We Need To Talk About Dennis

The fun came when I discovered Panic Shack, who in their own way are covering similar lyrical ground to Rhian Teasdale... but with a lot more self-awareness and without the lack of a vague whiff of misandry that's begun to seep into the Wet Leg ouvre. And if you're going to name your song after a TV personality (Davina McCall?) at least do it for a valid reason.

Panic Shack - Gok Wan

I've no idea what it's like to be a young woman in the 21st Century, I can hardly even manage being a middle-aged man right now, but Panic Shack provide a witty and endearing peek into their lives. The issues of body positivity (or negativity) - stick thin vs. large boobs - crops up in a couple of tunes, leery blokes obviously get a look in, and the tragedy of jeans without pockets is obviously a huge issue. Whatever the subject though, Panic Shack always remember to make it fun. If only Wet Leg could have done that.

2. James McMurtry - The Black Dog And The Wandering Boy

So the reason I didn't want to make Panic Shack my album of the year was purely that it stank of Old Man Trying To Sound Hip. The next two records then are far more what you'd expect... both from artists who have previously topped a year end chart too.  I don't think either of these albums is quite as good as their predecessor... but those records were career bests in my humble opinion, and it's very difficult to follow a career best with something even better, But - as discussed with Pulp - weight of expectation can be a killer.

Anyway, James McMurtry's latest. It's another cracker from the finest grizzled Americana storyteller or his generation... makes you wish he'd write a novel or two like his old man. He inhabits his characters so well, be they the jaded South Texas lawman who can't keep pace with modern times...

South Texas lawman, the work just ain't the same

Used to you could clock 'em good if they called you any names

Now he's up on charges for showin' 'em who's the boss

He reckons after Vietnam, we musta all gone soft

I used to be young

I used to understand

I used to be strong as any man

I used to be tough

Nobody bothered me

Now I've had about enough, this don't suit me

It don't suit me

James McMurtry - South Texas Lawman

...or the MAGA militia, weighed down by the chips on their shoulders...

Nowadays we're feelin' stressed

It's all for us and damn the rest

Tellin' each other have a blessed day

All camoed up and standin' tall

Buildin' bombs and border walls

As all collective conscience falls away

And they wave those stars and bars

Is that really who we are?

Sons of the second sons

Products of genocide

Polishin' up our guns

Payin' on double-wides

Sons of the peasantry

Tellin' ourselves we're free

Sons of the loyal serfs

Salt of the blessed Earth

In search of a savior

...or even a poor little grown-up puppet boy like Pinocchio, with all his innocence lost...

Pinocchio's in Vegas with his eye on the prize

He's a real boy now, his dick grows when he lies

But his face stays frozen like it's still made of wood

It displays no emotion as he cleans 'em out good

At that back room table most any Friday night

He don't even need the money, he's just in it out of spite

When the claims came to light, Pinocchio was blue

The lawyers had a field day, just like they always do

First, they tried to fleece him for a rainbow's worth of gold

He had to sue Walt Disney over copyright control

He got less than he wanted, more than they'd a-give

Both sides are bitter, both sides'll live

James McMurtry - Pinocchio in Vegas

Along the way, he tackles depression, old age and the state of America today with world weary wit and wisdom. He even has a word to say about 9/11...

Annie, what you doin' in Nebraska?

Does anybody know what's goin' on?

Annie, what you doin' in Nebraska?

Trade Center's gone, Trade Center's gone

I never thought much of the younger Bush

He never seemed to have a clue

He sat there smilin' with that children's book

While they decided what to do

No one could find him 'til that big blue plane

Set down at Offutt AFB

We've all seen worse now, but his name's still mud

For goin' down that rabbit hole while Arafat gave blood

OK, let's stop there shall we. 

There's one more record to go, but I might as well save it till tomorrow. 

What else am I going to do on New Year's Day?

Namesakes #170: The Go-Betweens

Another quick one for the space between Christmas and New Year, when everybody's got more important things to do than read blogs...

THE GO-BETWEENS #1

Hailing from Queens, New York, in 1965, these guys (who were mates with Dion) had a minor hit in the local charts with the single below…

The Go-Betweens – Have You For My Own

THE GO-BETWEENS #2

Brisbane’s finest, formed in 1977, led by the exemplary songwriting team of Robert Forster and Grant McLennan with top notch support from Lindy Morrison, Robert Vickers and Amanda Brown. McLennan’s death in 2006 brought the curtain down on the band for good, but Forster remains a strong solo voice to this day.

I’ve chosen their very first single because, basic though it is, it’s still one of my favourites.

The Go-Betweens – Lee Remick

THE GO-BETWEENS #3

Something to do with the German football team SV Darmstadt in the year 2000… perhaps a tribute album or some such? Google translate would only take me so far, although the song title translates as “Football can be so beautiful”… which I’ve yet to see any evidence for myself, but hey ho.

The Go Betweens - So schön kann Fussball sein

Not much to choose between this week - and a clear winner, surely?

We'll see...

My Top 25 of 2025 #7

Almost done!

I thank you for your patience during this difficult time... year end countdowns can be such a drag, can't they?

6. Manic Street Preachers – Critical Thinking

The best Manics album in some time is a strange beast, because with one notable exception, the best song are sung by Nicky Wire, not James Dean Bradfield, and to quote Ben...

Not really a fan of [Nicky's] voice. I mean, when you've got JDB, why ever would you let anyone else sing?

Manic Street Preachers - Critical Thinking

I've been trying to work out why Nicky would choose to croak so many of these songs himself, rather than letting James be his proxy voice as his usually the case. Maybe James is finding a full concert of belting them out is starting to put a strain on his vocal chords, so the band want a few Nicky tracks in their catalogue to give him the occasional break?

Manic Street Preachers - Hiding in Plain Sight

Or maybe these were a particularly personal batch of Wire lyrics, and he felt the only way the band could do them justice was if he stepped up to the mic?

Manic Street Preachers - OneManMilitia

Whatever the reason, the songs that Nicky gives to James (still the majority of the album) don't feel as personal or as raw... they feel more like standard Manics songs... with that one notable exception...

I've written about Dear Stephen previously, and I probably said everything I had to say about it in that post, but it's still one of my songs of the year. And it's not the only time the band steer into Smiths territory on this record. You'll hear a very Johnny Marr guitar sound on this track too...

5. Pulp – More

I've also written before about the perils of impossibly high expectations... but here's a prime example.

The first Pulp album in 24 years was a record I'd only ever dreamed of. A little context here - every Pulp album from the1993 compilation Intro to their final, Scott Walker-produced, unappreciated epic, We Love Life in 2001 - every one of them was my album of the year.

Pulp - The Hymn of the North

'93, '94, '95, '98, '01 - five years, five albums, nothing to touch any of them. The penultimate disc, This Is Hardcore, is also my favourite record of the 90s. So you see what an impossible task Jarvis, Nick, Candida and Mark had set themself by making a new Pulp record? Was it always doomed to be an ever-so-slight disappointment?

Pulp - Grown Ups

The crazy thing is, More gives you everything you could ever want from a Pulp record, starting with a wonderfully Jarvisian confession about why they went away, and why they chose now to come back.

Something stopped me dead in my tracks

I was heading for disaster and then I turned back

I was wrestling with a coat hanger, can you guess who won?

The universe shrugged, shrugged then moved on

Not a shaman, or a showman, ashamed I was selling the rights

I took a breather and decided not to ruin my life

I was conforming to a cosmic design, I was playing to type

Until I walked back to the garden of earthly delight

I was born to perform

It's a calling

I exist to do this

Shouting and pointing

No one can ever understand it

And no one will ever have the last word

Because it's not something you could ever say

So swivel

Far more of the wit and wisdom of Mr. Cocker is to follow, including the usual meditations on sex, death, growing old, grubby backstreets and old girlfriends who might have been the one...

Pulp - Tina

They even threw in a genuine pop hit... or it would have been a hit, if they'd released it three decades ago, when they originally wrote it...

More then, is a truly great comeback record. It's everything you could want from a Pulp record, and only a Pulp fan who was a complete idiot wouldn't make it his album of the year... but clearly I was expecting More.

 

4. Craig Finn – Always Been

Craig Finn - Fletcher's

By contrast, it's much easier to write about the new Craig Finn album. The main man from The Hold Steady always places towards the top of my countdown for his superior storytelling skills, creating heartfelt vignettes of the people who fall through the cracks. Always Been is no different.

Craig Finn - Bethany

What does make this one different though is that this time Craig enlisted Adam Granduciel and The War On Drugs to be his producer / backing band with the clearly intent of making a big 80s-sounding L.A. record. And they succeed on every level, crafting an album that shimmers in the heat haze like The Boys of Summer... with that unmistakable Craig Finn voice shining through the smog. 

Craig Finn - Luke & Leanna

I've always found The War On Drugs to be a very frustrating band - being a child of 80s American rock, I love the sound they make... but they never seem to have anything to say lyrically, so their records rarely catch with me. Here though, they're working with one of the premier lyricists of their generation, and the result is pure magic.   

Only three more to go...