Snapshots #426: Cat Songs

Hey there, all you cool cats and kittens!

15. Take half a Diazepam and Relax for a year.

Diazepam = Valium. Half would be Vali. Frankie said Relax. A year is Four Seasons.

Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons – Rag Doll

14. Rubbish collecting Eagle and cancelled Sugar.

Dennis Eagle made dustbin wagons. Brown Sugar was cancelled.

Dennis Brown – Wolf & Leopards

13. Are We Okay? In a way.

"We Okay" was an anagram.

Wye Oak – Siamese

12. The very latest in henchmen.

Brand New Heavies - Sphynx

11. Conventionality belongs to yesterday at police high school.

"Conventionality belongs to yesterday" is from Grease, the high school being Rydell High, and this is a Bobby.

Bobby Rydell – The Alley Cat Song

10. Disregard the big ears on those nuns.

Corn has big ears. Disregard = shed.

The Cornshed Sisters - Ocelot Song

9. Boss visits A&E with genital chafing.

Bruce Cockburn – Wondering Where The Lions Are

8. Splits her time between Blur and Culture Club.

Blur and Culture Club.

Lulu - I'm A Tiger

7. Sorrow's native sons…

That's a line from a song by The Smiths. Which song?

Pretty Girls Make Graves – Wildcat 

6. Found in Orlando, Jackson and the biggest town in Wales.

Tony Orlando, Joe Jackson and Barry... White.

Tony Joe White – Jaguar Man

5. They have cube-shaped poo.

Apparently it's a fact.

The Wombats – Cheetah Tongue

4. Revolting peasant found in football pundit.

Shearwater – The Snow Leopard

3. Buffalo goes to Howard’s End.

Buffalo Tom... Howard Jones.

Tom Jones – What’s New, Pussycat?

2. Hannah dies as a result of mix-up.

"Hannah dies" was an anagram.

Nadine Shah - Club Cougar

1.  Horniest city looks in need of illumination.

"Horniest city" was an anagram. Illumination would come from an All Seeing I.

Tony Christie & The All Seeing I - Walk Like A Panther 

Join us for more of this twaddle next Saturday morning. It's more enjoyable than cleaning out the cat's litter tray.

Memory Mixtape #28: Mum's Driving

REM - Drive

Due to failing eyesight, my mum stopped driving more than twenty years ago. However, the stories about when she was a driver are the stuff of family legend. 

Adam & The Ants - Cartrouble

Obviously, there's the time she drove the wrong way down a one way street.

Mink Deville - One Way Street

And the time she almost drove me and my grandma (her mum) off a cliff. (They were arguing about which way to go. I was in the backseat, clinging on for deer life.)

Del Amitri - Driving With The Brakes On

And the time she drove over an open manhole from which a workman's head had been protruding a few seconds earlier. (Good job he ducked.)

Queen - Don't Lose Your Head

Perhaps most famous of all is the time that she stalled in the middle of roadworks and the policeman who was directing traffic got down on his knees in front of her car and put his hands together in prayer, begging her to move.

Shakin' Stevens - She Drives Me Crazy

We remember all these stories with good humour, even though our lives may have been at risk on one or more occasion... let's face it, none of us were wearing safety belts back then.

Deborah Harry - Buckle Up

What it's easy to forget though, is how much mum (and dad) drove me around, wherever I wanted to go, when I was a kid. Music lessons, band practice, comic marts in Leeds... we were reminiscing about the latter recently, about the time my mate Liam (who was notoriously car-sick) came with us, and when Liam started looking a bit queasy, Mum just handed him a paper bag and said, "do it in there". Or the time she went to pay for parking and the ticket machine started spitting out money. She shared it out between the two of us and we bought a few extra comics that day. 

Carter U.S.M. - The Young Offender's Mum

Then, when I started working in radio, Mum would get up early on a Saturday morning to drive me to Bradford in time for the 9am show I worked on... at least until I'd passed my driving test, which wasn't until I was 18, so she must have done it every Saturday for at least two years. One Saturday, I had a piano exam at the same time. I'd told the presenter I was working with that I was going to be half an hour late, but he'd forgotten, and in the pre-mobile phone era, there was no way of reminding him. Driving in, listening to the radio, we kept hearing him saying, "Where's Rol this morning? I've got nobody to answer my phones." Mum remembered that when she finally dropped me off and I sprinted into the studio, the first link she heard on her way home was, "Oh look, Rol's arrived... still wearing his pyjamas."

Justin Townes Earle - Call Ya Momma

These days, when I spent many of my weeknights and weekends ferrying Sam to a variety of sporting activities and pre-teen social engagements, I like to remind myself that I'm paying it forwards. Thanks, Mum.

The All Seeing I & Jarvis Cocker - Drive Safely Darlin' 

There's an obvious song to close today, but one that was over-played to the point that most people are sick to the back teeth of it. Never fear - Aimee Mann to the rescue!

Memory Mixtape #9: Learning To Drive

The lady above is Anne Hall, "one of England’s greatest rally drivers", and also the lady who taught me to drive in the early 90s (when she herself was in her 70s). I suspect my dad knew her and her husband through his time as a car auctioneer. As well as racing, she ran her own driving school, and taught many people in Huddersfield how to drive... carefully, not like a rally champion!

She was a tough but fair instructor and I loved my lessons. She got quite upset when I didn't pass first time - not at me, but at the examiner, who "didn't know what he was talking about".

But I knew why I failed first time. Halfway through the test, I pulled up at a big set of traffic lights in the centre of Huddersfield and glanced in my rear view mirror. A car pulled up behind me and I recognised it immediately... it was my mum. I could see her peering through the windscreen, trying to see if that was me in the car ahead. After that, my concentration was shot.

I'm not saying I blame my mum for failing first time... but I certainly don't blame the late Mrs. Hall.

Jarvis Cocker would have been an excellent driving instructor, had he not followed the pop star route. Here he is in collaboration with fellow-Sheffield noise-makers, The All-Seeing I, who I remember seeing live in the late 90s, around the time their album Pickled Eggs & Sherbert was released... although Jarvis was absent that night.

Saturday Snapshots #124 - The Answers

Faye hey - it's the answers!

Well done to C for getting up earlier than everybody else yesterday.


10. Thunder, and a westerly sunbeam, in chains.

Chain link + W ray...

Link Wray - Rumble

9. Flats, with external doors, down at the end of Lonely Street.

The Maisonettes - Heartbreak Avenue

8. Plaything brings sadness but longs for escape.

Toy... ah.

Toyah - I Want To Be Free

7. Global celebration in support of postmen.

World Party - Put The Message In The Box

6. Hey, O, 5xB... a brighter forecast.

Hey O BBBBB is an anagram.

Bobby Hebb - Sunny

Classic snare drum intro.

5. Not departed or gone, just rusting.

All the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone

They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on

Sisters of Mercy - This Corrosion

Hey now... hey now now!

4. When Elvis gets Jolie, he takes Paracetamol.

Elvis Presley + Angelina Jolie...

Angaleena Presley - Pain Pills

3. God watches auctioneers prowl.

God watches us with the All Seeing Eye.

Christie's is a famous Auction House.

Panthers prowl.

The All Seeing I & Tony Christie - Walk Like A Panther

(Written by Jarvis Cocker... though that quickly becomes apparent.)

2. Tidy up where the snow flies, with celebrity soft cheese.

The snow flies In The Ghetto.

Philadelphia make soft cheese.

The Philadelphia International All Stars - Let's Clean Up The Ghetto

You can no longer depend on the man downtown...

1. Don't stop the traffic.

For knowing that someone in this world

Feels as desperate as me...

Dun(go)away - there'll be more Saturday Snapshots next week.

My Top Ten Birthday Songs

Because it's March 19th, and I am 41 years old. I know, I don't look a day over 40. (Well, strictly speaking, I'm not. Until tomorrow.)


10. My Life Story - Birthday Suit

It's always a treat to find a Jake Shillingford b-side on youtube.

9. Spearmint - Happy Birthday, Girl

From Spearmint's wonderful Christmas album, Oklahoma, but allowed here because the girl in question's birthday is on Christmas Eve. Other than that, too good to miss out.

8. Trembling Blue Stars - Birthday Girl

Lovely.

7. Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach - Tears At The Birthday Party

From the best album Costello released in the past 20 years. But then, Burt Bacharach will do that for you.

6. The Cookies - I Want A Boy For My Birthday

Sorry, girls, I'm taken.

5. Eels - Let's Ruin Julie's Birthday

This is what happens when E doesn't get an invite to your party.

E, you're welcome at mine any time.

4. The Beatles - Birthday

Yeah, like they really needed the money that would be generated by writing a birthday song.

Still, great riff.

3. The All-Seeing I featuring Tony Christie - Happy Birthday, Nicola

Lyrics by Jarvis Cocker. Hence: brilliant.

2. The Smiths - Unhappy Birthday

If I wasn't superstitious, this could have been Number One. But do I honestly want to wish myself that?

I've come to wish you an unhappy birthday
'Cause you're evil
And you lie
And if you should die
I may feel slightly sad
(But I won't cry)

Thanks, Moz. I can always count on your for a card.

See also It's Not Your Birthday Anymore.

1. Stevie Wonder - Happy Birthday

Just before the tipping point where Stevie went from genius to goon. I Just Called To Say I Love You was still a few years off. Plus, it's a tribute to Martin Luther King, so extra point for that. Still, the 80s electric keyboard sounds very Casio. He should have stuck with a proper piano.


Those were my birthday songs. Which do you wish me?