Snapshots #454: Settlement Songs

Welcome to a list of 15 songs about places we might choose to make a home in...

15. Mourning turtles and dodos.

Doves - Kingdom Of Rust

14. Mimosa.

Those of you who enjoy a nice cocktail will know that a Mimosa is another name for...

Bucks Fizz - The Land Of Make Believe

13. Strictly - new meets half of old.

Those of you who like watching celebrities dance on TV may well be horrified to have learned that the new Strictly host is Josh Widdecombe. Not a patch on the former host, old Wink' (Claudia Winkelman).

Josh Wink - Higher State Of Consciousness 

12. Novel prize and contemporary currents, tripled.

Booker Prize. New berries. (Yes, currants are berries. I googled it.)

Booker Newbury III - Love Town

11. What's Ben's tomato worth, under the current exchange rate?

"Ben's tomato worth" was an anagram.

The Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic

10. Glaswegian Manga.

Urusei Yatsura - Strategic Hamlets

9. Stewart, Dean and Joyce.

James - Hymn From A Village

8. Hymn to making her doubt her own sanity.

Gaslighting is not big and not clever.

The Gaslight Anthem - Biloxi Parish

7. Not an imaginary hatchback.

No, it's a Real Estate!

Real Estate - Municipality

6. The first search engine found rhymes for campanologists.

The first search engine was (apparently) called Archie. 

Archie Bell & The Drells - Soul City Walk

5. Deliver them from email.

The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight 

...or you could have had...

The Postal Service - Brand New Colony

4. Swollen Cindy needs to unwind.

"Swollen Cindy" was an anagram.

Edwyn Collins - Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation

3. From Sunnydale to Martinique.

Buffy came from Sunnydale. Sainte Marie is in Martinique.

Buffy Sainte Marie - I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again

2. Oddities.

Space - Neighbourhood

1. Fancy pants in Ginger.

Kenny sang about Fancy Pants, with Ginger Rogers.

Kenny Rogers - Coward of the County

Come back to the Snapshots settlement next Saturday.

Saturday Snapshots #143 - The Answers

Welcome to the Hunger Games... because you're all hungry for the answers! So let's get going...



10. Where mustangs work out, near Coben's home.

(Ford) Mustangs work out at the gym.

The Coben was Harlan Coben. (I couldn't think of any other Harlans.)

Jim Ford - Harlan County

9. Wall, Hill & Baker. Power fantasies.

Wall, Hill and Baker are all famous streets.

The Streets - Weak Become Heroes

8. Dracos bread.

Dracos are flying lizards.

Bread is money.

The Flying Lizards - Money

7. When Bridget Jones leaves, via the sinister slope.

Bridget Jones was played by Renee Zellweger.

Sinister is left in Latin.

The Left Banke - Walk Away, Renee

6. Milo O'Shea isn't in 2D... but he could eat a horse.

Milo O'Shea played the character Dr. Durand Durand in Barbarella. Take two Ds away and you get...

Duran Duran - Hungry Like The Wolf

5. Beware - women with javelins live here! Winners drive home in their sports cars.

Fatima Whitbread was a champion javelin thrower.

Fatima Mansions - Only Losers Take The Bus

4. One notch in on the belt for Riverdale campanologist and doctors from hell.

Tighten that belt!

Riverdale is the home of Archie.

Campanologists ring bells.

Dr-Hell... "Dr'ell".

Archie Bell & The Drells - Tighten Up

3. Cyclone where the Boys meet the Boss, darling.

A cyclone is air curving round and round and round really fast. (Trust me, I'm a scientist.)

Backstreet Boys.

Bruce also sang about the Backstreets.

Curved Air - Backstreet Luv

2. Bloke who drives a modern taxi downs gin with a cherry.

A modern taxi is an Uber. (Don't ask me, I never liked taxis... you're not going to get me in a taxi driven by an amateur!)

Gin blossoms. Cherry blossoms.

Downs = falls.

Ooberman - Blossoms Falling

1. Aretha Bee Chesspiece... Graham Greene.

Aretha was the queen of soul.

Queen bee. 

Chess.

Graeme Greene wrote Brighton Rock.

More Joy... and a great deal of Mystique... next Saturday.

Kenny Wednesday #2 - The Gambler

No, we're not back to Kenny Rogers. Not yet. (Although The Gambler is a great song.)

Instead, for the second Kenny Wednesday, I bring you... Kenny G!

(No, not that one. Yet.)

2. Kenny Gamble

This Kenny was one half of the legendary songwriting partnership Gamble & Huff. Kenny & Leon (Huff) also formed Motown rival Philadelphia International Records and pioneered the Philly sound. They're the men responsible for many, many classic soul standards, including If You Don't Know Me By Now, Backstabbers, Me & Mrs. Jones, Show You The Way To Go and When Will I See You Again?

But there are two Gamble & Huff compositions which stand out above all others to me, and I really couldn't choose between them... so I'm going to play you both...

The first one reminds me of being a teenager, when I was neck-deep in my first full-on Motown phase. It also reminds me of a teenage crush, unrequited love... you know the sort of thing. But this was the song which could turn that around. The rules were all right there in the lyrics, I just had to follow them one step at a time...

I'm gonna do all the things for you
A girl wants a man to do, oh baby
I'll sacrifice for you
I'll even do wrong for you, oh baby
Every minute, every hour
I'm gonna shower
You with love and affection
Look out it's comin' in your direction...

The restraining order still stands, thirty years later.

And then there's this, which I discovered quite a bit later. A charidee record, released in 1977 when the New York City dustbin men went on strike... it led on to a lot more socially-conscious work for Gamble & Huff, putting their money back into regenerating parts of Philadelphia to really clean up the ghettos Gamble grew up around...





That really is an All-Star line up: Teddy Pendergrass, Archie Bell, Billy Paul, The O'Jays, Dee Dee Sharp... and the peerless Lou Rawls doing that incredible spoken intro.