My Top Ten Social Distancing Songs

 

Step back, please. As we all head back into lockdown, it's time to social distance in song...

10. The Police - Don't Stand So Close To Me

Let's start with the obvious one, eh?

All the girls in Mr. Sting's class fancied their teacher.

9. Hall & Oates - So Close

A mismatched romance, contained one of the great lyrical couplets to describe such an inequality...

He fell like a rock, 

She kinda liked him.

But as for being relevant to our current predicament, try this...

We believe in tomorrow, though we're stuck in today.

Baby we're so close, so close, yet so far away.

8. Dire Straits - So Far Away

I'm tired of bein' in love and bein' all alone

When you're so far away from me

I'm tired of makin' out on the telephone

'Cause you're so far away from me

Bonus track with the same title...

Stephen Duffy - So Far Away

When I was a young, young man

Back in the Twentieth Century

Well, you made your own amusements then

Flying to the moon

The benefit of hindsight

Is always black and white

There always were contrasting ways

To help you through the night

From bright morning star to morning sun

But they are so far away

That I won’t even ask them to stay

7. Richard Thompson - Keep Your Distance

Keep your distance, keep your distance

When I feel you close to me what can I do but fall

Keep your distance, oh keep your distance

With us it must be all or none at all

6. Suzanne Vega - Solitude Standing

Solitude stands in the doorway

And I'm struck once again by her black silhouette

By her long cool stare and her silence

I suddenly remember each time we've met

5. Astrid - Distance

Now that you're far away

I can feel the distance

They say it's only fresh air

But I can feel the distance

And the sun always shines

When you walk my way

Baby, I wonder

Is it sunny with you today?

4. Bruce Springsteen - You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)

Mess around and you'll end up in dutch, boy

3. Justin Currie - You Will Always Walk Alone

Lying asleep at night under the watching ceiling light

Safe in the fortress of your home

Remember you'll always walk alone

2. The Temptations - I Can't Get Next To You

I

Can turn the grey sky blue

I can make it rain, whenever I want it to, oh I

I can build a castle from a single grain of sand

I can make a ship sail, on dry land tell 'em yeah

But my life is incomplete and I'm so blue

'Cause I can't get next to you

1. The Georgia Satellites - Keep Your Hands To Yourself

Still one of the great unsung rock 'n' roll songs...

No hug-ee, no kiss-ee... glad I'm not dating in lockdown.

If you want to leave a suggestion in the comments box, make sure it's at least two metres from anyone else's.

Saturday Snapshots #106 - The Answers

I have a secret to tell
From my electrical well
It's a simple message and I'm leaving out the whistles and bells
So the room must listen to me
Filibuster vigilantly
Here are the answers to this week's Q-U-I-Z...


10. How far to Ipanema? It's I, not you.

Astrud Gilberto sang about The Girl from Ipanema, Replace the U in Astrud with an I.

How far? Some distance.

Astrid - Distance

9. Hello sunrise... is it because you're chillee, perhaps?

Shivaree - Goodnight Moon

8. Escape from Irish town, via Amitri.

Runaway from Shannon, with Del (Amitri).

Del Shannon - Runaway

7. Vole? Evol? Leo V? Arrrghh! (Somebody call for a pick-up.)

Are you hailing a van?

Van Halen - Why Can't This Be Love?

6. I won't be at the station, my sweet. The baby tickers have escaped!

Take the I from Station. my sweet?

Candi Staton - Young Hearts Run Free

5. Motionless distillery can get it on with anybody.

Motionless is still. So is a distillery

Stephen Stills - Love The One You're With

4. Debut snog for hard boy.

Kid Rock - First Kiss

3. Children of a Piper, a Borg and a Beatle.

Peter Piper. Bjorn Borg. John Lennon.

Children are young folk.

Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folks

2. Gyroscopic mortality in question.

Dead Or Alive - You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)

1. Adam's Dandies - Adam's Dandy.

Adam Ant was a Dandy Highwayman.

Nelson. Cash. Kristofferson. Jennings.

Jimmy Webb Is God.



Satisfy the Birdhouse In Your Soul with more Saturday Snapshots next week.

My Top Ten 5pm Songs

From 5 am to 5 pm. Let's blow this joint!


10. David Bowie - 5.15 The Angels Have Gone

Heathen isn't Dave's finest hour, but there are some pretty head-scratchingly intriguing songs on there. This is one of them.

9. Astrid - 5 O'Clock

What happens when you're already drunk by five o'clock: you start listening to Astrid.

8. Gang Of Four - 5.45

In which Jon King gets rather upset by the evening news...

How can I sit and eat my tea,
with all that blood flowing from the television?
At a quarter to six,
I watch the news,
Eating, eating all my food
As I sit watching the red spot
In the egg which looks like
All the blood you don`t see on the television.

7. Dolly Parton - 9 To 5

They just use your mind and never give you credit. Sound familiar?

See also The Kinks - Nine To Five. 

6. The Who - 5.15

Pete & Rog get out of their brain on the train home. Why should I care, why should I care?

5. Chris Isaak - 5:15

A controversial choice, putting this one ahead of The Who, but man... this recording is audio perfection.

4. The Supremes - 5.30 Plane

Post-Diana, Motown drafted in Jimmy Webb to work with The Supremes. Although the resulting album didn't set the charts alight, it contains some absolute gems. Let's face it: it's The Supremes and JIMMY WEBB. What's not to love?

How long have we been waiting for the light to change?
Long enough to know that green is dubious
Long enough to know that there's no sense to us
And the line is pretty long, yeah

Your starter for ten: name another song which features the word 'dubious' in its lyrics. (It is possible.)

3. Alan Jackson & Jimmy Buffett - It's Five O'Clock Somewhere

I think I covered this one well enough in my last post. However, in retrospect, the song below might have been even more appropriate for that story...

2. The Jam - (Just Who Is) The Five O'Clock Hero?

This is one of those Jam singles that I always forget... and forget how good it is.

From this window I've seen the whole world pass
From dawn to dusk I've heard the last laugh laughed
I've seen enough tears to wash away this street
I've heard wedding bells chime and a funeral march
When as one life finishes another one starts...

Alright then, love, so I'll be off now
It's back to the lunchbox and worker / management rows
There's gotta be more to this old life than this
Scrimping and saving and crossing off lists...

1. Julian Cope  - 5 O'Clock World

Originally recorded in 1965 by The Vogues and covered by any number of people since (The Proclaimers, Hal Ketchum, Bowling For Soup, David McCallum... sadly I can't find that last one online, so please help me out if you have it). However, it's Lord Julian of Cope who gives the definitive reading, rewriting the lyrics to include 80's nuclear war paranoia and mixing in a little Petula Clark along the way.

Genius.




Which one would you take home after work?