Emergency Questions #3: Shit Hotel

Avi Vinocur - Shit Hotel

Tex Williams - The Night Miss Nancy Ann's Hotel for Single Girls Burned Down

Another one of Richard Herring's Emergency Questions to jump-start our Friday conversations...

What's the worst experience you've ever had in a hotel?

Unlike the Frequent Flyers and Another Holiday Already? types that read this blog, I don't spend a lot of time in hotel rooms. Louise isn't fond of hotels, so most of our family holidays are spent in rented cottages. Sam and I brave a Premier Inn once a year for our annual boy's getaway - he's a big fan of the All You Can Eat breakfast. Imagine his horrid during the post-covid year when we booked into a Travelodge that promised "breakfast included" to discover that it constituted a Kellogg's variety pack (random choice) and a carton of Kia Ora. Never again!

Northern Portrait - In An Empty Hotel

Big Pig - Big Hotel 

Is that the worst experience I've ever had in a hotel room then? Sam would certainly say so. And I'm not sure I can think of anything worse... no rats or cockroaches or views of the local rubbish dump. I'm sure you guys can help out with that though.

Conor Oberst - Empty Hotel By The Sea

Band Of Holy Joy - Empty Purse Found in Hotel Lobby

My only other vaguely relevant anecdote today is from a holiday with my sister and her family in my teenage years. This was either Jersey or Brittany... I can't remember which, but they were the only two holidays I went on with them. File this one under disconcerting...

The cottage must have had three bedrooms: one for my sister and her husband, one for their two kids (my eldest nephew is only four years younger than me) and one for me. I'd reached the age where it was no longer cool to go on holiday with my parents, but I wasn't old enough to go off on my own... and I never had mates who suggested a week in Ibiza (thank GOD). 

Anyway, I woke up one morning to discover that my pillow was missing. When I looked, it was over the other side of the room... wedged under the door, as though trying to stop someone or something getting in.  I hadn't done that myself (not consciously, at least) so I wondered then... and still wonder today... how that happened.

Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel

Chris Isaak - Blue Hotel

Musicians spend more time in hotel rooms than just about any other profession, except travelling salesmen and Ernie. Most of the time, they're not trashing them and throwing the TV out into the swimming pool (that's just Ernie)... instead, they just sit around writing miserable songs about life on the road...

The Ataris - My Hotel Year

Jimmy Buffett - This Hotel Room

The Kinks - Sitting In My Hotel

Elton John - Holiday Inn

Gordon Lightfoot - Hangdog Hotel Room

The most evocative of these doesn't mention the word hotel in its title, but it was the first track I thought of today. Anyone who's seen Lloyd Cole live in the last 25+ years will have heard him explain what a Spectra-Vision girl is...

Just another bunch of would be desperados
Failing to pace themselves against the grain
Strung out on semantics, Holiday-Inn vigilantes, 
Late night, early town
Am I supposed to sleep, here all alone
'Neath the shadow of the mini-bar, with the promise of a Spectra-Vision girl?

What's the worst experience you've ever had in a hotel?

Celebrity Jukebox #96: Jerry Springer

I should have featured the former Mayor of Cincinnati on the Celebrity Jukebox following his untimely demise back in April... but it seemed like too big a task. The name Jerry Springer has become synonymous with a certain kind of lowest common denominator trash TV, so it's an easy shorthand for songwriters to drop in if they want to diss the worst elements of society, the ones happy to air their soiled undergarments and then have a big ruck in front of millions, thereby fulfilling Andy Warhol's 15 minutes prophecy. But I think there was more to Jerry than all that - he started out as an adviser to Robert F. Kennedy, before becoming a lawyer and then a major public figure... he even considered running for President. And let's face it, he couldn't have done a worse job than the Orange Manchild. As for his notorious TV show, Jerry clearly had a sense of humour about the whole thing (unlike his loathsome UK counterpart, Jeremy Kyle), happy to join in when others were poking fun at it (and him), most notably in Richard Thomas & Stewart Lee's hilarious Jerry Springer: The Opera.

Here are some tunes which do the same thing...

Weird Al Yankovic - Jerry Springer

Let's face it, if you've reached the point where Weird Al does a song about you, immortality is guaranteed. Likewise another great Jerry...

Jerry Reed - The Jerry Springer Show

Even Polish rappers love him!

Guzior - Jerry Springer

Speaking of rappers, here's a guy who could easily have been a recurring guest on Jerry's show...

I strangle you to death then I choke you again
And break your fucking legs till your bones poke through your skin
You beef with me, I'mma even the score equally
Take you on Jerry Springer and beat your ass legally

Eminem - Role Model

"Partner is the "mature" effort of two best friends named Josée Caron and Lucy Niles. Together, with Rock as their trusty guide, they explore a variety of themes in an attempt to understand the meaning of life." Which must be one of the worst artist biogs I've ever read. Shame really, because they make a spendid racket, and tell cool stories too...

When I was a kid
I used to fake sick
Luckily, my mom and dad were
Pretty easy to trick

I was biding my time
Until the house was all mine
To do the one thing I really wanted to

Which was watching daytime TV
While there's no one home to watch me
I'm hanging out with Maury
He's doing a paternity test
Are you the father? Well, it's anybody's guess
And give me Jerry Springer
Judge Joe Brown, Judge Judy, and a TV dinner
I guess the best things in life come free
Like watching daytime TV

Partner - Daytime TV

Bret Michaels was the lead singer of Poison. Despite that, this made me chuckle...

One day Jack came over to apologize
He told me, my ex which is his new girlfriend was out every night
Jack said I think she's been cheating with my new friend Jim
Say you love her too bad cause now she loves him
Pulled a Jerry Springer on me now your outta luck
My new girlfriend thinks you all suck

Bret Michaels - Bittersweet

And here's someone who always makes me chuckle...

When you find out things about yourself
That you hadn't ought to know
When your grandma calls and books you
On the Jerry Springer show
And you find out you and your wife of ten years
Just might be related
Brother, life's not over it's just
Simply complicated

Jimmy Buffet - Simply Complicated

Did you know that Nik Kershaw is still in the go? Oh yes he is...

And very soon, before you know
You'll be "Jilted Romeo"
On some day time T.V. show
Like Jerry Springer's

Nik Kershaw - All Is Fair

There were many, many, many more lyrical mentions of Jerry Springer... but I'm trying to be a little more selective and only link to the ones I like, or I figure one of you guys might dig. Like this little beauty...

Eliza Carthy - Blood On My Boots

Today's winning tune comes from a band I was very into around the turn of the Millennium. Hard to believe it's nearly 25 years since this was released. It's a song in which the lead singer professes his love for the actress Claire Danes, named after the TV show that made her famous (though it also mentions her star-making turn opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet).

I went on Jerry Springer
To confess my love to you
You said I didn't have a chance
And there was nothing I could do
You told me I was crazy
And wished that I was dead.
You threw a chair right upside my head

My Top Ten Toaster Songs

So last week, Martin set me a challenge (perhaps jokingly) to see if I could come up with 10 songs featuring toasters. Well, I always like a challenge... here's the best I could pop up. No burnt offerings. Etc. Etc.



10. Streetband - Toast

Let's start with the obvious one to make things harder. Before he started laying his hat in the lap of the common people, Paul Young was in a bunch of different bands (including Kat Kool & the Kool Cats and The Q-Tips). Some still consider this novelty b-side (flipped into a hit by Kenny Everett) to be his greatest moment.

See also Yeah, Toast!, which the internet claims is by Arcade Fire. I'm not sure I believe the internet though...

9.  The Ataris - Lately

Lately I've been thinking bout' stickin' my hand in a toaster...

...sings lead Atari Kris Rose on this track from the band's punky (if not Punky - that's #6) debut album from 1997. Woman problems, obviously. Sadly, the live version on t'internet doesn't do it justice.

8. Squeeze - Woman's World

Great female empowerment tune from the fourth Squeeze album, East Side Story, in which a housewife has enough of housework...

Press the button on the toaster, it's a woman's world
Tuck the sheets in on the bed, it's a woman's world
Take your apron from your holster, it's a woman's world
Shoot the crown off of your head, it's a woman's world

7. Tobin Sprout - Toaster

Sometime member of Robert Pollard's US indie band Guided By Voices, Tobin has also released a loaf of solo records over the years. This was his debut solo single from 1995.

Sadly the toaster in question is someone making a toast, rather than making toast. Still, it was the only song I could find that was actually called Toaster, so it deserved a place.

6. Simon & Garfunkel - Punky's Dilemma

Even when he was writing piffle, Paul Simon still made gold. This was submitted for The Graduate soundtrack but the producers rejected it - perhaps it was a bit too goofy for them, but it still sounds great to me. Somehow far less annoying than when Paul McCartney wrote the same kind of nonsense...

Wish I was an English muffin
‘Bout to make the most out of a toaster
I’d ease myself down
Comin’ up brown
I prefer boysenberry
More than any ordinary jam
I’m a “Citizens for Boysenberry Jam” fan

5. Don Henley - Sunset Grill

I wanted to include Henley's earlier song Long Way Home in which Don moans...

The heat don't work
The toaster don't work
The car don't work
And I guess I know why
This house don't work and this dream don't
Work no more
And lover, neither do you and I

...sadly, it's not available on youtube (not in this country, anyway), so I had to settle for using the grill... which, given the toaster isn't working, seemed like a viable option.

4. Bobby Bare - She's My Ever-Lovin' Machine

A delicious slice of whimsy written by cartoonist and children's author (not to mention the songwriter who gave Johnny Cash A Boy Named Sue and got Dr. Hook to call Sylvia's Mother) Shel Silverstein. When Bobby's girl leaves him for another man, he goes down to the cellar and cobbles together a mechanical replacement. You can guess the rest...

She always did what she was supposed to
Right up to this evening but then
She had an affair with a toaster
And they ran off and left me again.

See also Tim McGraw's What She Left Behind, in which Tim's lady buggers off and takes the toaster with her. Tim's not smart enough to build a replacement.

3. Crash Test Dummies - There Are Many Dangers

Some serious Health & Safety advice from the Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm dudes...

If your toast gets stuck in the toaster
Do not put a fork in the toaster while it is hooked up, or look out
I did and I got caught in the current
Pulled me in and shook me while it held me tight...

2. Carly Simon - Coming Around Again

A song about the frustrations of being a mother, particular if all Daddy does is breeze in every now and then and your toaster is constantly on the blink.

Pay the grocer
You fix the toaster
You kiss the host goodbye
Then you break a window
Burn the soufflé
Scream the lullaby

If you can get past the big hair and 80s power-drums, this is still a classic. If you can't, try this cool cover by Ash.

1. Grandaddy - Broken Household Appliance National Forest

Possibly Grandaddy's finest hour, an epic protest song about people dumping their old electrical appliances in areas of natural beauty. You might think that's not a fitting subject for a rock song, but if you ask me, it's a lot more relevant than anything Sting or U2 ever wrote.

Sit on the toaster like a rock
No need to worry about a shock
All of the microwaves are dead
Just like the salamander said
The refrigerators house the frogs
The conduit is the hollow log...

Which one is your pop tart?

My Top Ten Hot Summer Songs (Volume 1)

How bizarre has this weather been lately? It's July in the UK and the temperature is heading into the thirties. There's no rain. And everyone's complaining about the heat! Not a traditional British summer at all... who can remember the last time we had a sunny Glastonbury AND a red hot Wimbledon. It's like the mythical long hot summers of our youths...

Anyway, to celebrate here are ten songs about hot summers. Enjoy them while they last.



10. Sly & The Family Stone - Hot Fun In The Summertime

Very cool. AKA hot.

9. Glenn Frey - The Heat Is On

A good show-ow-ow-woah from Glenn... but he has to take second place to a fellow Eagle in the hot summer records.

8. The Hold Steady - Constructive Summer

Probably the least well-known song on this list, but it just fits. Perfectly.

(Plus, it rhymes "summer" with "Joe Strummer"...which guarantees it a place.)

Let this be our annual reminder that we could all be something bigger...

7. The Isley Brothers - Summer Breeze

Blowing through the jasmine in my mind...

Bloody hell, that's a great lyric.

6. Bryan Adams - Summer of '69

Leave Bryan Adams alone - his mum's from Huddersfield!

Oh, but when I look back now
Those summers seemed to last forever...

5. Billy Idol - Hot In The City

Any excuse to get your shirt off, eh, Billy?

I'm a chain 'round an A-bomb

Watch this video and try to tell me Billy Idol isn't a comedy genius. Just try.

4. Eddie Cochran - Summertime Blues

Well I'm a-gonna raise a fuss, I'm a gonna raise a holler...

After an opening line like that, how can any pop song fail?

3. The Lovin' Spoonful - Summer In The City

For many, many years, I thought John Sebastian was singing "'Til I'm weezin' like a bus stop" which I considered a beautiful line, even though the imagery was rather skewed. Imagine my disappointment to discover it's actually "'Til I'm weezin' at the bus stop". Never mind, it spoils this perfect pop record not one jot.

Love the Eels cover too.

2. Meat Loaf - You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)

Please be upstanding for the utter insanity that is the full, minute-long spoken word intro performed by Jim Steinman and Ellen Foley... after that, you wonder how Meat's song can ever live up to it. Amazingly, it does. If I could marry this record, I would.

I bet you say that to all the boys...

1. Don Henley - The Boys of Summer

Nothing says the summers of my teenage years like this song. Not that my own teenage years resembled those described by Don Henley one bit... but I could dream.

I can see you
Your brown skin shining in the sun
You got that top pulled down and that  radio on baby
And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
after the boys of summer have gone

I was always quite fond of The Ataris' cover version too. 


Hot damn, there are just too many great hot summer songs... ten barely scratches the surface. If the weather sticks, I'll come back with Volume 2 soon... your suggestions welcome, as always (though no guarantees I'll include them).

My Top Ten Chocolate Bar Songs

Ten songs about chocolate bars... well, they could be. I saved this one till Lent was over because I knew some of you were being good. 


Special mention to The Drifters, Aerosmith, The Mars Volta and, ahem,  Thom Yorkie. 


10. The Crookes - Two Drifters

Greedy buggers - one's not enough for you?

9. Thea Gilmore - Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?

Thea may be down on her luck but she still hankers after a crunchy butter-almond chocolate treat from Sweden.

8. The Ataris - I.O.U. One Galaxy

So that's about, what, 75p? I'll let you off, lads.

7. Baxter Drury - Picnic On The Edge

Ian's son prefers to eat his in dangerous situations. Suede aren't much better - they eat theirs By The Motorway.

6. Orchestral Manouvres In The Dark - Walking On The Milky Way

Seems a waste of a perfectly good sweet you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite

5. Animals That Swim - Kit Kats and Vinegar

Not the most appetizing of combinations, but apparently it helps their mate get off his head (on the cheap).

4. John Grant - Caramel

Or you may prefer the equally delicious Suzanne Vega song of the same title. Or Take It Easy by The Eagles, which must have been about the same thing. 

3. Half Man Half Biscuit - Dickie Davies Eyes

God, I could murder a Cadbury's Flake,
Then I guess you wouldn't let me into heaven.
Or maybe you would 'cause their adverts promote oral sex!

See also Flakes by The Mystery Jets (which made its way into my Top Ten Breakfast Menu Songs).

2. Heartless Bastards - Marathon

I know, they're not called Marathons anymore, they've not been called Marathons for years. But until someone writes a song as good as this one and calls it 'Snickers', they'll always be Marathons to me.

Not that I ever liked Marathons. I hate peanuts.

1. The Undertones - Mars Bar

Time to raid the Spar, Feargal Sharkey needs to work, rest and play. (Although he has had ten so far.)

To anybody out there who still eats Twix
Anybody on packets of Buttons
I gave them up when I was six
I hope your teeth are rotten

Genius. See also, Marz by John Grant, which might not specifically be about the chocolate bar... but does mention lots of other sweet treats.





Which one is your guilty pleasure?

My Top Ten Diary Songs

I never kept a diary. The closest I ever came was writing a blog. Sadly, I can find only one record about blogging. Scribbling down your life in a diary though... there's plenty to go at.



10. Bread - Diary

David Gates. Hugely unappreciated 70s songwriter. We should have more of him round these parts.

9. Pink - Dear Diary

Yes, Pink again, two Top Tens running. Have we not got over my Pink addiction yet? Really.

8.  The Ataris - In This Diary

Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up:
These are the best days of our lives.

Discuss.

7. Eels - Jeannie's Diary

I don't have a chance at writing the book
I just wanna be a page
In Jeannie's diary
One single page
In Jeannie's diary

New Eels album coming in February - yay!

6. The Kinks - My Diary

Sorry, Ray Davies's diary is too full to squeeze you in today.

5. The Real Tuesday Weld - The Day Before You Came

Written by Abba, a hit for Blancmange, but it's the Real Tuesday Weld version I can't get enough of. No actual diary in this song - but if the writer had kept one, his memory of the day in question might be a little better.

4. Yazoo - Nobody's Diary

Only in the 80s could a pop band have looked like Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke. One more reason I'm glad I grew up in this wonderful decade.

3. The Beautiful South - My Book

One of my favourite Beautiful South singles, yet one of their least successful. Heaton's on top lyrical form here... what a pity Soul II Soul felt the need to sue him for it for his "Back to bed, back to reality" refrain.

This is my life and this is how it reads
A documentary that nobody believes
Albert Steptoe in 'Gone with the Breeze'
Mother played by Peter Beardsley, father by John Cleese

2. The Bluetones - Solomon Bites The Worm

The Bluetones adapt the diary of one Solomon Grundy, esquire, for one of their greatest songs. It's a cracker. As Kevin Bacon says, doing his best Frank Carson impression on that advert. Now there's something I never thought I'd see...

1. ELO - The Diary of Horace Wimp

I found the story of Horace Wimp heartbreaking as a younger man. I could certainly empathize with his hopeless quest to find a significant other...

Wednesday. Horace met the girl. She was small and she was very pretty. 
He thought he was in love, he was afraid - uh oh. 
Thursday. Asked her for a date, the cafe down the street, tomorrow evening. 
His head was reeling, when she said yes, OK.

Those were the best entries in my diary. Which one do you keep padlocked under your pillow so your mum won't read it?