Mid-Life Crisis Songs #131: Got A New Car

My old car started making a noise. Not a very loud noise, but a noise I knew wasn't there before, and so I took it to the local friendly mechanic who diagnosed it as terminal. With 92,000 miles in the clock, it needed a new clutch, a new gearbox... who knows what else?

So I had to trade it in for a newer one. But while that was going on (never an enjoyable process - in fact, dealing with car salesmen is right up there with contracting Ebola or being stuck in an elevator with Donald Trump in my book), I still had to drive the old car to work every day (a round trip of 60-70 miles), hoping it didn't pack up completely. It was a very stressful couple of weeks.

Still, all over now. Until the next time.

Tom Petty - Mary's New Car

Rolling Stones - Brand New Car

Bag of Cans - Brand New Car

Gypsy - Brand New Car

Mungo Jerry - Brand New Car

None of those is really appropriate as I haven't (and probably never will) bought a brand new car. The one I've traded in for is 5 years old, and that's pretty new for me. So I'm going to settle for this...

Tyler Ballgame is my first name to watch of 2026. He's got a classy Roy Orbison vocal delivery (developed while singing Crying at Open Mic Nights), with nods to Harry Nilsson, Elvis, Macca and... well, a little bit of the old Father John Misty self-awareness. 

Sequel Songs #1: Two Pints Of Lager

Some time ago, I began making a list of songs which were sequels to earlier songs... occasionally by the artist who did the original, but often by a completely different act. Initially I thought this would make a good Saturday Snapshots, but as the list grew I realised it would be quite a tricky one... and there were far too many good tunes to waste on a throwaway edition of the quiz.

And so, devoid of much inspiration for ways to keep this blog going beyond the tent-pegs on Tuesday and Saturday, I thought I'd make Sequel Songs a series. Starting with Two Pints Of Lager... and a Packet of Crisps.

Of course, everyone here will know the original version by Kentish ambassadors of "punk pathetique", Splodgenessabounds...

   

You're probably also aware that the song inspired a long-running BBC sitcom starring Will Mellor, Sheridan Smith and Ralph Little. 

However, you may not have heard this sequel, released late last year by promising Norwich five-piece Bag of Cans.

Not being a drinker, I don't spend a lot of time in pubs these days (you're far more likely to find me in a coffee shop), but I still think this is a worthy update. Those of you more familiar with propping up a bar or two might find it painfully accurate...

Neverending Top Ten #5.6 – A Child Of Air

I heard Robert Louis Stephenson’s poem To Any Reader on the radio earlier this week. It’s a poem I think I originally encountered at University, when its meaning rather passed me by. Many years later, it hit me like a truck. I was in tears by the end of the recitation and I’ve cried a few more times since, on reading it… or even just thinking about it.

Being an English teacher, I’ve investigated a few online interpretations, but I’m not sure any of them really get the full force of the poem as I understand it. But that’s the thing with poetry: like a well written song, its ultimate meaning belongs to the listener (or reader).

TO ANY READER

As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far ways,
And in another garden, play.

But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear; he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.

For, long ago, truth to say,
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.

What gets me is that the poem is not just about the impermanence of youth. As a parent, the idea that Sam won’t always be my little boy playing football out in the garden is a huge enough one to cope with. But the poem doesn’t start with him. Through the use of the second person, it begins in my own childhood, with my mother watching me play. Therefore it’s a poem about me growing up, my mum growing old, and my son doing both, all in one. Three generations aging, losing the happy, innocent images of their youth, and only having ghostly memories to fall back on. When you interpret it that way, I think it must be one of the most quietly devastating poems ever written.

I don't have anything to match that musically, and I'm not even going to try. Instead, here's a song about not having enough money to go down the pub, but going anyway. Bag of Cans are from Norwich, like The Quiz Of The Week...