Somedays won't end ever And somedays pass on be I'll be working here forever, At least until I die, dammed if you do, dammed if you don't I'm supposed to get a raise week, you know damn well I won't.
Up every morning just to keep a job I gotta fight my way through the hustling mob Sounds of the city pounding in my brain While another day goes down the drain
Have to catch an early train, got to be to work by nine And if I had an aeroplane, I still couldn't make it on time 'Cause it takes me so long just to figure out what I'm gonna wear Blame it on the train, but the boss is already there
You got me forced to crack my lids in two I'm still stuck inside this rubber room I gotta punch the clock that leads the blind I'm just another gear in the assembly line
3. A beautiful French hive.
In French, their name means beautiful hive. (According to Google Translate, anyway. Ernie may tell us different.)
Welcome back to my weekly celebration of great song titles. Do the songs in question live up to their names? You decide...
1. Elvis Costello - Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)
We'll start with some Elvis, as he's pictured at the top of the page. There are those who will tell you that his 1991 album Mighty Like A Rose is where it all started to go south for Mr. McManus. I'm not one of them, maybe because I was in my prime-Costello phase when this was released and had just devoured all his earlier albums through the extensive re-issue series that was going on around then. He could do no wrong for me in 1991.
I did a big search of Elvis song titles before choosing this one (my computer tells me there are 1892 Costello-sung or Costello-written files in my hard drive, though a good number of those are duplicates). I could have gone with Tear Off Your Own Head (It's A Doll Revolution) (although I prefer the version by The Bangles), I Hope You're Happy Now (for its sheer, unadulterated spite) or even (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea)... among many others... but I chose this one because I like songs that cheerfully welcome the end of civilization.
2. Treat Her Right - I'm Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail
Mark Sandman is a somewhat legendary figure in American alt-rock circles, and not just because that's his real name. He was the lead singer of Morphine, who formed in 1989, but prior to that he was in a number of groups, including Treat Her Right, named after a song by Roy Head & The Traits.
One critic called Treat Her Right, "not quite a blues band, not exactly swamp trash and too stylized for basic rock'n'roll". I'm Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail is a two minute blast of wonder that makes sense of that whole description.
3. The Peppermint Rainbow - Will You Be Staying After Sunday?
The Peppermint Rainbow came from Baltimore in 1967 and looked like this...
I miss the days when pop groups could look like that and still sell records.
Will You Be Staying After Sunday? sold over a million copies, presumably to families who wanted to drop a subtle hint to annoying house guests that it might be time for them to bugger off home now, thanks. They followed with another equally grumpy single, presumably aimed at that same visitor, Don't Wake Me Up In The Morning, Michael.
Of course, this is sunshine pop, so it's not at all grumpy when you listen to it, but still, it appeals to the curmudgeon in me.
4. Clinic - IPC Sub-Editors Dictate Our Youth
The 1997 debut single from Liverpudlian post-punkers Clinic was a dig at the NME and the way they "try to set up scenes all the time, and people actually believe that, 'Oh, I should listen to this, just because it's in the NME.'". Which was very true in 1997, although the title obviously got Clinic some serious attention from that same music paper, because there's nothing music journos like more than having their egos massaged, even in a sarcastic way.
Clinic wore surgical masks on stage. I saw them live once at a festival, and I'll be honest, that's the only thing I remember. I hope they stopped wearing them after COVID when fashion finally caught up with them. Lead singer Ade Blackburn was also a bingo caller at the Regent Bingo Hall in Crosby. I wonder if he wore a mask there too?
5. The Lemon Twigs - Every Day Is The Worst Day Of My Life
We close today with Brian and Michael. No, not the Mancunian Lowry fans, but two brothers from Long Island called Brian and Michael D'Addario. Although they're only in their mid-20s, the brothers' favourite album is apparently Todd Rundgren's 1972 opus Something/Anything?, a very inconsistent recording if you ask me. I love large parts of it, but it really is all over the place... kinda like the Lemon Twigs themselves. When they're good though, they're great. And they had me as soon as I heard the title to the lead single from their latest release, Everything Harmony. Typically, the rest of the album can't hold a candle to it... Todd would be proud.
Only one band could illustrate the moment that Life Begins in our Hot 100 Countdown (even though, like Benjamin Button and the hero of Martin Amis's Time's Arrow, we're aging backwards). I was never s huge UB40 fan, and I prefer the Neil Diamond original of the above song to their hit version, but I always quite liked their famous "I'm a prima donna" mondegreen. (Apparently they sing "Ivory Madonna"... but I don't believe it for a second.)
...which is always welcome here because it features Leonard Nimoy in the video. And if you're wondering how The Bangles know what a UB40 is/was, they probably didn't. The original was by Katrina & The Waves.)
Anyway, as you can imagine, there were a hell of a lot of songs with the number 40 in the title. I'm not even getting onto lyrical nods this week, unless you guys specifically brought them up. Let's see how quickly we can rattle through the list...
Starting, as if often the case, with The Swede, who kicked us off with a serious contender...
Longtime readers will know that I've always got time for Jimmy B - I may even be a parrothead. As with many of Jimmy's songs, this one has a nautical theme... yet it also tackles the mid-life crisis in a beautiful way.
Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder
I'm an over-forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late
Ian McNabb does a pretty cool version of that too, but sadly I can't find it on the interweb and don't have time to upload it right now.
Onto The Swede's other fine suggestions, the last of which opens up a whole avenue of possibilities...
And now I shall hand you over to our Canadian correspondent, Douglas McLaren, making a welcome return this week with a whole bunch of fine suggestions...
I felt like I had to keep up the Canadian side once again when we hit 40. A fun one, for starters, is by Canada's (former) house band...
Then there is, of course, the granddaddy of Canadian folk rock, Gordon Lightfoot, who can teach you how to be an Auctioneer. And no, we don't actually have a forty-five dollar bill here in Canada.
Perhaps that's because the original came from the USA, Douglas (it's featured here before as my dad used to be an auctioneer when I was a boy).
From Canada we then journeyed halfway round the world to Australia, with another welcome
return from my old pal Deano who's just about to celebrate a rather relevant birthday. Remember, Deano - "life begins!" Cough cough.
He describes his first offering as "a silly, but oh so much fun, one hit wonder from New Zealand." Sounds perfect!
Next, "a Tasmanian-via California-via Nashville country singer
that I have really started to enjoy recently. She’s lived those forty
years (“I got battle scars around my eyes. I got old boyfriends with
bitchy wives. I look back and I wonder why.I’m forty.”) Sadly, she died
young after a cancer
Deano's final offering comes from a classic country songwriter: "In the process of discovering Tom
T Hall at the moment, and enjoying every moment of it. What a
songwriter. In this one, he talks about a funeral, and reflects on the
fact that the dead guy owed him $40."
All of which leaves me with just a handful of my own selections that nobody else mentioned, so I thought I'd make this post even longer by counting down my Top Five 40 Songs. I actually did a Top Ten 40 Songs seven years ago when I did turn 40 and three of these (as well as a bunch of your suggestions) featured there. That was on the old blog though which exists now only in my archives, so no link, I'm afraid.
I went to Liverpool yesterday for the first time in my life.
As it's unlikely I'll be going back anytime soon, I thought I'd feature it here today. There are, of course, far too many popular musicians who hail from the city to mention them all here. Suffice it to say that I was slightly disappointed that I didn't see any of them during my brief visit. I'd at least have expected to bump into Sir Thumbs Aloft, gurning at me from the top of the Liver building. Next time, I guess I'll have to go to the Mull of Kintyre.
There are also far too many songs that reference Liverpool in their lyrics to ever name them all here. At least I managed to get in and out of the city without once hearing Ferry Across The Mersey. I decided to restrict myself today to just songs in my collection that feature Liverpool in the title.
Curiously, two of the best ones are by American recording artists who probably only know the city because it's where dem Beatles come from. Dey doo dough, don't dey dough?
All of which leaves me with just two Liverpool songs by actual Liverpool artists... and fortunately, neither of them is by a Beatle. So let's have them both today...
Sad to say that I don't have that Little Jimmy Osmond song in my collection. I know, shame.
If you're Crazy In Love with Saturday Snapshots, time to see if we can Work It Out together. Check On It below...
(As part of my Aretha Tribute Weekend... which continues tomorrow... it seemed the right time to include Beyoncé, who surely owes her entire career to Aretha paving the way for her.)
Anyway, a full scale scrum took place yesterday morning just after 8.30 with Charity Chic, Lynchie, C - and even George (welcome back, George) fighting to see who could type their answers fastest. No, sorry, FBCB, there are no marks for neatness in the game... although I'm pretty sure you clinched the victory this week anyway. Alyson deserves credit for working out this week's stinkers - number 9 - a song I doubt anyone remembered (even I'd forgotten it) and number 3 (Martin or The Swede might have got that, but I seriously doubt it's in Alyson's record collection). Well done to you all, and thanks for playing as always...
10. Clashing with the cops... even though one of them was a cop - completely!
Clashing with the cops would be fighting with the law. Clashing because the Clash covered this song.
I'm going to have to stop using the police clue for Bobby after today... but it made more sense here than most times I've used it.
A Jamaican cooking pot / pan is called a Dutchie. This song was originally about drugs, but when this bunch covered it, they changed the lyrics so that it was about food instead. (Ironically, Dutchie then came to be drugs slang as a result.)
Babies would represent youth. Singed is a bad pun for musical AND burned.
This generation... rules de nation... with version!
2. Why stand on the Big Bad when you could be going on David Copperfield's rug?
Why step on a big bad wolf when you could be riding on a magic carpet? (Originally I wanted to make that Paul Daniels' rug, because that would have been funnier, but I didn't know how well he'd be known internationally.)
Martin did a post recently about music videos that stop the music unexpectedly half way through. There's a great example here, courtesy of Mr. Leonard Nimoy...
If I Were A Boy... or even a Naughty Girl... I'd come back here next Saturday for some Déjà Vu. See you then.
