When I started the Celebrity Jukebox feature (and back then, it wasn't just for recently deceased stars), the idea was to measure a celebrity's fame or notoriety through the number of times they've popped up in pop lyrics.
With Brian Wilson, the cultural impact is beyond compare. Yes, you can hold up Elvis, or John Lennon maybe, Marilyn or James Dean, as icons who have had more songs written about them than Brian. But they were marquee names. Brian Wilson's marquee name was The Beach Boys. I haven't even looked to see how many songs there are that mention his band... but I'm betting there won't be as many as mention the man himself. What a legacy...
There were plenty more where they came from - as always, I listened to them so that you don't have to. And let's not forget the bands who took his name... although not in the best of taste sometimes. Still, fame is fame.
Best video today comes from Canadian musician Rich Aucoin. The title might seem inappropriate right now, until you realise the acronym stands for All Living Instantly Vanquish Everything. Which I can interpret as "Brian beats everyone" (even if he's dead)... though I'm happy to concede that might not have been Rich's interpretation. The video's a wonderful tribute to the life of the legend though.
These were just the songs that mention Brian in the title. There's a whole other post about lyrical name-drops... I bet you can hardly wait.
I wonder if the first time I ever heard the name Bert Kaempfert, it was in the lyrics of the big 1999 hit by Canadian tongue-in-cheek indie band Barenaked Ladies. Here, this week's Bert shares the limelight with other notable names such as Harrison Ford, LeAnn Rimes, Akira Kurosawa and Sting. You know you've arrived...!
(By the way, that song reached Number One on the US charts. Guess how long it spent there?)
Sadly, Bert K died 19 years before the Barenaked Ladies claimed, "Bert Kaempfert's got the mad hits", so he had no idea how much his name would live on. But what were the "mad hits" from this German orchestra leader, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, arranger, and composer?
Well, for one, here's a tune made famous by Wayne Newton in the States... though arguably made much more famous by one Ferris Bueller in 1986...
Those of you who are familiar with that movie (and if not, why not?) will recall that Ferris follows up with his take on The Beatles' version of Twist & Shout. And Bert K had his own Beatles connection, hiring the Fab Four to back Tony Sheridan in 1961 for their first commercially released recordings... which led to their discovery by Brian Epstein.
Mad hits indeed. But perhaps the maddest of them all was probably my dad's favourite song. Whenever I hear this tune, written by Bert K, I can hear my dad whistling it in his workshop.
The lyrics were added later by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder, and it became a huge hit for old blue eyes... even though he called it "a piece of shit" and "the worst fucking song that I have ever heard." The Chairman thought it was about a love affair between two men, you see. Unthinkable!
Although Bert Kaempfert is still credited as the composer, a number of other interested parties would later claim ownership of this tune, though a Parisian judge decided in 1971 that there was no case for plagiarism because many songs were based on "similar constant factors".
Perhaps the greatest legacy of Strangers In The Night is that it gave Sinatra the opportunity to scat-sing "doo-be-doo-be-doo" as the record fades out... thereby giving a name to the world's best-loved ghost-chasing Great Dane...
Another month, another legend gone. Gordon Lightfoot may not be a household name in the UK, where his biggest hit barely scraped the Top 30, but he was loved and respected in his native Canada, in the US, and throughout the musical community, with everyone from Elvis to Dylan to Johnny Cash to Neil Young and Paul Weller singing his praises and covering his songs. My favourite Gordon Lightfoot composition is this one... though The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald comes a close second.
How does Gord (as he was billed on his earliest hits) fare on the jukebox? Well, unsurprisingly, he gets a lot of love from his fellow Canadians, starting with this guy...
She can wear high heels and flannel She can look sexy in a toque She likes snow storms and Gordon Lightfoot And if you're lucky she'll love you
Barrie is a city in Ontario, just north of Toronto. However, Barrie the band comes from Brooklyn, and here they are singing about Michigan.
You never change your clothes Cause denim fades so good Station wagon with the panel wood Gordon Lightfoot if I could Your summer love was all you knew There's nothing left to do But go crazy on you
Outside of Gordon's home country, we arrive first in L.A. where Rivers Cuomo of Weezer has written a terrific tune about some of his favourite artists... and Gordon is the first one he mentions.
Gordon Lightfoot Sang a song About a boat That sank in the lake
Mike Viola is a frequent collaborator of Panic! At The Disco, Jenny Lewis and Andrew Bird, among others. Here, he compiles a list of artists he'd "let in to a very secret club"...
Paul Kelly and the Messengers, Costello, Crowded House Squeeze before that Rolling Stone review that smoked them out The Clash, The Cars, The Who, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitch Graham Parker and the Figgs would definitely make the list
And, in an effort to make this blog more educational...
That's a Tres Leches cake. Looks like a heart attack waiting to happen.
Howe Gelb from Giant Sand always raises a smile when I hear his tunes... even if I haven't got a clue what he's singing about.
Feeling about the brotherhood has got me down and up To no good Feeling about the brotherhood has even got me sitting here Singing like Gordon Lightfoot
Plenty of songs mention the name Lightfoot in their title, not all of them are about the great man himself. I reckon these are though, one way or another...
It's back to Canada for today's final tune though, with a song that doesn't only pay tribute to Gordon Lightfoot... but also his backing band, including John Stockfish, Charlie McCoy and Red Shea...
And Lightfoot
Edwardian, suddenly striped
His hair blondish and poetic
He is less than vinyl perfect
His foot is a precise anchor for the husk and vibrance of his voice
He is the image of Alberta
The side street near Chicago
The grim beauty of Toronto
He is an artist
He is an artist
He is an artist painting Sistine masterpieces of pine and fur and backwoods
Still echoes long ago the winter night of black July and then the outcome
When The X-Files landed on TV in 1993, it was like they'd made a show just for me. Monsters, UFOs, conspiracy theories... and two leads with undeniable chemistry and a repressed "Will they / Won't they?" relationship. Yes, the show made a few mis-steps along the way, the big story arcs became more important than the (more entertaining) monster-of-the-week episodes, and the Noughties revival was a damp squib... but Mulder & Scully remain two of my favourite TV characters and I still own all the DVD boxsets even though I can watch it any time I want on Disney+.
The X-Files made a huge impact on popular culture, most memorably with The Barenaked Ladies...
Once you start searching for lyrical references to The X-Files, no one will ever find you again. So I gave up and started looking for Mulder and Scully... but even that proved an impossible task. Sifting through the hundreds of references in the hope of finding gold, I did discover that Golden Earring were still in the go in the 21st Century... which is as unbelievable as anything I ever saw in The X-Files.
When it came to picking today's winner, The Truth was definitely Out There. Of all the many, many songs that mention The X-Files, Cerys is definitely a case for Mulder and Scully (and I do love the way she sings "Scully").
Finally, stepping on the toes of Celebrity Jukebox ever so slightly, I couldn't leave today without mentioning this glorious tribute to X-Files star David Duchovny. As yet, nobody's written an equivalent song about Gillian Anderson... except in my head.
We arrive in the Cambridgeshire city of Peterborough this week, birthplace of Erasure's Andy Bell, Maxim Reality & Gizz Butt from The Prodigy, and Ashton Merrygold from JLS. Me neither.
One of my favourite Sheffield bands, The Long Blondes, wrote the following tune about Peterborough, which is never very far, they tell us, although they do conclude "I'd rather be in Sheffield than Peterborough".
Times Like These, we all need a little something to take our mind off the worries of the world. Hopefully Saturday Snapshots does that without throwing a Monkey Wrench into your weekend.
Thanks for playing as always - I think Rigid Digit just managed to steal the win from Lynchie this week, although Lynchie did try for an extra point for identifying Janet Jackson... but that was hardly difficult, was it? I'll give you half a point for cheek, Lynchie - but RD still takes it. Well done to Charity Chic for being first out of bed, though he guessed the wrong Jackson Browne song and nobody corrected him (my fault for not saying he was wrong, but I was busy yesterday watching the Solo movie... which is the first Star Wars film since the original trilogy that I'd happily watch again). Special thanks to Alyson for swooping in at the end of the day and cleaning up the one nobody got... which I'm sure Martin would have got if he hadn't been off doing something more interesting.
Anyway - the answers...
10. A stone rook, doomed to share Mick's nervous breakdown.
In chess, a stone rook would be a Hard Castle.
Mick Jagger (and the Stones) had a 19th Nervous Breakdown.
We lost a true genius yesterday. And I don't mean Jim Bowen. (Still, RIP, Jim. Any other day, I might have done a Bullseye Top Ten.)
I don't pretend to understand most of what Professor Stephen Hawkings wrote... but I'm glad he was writing it. Here are ten songs to mark his passing...
The theme tune to the sitcom The Big Bang Theory seems an appropriate track to begin with... especially since Stephen Hawking was a guest star on that show.
Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started, wait The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool Neanderthals developed tools We built a wall (we built the pyramids) Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries That all started with the big bang! Hey!
Personally, I think this is as close as the Manics ever got to writing a nonsense song. Professor Hawking was renowned for his sense of humour though, so he'd probably appreciate that.
Overjoyed, me and Stephen Hawking, we laugh We missed the sex revolution When we failed the physical
For a time, some people believed that the robotic vocals on this track from OK Computer(scientifically proven to be Radiohead's best album) were delivered by Stephen Hawking himself. Others believed it was just Thom Yorke speaking through a voice synthesizer to make him sound a little warmer and more human than usual. Turns out the former is closer to the truth: the vocals were actually delivered by Fred Cooper, the man who gave voice to Apple's voice synthesizing programme... the one that became most famous as the voice of Professor Hawking.
1. Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
The first song that occurred to me when I thought about doing this Top Ten is probably the one that has least to do with Professor Stephen Hawking... but it's still a tremendous noise.
Provide A Brief History of Your Suggestions in the comments, please.
There are, of course, hundreds of songs about magic and magic tricks, so I tried to specifically stick to songs that mention magicians in the title or specifically tell stories about magicians. So no Queen, Pilot, Lovin' Spoonful, ELO, Perry Como... or the Steve Miller Band. Not this time, anyway.
Special mentions to The Magicians and 4 or 5 Magicians (whose excellent Tom Waits Blues is worth tracking down if you can find it anywhere).
There is a grey area, a twilight zone, if you like, between the psychedelic wonder of Jefferson Airplane and the 80s radio conquering might of Starship. This is that strange hinterland, the coccoon phase, the metamorphosis. Tread carefully...
Should probably save this one from my Top Ten Hypnosis Songs... ah, sod it, I'll just run it again then too. If you haven't fallen under its spell in the first ten seconds, there's no hope for you.
It must be tough being a new band from Sheffield: you're instantly shouldered with the burden of being the next Arctic Monkeys, Pulp or Human League. Particularly if Steve LaMacq gets on your case.
The Crookes were cursed to fail in just such a way a few years back... and we've heard very little of them since. Shame, because this one was lovely.
If like me, you're tired of getting older, quicker, every day... CTW's song places the blame for our unhappiness squarely at the feet of that old robbing bastard with the hourglass.
The former Drive-By Trucker is enjoying unprecedented solo success at the moment - he won Artist, Song and Album of the Year at the American Music Awards recently for his latest album, Something More Than Free. Deservedly so, it's one of the best records I've heard in the past 12 months.
This is from his debut solo record, Sirens of the Ditch, and the magic was definitely there back then too...
And I am an orphan man but ain't we all? And I can make myself disappear I am an orphan man but ain't we all? And I could be somewhere worse than here...
I mentioned my love of Scroobius Pip over at A History of Dubious Taste recently and was pleased to hear that Jez agreed with me that (although, musically, Dan le Sac's beats weren't really our thing) Pip is a wordsmith par excellence.
The Magician's Assistant is the perfect example of that. It's a letter to an ex-girlfriend who may or may not have taken her own life, and it stops you in its tracks... if you can get past the whirling, blipping racket in the background. Which I can, easily. But I'd still rather have a guitar, piano and some real drums.
Barton Carroll is a new discovery... who's been hiding in my record collection for a good few years now. Maybe it's just me who does this, but I trip over so much music that interests me, from time to time I buy a record and don't get round to listening to it... for years. This is from his 2010 album Together You & I, which I must have bought soon after its release but only became hooked on a couple of months back.
Carroll's a bit of an enigma: he doesn't even have a wikipedia entry, so lazy bloggers like me can't summarise his discography with one easy click. It took me ages to work out whether he was American or British (he sounds like a Yank, but some of his songs employ a very English vernacular: at times he reminds me of Richard Thompson, but other times he sounds nothing like that). I can't even find out the identity of the female singer who duets with him here. I did discover that he's now giving this album away for free on his website, and I highly recommend you take the time to download... AND LISTEN... to it!
(Him) And I’ll buy you a dress and a big diamond ring (Her) And the vows that I conjure up won’t mean a thing But if you can lower that curtain and get me to sing (Him and Her) I’ll take the magic, black or white I couldn’t care less if it’s bona fide Since you and I know love’s a lie Let’s get on with the illusion
1. Prefab Sprout - The Old Magician
As time goes by, my appreciation for the last Prefab Sprout album, Crimson / Red, grows ever stronger. I love the early Sprout records, but this 2013 MASTERPIECE (let's not use that word lightly, fellow bloggers) is surely one of the most consistently excellent collections of songs released in the 21st Century. It confirms Paddy McAloon's place as a lyrical GENIUS (two-hyperboles-for-the-price-of-one, this week only).
The Old Magician works on two levels: as the story of an aging conjuror coming to terms with the fact that his best tricks are behind him... and as a metaphor for growng old itself. It's witty and heartbreaking at the same time, and it contains some of the best lines Paddy has ever written. I can't decide which is my favourite, but it's probably a toss up between the two highlighted below...
Lord have mercy and be kind
When our faculties unwind
Overlook the hat and gloves
The tired act that no-one loves There was a time we produced doves The old magician takes the stage
With sleight of hand he’ll disengage
As dignified as you’ll allow
He’ll take his last, his final bow He’s lost all his illusions now
Some time ago (well, 2+ years... my, how time flies) when I unveiled My Top Ten Carpentry Songs I fully intended to follow it up with songs devoted to other popular trades. Finally, I decided to have a go at electricians - but I wanted to avoid all the obvious Electric songs (Dreams / Friends / Avenue / Ladyland / Spanking of War Babies etc.) because they'll fit into their own post one day. So here, instead, are ten songs specifically about electricians... or about the things they deal with on a daily basis.
Special mention to Cliff Richard - Wired For Sound which is as close to a guilty pleasure as I get (considering how broad and cheesy these lists do sometimes go). I tried to find room for Sir Cliff here, but in the end I had to admit that it's a song more about speakers (tall ones and small ones - Cliff has no time for midi). The rollerskating video is always worth a look though...
Further special mentions to Elvis and George Harrison, both of whom (according to t'internet) started out as apprentice electricians before more successful careers beckoned...
Perhaps I should have gone with Gary Numan's original version, but I was always a huge fan of Bob Palmer's voice and I consider it a tragedy that he died as young as he did because I bet he could have gone on and on... as Numan himself has done.
Anyway, I Dream Of Wires is one of the few songs I know that actually mentions an electrician in its lyrics, though it actually tells of a completely "wireless" future wherein the "last electrician alive" looks back fondly on a world that was a little less alien...
We opened doors by thinking We went to sleep by dialing 'o' We drove to work by proxy I plugged my wife in, just for show
New ways, new ways I dream of wires
So I press 'c' for comfort I dream of wires, the old days
Other songs to mention electricians directly include Better Things by Massive Attack & Tracy Thorn (You say the magic's gone / Well, I'm not a magician / You say the spark's gone / Well get an electrician), Demystification by Zounds (My electronic shaver won't plug into the wall /
Now I can't go to the party, the electrician didn't call) and Nick Cave's amazing Babe, I'm On Fire. Oh, and this...
An artist whose solo work I only discovered quite recently, though he's been knocking around for years, working with the likes of PJ Harvey, Eels and Sparklehorse. KCE sounds like classic American alt-rock, so I was surprised to find out that Parish is actually from the UK (Yeovil), though I guess his lyrical slang ("nowt", "that bloke") should have given him away. A great song: made me go out and buy the album.
I have a curious relationship with Muse. I liked their early material very much and even went to see them playing live when they were just starting out (at The Leadmill, I think). Matt Bellamy spent most of the show with his back to the audience... and I never really recovered from that. (Believe it or not, I much preferred the support act. They were called Cold something. Cold...play? No idea what happened to them.)
A very emotive song, more so when you know that it's about the premature birth of lead Athlete Joel Pott's daughter and the life support system that kept her going.
I haven't made up my mind yet, but Slaves are definite contenders for the best new band of 2015. They've got the snotty punk appeal of early Supergrass, but a little more to say for themselves lyrically. They're just two lads from Kent (Laurie Vincent on guitar / bass and Isaac Holman on drums: they both sing) but they make a hell of a satisfying racket.
On first listen, the Sockets they sing about here appear to be the ones in your head rather than the ones an electrician would fix. The video suggests otherwise...
The Barenaked Ladies are a clever band - sometimes a little too clever - but this is the closest they ever got to capturing my heart as well as tickling my funny bone. Here, a whole town is infected with electricity thanks to a nearby Hydrofield (what the Canadians call a bunch of pylons, basically), making every resident into an amateur electrician.
I can put a spare bulb in my hand And light up my yard...
1. Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman
Longtime readers of my ramblings may have seen this one coming: but I'll be honest with you, when I started planning this post I hadn't even considered that a lineman was an electrician. Once I'd made the connection, it had to be Number One, for the sheer fact that it is the greatest song ever written (Jimmy Webb Is God) and, though there are many fine versions in existence, no one will ever top Glen's haunting and heartbreaking delivery. I could go on and on about what makes it so special (the way that the melody and the lyrics merge together to create a seamless jewel; the yearning romanticism and evocative imagery; "And I need you more than want you / And I want your for all time") but I've probably said it all elsewhere. Simply put, there is no finer recording and if I could make it Number One every week, I would.
Which one would you get to wire your house (for sound)?
I was pleased to discover that Stars are still together, recording and touring, since I've heard very little from them since this, from their excellent 2004 album Set Yourself On Fire. The First Five Times tells you about exactly what you think it's going to, right down to an old man watching from a tree. When you get to my age, you grab your thrills wherever you can.
Written by Ewan MacColl, recorded by everybody from Elvis and Johnny Cash to Celine Dion and the Stereophonics, but it's Roberta's version that beats them all... particularly for fans of Play Misty For Me.
1. Pulp - Do You Remember The First Time?
Jarvis can't remember a worse time.
Don't watch the video if you've had too much to drink tonight.
If it was your First Time, do leave a comment and introduce yourself.
