If you're wondering why there was a photo of Stevie Wonder holding a camera available on the web of lies, apparently it comes from an old Saturday Night Live sketch in the 80s. Stevie was presumably a very good sport.
As to why it was featured here, well...
13-month-old baby, broke the looking glass Seven years of bad luck, the good thing is in your past When you believe in things that you don't understand Then you suffer Superstition ain't the way
Here are fifteen songs about good and bad luck superstitions...
Another conversation starter culled from Richard Herring's book Emergency Questions... and some songs I loosely linked to it.
18. Which celebrity would you like to stroke your hair as you die?
I think my go-to answer for this would usually be Kate Winslet. She has long been my celebrity crush, and the older she gets, the more I respect her attitudes to celebrity and being herself on screen.
To be honest though, I'm not sure I'd want Kate - or any other celebrity, for that matter - running her fingers through my hair. Especially if I was on my death bed. I mean, it's a bit late now, isn't it, love?
Maybe it'd be better to choose a celebrity who can calm me down in my final moments, rather than getting my heart rate up or leaving me feeling frustrated over lost opportunities.
So I did a quick google search on "Who is the most caring celebrity?" and the answers the AI generated included...
Oprah Winfrey
Dolly Parton
Beyoncé
Keanu Reeves
And do you know what? Of those guys, I think I'd choose Keanu. I feel like he'd be the one most likely to make me feel zen about my last moments on earth.
The biggest problem I have with this question is that I don't really like anybody touching my hair. Not because I'm precious about how it looks (I couldn't give a monkeys)... it's just: PERSONAL SPACE, DUDE! Still, I'm sure Keanu would respect that...
Roky Erickson's 13th Floor Elevators were an obvious choice to illustrate this week's edition of the Hot 100, though I could have also gone with short-lived indie also-rans Thirteen Senses.
(And for completeness' sake, the albums 13 by Teenage Fanclub & 13 by Blur were also suggested.)
Before we dive into the unluckiest edition of this feature to date... which is worrying, because none of us need any more bad luck at the moment... I just wanted to put a call out to our old pal Douglas McLaren in Canada. Not heard from you in a few weeks, Douglas, so I do hope you're OK. I'm presuming you're not still on the picket line given what's going on in the world right now, but I hope you're staying safe and well.
The same sentiment goes out to all regular readers and contributors of this feature. Let's hope we all make it through to Number One, and that things are starting to get back to normal by the time we get there...
Let's kick off with C this week, who treats us to some excellent '60s fuzz beat in the form of Swedish band The Renegades' song 'Thirteen Women'. If you check out the youtube video of the band larking about in a factory full of women it's nicely daft, and the length of the singer's hair at the time must have been outrageous! The Renegades - Thirteen Women
The weird thing is, I'd never heard of that song until C suggested it. But then, a couple of nights later, I heard this on the radio, from a few years earlier...
The same song, with a gender swap. Further research was required, and Lynchie pointed us back to both the Ann Margret version and the year 1954 when the tune was originally recorded by...
"This is a bizarre song which attempts to make light of the spectre of nuclear destruction. It appears to have been written in the wake of the explosion of the first hydrogen bomb, at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954, less than 10 years after the twin horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Beat that, everyone!
Y'know, that could very well have been the winner, were I actually in my record collection (it will be soon) and were there not one other suggestion that trumps it this week. But we'll get to that shortly.
Lynchie had one other suggestion this week, and it was a fine one too...
All of which brings us to this week's leftovers from my own collection, starting with the gentleman who won last week. Imagine if Chuck Berry came from Essex...
It just ain't fair I was put in that position Somebody left their keys in the ignition I saw the unlocked door and made my decision I just can't help myself
Regular readers might have exected this to be Number One. So did I. Then I remembered the two songs below. Still, this is bloody marvellous. Question though, Bruce fans... do you prefer the album version above... or the piano-heavy re-interpretation / original from Tracks? I'm torn. I reckon that version actually sounds more like Bruce, whereas the version included on The River is Bruce doing Dylan.
For the second time this week, Jarvis almost makes it to Number One... story of his life, I guess, considering Common People may well be the best Number Two ever. This song is perfection: makes you wonder what could be better, doesn't it?
We can't help it, we're so thick we can't think,
Can't think of anything but shit, sleep and drink.
Oh, and we like women;
"Up the women" we say,
And if we get lucky,
We might even meet some one day.
Mister, we just want your car,
'Cause we're taking a girl to the reservoir.
Oh, all the papers say,
It's a tragedy, but don't you want to come and see?
(Oh, and I'm very sorry, but I just couldn't find room for Roxette's Joyride. I know you were expecting it!)
1. Billy Bragg & Johnny Marr - Greetings To The New Brunette
Shirley stole today's top prize - Billy and Johnny were so good together, it makes you wonder if they'd have lasted longer and been even more cherished than Johnny and that other bloke. If only they'd made more music together...
Division One is a League (even I know that, and I know nothing about football).
People are human (well, some of them).
This is the Redknapp (formerly Nurding) I was referring to...
(You've no idea how long it took me to find a picture of her where she wasn't just in her underwear. About as long as it took me to find a picture of The Human League where Phil Oakey wasn't instantly recognisable.)
3. The desperate enemy of ladies hits ice. Not as short as you think!
Desperate Dan
Enemy = Foe
Lady = Girl (or Gel)
Ice = Berg
Not as short as you think?
Lynchie really didn't want to admit to knowing this one,,, but he couldn't resist nudging C towards the answer.
Don't blame me if listening to this song sends you into a diabetic coma. However, it reminds me of an extremely foolish, if not entirely regretted, dalliance when I was young and very, very stupid...
***Before I start this week's Top Ten: a plea for help.***
Last night, my blogroll disappeared from the sidebar of my site. I have no idea where it went, but all efforts to recover it have been in vain. I have tried my best to reconstruct it from memory (and via the blogroll of my old blog, Sunset Over Slawit, although many of those links are long gone now) but I'm sure there are many favourites I've forgotten. So if you know that I'm a reader of your blog and usually list it to the right... but you can't see it there now... please leave a reminder in the comments box. If you're a music blogger reading this site but I DON'T read your blog, it may be that I just don't know of its existence. Anyway, the same goes for you guys... just leave me a link and I'll add you to Rol's roll.
I calculate that this must be the last of my mathematical posts. It may well prove my last post ever after I'm laughed out of the blogosphere for one particular selection. But, hey: Irk The Musos!
Special mention to Joy Division... and Half Man Half Biscuit's superb "tribute", Joy Division Oven Gloves.
Psychedelic king and Soft Machine founder Ayers brings us a brief coda to his 1974 album The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories. It starts out with a simple bit of maths... and then goes quickly mental.
Surprisingly not the shortest record on this week's Top Ten though...
OK. Here we go. I make no bones about this: it is a truly awful record. But I would argue that's largely down to the production, by the three men responsible for the nadir of popular music in the late 80s. And yes, it's sung by a bloody soap opera star... although arguably one I've grown to have more respect for in his later years (I saw him in the stage version of Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds and he was excellent). The song itself - if you strip away all that awful production - stands up well as a decent enough pop song. If it'd been recorded 20 years earlier by The Supremes, it would be remembered now as a classic.
That said, I know: it's awful.
However.
I was 16 when it was released, and even though my musical tastes had moved well beyond teen-pop, something about this record (and a couple of other singles from the same album) appealed to my cheesy sense of fun. I remember singing along to it with a friend (who was a strict Smiths / Pet Shop Boys devotee) at the top of our voices on the school bus, ironically perhaps, but not caring about the embarrassment attached.
I didn't have to tell you this. I could have denied its existence in the playlist of my memory and clung onto my shreds of blogger cool, but no... honesty is the best policy. I often say on this blog that I do not believe in Guilty Pleasures and will shamelessly extol the virtues of Barry Manilow, the Bee Gees, Genesis, Bryan Adams, Taylor Swift, Elton John, Abba, Guns n Roses, Whitesnake, Lady Gaga, et al. where other bloggers fear to tread. I mean I draw the line at U2 and Michael Bolton, but that's about it. But this time, I fear I've just gone too far...
Perhaps I should consult Jez over at A History of Dubious Taste? If anyone will stick up for me here, it's got to be him...
I became momentarily obsessed with White Crosses, the album this (bonus) track comes from, a few years back. It took Against Me! into more anthemic, Green Day territory than their earlier, punkier recordings and proved a good sing-a-long, thump-the-steering wheel protest record.
I haven't really been paying much attention to the band's career since then, so I was interested to read that the lead singer, Laura Jane Grace (formerly Thomas James Gabel), recently revealed herself to be transgender, as chronicled in 2014's Against Me! album Transgender Dysphoria Blues. As I have a friend / former colleague who recently went through the same thing, I'm very interested in tracking that record down.
From First Band On The Moon, the album that broke The Cardigans onto the international stage (it's the one with Lovefool on!) this low key, bittersweet track puts Nina's vocals front and centre.
Not
actually a calculation of division, though it looks enough like one to
get it in here. The title is apparently an imaginary catalogue number
Alex Chilton and Chris Bell gave to an imaginary record on an imaginary
record label they threatened their real record label they might release
if they didn't get their skates on and put out their debut album. Less
than a minute in length, it's the final track on #1 Record, an homage to
Abbey Road era Beatles.
While Hal David and Elvis Costello were extremely different lyricists, both dealt in melancholia and wordplay. While never aiming to equal the Bacharach / David collaboration, 1998's Bacharach / Costello juxtaposition brought a new lease of life to both artists. It gave Costello the timeless melodies he'd been moving towards after years of feasting at the new wave, country, soul and alt-rock tables, and it afforded Bacharach the opportunity to write his first album of new songs in 21 years. Just beautiful.
And every night you ask yourself "What am I to do?" Can it be so hard to calculate? When three goes into two There`s nothing left over
1. Aimee Mann - One
OK, I owe this one to Martin because I really didn't have a Number One for this final Maths Top Ten until he suggested this a couple of weeks back... and we won't ever get a more perfect One than this One.
One is the loneliest number, much much worse than two
One is the number divided by two...
Of course, One is originally by Harry Nilsson, an artist whom I have a huge amount of time and respect for, and not only because he was Number One on the day I was born. But much as I love Harry's version, the divine Ms. Mann knocked this One out of the park when she recorded the soundtrack to Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia: a good film made great by its musical score.
Perhaps this Perfect One will make up for that Imperfect Nine... somehow, I doubt it.
So, it's Two Thousand Thirteen, or Twenty Thirteen, or Another Bloody Miserable Year... whatever you choose to call it. Thirteen's traditionally an unlucky number... but then again, considering the world was supposed to end in '12, we're already starting ahead of the game.
Happy New Year to you anyway - may 2013 bring you all your heart desires... or, at the very least, ten great songs with the number 13 in the title...
When the H-bomb goes off, Ann Margret finds herself the only girl in town... with 13 blokes in hot pursuit.
Uh, there were two men every morning
A-seein' that I was well fed
And believ-a you me, one sweetened my tea
While the other one a-buttered my bread
Simon Armitage and the Scaremongers recorded a song with the same title, but that was a tribute to a local Rugby League team... and sadly, it's not online anywhere for me to play it for you.
Obviously Pink remembers what it feels like to be 13 - she's hardly grown up since. If you're a 13 year old Pink fan, this will obviously offer you some comfort... good luck in growing up like your heroine though.
One of many classic Costello songs I fell in love with despite having zero idea what it was all about.
When nobody knows, she puts on secret clothes
And lies in her splendour for a picture opportunity
Cover up that bruise, put on patent leather shoes
Just stop playing that bad mood music
Dan Popplewell spends the majority of this song wishing he was still 13. And then he changes his mind...
Do you remember rounders on the top field? Playing 'three and in' in
your Dunlop Green Flash? Getting chucked in the park lake by the thick
lads on the way back from school? Actually when I think about it, when I
was 13 I was a deeply unpopular child... 13... Thank God I'm not 13...
1. Big Star - Thirteen
Alex Chilton, on the other hand, recaptures the crazy, confusing, combustible feeling of being a newly-heeled teenager with one of his most simple yet heart-wrenchingballads...
Won't you let me walk you home from school?
Won't you let me meet you at the pool?
Maybe Friday I can
Get tickets for the dance
And I'll take you.
Those were my favourite 13 songs. Which one gives you triskaidekaphobia?
From the soundtrack to Highlander. As with Flash Gordon, Queen had a habit of recording soundtrack records that were far better than the movies they became attached to.
When I was 16, I thought this record ROCKED SO HARD. The video, however, is an exercise in restrained subtlety and minimalism.
But as stupendous as the video for 'Princes of the Universe' is, it cannot compete with the b-movie genius of 'Intergalactic', possibly the Beastie Boys' finest moment.
