We were lucky that Sam and I had misaligned holidays this Easter, so while he's back at school this week, I'm still off... allowing Louise and I the rare luxury of getting away to the Peak District for a couple of days peace and quiet. (Sam is being looked after by appropriate adults, in case you're on the phone to Child Services.)
So this is what passes for our Honeymoon. Appropriate (and inappropriate) tunes will follow...
Louise and I celebrated the 20th anniversary of our first date back in February, but though we've been together through thick and thin since then, we've never got married. Neither of us are really a fan of the ceremony, the expense, or being forced into the limelight. If that's what you wanted, good on you, but it was never for us.
Today though, we're getting married. It's a small registry office thing in the Town Hall - me, Lou, Sam, her Mum and partner as witnesses. No big do. No suit or dress. Not even any rings. No expense... well, a little expense, but you can't do anything for free, can you? We're doing it for a very boring reason - inheritance tax, so that if one of us dies, the other one (and Sam) will be a little better off than if we'd not tied the knot. Who says romance is dead?
There were many times in my life I thought I'd never meet anyone who'd want to stay with me. Since we met, Louise has always been there for me... even when I've done her head in. You can't ask for more than that, I don't think. And if you think this is a particularly unsentimental post, well, all I can tell you is that Louise wouldn't thank me for writing anything soppy.
I'm really hoping Billy Idol might ride his motorbike through the Town Hall window, but I'm betting he'll be bleaching his hair today. Then again, neither of us will be wearing white.
I’ve been reading comics for almost fifty years now, and
many of the writers and artists who were around when my obsession began are no
longer with us. In the past few years, we’ve lost Stan Lee, John Romita, Jim
Shooter, Neal Adams, Keith Giffen and many more.
Sal Buscema, who died earlier this week, just two days shy of his 90th birthday, is one of the last of the original Marvel
artists to pass. By that, I guess I mean the artists who started out in the 60s. We
lost his older brother, John, almost a quarter of a decade ago. Maybe Sal was
always seen as working in his big brother’s shadow, but I preferred Sal's loser,
more dynamic style. He drew some of the first comics I ever read, and he drew some
of my all time favourite stories, particularly his lengthy team-up with writer J.M. DeMatteis on Spectacular Spider-Man in the 90s, a high water-mark for both storytellers.
Sal was a storyteller first and foremost. Unlike many of the
flashier artists who came later, you could read and follow the action Sal drew
without even needing word balloons or narration. His work had a sense of drama
and pace that many more stylised artists never achieve. He worked as a penciller and inker at Marvel
comics for almost fifty years, with only a brief spell at DC. In that time he
must have drawn every big Marvel character – Spider-Man, the Hulk, Captain
America, Thor, the Avengers… in my head, I can picture issues of all their
books, drawn by Sal.
And he was the first one to draw the Hulk’s love of beans.
Martin and Khayem already paid their respects to the late Donald Sutherland, and there's little I can add to their fine tributes... except a few songs that mention him by name. Starting with this fine tune from a band with a terrible name. Don't let that put you off.
Martin paid particular attention to one of Donald's finest roles - the 1978 remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatcher, as pictured at the top of the page. And here it is in a song...
They're Body-Snatchers. Life is imitating art now And Donald Sutherland, I guess I'm playing his part, now That everyone is out to get me
Over at Dubhead, Kayhem mentioned Donald's guest appearance in a Kate Bush video, in which he plays the part of German psychiatrist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich. Here's a little bit more about that dude...
Red fascists kicked him out of Oslo Donald Sutherland Portrayed him in a Kate Bush video Bitter love, preaching human dignity Wrote a book about Nazi sexuality
Apparently Donald initially refused to lower himself to taking part in a silly pop video... until Kate Bush turned up at door in person. And then he changed his mind. Can't imagine why...
I
believe I've passed the age of consciousness And
righteous rage I
found that just surviving was a noble fight I
once believed in causes too I
had my pointless point of view And
life went on no matter who was wrong or right
So far in this feature, I’ve looked in detail at all manner
of negative emotions, including sadness, anxiety, low self-esteem and paranoia.
But there’s one emotion I’ve danced around confronting face on, possibly
because it’s the one that scares me the most – in other people and in myself.
Anger.
Anger, can make you old
Yes it can
I said anger
Will make you sick children,
Anger - destroy your soul
I knew this was going to be a big one, and I knew it was
going to take some serious investigation to understand and… well, we’ll have to
see whether management is possible. That’ll come further down the line, I
guess. Let’s start with an attempt at understanding. And who better to help me
get to grips with this most unpleasant and destructive of emotions than our old
friend, sweary Dr. Faith? Her book Unfuck Your Brain certainly made my grey matter less opaque, so I
figured she might be able to offer similar insight with one of the follow-ups…
Almost straight away, Dr. Faith pointed me in another
direction, towards the work of Dr. R. Douglas Fields, a neuroscientist who
sought to find an answer to the anger inside him after he beat up a pickpocket
who tried to steal his wallet while he was on holiday in Barcelona. When I read
about his research, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this guy…
Since his creation in 1962, the Incredible Hulk has remained
one of the most consistently popular comic book characters because he appeals
to our most primal emotion: the desire to have a big tantrum and smash the shit
out of everything when life isn’t going our way. Unlike most other superheroes,
the Hulk doesn’t want to save the world, avenge the death of a loved one or
help those less powerful than he is. All he really wants is to be left alone.
As I tell my clients, “you are allowed to be crazy, but you aren’t allowed to act crazy. Being irritated as fuck
because someone jacked the parking spot you were waiting for? Totally legit.
Going postal over it? Not so helpful. Not so helpful to everyone around you,
not so helpful to greater society, and – for purely selfish reasons – not so
helpful to you.
As we've discussed in previous installments of this series, emotions are just the brain's way of sending us information designed to make us take action. However, our brains were designed for the primitive world - a world where everyone thought and spoke like Hulk, and fighting or fleeing were pretty much the only responses available if we were faced with saber-toothed tiger or another neanderthal from the tribe down the track who carried a bigger club. Sadly, we don't live in those times anymore, much as our brains might like to think we do...
Technology has evolved faster than humans, so we have
bodies adapted for simpler times. Instead of hunting, gathering, cuddling, and
napping, we are crossing more terrain on a daily basis, interacting with more
people, and taking in far more information than we are built to manage. It’s a
continuous overload.
How do we deal with that overload and stop Hulking out at every little thing that doesn't go our way? That's what I'm going to try to figure out over the next few weeks (though it could actually take months - there's a lot to digest). Because I don't want to be angry all the time, for the reason Bill Bixby explained in the simplest terms possible, back when I was a kid. "You won't like me when I'm angry." And we all want to be liked, right?
Most posts on this blog lately feature a load of different, spuriously-linked songs, and gone are the days when I'd write about any one song in detail. But I've been reading Jeff Tweedy's new book, World Within A Song, and I like the way each chapter focuses on just one track. Often he goes off on a ramble and the chapter ends up having very little to do with the track in question, but it still makes for a fascinating read.
So I thought I'd try something similar. A series in which I focus on one song per post (although inevitably, as below, I might end up mentioning others). I'm not sure I'll have anything remotely interesting to say, and I'm certainly no Jeff Tweedy, but I like to set myself little challenges to stop life getting too dull.
I'm starting at complete random with U Got The Look. It was the first Prince single I bought. Although it wasn't just Prince, was it? It was Sheena Easton too. And at that time, I was possibly more familiar with her than I was with Prince himself. I grew up on Radio 2, Tel and Ray Moore in the morning, Diddy David Hamilton and the mighty John Dunn after school. Back in 1980, when Sheena Easton released her debut single off the back of her appearance in Esther Rantzen's Big Time, Radio 2 was the only station I listened to.
Despite her Lanarkshire lass, Esther Rantzen & Radio 2 beginnings, Sheena ended up being a much bigger star on the other side of the pond. After her Bond theme, she pretty much gave up on the UK (or maybe we gave up on her), whereas in the States she had 15 Billboard Top 40 hits, seven of which made the Top 10. Over there, she's one of the best-selling British female vocalists of the 80s, and because she jumped effortlessly between genres, she is the only artist to have a Top 5 hit on each of Billboard's primary singles charts: the rechristened-to-avoid-Dolly-confusion "Morning Train (Nine to Five)" (Pop and Adult Contemporary), "We've Got Tonight" with Kenny Rogers (Country and Adult Contemporary) and "Sugar Walls" (R&B and Dance).
That last one was written specially for her by Prince, but it caused quite a stir when moral rights campaigner Tipper Gore (the American Mary Whitehouse) named and shamed it on her Filthy Fifteen - a list of songs so indecent that I had to go and make a playlist out of them immediately. I'm not suggesting Tipper did the same. She probably used a C60.
But we're not here to talk about Sheena, we're here to talk about U Got The Look. Back when Prince died, 8 years ago now, I cobbled together a list of my Top Ten Prince Songs, and put this at Number 3. I'm not sure I'd stand by that list now - Raspberry Beret would be much higher, for a start. And where was Little Red Corvette? Take Me With You? Kiss!?!
An impossible task. But my point is, I don't think U Got The Look is really up there with the very best Prince had to offer. To use a football analogy (has it come to this?), it's in the Championship, not the Premier League. But it gets extra points from me because it was my first, and we always remember our first, don't we, Prince? (It's hard to write about Prince without every other sentence becoming an innuendo. They just bounce off the tongue...)
Here's what I wrote back in 2016...
I was 15, and I thought Prince must surely be the king of chat-up lines...
Your face is jamming
Your body's heck-a-slamming
If love is good
Let's get to ramming
And they played that on the radio, and nobody batted an eyelid. Because it was Prince.
You know, listening back now, I think this is Prince's answer to Paradise By The Dashboard Light. (Maybe it's just the baseball metaphors.) The only difference being that Prince, unlike Meat 'n' Jim, didn't have to promise the earth to get his end away. Because he was Prince.
I'm not sure I recognise the comments about chat up lines above... they're obviously mine, but I must have been in a particularly bullish mood when I wrote them. The truth is, at the age of 15 I was terrified at the very idea of chatting anyone up, and I certainly wouldn't have used a line like that. But I think the point I was trying to make - very clumsily - is that Prince represented a kind of hyper-masculine sexuality without ever appearing macho or chauvinistic. I can't think of any other male rock star who's walked that tightrope so carefully. I'm not sure 'Men with a capital M' wanted to be him, but women definitely wanted to be with him.
Actually, there's a much better chat up line in U Got The Look than the one I mentioned above...
You got the look (you got the look) You must'a took (you must'a took) A whole hour just to make up your face, baby
Closin' time, ugly lights, everybody's inspected (Everybody's inspected) But you are a natural beauty unaffected (Unaffected) Did I say an hour? My face is red, I stand corrected (I stand corrected)
That's the bit in which Prince realises his chat up line could actually be taken as an insult, and then corrects himself. What a great piece of writing.
Despite the fact that Prince portrayed himself as sexually voracious in his lyrics, he did so with his tongue firmly in his cheek. There's a sense of humour to all these songs that more macho songwriters do not possess. Also, I'm not entirely sure that it wasn't all an act - when the hell did he get time to chat up, seduce and perform in the bedroom? The guy was a complete workaholic. Perhaps the truth is closer to how Bill Callahan imagined it...
Prince alone in the studio
It's two a.m. and all the girls are gone
The girls thought they were going to be able
To have sex with him
They wore their special underwear
Once the tracks were laid down
Prince's back turned around
Raspberry headphones on his head
On his ears
Prince alone in the studio
It's three a.m.
Prince hasn't eaten in eighteen hours
Dinner's burned on the stove
But Prince, he doesn't even know
Prince alone in the studio
It's four a.m.
And he finally gets that guitar track right
And it's better than anything any girl could ever give him
Actually, if you watch the video, that becomes even more likely... because the whole song is just a dream. It starts with Prince falling asleep in his dressing room, and ends with him waking up, looking sad, confused and alone.
I didn't know any of this when I was 15. All I knew was that Prince was cooler than any rock star I'd ever seen in my life. Three and a half decades later, that's still the case.
("Why are you bothering writing this? Nobody reads this blog and those who do don't want to read about your bloody mental health! You should delete the whole stupid thing and find something better to do with your time.")
Intrusive thoughts seem to come out of nowhere. These thoughts and images are unwanted and often unpleasant. The content can sometimes be aggressive or sexual, or you could suddenly think about a mistake or a worry.
You might feel distressed when this happens, but having an intrusive thought once in a while is a typical part of life.
In most cases, intrusive thoughts do not have any particular meaning. As long as you recognize that these are only thoughts, and you have no desire to act on them, intrusive thoughts are not harmful.
("For a start, you could get your own back on that guy who sent you the anonymous letter about your hedge. You know who he is. You know where he lives. Slash his caravan tyres. Put a brick through his patio door! At least smash one of his bloody gnomes!")
Some of the young people I work with aren't able to control their intrusive thoughts. That's why they end up with us. But working with them has given me a sense of perspective on my own intrusive thoughts. And how to combat them.
Who can know What happens in her mind? Did she come From a strange world And leave her mind behind? Her long lost sighs And her brightly coloured eyes Tell her story to the wind
Intrusive thoughts might tell us to punch that guy who pushes past us in the supermarket. They might tell us to ogle or make an inappropriate comment to a stranger we pass in the street. They might cause us sleepless nights worrying about things that probably won't ever happen. When things get really bad, they might make us want to hurt ourselves... or worse.
("What have you ever actually achieved in this world? You're such a waste of space. You'd be doing the world a favour...")
Matthew Jay died in 2003 after falling from his North London flat. An inquest returned an open verdict into his death, although his record company issued an initial statement saying, "his act would appear to have been an impulsive gesture following a professionally difficult year and perhaps, a difficult day".
Serious intrusive thoughts need to be treated with therapy or drugs, but for the rest of us... I reckon we can take steps to tackle them ourselves. Healthline advises...
A good step toward treating intrusive thoughts is recognizing what they are: just thoughts. You can learn to label them when they happen and recognize that thoughts are not the same as intent or behavior. This may help reduce the frequency or intensity of unwanted thoughts.
The Cynic reports... this does actually work. Say you're driving home from work and an Audi driver does what Audi drivers do. Intrusive thoughts will tell you to scream at him. (Actually, they might tell you to ram him off the road, but hopefully you're not yet at the stage where you follow through on that.) But if you counter the need to react like that by labeling the thought as intrusive, you immediately give yourself the power to challenge it.
That momentary pause can make a difference. I've started questioning my thoughts before I act on them. Is it common sense or nonsense? Jekyll or Hyde? Bruce Banner or The Hulk? Tyler Durden or The Narrator? It's a tiny step, but it gets easier the more you do it. I've forced far fewer Audis off the road in the last week or so...
("You just wasted an hour of your life writing this shit. I hope you're proud of yourself!"
Ah, but was it a waste? Don't I feel just ever so slightly better for having put all this down on virtual paper. Shut up, voice in my head. You don't know what you're talking about. If nothing else, it gave me the opportunity to finish with some Bruce, and that's always a good thing...)
Well, your honour, I do believe I'd be better off dead And if you can take a man's life for the thoughts that're in his head Then won't you sit back in that chair and think it over, judge, one more time? And let 'em shave off my hair and put me on that execution line
Mountain Goats mainman spent his lockdown watching action movies.
I'm coming to swat you down like flies
'Cause I got guys
Guys on every corner
This is the result: a visceral, pounding assault of guitar anthems with singalong choruses snatched from clichéd dialogue lines straight from the movies.
We're gonna need
We're gonna need more bandages
It's an album full of three minute revenge fantasies, but one that ultimately concludes that revenge is rather a pointless (if wholly satisfying, especially when experienced vicariously) way to carry on.
It's hard to judge Bill Callahan's records against anybody else's, since they dwell for me on an alternate plane of existence. Sometimes I find myself in a trance-like state when listening to Bill. His YTI⅃AƎЯ is strange, yet comforting. I'm not sure I can say any more. This is a beautiful record. I'll let proper reviewers try to explain to you what it's all about.
14. Del Amitri - Fatal Mistakes: Outtakes & B-Sides
The internet trolls tell me I shouldn't like Del Amitri. They're bland, apparently. So I certainly shouldn't like an album of "Outtakes & B-Sides", should I? Still. Irk the purists, and all that.
I thought this was every bit as strong as last year's comeback album. Where some hear bland, I hear biting cynicism, world weariness and mouth-watering misanthropy in Justin Currie's songs, from the chirpy "We're all going to hell" chorus of Happiness Is It to the weary wisdom of My Adulthood.
My adulthood is a masquerade I took
From the other adults that I knew
Little did I know, nobody ever grows
They just carry on as children do
Like I've carried all my adulthood
This thing I had to do
Suspend my adulthood, so every day I could
Be free from you
Hardly Coldplay, is it? And that's before we even get to This City Loves You Back, another worthy sequel to Nothing Ever Happens.
Beware, trolls - this is not the only B-sides collection you'll encounter in this countdown. And chances are, the next one will be even blander than this...
Following on from Friday's Lou Ferrigno post, here's his other half...
"Mr. McGee... don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
With all due respect to Lou, the true star of The Incredible Hulk TV show wasn't the big green guy with the muscles... it was his quieter, calmer alter ego, Dr. David Banner. Bill Bixby did the quiet man role masterfully, bottling up his rage until he just couldn't hold it in any more... and then, the pupils went wide. More than that though, he cut a truly tragic figure as a itinerant loner, doomed never to settle down. That was always the final shot of the show, Banner taking that long walk out of town, the emotion turned up to eleven with the help of Joe Hammell's heart-wrenching Lonely Man Theme.
The Incredible Hulk was actually Bill Bixby's fourth major TV role. He'd previously starred in the sitcoms My Favourite Martian and The Courtship of Eddie's Father, followed by the lead role as a crime-fighting conjurer in The Magician. But it was David Banner (changed from the comic book Bruce Banner as the producer didn't like alliterative names) that guaranteed his immortality. Nobody could make a walk out of town seem quite so devastating.
The fact that, at any second, Billy Bixby could go total Hulk on yo' ass endears him greatly to the rap community. As with Lou Ferrigno, he gets name-dropped by everyone from Ice Cube, Lil Wayne and P Diddy to De La Soul and Public Enemy.
And considering Prince's boss was called Mr. McGee in the track below, I'm betting the Purple One could well have turned Green... if he hadn't been a bit too leisurely.
However, right back at the beginning of this post (in the late 1970s), I proclaimed Bill Bixby the winner over his large green alter ego. And the reason for that is the tune below, a far better Bill Bixby song than any I could find that mentioned Lou Ferrigno.
Bill Bixby died of prostate cancer in the early 90s, but he lives on in my record collection thanks to another Bill, Mr. Callahan of Smog, a man who clearly appreciates the power of a slow stroll of out of town.
My electricity's been off most of the weekend after Storm Malik knocked over a power pole near our house and plunged us into darkness. This helpfully occurred on the very weekend Louise was going out with friends on Saturday night, and I'd been looking forward to having sole custody of the remote control. Instead, I spent the evening watching a tiny video on my phone in the cold, by candlelight, before the power briefly blipped back on, then it cut out again and stayed off for most of Sunday. It's amazing the things you take for granted, like heat and a kettle and warm food & water... I couldn't even do my ironing.
As I write this, late Sunday night, the power is back on... but Storm Corrie is currently raging outside. No offence to people called Malik or Corrie, but you'll know they've run out of names when Storm Rol rolls into town.
Bill 'Smog' Callahan and Bonnie Prince Billy made a record together late last year, and it's a huge 19 track affair with guest contributions from a bunch of other people, most of whom I've never heard of... though as long as Mr. Callahan is involved, I'm happy.
Here they are together with Bill Mackay and a sublime take on Steely Dan's Deacon Blues. The video clocks in at 4:50; the album version adds another two and a half minutes, but they could have carried on all day for me...
It's a cheesy old line, but Roger Taylor was onto something there. I've always listened to night time radio to help me through the long lonely hours, to stop my mind racing at 3am, to take comfort from music and a friendly voice.
A few years back though, radio was supplanted by streaming. Although there were a couple of shows I listened to, I found myself losing interest in a lot of night time radio (or my favourite old shows were one by one taken off the air and replaced by bland, airbrushed blah... i.e. Radio 2 over the past five to ten years.
Night time radio's a tricky one, because it can't be too loud. I loved Peel, but rarely listened to his show to calm my troubled mind or help me get to sleep. Because you never knew when he was going to play some screeching unlistenable toss to shake you out of your slumbers.
Recently, and largely due to the increased anxiety of these uncertain times, I've listened to a lot more radio. These are my favourite shows right now to keep me company through the wee small hours. Thanks to BBC Sounds (the iPlayer was better, but... progress), I can listen to any of these whenever I want. The majority are on the BBC purely because I can't listen to commercial radio. Don't even start me on the sorry state of that medium. I worked in it for 25 years and it breaks my heart what they've done to it. Besides, there's nothing relaxing about your late night radio being interrupted by an ad break. Take it from one who used to write the bloody things.
I record these here for posterity, for my own memories, to remind me of what gets me through the nights, as Mick used to sing. A sample track is given for each.
Only just discovered this because Chuck Prophet is one of the DJs. Free streaming country music. If you like that sort of thing. Which I increasingly do.
Only at number 9 because I don't really listen to them at night time. I do catch up with them on a weekend morning though, comfy as an old pair of slippers. Back in the day, Radcliffe meant as much to me as Peel did to an earlier generation. I'm glad he's still doing what he does best: wittering on the wireless. And Sam has liked Stuart Maconie ever since he won on Richard Osman's House of Games.
Stumbled across Ralph on BBC Radio Ulster and got rather addicted to his Country and Rock & Soul shows. Only an hour and a half (they've cut him down recently, which is a shame) but he's a similar age to me and even more addicted to music. Often does themed shows - last week he did 90 minutes of Otis Redding and other people singing Otis's songs. It was a bloody good listen.
Huey's early Saturday morning Radio 2 show is still an essential download. They took it off the air for a few months during lockdown and I really missed it. It's not as good as it used to be when he was on at 3am, or even midnight, and you can tell he's toned his act down in recent years to keep the Radio 2 bosses happy. But he's still a good radio friend, even though he breaks the "talking directly to you" DJ rule by continually addressing his listeners as "ladies and gentlemen". His 6Music show is also a good listen, but too loud for nights. His favourite Queen song is Dragon Attack and he plays it every three weeks or so. It's not one I care for that much, but I like that he gets away with it. Plus it's the place I first heard this beauty...
On Radio Scotland - which is basically what Radio 2 should be, and confirms for me once again that I have far more in common with my Scottish pals than many of my own countrymen. Roddy is a singer songwriter in his own right (he's played with Kris Kristofferson, so credit where it's due) and that's his bag on the radio. He likes a lot of the same obscure indie songwriters I dig, and has introduced me to a few new ones. Always worth dipping into.
The king of late night Scottish radio, though I never knew him when he was at his peak. Glad to have discovered him in the last few years though. Radio like it used to be. Plus his lyric quiz frequently gets me wracking my brains. I used to think I was pretty good with spotting lyrics...
Laidback Sunday afternoons, and the only 6music show that doesn't try too hard to be hip. Guy's natural northern delivery really does feel like a friend chatting to you in the pub. Now with added Simon Armitage, so what's not to love? (As Radcliffe always says.)
I used to get pissed off with pop stars becoming radio hosts... almost as though they were doing professional DJs out of their jobs. Thankfully, pop stars are now doing a great job of saving radio... and they generally get left alone to play what they want rather than having to conform to the shackles of playlists like Rex Bob Lowenstein did.
Anyway, Ricky Ross. The bloke out of Deacon Blue. Turns out he loooooves country music. And he knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff.
If you'd told me a few years ago that my favourite radio show would be presented by a woman from TV's Bargain Hunt, I'd have laughed in your face. But I am addicted to Natasha's Thursday evening Radio Scotland show... I usually listen to it on Friday and Saturday nights and to say it's a highlight of my week is really no overstatement.
I'm not sure I can explain why. Natasha is a good 15 years younger than me, unlike most of the presenters above who are either my age or older. And unlike a lot of the shows above, I reckon I usually know between 30 and 50% of the songs she plays. But no other presenter I can think of captures the eclecticism of Peel (without the loud bits - so perfect for my ageing ears), moving effortlessly from Television to Chicken Shack, Yo La Tengo to Can, Dawn Penn to Devo. I never know what she's going to play next, only that I'll like it. This is what radio should be. Long may she reign, the Queen of (my) late night radio...
Guest Post Thursday will return soon... otherwise, you might have to put up with more of this waffle.
I'm having a hard time finding anything positive to write about of late, which is adding to my blogging drought. Still, here's an excellent aid to the 3am woes, the latest album from Smog's Bill Callahan: a genuine spirit lifter. Not only has he written a song about the 1970s Incredible Hulk TV show*, but he also excels at the pithy lyrical couplet. Here's one example which will hopefully lift your spirits slightly too.
