Don't worry if you Drew a blank yesterday, here are the answers to our special 200th Anniversary edition of Saturday Snapshots. All the song titles were taken (or adapted) as band names by other artists...
31 Scars are the band I found to illustrate #31 in the Hot 100. What can I tell you about them? They like The Cranberries.
"Welcome back the songs with numbers thing!" said Lynchie.
To celebrate, I'd like to offer up Sin City written by Gram Parsons and performed by The Flying Burrito Brothers on the fab album "The Gilded Palace Of Sin". The chorus is:
This old earthquake's gonna leave me in the poor house
It seems like this whole town's insane
On the 31st floor a gold plated door
Won't keep out the Lord's burning rain
A fine tune, and one that featured on Saturday Snapshots a few weeks back, if I remember correctly. But not this week's winner.
"Good to see the return of the Hot 100, yes!" said C.
"Welcome back to the 100 - time for some more spurious suggestions. Thanks for giving back the opportunity for a dose of musical tourettes," said Rigid Digit.
"I too offer my welcome back and give my heartfelt thanks for bringing this series back to life," said Douglas. "I have, after all, been waiting months with baited breath to see if my Leroy Brown suggestion might finally have meant a first place finish! Missed by that much, once again."
Yeah, sorry about that, Douglas. Keep dreaming the dream.
A few great suggestions above that I would have made, and I am guessing Universal Soldier makes a strong finish. I would also have suggested Sin City, but in the spirit of offering something new and in keeping with the spirit of the musicians that seem to bring a winning touch round these parts, I will suggest the version by Billy Bragg, on the Talking With The Taxman About Poetry album.
I'd forgotten all about that.
As for unique and new suggestions, how about The Cure - So What?, from Three Imaginary Boys. It is a strange song, wherein Robert Smith, in the midst of a heartache breakup song, seems to be trying to sell us a cake decorating set. Not sure if that is a metaphor for something that eludes me, but in any case, the offer seems to be time-sensitive:
Order now
Allow twenty one days
For delivery
This offer closes
31st December 1979
I can't remember why, but that has featured on this blog before. It is gloriously mad.
Seems I missed my chance to get me one of them sets by close to 40 years.
You and me both.
And if that is too festive for you, perhaps a dead dog offered up by Mr Bruce Springsteen is more your fancy, in Reason To Believe off the delightful Nebraska album:
Seen a man standin' over a dead dog lyin' by the highway in a ditch
He's lookin' down kinda puzzled pokin' that dog with a stick
Got his car door flung open he's standin' out on Highway 31
Like if he stood there long enough that dog'd get up and run
Struck me kinda funny seem kinda funny sir to me
Yes, very funny indeed.
Another very good call, Douglas. Any other week... sadly I had another song in mind from the start this week. What was it? Well, it wasn't any of these...
However, first out of the gate this week was Charity Chic with a very fine suggestion from an artist I've long dallied with, every since I found her first album lounging in the chuck-out box at my former workplace. (What fools!)
All American Girl Carrie Underwood welcomes us to this week's answers - she's determined to stop Rol, Before He Cheats. Although she doesn't even know his Last Name.
(Look, I'm moving house in a week. Give me a break if the puns aren't up to standard. Also there is no suggestion here that I cheat when putting this quiz together. How would I even do that? Why would I even do that?)
Summer holidays are upon us, so I expect absentees over the next few weeks. Well done to Alyson for taking this week's early bird prize... and leaving some for others to crack!
10. Bodyline, perhaps? That's (how) to do it!
Bodyline was a cricketing scandal involving fast bowling.
Why Ben Gibbard's alt-indie-occasionally emo band from Washington DC decided to name themselves after a bizarre Elvis spoof by Neil Innes and Viv Stanshall's psych-comedy 60s band from that London is anybody's guess. The title itself seems strangely apt - tragic beauty filtered through an everyday lens being Gibbard's lyrical stock in trade. But then you listen to the actual song... which couldn't sound more different to the band DCFC if it was played solely on a Hawaiian nose-flute.
If you imagine Jeff's dad as the blueprint for a bunch of heartfelt indie romanticists led by Warrington's angelically voiced James Walsh, it sounds like a pretty good fit. Starsailor the song, however, is possibly the weirdest thing Buckley Sr. ever recorded. It's pretty far out there - certainly further out there than anything the Starsailor lads themselves have turned their minds to.
When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon. Don't turn on the lights, you can read their address by the moon. And you won't make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night: We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right, We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right.
Alternatively, don't turn on the lights because Andrew Eldritch is one scary melon farmer.
The band named after this song were little to get excited about, but as much as I like to rib good old Sir Thumbs Aloft, this is still one of his finest post-Beatles moments.
If you don't believe me, ask Alan Partridge. (That clip sadly not available on youtube.)
I'd sit alone and watch your light My only friend through teenage nights And everything I had to know I heard it on my radio
This song could pretty much be the story of my youth... and probably explains why I'm sat here at all hours of the night, after a long day at work, writing this blog now.
I'm guessing Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta must have had a very similar adolescence...(!)
If only Thom's band could record a record as joyously upbeat as the one that gave them their name... but I guess, if they did, they wouldn't be Radiohead.
There was a time when you could reliably predict an appearance by either Morrissey, Bruce, Jarvis or Billy on this blog at least once a week. You might soon add Fagen & Becker to that list.
Drink scotch whiskey all night long And die behind the wheel They got a name for the winners in the world I want a name when I lose They call Alabama 'The Crimson Tide' Call me 'Deacon Blues'!
Only a band with real Dignity could do justice to a name like that!
Steely Dan, of course, were named after one of William Burroughs' dildos. One day, I'll compile a list of bands named after dodgy sexual euphemisms... step forward 10cc and The Lovin' Spoonful. (Or did I blow my load with those two?)
It's not that long since I last featured this early Bowie classic, in my Top Ten Songs About Becoming A Parent. (Coincidentally, it made Number 2 in that list also.) The Brighton boys who took this name for their band never quite lived up to its potential... but that was a pretty tall order, so good on them for giving it a go.
1. The Smiths - Shakespeare's Sister
Another of Mozzer's playfully exuberant suicide anthems, with a cheeky nose-thumb to Billy Bragg thrown in...
I thought that if you had
An acoustic guitar
Then it meant that you were
A Protest Singer
Oh, I can smile about it now
But at the time it was terrible!
All of which led to some inspired pop-goth wonderment from a former Bananarama and Mrs. Dave Stewart way back in the Dawn of Time that was the early 90s. Of course, they misspelled Shakespear, but Big Willy was never too fussy over spelling anyway.
There are probably more bands named after Smiths or Morrissey lyrics than any other songwriter. See also Gene (Jeane), Panic! At the Disco, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Girl In A Coma, The Ordinary Boys (shudder!)...
All those song titles gave birth to stars. There's another Ten somewhere about bands named after lyrics (not titles) but we'll save those for another day. In the meantime, which one makes you want to change your name?
