If you appeared in The Godfather, even if it was a relatively small role, chances are that'll take top billing in your obituary. For me though, when I think of Robert Duvall, I think of the man who loved the smell of Napalm in the morning. Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore from Apocalypse Now.
And taking us back to a story I wrote about a couple of weeks back, Bob Duvall also played one of the most famous fictional characters to give his name to a 90s indie band in the 1962 adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird.
And in case you're wondering (as I did), he was no relation to Shelly Duvall from The Shining (although her Dad was called Robert). But he did star in the TV adaptation of Larry McMurtry's western Lonesome Dove... and that gives me an excuse to play another tune by Larry's son, James. And if they ever made a movie out of the song below, Robert Duvall would have been the perfect casting...
As George and Ernie are both out on manoeuvres, and because last week's bumper edition nearly finished me off, we're having a rest from Namesakes this week. All being well, it will return to bore you next Tuesday.
At the weekend, Louise and I went to see the new stage adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird. It was excellent. I've long been a fan of Aaron Sorkin's sparky, snappy dialogue, and he found some excellent ways to use the themes of the novel to say important (if ultimately futile) things about the state of America today. If it comes to your neck of the woods, I'd highly recommend going along to see it.
Here are some tunes related, in one way or another, to Harper Lee's famous novel...
American metal band 36 Crazyfists (named after a Jackie Chan movie) welcome us back to the Hot 100 countdown after a week's break. Let's get straight onto your suggestions...
Martin started us out with what may well seem the obvious one. Alyson seconded this and added a little extra commentary...
The song was written over 25 years ago but nothing seems to have changed, in
fact in anything things have got worse. Red haired singer Briana
Corrigan left the band because of it, feeling that the lyrics criticised
the glamour models rather than the industry that pays them.
What
are we doing to a large chunk of the female population who seem to
think the route to happiness and success is still via grossly enlarged
chesticles. Argh.... Sorry rant over!
No need to apologise, Alyson, you can rant here anytime you want.
To be honest, that was almost this week's winner as I used to love that song, but Mr. Heaton has done pretty well out of this countdown so far, so I decided to go in a different direction.
Ow, she's a brick house Well put-together, everybody knows This is how the story goes She knows she got everything That a woman needs to get a man, yeah, yeah How can she lose with the stuff she use 36 24 36, oh what a winning hand
Beyond
the gleeful 70s objectification of larger ladies, you can imagine
British DJs having to bite their tongue every time they played this
record so as not to add an extra word to the title.
How about a groovy foot-stomping early '60s instrumental from The Shadows - 36-24-36 (no idea what it's about though, a phone number
perhaps or a bank sort code?)
Did they have sort codes in the 60s?
Finally in this particular subsection, Bobby Bland knows a lady with similar dimensions...
Placebo - 36 Degrees (That would have taken the bronze medal this week from me.)
However, Lynchie, Charity Chic and Rigid Digit all agreed on this week's winning tune. Not that this is a democracy - your votes really don't count. Not unless I agree with them. (Insert your own comment about the current establishment here.) Luckily, I did agree... Jesus Of Cool is a great album!
Next week - the minimum age requirement to stand for election as President of the United States of America. Age requirement, not IQ. Any ideas for 35?
It's so funny how we don't talk anymore... until you want the answers to Saturday Snapshots. But you all did very well again this week, so... Congratulations!
I think Alyson took this one, though Chris & Walter both did sterling work on some of the tougher ones while Charity Chic kept the flag flying for his home country, Rigid Digit corrected Alyson (and himself) and C was happy with #3, which really should have been 7. Lynchie must have had a lie in this week...
Those of you with delicate dispositions may want to skip this post. I could try to sugar coat it, but... well, even sugar-coated, I don't think you'd like it.
Previously on Radio Songs: a devoted listener sent us a shoebox in the post with a label taped on it that read: My Thoughts On The Show. I asked you what you thought that box might contain...
And... well, either I made it too obvious, or you're all as depraved as our old listeners were...
The correct answer was poo. Not from a dog, either. This was human excrement.
Do you know what our initial reaction to that was?
I mean, after we'd gone "Eurrrrghhhh!", obviously.
The presenter and I saw sat there dumbfounded, staring at each other, and then... after a few moments... we asked the same question simultaneously.
How did the turd get in the box? (Glad to see that was the same question you guys were asking!)
Did this guy do his business in the toilet then fish it out, dry it off, and drop it into the shoebox?
Or did he crouch down over the shoebox in the first place and...?
Let's face it, you have to be pretty pissed off with a radio show to take a dump in a shoe box and post it to them. Correct postage too, which suggests he carefully carried his package to the post office to have it weighed and franked. That's dedication. Not cheap, sending a poo in the post either. He obviously wasn't afraid to invest both time and money in this particular enterprise...
Of course, he could have saved himself the effort by just turning off his radio or retuning to another station. In the end, that's the most powerful tool listeners have in effecting change in the media. Soon as the listening figures go down, that presenter will be shown the door. Vote with your ears, people - not your poo!
(In case you're wondering, yes, we did report this incident to the police. A nice policeman came down and took the shoebox away "for analysis". We never heard from him again.)
I think I should start reserving one place on every Top 10 for Iggy, even for his late 80s output which the cool kids will tell you is not all that good. If the song doesn't do it for you, take a look at this...
Anyone seen the movie Atomic Blonde? It's basically "What if Debbie Harry was James Bond?" They really should have found room for this in the soundtrack...
Although I'm young I got a job to do
Hid the microfilm in the lining of my shoe
Call it a business trip
Got to hide inside my trench coat and be clever
I got my papers and a cyanide pill
My Polaroid's a taser in disguise
There's a base in the hills
And the wheat fields looks like Kansas in November
Owes quite a lot to Daydream, a 1969 Belgian hit by The Wallace Collection (which in turn lifted its melody from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake) that also inspired I Monster's Daydream In Blue.
Listen to the bassline in this. Guess who played it. Only bloody Elvis!
Of course, it took me many years of therapy to get over the Shreddies version. I can smile about it now, but at the time it was terrible. Because of that, I still believe there's a line in the original about not liking toast and jam. (There isn't.)
You see... I dunno... I dunno how you could possibly listen to this and not think it's one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded. I mean, I'm sure you'll tell me otherwise and I'm a square for loving it, but I don't mind. It's hip to be square!
There are lots of songs that deal with fear... Don't Fear The Reaper, Fear of a Black Planet, Party Fears Two, The Pop Singer's Fear of the Pollen Count... but this week I want to look at songs that deal specifically with THE Fear.
What's interesting is that all these songs come from the last 20 years (pre- and post-millennial angst must be the driving factor). Be afraid... be very afraid...
Still the least annoying member of Blur, and pretty prolific as a solo artist. This is from his second album, way back in 2000, and it's obviously about being caught between Damon and Alex. What could be scarier?
Very popular with the young uns these days, and he certainly plays a mean guitar on this one. Not really sure he says anything to me about my life... but then, he was born in 1987*, so he's still a whippersnapper.
An ominous little angry-acoustic number from the main man of Deacon Blue, virtually impossible to find on the internet because of someone called Rick Ross who apparently is also rather popular with young people these days. The live version I tracked down is a little echoey, but at least you can hear Ricky's accent is still strong.
We'd all like to disappear every now and then. This is from Giant Steps, the album just before the Boo Radleys woke up the whole world (for fifteen minutes, anyway).
It's easy to pigeonhole Travis as the rather twee and jangly band they became, but there was a real edge to their first couple of albums, and I'd forgotten how much I liked this particular song from The Man Who.
And just in case you were wondering, they took their name from Harry Dean Stanton's character in Paris, Texas... not Bickle or Dave Lee.
The title almost disqualified it, but if you're familiar with the song at all you'll know that Ian is as obsessed with the definite article as any of the other songs on this list. Plis, if I was walking round Soho and a King Monkey came riding towards me, backwards, on a bicycle, I think I'd be pretty damned terrified.
It's weird when you consider that Doves started life as the (imho bloody awful) dance-pop combo Sub Sub. I far preferred Doves, and this was perhaps their finest moment - a Top 3 single that was deleted on the day of its release, meaning if you didn't buy it immediately, chances are you never got a copy.
If you're wondering what Doves fear, the video offers a few clues...
I heard Bob Harris play this among his usual mix of country, classic rock and Americana the other week... and it didn't stick out at all. Because like many other artists Bob plays (and unlike so much other contemporary pop music), Lily Allen actually has something to say in this song... and in her work in general. She may well be one of the most important pop stars we have in this country at the moment. With so much bland, anodyne and over-produced music clogging up what's left of the singles chart these days ("I was born in 1972, you know!"), it's great that Lily can still hit Number One with a song like this: a scathing indictment of contemporary society packed with wit, attitude and genuine pop hooks.
(*Lily was born in 1985, a much better year.)
1. Pulp - The Fear
This Is Hardcore remains my favourite album of the 90s. The opening track set the tone for the darkest Pulp record (which is saying something, if you've heard Freaks or Masters of The Universe), the one that marked the grubby death of Britpop just as Different Class had celebrated its heights. Radiohead had set the ball rolling a year earlier with OK Computer, but Pulp's wilful act of pop self-destruction was the audio equivalent of stage-invading Michael Jackson's messianic abyss at the Brits. Plus, at 26 years old, alone in a tiny one-up one-down hovel somewhere between the pylons and the motorway, this record really was the soundtrack to my life...
This is our Music from A Bachelors Den
- the sound of loneliness turned up to ten.
A horror soundtrack from a stagnant water-bed & it sounds just like this.
This is the sound of someone losing the plot -
making out that they're okay when they're not.
You're gonna like it, but not a lot & the chorus goes like this:
Extra points for quoting Paul Daniels there.
It's a weird thing, but I still think of the 90s as being within reaching distance... yet this was released 18 years ago now, and by then decade was almost done. When I realise that, I really do feel The Fear.
This post was originally called "My Top Ten Songs About American Authors"... but then I discovered a band called American Authors and thought that would be too confusing for their fans.
And naturally, this one's about American Writers because I'm saving Oscar Wilde and Willy Shakespeare for another day. Actually, Bill will probably get a Top Ten all his own. I'm relying on Deano to do a Top Ten Songs About Australian Writers in reply...
Let's start with the most successful American writer ever. No, I'm not joking. With an estimated 800 million books sold, no one else comes close. Not even Dan Brown(!)
Paul Heaton doesn't appear to be a fan though...
And even photo love
With its pages filled with sin
Couldn't lick the boots of the enemy within
It can only be a chapter
'till her heart will give in
The enemy within
Nothing is as phallic
As a moaning violin
To Danielle Steele
The enemy within
Although The Old Man & The Sea and For Whom The Bell Tolls are bloody good reads, neither are as insanely exciting as Hemingway's life story... you have to wonder how far Kenny Chesney will got to find inspiration?
Ah, it's tough out there, a good muse is hard to find Living one word to the next, one line at a time There's more to life than whiskey, there's more to words than rhyme Sometimes nothing works, sometimes nothing shines Like Hemingway's whiskey Sail away, sail away, three sheets to the wind Live hard, die hard, this one's for him...
Couldn't decide between these two so I called it a draw. Natalie Merchant's is the more direct, biographical take (love the opening where she feels sorry for Jack's mum) but the Go-Betweens capture some of the Beat spirit - with beats.
More critique than tribute, yet somehow perfectly fitting for the work and reputation of the writer in question...
Woke up this morning and it seemed to me, that every night turns out to be A little more like Bukowski. And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read. But, God, who'd wanna be? God, who'd wanna be such an asshole?
Lou recorded a double album of songs based on the writings of the master of the macbre, including a dark reworking of Perfect Day.
These are the stories of Edgar Allan Poe Not exactly the boy next door The diabolic image of the city and the sea The chaos and the carnage that reside deep within me Decapitations, poisonings, hellish not a bore You won't need 3D glasses to pass beyond this door
The top male author on my list (yes, equality fans, my top three songs are all about women writers!) is also one of my own personal favourites. Chandler struggled with his reputation as a "pulp" writer, desiring instead the recognition of a "serious" novelist. History has judged him far more fairly, with many critics now treating him with almost the same respect as Fitzgerald or Hemingway. Personally, I'd rather re-read Chandler than either of those, much as I enjoyed Gatsby and The Old Man & The Sea. There's something about the classic 40s L.A. noir of Philip Marlowe that provides perfect escapism... and Chandler's much funnier than any of his more revered contemporaries.
Robyn Hitchcock's tribute was quoted word for word in a famous sequence from Jim O'Barr's comic The Crow.
See also Raymond Chandler Said by Michael Anderson... if you can find it anywhere online.
As literary girlfriends go, Sylvia Plath strikes me as the sort of woman you'd fall for as a miserable teenager. Being much older than that, I'd steer well clear, no matter how much Ryan Adams might romanticise her...
A night on the town with Dorothy Parker, on the other hand, would surely be a blast (though she'd probably cut you down to size in the process). She even makes Prince take a bubble bath with his pants on. (That may be a euphemism... one, I'm sure, Ms. Parker would approve of.)
1. Little Green Cars - Harper Lee
I only recently discovered this band but I've fallen in love with this particular song and quite a few others from their debut album. If I had to describe them, I'd say they sounded like an Irish Fleet Foxes, though others might churlishly compare them with the Mumfords. Lyrically they're far more interesting than either, as demonstrated by their excellent "tribute" to the author of To Kill A Mockingbird.
I put mice in the kitchen to see if you’d kill them
Oh no, you let them live now there’s twelve thousand kids
Oh yeah, you let them breed now I’ve got mouths to feed
Oh yeah, you let them stay now they have taken my place
Oooh yeah, you left them alone now they’re eating our home...
Maybe that was the unpublished plot of Lee's second novel? She was probably right to quit while she was ahead... To Kill A Mockingbird has been an influence on more than one rock band, however... just ask the aforementioned Boo Radleys, for a start!
Songwriting is an art form, but some of its most famous artists are more well known for the songs they wrote for other people. Which is why there are no songs in this list about John Lennon, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, et al. Just in case you were wondering...
Someone will still suggest a song about Lennon, you can guarantee it.
This gets in because it's the only song I can think of to mention Cole Porter in its lyrics. (There must be more.) Plus it's much better than Dinner With Gershwin by Donna Summer.
Don't get me wrong: I like Donna Summer, but having watched the video for that, my eyeballs have been scorched by some awful 80s dancing.
Long before the rhinestone-collared shirts and treacly voice made him a household name, Neil Diamond was just a jobbing songwriter in the Brill Building. There he wrote I'm A Believer for The Monkees, among many other gems.
Jarvis pays homage to the Elusive Butterfly of 60s folk.
When you think you're treading water, but you're just learning how to drown.
And a song comes on the radio telling you that "The Only Way is Down".
You're out of luck, you're out of time, get out of here.
Your lover just traded you in for the very same model but a much more recent year.
It will not stop, it will get worse from day to day 'til you admit that you're a fuck-up; like the rest of us.
From one of the best albums of 2013; and their career. Being a bit dim, I didn't realise that this was written about Jimmy until Miller pointed it out to me.
His melodies inspire whims, his chord changes like Baptist hymns They lift your spirit til it soars, til you forget that spirit's yours Sound and word in sweet communion, echoes of a better world Where chivalry's not dead, we'll look for it instead in the songs of Danny Galway
No, Levi Stubbs wasn't a songwriter: he was the lead singer of The
Four Tops. Which is probably the only reason this track doesn't get to
Number One with a bullet... in most other Top Tens, Billy's
heartbreaking Motown tribute would be unstoppable.
Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong Are here to make right everything that's wrong Holland & Holland, Lamont Dozier too Are here to make it all OK with you
Ben & Nick pay tribute to one half of the classic Pomus/Shuman songwriting team. This song made me want to read more about Doc Pomus's life. Stricken by polio as a young boy, Pomus refused to be "one of those happy cripples", pouring his heartache directly into the hits...
And out they pour The hits and the misses 'Turn Me Loose', 'Lonely Avenue' And down in Nashville, Elvis sings 'Suspicion': Pomus / Shuman 1962
1. Rumer - P.F. Sloan
And so we return again, inevitably, to Jimmy Webb, with a classic example of his own songwriting, in tribute to a songwriting hero from his early days. Webb's recording of this record is beautiful... but Rumer took it to another level.
Yes, Jimmy Webb is god.
They wrote the songs that made the whole world sing. Which song gets you singing about songwriters?
