Snapshots #456 - Songs About Seas & Oceans

This is Frank Ocean. His Uncle Billy appears below.

Here are some songs about Oceans and Seas...

15. Takes the lead in the Bossa Nova.

The Boss, obviously.

Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City

14. Some are trumpeters, others are mute... all are crazy.

The Wild Swans - Sea of Tranquility

Yeah, I know that one's on the moon. It's still a sea. Of a sort.

13. Ain't no stopping Eno now.

McFadden & Whitehead sang Ain't No Stopping Us Now. Brian was an Eno.

Brian McFadden - Irish Son

12. Seabird that is utterly wet.

Shearwater - Red Sea, Black Sea

11. Pretty bottom.

The Beautiful South - The Mediterranean (Morcheeba Mix)

10. Home for Top Dogs.

Where the Alpha Males hang out.

Alphaville - Big In Japan

9. Unique korma ingredient. 

Just in curry.

Justin Currie - The Dead Sea

8. I Wonder if Lowe and Heyward know her?

Stevie Wonder and two Nicks.

Stevie Nicks - Wide Sargasso Sea

7. Any game involving #5 would be this.

Coldplay - Yellow

6. There's a great distance between Henley and McLean.

Don Fardon - Indian Reservation 

Or even...

Don Fardon - Hudson Bay

5. All Right Now, it's Easy.

Free and EZ.

Freeez - Southern Freeez

4. Can you pick these guys up on your way home from work?

Dry Cleaning - Anna Calls From The Arctic

3. Where the drum machines make their home.

808 State - Pacific State

2. Show off your Aussie cookware.

Brag about your billycan.

Billy Bragg - North Sea Bubble

1. Cybil alone has the answer.

"Cybil alone" was an anagram.

Billy Ocean - Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run)

That had to be Number One today, didn't it?

Swim back for more next Saturday.

Snapshots #441 - Songs About Bodies Of Water

This is the late River Phoenix. I was going to put his picture up here yesterday, but I figured it'd make the link too easy. I have to be so careful with you guys. Instead, I went with Mr. Bragg because...

Billy Bragg - Body Of Water

Here are some more songs about that. Hope you can swim.

15. A Guy Named... Jarvis?

A Guy Named Joe meets another Sheffield Cocker.

I can't believe that this is the first time Joe Cocker has ever appeared on this blog.

Joe Cocker - Delta Lady

14. What Mark Knopfler wore round his head.

He wore a headband.

The Band - Up On Cripple Creek

13. Don't challenge him to fisticuffs.

Louis Armstrong - Canal Street Blues

12. Charlton Heston was their President.

Charlton was the President of the National Rifle Association.

The Gun Club - The Straits of Love & Hate

11. Jog round the oil platform.

Runrig - Loch Lomond

10. Sweeter than The Who's Magic.

The Who had a Magic Bus.

Honeybus - Cross Channel Ferry

9. Climbing without ropes, where Jason Bateman got into trouble.

Jason Bateman starred in The Ozark. Good show. You should give it a watch.

Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Arroyo

8. All Amish wink... but in a funny way.

Hank Williams - Jambalaya (On the Bayou)

7. How I feel when I discover the price of fuel has gone up again.

That Petrol Emotion - Swamp

6. Young tearaways in the country capital.

Nashville Teens - How Deep Is The Ocean?

5. Blackburn, Orlando and Montana are all sad places.

Bluetones - Down at the Reservoir

4. Verstappen seen in the cemetery.

Max... by graves.

Max Bygraves - Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen By The Sea

3. Full Monty star becomes more impressive.

Grand (Mark) Addy.

Grandaddy - The Crystal Lake 

2. Where a Scottish Queen met her maker.

Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded in...

Fotheringhay - The Pond & The Stream

1. Bernice's pet rung the doctor: "Help, Doctor, I'm all in a tizzy!"

"Bernice's pet rung" was an anagram.

Bruce Springsteen - The River

Let the water carry you back here next Saturday for more Snapshots.

Positive Songs For Negative Times #88: Minneapolis Fall Out

I'm trying to keep away from the news this week, to take a break from the awfulness of it all, to grant my brain a temporary respite from Trump Derangement Syndrome. But that's almost impossible, isn't it?

I'm sure you've heard this by now. Everyone's heard it by now. Even people who don't like Bruce have shared it. I'm posting it here merely for posterity's sake...

  

And it's not the only one. I'm thankful that while I do my best to bury my head in the sand, there are people out there far braver than me, who keep on speaking out...

And here's a related tune from Mr. Hannon...

All the sycophants and narcs

All the cannibals and sharks

A secluded paradise

Of spies and cypress trees

Mar-a-Lago by the sea

Cheating losers on the greens

Swapping wives for beauty queens

Making turgid wedding speeches

Entertaining fascist leeches

Mar-a-Lago, how I miss

The golden johns in which I pissed

All that ostentatious wealth

The paintings of myself

When I was young and free

Oh wait... this just in! Even Roger Taylor's having a go.

Now, I know, you probably haven't got much time for Roger Taylor. I'm a Queen fan, and even I don't have much time for Roger Taylor. Still, fair play to him for this...

A man of no morality

Of no real quality

A shallow man

A man, devoid of empathy

No trace of sympathy

A callow man

A man, with no humanity

Of endless vanity

A swollen man

A one-man calamity, catastrophe

No trace of sanity, an empty shell

We’re drowning in your self regard

We’re drowning in your lies

We drown in your pomposity

In your atrocities

We drown

A man, of truthless vanities

Of countless fantasies

A nothing man

A man, of greed and treachery

Of mindless lechery

No kind of man

You men, of no morality

Your popularity, an endless mystery

Listening Post #39: Born To Cry

Dion - Runaround Sue

I was a big fan of Dion DiMucci as a teenager after hearing Runaround Sue used in an episode of Moonlighting. Soon after that, I discovered his 80s output, including the excellent 1989 album Yo Frankie and it's big single...

Dion - Written On The Subway Wall

A little later, I fell for the allure of perhaps his greatest record, the Phil Spector-produced Born To Be With You... although Dion had such a hell of a time working on that record that he later disowned it. The curse of Phil.

Dion - Born To Be With You

I've even checked in with Dion's 21st Century recordings, including collaborations with some of his biggest fans...

Dion with Patti Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen - Angel In The Alleyways

Dion is 86 now. He's been releasing music for almost 7 decades. I've been listening to his songs for 4 decades. And yet, I only heard this one for the first time a couple of weeks back.

It's a belter.

Neverending Top Ten #7.4: Wrestlemania

Bruce Springsteen - The Wrestler

Reverend & The Makers - The Wrestler

On Saturday afternoon, Sam and a couple of his mates went to Wrestlemania. It was a birthday party treat for one of his friends. They all loved it.

Art Brut - Unprofessional Wrestling

Carter USM - Is Wrestling Fixed?

Of course, this got me thinking of my own childhood, of Saturday afternoons watching Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, Mick McManus, Mark “Rollerball” Rocco and Kendo Nagasaki on TV... easy! Easy! Easy! EASY!!!

MJ Hibbert - The Saturday Lunchtime Wrestlers

The Superman Revenge Squad - Kendo Nagasaki

Luke Haines - Inside The Restless Mind Of Rollerball Rocco

Luke Haines - Big Daddy Got A Casio VL–Tone

Luke Haines - Haystack's In Heaven (Parts 1-3)

I mentioned these to my Mum, who added one perfect detail I'd never heard before. "Me and your dad went to watch the wrestling when we were on our honeymoon in Skegness." So a love of wrestling has been in our family from the early 1950s... through the 80s... and into the present day. A glorious tag team through time. 

She’s the main man in the office in the city

And she treats me like I’m just another lackey

But I can put a tennis racket up against my face

And pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki

Snapshots #412: Call The Cops!

Hello, hello, hello!

To celebrate this collection of songs about things we call the cops, I asked Steve McGarrett to pose for a Snapshot. He may not be my favourite policeman, but he does have the best theme tune...

Here are some more tunes that are Top of the Cops...

15. A tissue detangled.

A tisSUE DEtangled.

Suede - We Are The Pigs

14. United? Never!

Manchester City FC (1972) - The Boys in Blue

No barrel goes unscraped for this feature.

13. Chimney... watershed.

Chimney stack... and a watershed is a ridge of land that separates two rivers.

Stackridge - Marzo Plod

12. Growing happy bacteria.

Smiley Culture  - Police Officer

11. Uffington.

Where you'll find a White Horse.

Whitehorse - Division 5

A song about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and their inability to solve problems in Luke Doucet's love life.

10. Destined never to be well groomed.

Never the grooms, always...

The Bachelors - Old Bill

9. Bing cures serpent... in a way.

"Bing cures serpent" is an anagram of the anagram boss...

Bruce Springsteen - State Trooper

8. Plant juice from the flour factory... and it's goodnight from him.

Ronnie Milsapp - Smoky Mountain Rain

Burt Reynolds fans will get that one.

7. No interest from the whole country.

Credit To The Nation - Filth

6. Boyle found in London Research Library.

Susan Boyle in the Maughan Library.

Susan Maughan - Bobby's Girl

5. Indiana wants them.

Hoosiers are people from Indiana.

The Hoosiers - Cops And Robbers 

4. When you're gone, how can I even try to go on?

Lyrics from SOS by Abba, obviously.

SOS Band - The Finest

As in New York's Finest.

3. How a Scottish Monarch cooks his bacon and eggs.

The Monarch of the Glen is a mean fry cook.

Glenn Frey - The Heat Is On

2. Butch Cassidy drinks mostly Cognac.

Paul Newman played Butch. Cognac is a Brandy. Most of a brandy is...

Randy Newman - Jolly Coppers on Parade

1. Christopher Black, Kevin McGrady, Harry Kirkpatrick. 

Three gentlemen famous for being Supergrasses. As I'm sure Google will have advised you.

Supergrass - Caught By The Fuzz

If you don't report back here for further questioning next Saturday morning... you're nicked!