The Curious Case of CD32: Part #5

A quick dash through the four final songs on this CD... it's Halt Term, so my blog-hours are limited.

Track 17: Joshua Kadison - Jessie

I like a good heartfelt piano ballad. And beyond the obvious candidates (Billy, Elton), there are a lot of one hit wonder types who do this sort of thing very well too. Randy Edelman. Bruce Hornsby. Marc Cohn. And here's another one - from 1993, when I was 21 and really shouldn't have been listening to this sort of thing. Except that I was a hopeless romantic even then, so while all the cool kids were getting into grunge, I was getting down to Joshua Kadison. (Grunge came later.)

From a phone booth in Vegas, Jessie calls at five am
To tell me how she's tired of all of them
She says, "Baby, I've been thinking 'bout a trailer by the sea
We could go to Mexico... you, the cat, and me
We'll drink tequila and look for seashells
Now, doesn't that sound sweet?"
Oh, Jessie, you always do this every time I get back on my feet

Looking at the video, which I don't think I've ever seen before, Kadison wouldn't have looked out of place in the grunge scene, with his long unkempt hair and sleeveless vests. Fair play to him then for going out and recording this kind of epic singer-songwritery slush when all the cool kids were doing the whole quite-loud thing with their angst.

Apparently he wasn't quite a One Hit Wonder in the States, and his second hit, Beautiful In My Eyes, became a big wedding favourite. The video of that has him riding down the highway like Bon Jovi... but he still sounds like a 90s Dan Fogelberg tribute act. Jessie is a far better tune.

Track 18: The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight

You don't get much more old skool than this. Of course, I wasn't in to rap music in 1979. Apart from Debbie Harry, who was? But I came to appreciate this later, like most people, and probably prefer it to most of the rap that followed. It's got a sense of humour, which a lot of rap seems to lack these days (or if it is funny, it's nasty-funny), and while the rhymes start out pretty basic, if you take a listen to the longer version, there are all kinds of hidden treats, including this gem of a story from Wonder Mike...

Ever went over a friend's house to eat and the food just ain't no good?
I mean the macaroni's soggy, the peas are mushed, and the chicken tastes like wood
So you try to play it off like you think you can, by sayin' that you're full
And then your friend says, "Momma, he just being polite, he ain't finished, uh-uh, that's bull!"
And so your heart starts pumpin', and you think of a lie, and you say that you already ate
And your friend says, "Man, there's plenty of food!" so you pile some more on your plate
And while the stinky foods steamin' your mind starts to dreamin' of the moment that it's time to leave
And then you look at your plate and your chicken's slowly rottin' into something that looks like cheese

Oh, so you say, "That's it, I got to leave this place! I don't care what these people think
I'm just sittin' here makin' myself nauseous with this ugly food that stinks!"
And so you bust out the door while it's still closed, still sick from the food you ate
And then you run to the store for quick relief from a bottle of Kaopectate
And then you call your friend two weeks later to see how he has been
And he says, "I understand about the food, baby bubbah, but we're still friends"

Many years later, I'm sure Flight of The Conchords paid tribute to that here...

Flight of the Conchords - Hurt Feelings

I didn't put the long version on CD32, but I reckon Sam might be ready for it now.

Track 19: Huey Lewis & The News - The Heart of Rock n Roll

I've probably said enough about these guys recently. Besides, Huey says it best...

When they play their music, ooh that modern music
They like it with a lot of style
But it's still that same old back beat rhythm
That really, really drives 'em wild

They say the heart of rock and roll is still beating
And from what I've seen I believe 'em
Now the old boy may be barely breathing
But the heart of rock and roll, heart of rock and roll is still beating

Track 20: The Beatles - I Should Have Known Better

I'll be honest - I've no idea why I ended this CD with such an obscure Beatles track. The early CDs were pretty Beatles heavy, because they're often good basic catchy melodies that little kids dig... no wonder they were so successful. Keep It Simple, Stupid. But there were plenty of more obvious tracks I still hadn't featured by the time I hit CD32... maybe this was the exact right length for the space I had left on the CD? It wouldn't be the first time that criteria has led to a final song selection...

OK, that's it for CD32. We'll start another one next week. Bet you can hardly wait!

The Curious Case of CD32: Part #4

More of the songs I decided my son Sam needed to know to help him succeed in life...

Track 13: It's Immaterial - Driving Away From Home

I like a good talky song. Sam's Mum, on the other hand, isn't a fan. She will regularly complain that Neil Tennant talks in too many Pet Shop Boys songs, rather than actually singing, and whenever this particular track pops up on the car stereo, her response has generally been, "It's just some bloke wittering on about driving up the motorway". To which I would reply, if I ever dared disagree with her, "Yes, it is - and that's why it's a work of genius!"

I'll tell you what
Why don't we cross the city limit
And head up north
Through Manchester
I mean all you've got to do is put your foot hard down to the floor
And we can call on people I know in Newcastle
And maybe even Glasgow
There's a lot of nice places to see up there
Without a care in the world

I love this song, even if I don't really gel with the sentiment. I mean, it's about the freedom of the open road, and that may have been all very well in 1986 (three years before I passed my test) but I don't find anything pleasurable in being behind the wheel these days. Funnily enough, Sam asked me the other day, "do you enjoy driving?" and my response was NO - I like it as an idea, but unfortunately the roads are full of idiots who want to kill you. 

All you gotta do is put your foot hard down to the floor
And we'll go through the lights
Across the junction
Through the council estates
Past the detached houses and the semi-detached
Past the high rise
And out onto the country lanes
Maybe even hit a motorway
There's nothing to stop us
I mean after all
We haven't got a care in the world...

...other than staying alive and not letting that arsehole in the Audi run you off the road because it'll mean he might reach his destination ten seconds sooner.*

(*Lyrics cut from the original recording.)

I fell down a bit of a rabbit-hole reading up on It's Immaterial. I kind of knew about the two main guys, Jarvis Whitehead and John Campbell, and their slow rise to success - starting in 1980 with the superb debut single Young Man (Seeks Interesting Job). What I didn't know was that Henry Priestman was also a member at one point, before he went on to join The Christians, and then release a couple of excellent solo records that I think I recall Martin recommending sometime in the dim and distant past. I also didn't know that ItsI finally finished their third album, 30 years after they started it, in 2020. Clearly, as with Timbuk 3, further investigation is required. And just like on the Timbuk 3 song that kicked off this compilation, It's Immaterial's biggest hit benefits greatly from the addition of a harmonica. See, Louise - it's not just a bloke talking! 

Driving Away From Home currently has 99,000 views on the tube of you. Let's see if we can get it closer to 100K.

Track 14: REM - Get Up

I figured REM would be one of the bands most regularly featured on these compilations, and a quick tally reveals they are in joint fifth position with two other acts that won't surprise long-time readers of this blog but would horrify the cognoscenti.

I'm on safer ground with REM, though you do have to be careful with the hardcore REMmies who sneer disdainfully at anyone who discovered the band after their IRS days. Green, which this track comes from, was their mainstream WEA debut, and as such will be seen by a small group of extremists as the beginning of the end. Or maybe just the end, full stop. I myself would offer Green up as a contender for Best REM Album, probably as a vote-splitter with its follow-up, Out Of Time. Automatic For The People is too obvious - see, I can be a snob too!

Get Up is the sixth REM song to feature on these compilations - for the record, the first was Stand (from the same album) back on the very first Sam CD I created. Some of the bigger hits followed, but I'm intrigued by why I included this one before either Orange Crush or Pop Song 89. I guess it's got a very simple repeated chorus which I figured would hook in a youngster's head. Apparently, Michael Stipe directed the lyrics at Mike Mills who would often sleep late during the recording sessions. 

Track 15: Scissor Sisters - I Don't Feel Like Dancin'

When the Scissor Scissors broke onto the scene in 2003, I was very interested. Laura sounded like a classic 70s pop song, yet it had that contemporary edge which separated it from the retro-acts. The band followed this with their bizarre cover of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb which... whisper this... I preferred to the original. Then came Take Your Mama and Mary, proper pop songs in an era of Auto-Tune and Landfill Indie. I had high hopes for this band...

Ta Dah! That was their name of their second album, and it started very well for them - with this song, a worldwide Number One. (Well, worldwide if you exclude their home country of the USA, who never really took to them - too much irony in their act? Or could it be homophobia? The band did well in the US dance charts, but never crossed over to the mainstream.)

After that... I'm not sure what happened. Other hits followed, but maybe they were trying too hard to court the pop stations and they lost that early edge. Whatever, my attention wandered. 

I was about to close by saying this was the best Bee Gees song the Bee Gees didn't write in the 21st Century. Turns out Jake Shears and Babydaddy did have a co-writer on this tune though... one Reginald Kenneth Dwight, formerly of this manor. Well, you learn something new every day.

Track 16: Shed Seven - Disco Down

Ah, speaking of "Landfill Indie". No, I won't have that said about Shed Seven - besides, they were around in the Britpop days, the LF label can only really be applied to humourless post-Millennial indie dirges. Actually, Shed Seven started way back in 1990, and this was their final Top 20 hit, from the year before the Y2K bug devastated the world. And look, it's fun! It's got a disco beat and the kind of lyrics the Scissor Sisters would be lauded for five years later. 

Shed Seven are pretty high on my list of Britpop bands that should have been bigger than Oasis. Bear in mind that list also includes Strangelove, Geneva, Marion and even Menswear. It's hard to think of a Britpop act that doesn't deserve that accolade... in my humble opinion.

The Curious Case of CD32: Part #3

We're back to over-analysing and justifying the track-list of the 32nd in-car compilation CD I made to introduce my son to the exciting world of pop music...

Track 9: Teardrop Explodes - Reward

One of those clear "why didn't I put this on an earlier CD?" moments, to which I have no sensible answer. Julian Cope's biggest hit, and arguably his finest hour. What can I say about Reward that hasn't been said by far smarter musicologists... like JC, The Vinyl Villain, for example...

The Guardian newspaper, in March 2015, had a feature on Reward in which Julian Cope and keyboardist Dave Balfe explained how they came up with and went about making the song.  It turns out it was written in the main by guitarist Alan Gill, with him coming up initially with the bassline. Cope wanted it to sound like a northern soul classic and their first stab at it came via an effort for a BBC radio session but when they later got into the actual recording studio, the frontman decided to remove the drum intro so that the first and last thing you heard were trumpets, which, to be fair, was a stroke of genius as this is the instrument which really drives the song forward at pace. Balfe, in confirming that the band had problems coming up initially with a satisfactory recording and mix, heaps praise on the frontman for the end result, describing it as “…a mad awesome record unlike anything else in pop. We sounded like Vikings on acid fronted by a lunatic.”

Beyond JC's wise words, I will add that Reward contains one of the great opening lines...

Bless my cotton socks, I'm in the news

...apparently, Julian's reaction at becoming a music press darling back in 1981. The irony being that if the artist wishes to maintain any consistent level of popular success, he needs to sell out or shut up. You can't have your cake and eat it, pal.

Prisoners stand in queues and stand accused

Live in solitude like Howard Hughes
All wrapped up the same
All wrapped up the same

Silence has it
Arrogance has it
I can't have it, ooh
Until I learn to accept my reward

Like all the very best pop songs from the early 80s, Rewards benefits greatly from the trumpets JC mentioned... although the trumpeters are seen driving around in a jeep in the video. As a former brass instrument player myself (see below), I'm not sure you'd get the best sounds out of your trumpet in that scenario.

Track 10: Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby

Another one of those songs I included more because it's a big catchy hit than because I love it. I do try and support the Kaiser Chiefs, since on paper they're my sort of band - local lads made good with one foot in pop and the other in indie, and generally their lyrics are a step up from the twaddle-swagger of Oasis and their ilk.

But...

But...

Beyond their debut album... maybe even beyond their debut chart hit (the undeniably excellent I Predict A Riot)... whisper it... Kaiser Chiefs are a little annoying, aren't they? They don't display the same levels of colossal arrogance as the Squabbling Mancs... but they can't help but appear ever so pleased with themselves at times. Nowhere more is that going to to be true then than on their sole Number One from 2007, when for a week at least, they were kings of the world.     

It seems especially galling to me now that I slipped this one in between Reward and the track that follows it. But it's a big pop hit, and one of the few I can stomach from 2007, so that's my defence...

Track 11: Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi

...which brings us back to the classics. 

For many years, Big Yellow Taxi was the only Joni Mitchell song I knew. I remember when I started working in radio, it would have been the only Joni song that stood a chance of getting played on our station (her only UK hit), and yet we didn't have a copy of it in the record library. Somebody brought their copy in from home and I dutifully recorded it onto cart so we could play it when needed.

Big Yellow Taxi is one of those perfect pop songs - as long as you promise never to listen to anyone sing it except Joni. Here's the lady herself, talking in 1969, telling the story of how she came to write it...

"Two weekends ago I went to Hawaii. It was my first time there and I was only there for two days which was kind of a bummer, I wish I could’ve really seen more of the island and I arrived there at 11 o’clock at night and the next morning I ran to the window and threw back the curtains and sure enough, there it was, paradise, you know, green, lush hills, old Sugarloaf Mountain up there, white birds flying low, Myna birds all over the place, and, right in the middle of it all, was a big parking lot [laughing]. So I wrote this little rock and roll song to commemorate the occasion. It’s called “Big Yellow Taxi,” or, alternately, “They Paved Paradise and Put in a Parking Lot.”

I have included the lyric above in English lessons as an example of good alliteration in pop songs. I'll crowbar my favourite songs into class however I can.

Track 12: John Miles - Music

I won't claim that every song I've put on these CDs for Sam has been a winner, but only occasionally has he asked me to take a song off (The Yeah Yeah Yeah song by the Flaming Lips was one he found particularly disturbing). Apathy is more likely than antipathy, and of all the songs on CD32, this would probably be the one that's sparked the least interest.

It is, let's be honest about it, a rather odd little pop song - not that little and not particularly pop, despite the message which appears universally aimed at those of us who cherish pop music as a lifeline.

Music was my first love
And it will be my last.
Music of the future
And music of the past.

To live without my music
Would be impossible to do.
In this world of troubles,
My music pulls me through.

You may not like the song, but I'd be surprised if you can't get behind the sentiment.

This relatable piano ballad section only accounts for about a third of Music's 6 minute run time though - the rest is orchestral pomp and swagger that would make Jimmy Webb proud. (McArthur Park was clearly an influence.) Apparently Music was regularly performed at The Last Night of the Proms, and I can understand why; it has that rousing, anthemic quality that would go down well with the flag-wavers, even though there's nothing remotely political or patriotic about it - unless you're patriotic about music itself, which I certainly am (far more so than I am about any particular patch of earth).

The song holds special significance for me because we used to play it in brass band - it's one of the few modern songs I remember performing as a tenor horn player. And whenever I remember those times, I remember how much in love I was with the horn player I sat next to, but she was a year older and she had boys in her room. Music was my first love... and it will be my last.

The Curious Case of CD32: Part #2

Continuing the tracklist of the 32^nd in-car compilation I created to introduce my son Sam to as wide a variety of pop music as possible… this one from about 5 or 6 years ago, I’m guessing.

 

5. The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again

“Meet the new boss – same as the old boss.” Is that the best line Pete Townsend ever wrote? I’d be tempted to say it ties with “I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth”. The line itself sounds anti-establishment (indeed, I used it prominently in my old comic strip The Jock), but Townsend himself is a conservative who apparently sneered at the hippy idealism of the Woodstock generation because he didn’t think they’d do any better than the people in power.

“As an English teacher though…” I always try to argue that there’s a clear divide between an author’s intent and the way readers choose to interpret, and that the latter will generally become the accepted reading. The only way to stop that happening is a) be blatantly transparent and leave no room for ambiguity in your writing (boring!) or b) stop letting anyone read / listen to it.

Rather than being an anti-establishment rant though, Won’t Get Fooled Again speaks more to a cynical detachment from the whole political process – a sense that whoever’s in charge, they’ll fuck it up or put their own selfish needs ahead of the public at large. In that, it’s more appropriate today than it ever was.

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but my Dad was never a fan of rock music. He’d be in his late 20s when rock ‘n’ roll broke, so too old for the teenage rebellion of it. He was a Frank Sinatra man through and through. But in his latter years, he came round to The Who, only because this – and a couple of their other hits – were used as theme tunes to the myriad of CSI shows he used to watch. He was less impressed with their Glastonbury performance in 2015 though – “bloody racket!”

6. Prince - Little Red Corvette

A few weeks back when I did the Snapshots about Synonyms For Sex, I put Prince at the top of the page, because… well, every Prince song is about sex in one way or another, and most of them don’t even try to disguise the fact. (Despite Gett Off being in my Top 5 Prince songs, I don’t think I’ll ever have the nerve to include it on one of Sam’s compilations… especially now he’s knocking on the door of teenagerdom.)

Little Red Corvette is about a one-night stand, but it’s not just a song about shagging. There’s an undercurrent of vulnerability, awkwardness, embarrassment even that often made Prince’s sexy songs more layered than a lot of 80s cock-rock records. And it also has that cheeky humour that allowed Prince to get away with stuff other lyricists would have been called out for.

I guess I should have known
By the way you parked your car sideways
That it wouldn’t last.

I love those opening lines. You’re hot, I’ll definitely sleep with you, but there’s no way we’re having a meaningful relationship when you can’t even park your car straight.

Despite all the barely-concealed euphemism in this song, I had no compunctions about including it on a compilation aimed at a seven-year-old, because… it’s a car song, right? That’s all. Just a song about a car. And Sam’s favourite movie series when he was little was Pixar’s Cars, so there were a lot of car songs on these CDs. Plus, car songs are made for driving, right?

(I read a great article about Little Red Corvette while compiling this piece. I could have quoted it extensively, but in the end I decided just to post a link.)

 

7. The Wedding Present - Kennedy

There aren’t many tracks on the early volumes which will impress the average Peel fan, but this was a good one to get Sam into because of it’s catchy “too much apple pie” refrain. Can you ever have too much apple pie? Clearly the answer is no… unless it’s metaphorical apple pie… in which case…

I hate the phrase “I was today years old when I learned...” Hate it with a passion. Especially since I heard a DJ say it on ASDA FM this morning. However, despite joyfully singing along to this tune for many, many years, it was only today that I stopped to ask myself why David Gedge called it Kennedy. I just took it to be another Classic Wedding Present Kitchen Sink Relationships Gone Wrong ™ Song. I didn’t ever consider that “And now Harry's walked away with Johnny's wife” might actually be “And now Ari's walked away with Johnny's wife”, that being Aristotle Onassis. And if you go down that route, the subsequent lines, “But if Lee's name does come up, oh well, I really want to know” take us way beyond the regular Wedding Present milieu, don’t they?

Too much apple pie, indeed.

8. Jackson Browne - Doctor My Eyes

Why didn’t you put the cover version by The Jackson 5 on, Rol? Surely that’s likely to be more appealing to your target audience than the original? 

Hmm. Yeah. I s’pose. But it’s one of those times that the perky little kid vocals grate on me. That’s not always the case with The Jacksons – I won’t have a word said against ABC or I Want You Back – but it is here. And besides, the lazy sunshiney Laurel Canyon vibe of early 70s Jackson Browne is just too much for an old man to resist. Plus, for a song that the interweb tells me is about disillusionment and loss of innocence, I’m not sure a 15-year-old vocalist can properly do it justice. Then again, Jackson Browne was only 24 when he wrote this, so hardly a G.O.M. And maybe that ironic juxtaposition was the point of the cover version. Or maybe Michael's Dad just liked getting his kids to sing songs by other artists called Jackson (see also Blame It On The Boogie).

It’s later than it seems…

The Curious Case of CD32: Part #1

We’re back to listening to the in-car CDs I’ve created over the past 12 years to introduce my son to as wide a range of quality pop music as possible... before I lost him to Imagine Dragons and Juice WRLD. 

Ernie was the next to suggest a CD number for me to go through track by track, and (given that I advised people to only choose a number between 30 and 150) he picked one of the earliest compilations available. This means, of course, that the following CD will feature more obvious radio hits and serious pop “bangers” than either of the CDs we’ve looked at so far. Although there might be a few surprises along the way…

Track 1: Queen – Flash

I’m going to try as hard as I can from now on to avoid commenting on other people’s musical prejudices and pretend that everyone likes everything I do. Besides, I’ve probably expressed my disappointment, frustration and bewilderment at the Anti-Queen Bias that exists in many areas of the blogosphere too many times before, and you can't change the course of mighty rivers by using nice words.

Flash, then. The theme tune to the 1980 movie version of Flash Gordon, starring former American footballer Sam J. Jones, with some actual acting support from Max Von Sydow, Topol, Timothy Dalton, and… of course… Brian Blessed. I was eight when this movie came out, so I’m pretty sure I saw it at the cinema and thought it was great. In retrospect, it’s not a classic, but the average eight year old isn’t Mark Kermode, is he?

When my sister bought me Queen’s Greatest Hits a few years later, Flash was nestled away in the middle of side two. Because that was the first album I owned, I played it till the grooves wore out, till I knew every song by heart, till they were indelibly scratched into my psyche. Soon after I began tracking down the albums these songs originated from… and of those, Flash was the biggest disappointment. Because it’s a soundtrack album really – it shouldn’t have been marketed as Queen’s 9th Studio Album. Most of the tracks are instrumentals, not full songs, designed as exciting background music to the film, but not really what a teenager wants to listen to in their bedroom when they’re used to proper Queen albums like A Night At The Opera or New of the World. No wonder Flash was the only single released – it’s the only proper song, although even then that's mostly down to John Deacon's bassline and the occasionally flash of Mercury/May overkill.

There’s also a liberal peppering of dialogue from the movie, which brings us to the best thing about this song… and probably the best thing about the whole flick: Brian Blessed. As Prince Vultan, ruler of the Winged Bird-Men, he gets to bellow* the iconic two word line: “GORDON’S ALIVE!” and even Freddie Mercury has to take a back seat to that.

(*Actually, in our memories, that's a bellow. But actually, it's more like a whisper. Except... well, it's a Brian Blessed whisper.)

Finally, if you can’t bring yourself to listen to this song because of Years of Insidious Indoctrination by the Arbiters of Cool, here’s another fine tune with the same title, but no obvious connection to the Alex Raymond comic strip…

The Real Thing - Flash

No? There's just no pleasing some people.

"Flash! Flash I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!"

Track 2: Toni Basil – Mickey

Children of the 80s rejoice! Here’s one of the best pop songs of 1982, criminally held off the Number One spot by Tight Fit. It was originally, as I’m sure you’re all aware, a track from Racey’s 1979 album Smash and Grab, where it sounded like this…

Racey – Hey Kitty

…but Antonia Christina Basilotta made it her own, adding cheerleader chants, uniform and pigtails… long before Britney Spears tried any of that nonsense.  Basil has denied she changed the title because she was infatuated with Mickey Dolenz, and she’s also gone to court a few times over the years to stop people using it without her permission (or without the proper reimbursement). But then, if you’re a One Hit Wonder, you’ve got to fight for that legacy, haven’t you? If I were her, I’d be sending my lawyers to have a word with Rosé and Bruno Mars, because their 2024 smash hit APT. owes a serious debt to Mickey if you ask me, and specifically the bits Toni added to the Racey original.

ROSÉ & Bruno Mars - APT.

(As an aside, I think it’s curious that Racey only ever released one studio album, but have since released half a dozen separate Greatest Hits collections. Talk about milking a dead horse.)

Whenever I hear Mickey, I’m ten years old again. I wasn’t a huge muso at ten*, but this was everywhere in 1982. I’m guessing even Terry Wogan must have been playing it. 

(*"Clearly!" cry the Cognoscenti.)

Track 3: Timbuk 3 - The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

Another huge 80s One Hit Wonder, and one I remember buying on 7” when I was 15, helping it achieve the mediocre chart placing of #21 in the UK. It managed a couple of places higher in the US, but really deserved better.

Timbuk 3 were husband & wife duo Pat & Barbara MacDonald, and together they released six albums between 1986 and 1995, after which they got divorced and pursued solo projects. Considering how much I like this track’s quirky indie rock sound and lyrical playfulness, it’s a wonder I’ve never investigated any of their other material. That’s gone on my To-Do list.

In the US, The Future's So Bright was embraced as a college graduation theme tune, but Pat MacDonald claims the song has a much darker subtext, about a Nuclear Scientist who saw a very bright future indeed… one that even the best UV-filtering sunglasses wouldn’t protect us from. 

Unlike Toni Basil’s hit, you won’t have heard this tune in any adverts, since Pat and Barbara have resolutely rejected all offers to license it for promotional purposes. Now that’s what I call principles.

This scores bonus points for the harmonica.

Track 4: The Zombies - She's Not There

You will have heard this one in a TV advert though, one for Chanel perfume, starring Keira Knightley, back in 2014. Let’s not hold that against the Zombies, eh? Poor lads have got to eat.

She’s Not There was The Zombies’ debut single in 1964, and according to bassist Chris White, it may well be the first proper song Rod Argent ever wrote. Imagine writing this as your first song!

A tale of adolescent angst, featuring a young man who’s been burned by a relationship with a girl who wasn’t what she seemed, this is arguably The Zombies’ finest hour. He’s still in love with her, not with the actual girl, just the idea of who he thought she was. Colin Blunstone’s yearning vocal is perfect for this kind of thing…

Well, let me tell you about the way she looked
The way she acts and the colour of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool, her eyes were clear and bright
But she's not there

Caveat emptor, fellas.