Midlife Crisis Songs #114: Take The D*ckheads Bowling

On Saturday, we took Sam and his mates bowling for his birthday. The title of this post is directed at the family who were in the lane next to ours.

A family with two very small kids, both much younger than Sam. (One was little bigger than a bowling ball.)

The mum's bowling name, up on the screen for the whole place to see, was "C*ntyflaps".

Camper Van Beethoven - Take The Skinheads Bowling

Dad was "Ballbag", in case you were wondering.

Sometimes I despair for the human race...

Self-Help For Cynics #12: Prejudice

Some people say bowling alleys got big lanes

Some people say that bowling alleys all look the same

There's not a line that goes here

That rhymes with anything

Take the skinheads bowling - take them bowling!

Camper Van Beethoven - Take The Skinheads Bowling

Racism, sexism, homophobia, hating New Order and Audi drivers... can they all be explained by the storytelling brain?

I heard one today about the one I love

I heard one earlier that shook me up

I heard one the other day, can't believe it's true

I heard one by accident wish I hadn't

I heard one so many times, couldn't care any more

Minutemen - Stories

 
In my past two Self Help For Cynics posts, I've looked at how the brain uses stories to build neural pathways. This can be a positive thing in that it helps us learn knowledge, skills and how to survive… but it can also be negative if the stories we use to learn end up reinforcing bad habits, unpleasant ideas or defeatist emotions. Last time, I explained how a nasty teenage experience had created neural pathways in my head that made me hate New Order. However, just the act of writing about that experience has honestly lessened the animosity I feel towards a band that’s never done me any harm. 

Every time I think of you

I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue

New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle

There are two explanations for this. Firstly, understanding why we think the way we do is the first step towards changing the way we think. (That’s the main reason I’m writing this series.) Secondly, you can overwrite bad neural pathways with good ones by replacing negative experiences (stories) with positive ones. Here’s another example from my terrible teens…

Chumbawamba - Homophobia
 
Was I a homophobic teenager?  
 
I grew up in the 1970s and 80s. Positive representations of gay people in the media were limited to Larry Grayson and Mr. Humphries from Are You Being Served? Camp, limp-wristed caricatures. In the pop world, we had the Village People and then Boy George. Many less stereotypically gay stars like Elton John and George Michael kept their secrets for a long time. Even Freddie Mercury – one of my teenage pop heroes – refused to confirm his sexuality, right up to the point he told us he was dying of AIDS. Tom Robinson might have proclaimed himself glad to be gay in 1978, but I certainly didn’t hear about it.

Pictures of naked young women are fun

In Titbits and Playboy, page three of The Sun

There's no nudes in Gay News, our one magazine

But they still find excuses to call it obscene

Read how disgusting we are in the press

The Telegraph, People and Sunday Express

Molesters of children, corruptors of youth

It's there in the paper, it must be the truth

Tom Robinson Band - Glad To Be Gay

 
Far worse than the clichéd media portrayal of homosexuality was the strong undercurrent of homophobia fostered by straight male society. “Backs against the wall, lads”, “shirtlifters”, “poofters”… these were phrases I heard on a weekly basis from my peers, my elders… even on TV. Add to this that the only openly gay person in my school was a bitchy viper of a boy (probably a defence mechanism, and I can hardly blame him for that)… well, you can see how my storytelling brain was busy building negative neural pathways throughout my early adolescence.

Pushed around and kicked around, always a lonely boy

You were the one that they'd talk about around town as they put you down

Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy

 
Things did start to change in the mid 80s, with more openly gay celebrities, and alternative music and comedy which celebrated LGBT culture. It was at this point when I finally started to question the prejudice I’d been a part of in my early years of high school. But it wasn’t till I started working in radio, at 16, that the stories in my brain were completely rewritten. At the radio station I worked at, there were a lot of openly gay men. And as I got to know them, I liked them. Often more than I liked some of my more hetero, alpha male type colleagues. Some became lifelong friends and so my storytelling brain was forced to write new, stronger neural pathways that cancelled out my old prejudicial ones.

Spearmint - Your New Gay Friend
 
All this just reinforces the value of positive representation in the media, in my mind at least. The anti-woke brigade rail against the fact that every TV show these days has to feature a variety of sexualities, skin colours, genders and differently-abled individuals. But only through frequent exposure to people who are not the same as ourselves will our brains stop fearing these unknown beings who are actually just like us, for good and bad. This all seems a bit obvious to me, to the point where I’m not sure I needed to write it… certainly not for the open-minded folk who read this blog. I’m preaching to the converted. 

Rufus Wainwright - Gay Messiah

Those that are harder to convert – the ones who turn off their TVs whenever they see a gay kiss, for example – maybe they’re beyond help. And there are certainly plenty of storytelling options available to them (particularly online) which feed and reinforce their own negative neural pathways. We’re a long way from a utopia.

As to the Audi drivers… I keep hoping one day I’ll have a positive experience that allows me to rewrite the neural pathway prejudice I feel towards them. They can’t all be bad…?

Snapshots #309 - A Top Ten OH NO! Songs

Oh no! I tried to find a picture of Bill Maynard holding a camera, to remind you all of the TV show Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt... but sadly, I failed. So here's Chris Hemsworth instead. Same difference?

Ten songs that will make go cry Oh No! 

10. Duke is still waiting for his test results.

Can someone please mark Ellington's test?

Marc Ellington - Oh No, It Can't Be So

9. Found in undeveloped countries and over the top melodramas.

UndevELOped countries and over the top mELOdramas.

ELO - Oh No, Not Susan!

8. Friends with Troy Tempest, and a girl's best friend.

Troy Tempest was the captain of Stingray. Marina was on his crew.

Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

Marina & The Diamonds - Oh No! (I Feel Like I'm The Worst So I Always Act like I'm The Best)

7. Presidents of the Yacht Club.

The president of a yacht club is called a commodore.

The Commodores - Oh No

6. Garfield meets Charlie Parker.

Andrew Garfield + Bird...

Andrew Bird - Oh No

5. Astonishing barks.

Bow Wow Wow - Baby, Oh No

4. Ludwig's holiday retreat.

Beethoven liked to get away in his camper van.

Camper Van Beethoven - Oh No!

3. Towel, please!

To dry that appendage...

Wet Leg - Oh No

2. Fancy a steak, now you're 16?

Johnny Burnette sang You're 16. He was partial to a nice T-bone.

T Bone Burnett - Oh No, Darling

1. Sounds like a healthier Nightingale.

Maxine Nightingale would be healthier if she ate brown bread...

1. Maxine Brown - Oh No, Not My Baby

Yes, I know Rod did that too... but honestly, which is the better version?

Snapshots will be back next Saturday... Oh yes!

Hot 100 #51

Being an old X-Files junkie (I even have Fox Mulder's "I Want To Believe" poster on the wall in my office), I've always had a fascination with the "secret" air force base in the Nevada desert where strange things happen involving crashed alien spaceships, experimental aircraft using salvaged alien technology and autopsies of alien corpses. [Redacted by the U.S. government.)

Let's start this week with a couple of tunes that escaped from Area 51. Curiously, both are instrumentals. Perhaps their lyrics were redacted too?

The Chartlatans - Area 51

The Typhoons - Area 51

Oh, and one more that appears to fit the same pattern...

Tangerine Dream - Landing On 51

Back in the real world, and onto your suggestions, the most obvious of which this week was suggested - not by The Swede - but by Martin...

Highway 51 Blues, by Bob Dylan which, in its guitar motif at least, seems to owe a debt to the Everly Brothers.

Not a Dylan original that, it was written by Curtis Jones. Personally, I always get it mixed up with Highway 61 Revisited... too many numbered highways in the Dylan canon.

Martin also offered the following, helpfully including links to make my life easier...

51-7 by Camper van Beethoven is pretty fair.

The atypical I Move On by Cowboy Junkies contains the line "51 years, a child upon the Earth, trying to find the answers without digging in the dirt..."

12:51 by The Strokes sounds exactly how you'd expect (no bad thing).

...and one more...

Koka Kola by The Clash starts with the line "In the gleaming corridors of the 51st floor..."

Lynchie, meanwhile, claims to have been eagerly awaiting number 51 in this countdown so that he could suggest this...

Vern Gosdin (Vern The Voice) - "Set 'Em Up Joe"

They got a vintage Victrola 1951
Full of my favorite records that I grew up on
They got ole Hank and Lefty and there's B24
Set 'em up Joe and play "Walking The Floor"
Set 'em up Joe and play "Walking The Floor"

I'll definitely save that for when I do my second volume of jukebox songs.

Rigid Digit went trippy this week...

Pink Floyd re-recorded Careful With That Axe, Eugene for the film Zabriskie Point and gave it the new title of:

Come In Number 51, Your Time Is Up

Which is all very well, but Careful With That Axe, Eugene is a far better title.

Forgoing Dylan this week, The Swede offered these two...

Super Furry Animals - Hit & Run

'Will the dinosaurs come back and haunt us? I've a bet down fifty-to-one...'

Steve Gunn & the Black Twig Pickers - Cardinal 51

Black Twig Pickers gets an extra point.

Then Swiss Adam suggested one of the ones from my own shortlist...

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - 51st Anniversary ("Purple Haze B-side no less.")

Now, before we get onto this week's winner, here are a few more from my own archives...

The Descendents - Orgo 51

Pelle Carlberg - 51, 3

And this week's runner-up...

Aimee Mann - High On Sunday 51

But it seemed clear we had to deal with Little Britain this week, or the 51st State of the United States as we've often cruelly been dubbed due to the "special relationship" which isn't really that special anymore. A number of songwriters have commented on this, including...

New Model Army - 51st State (as suggested by Charity Chic & Alyson)

The Enemy - 51st State

And, of course, these guys, this week's unanimous winners thanks to block-voting, hanging chads and Russian facebook interference from Charity Chic, C (obviously!), Lynchie and others...


Next week: we're halfway there! Numero cinquanta! Your suggestions are welcome as always. No need to be coy, Roy...

My Top Ten Laundrette / Laundromat Songs

This one was inspired by The Swede who posted one of these tunes a few weeks back. I liked it so much, I thought I'd dig out nine more and toss them in the washing machine...

10. Joe Jackson - Laundromat Monday

Joe wonders where his Mondays went, while trying to find someone else to do his chores...

I want a French maid, someone to wash my jeans
Each quarter I've made is lost in washing machines
I'm gonna change the world, I could be President
If I could just work out where all my Mondays went

9. Camper Van Beethoven - (I Was Born In A) Laundromat

Another CVB song that appears to have an anti-racism subtext mixed among the tumbled socks...

I was born in a laundromat
I was born in a cul-de-sac
Some of us are brown
And some of us are white
Just give me some tension release

8. The Dead Milkmen - The Laundromat Song

Ever fallen in love across the laundromat floor? Hide your embarrassing undies...

Clothes go round and round
And my heart goes up and down
She's drying her jeans
In separate machines

My mind grows dirty when my clothes get clean

7. The Avett Brothers - Laundry Room

I suspect there's more going on here than just a little fluffing and folding...

Close the laundry door
Tiptoe across the floor
Keep your clothes on
I've got all that I can take
Teach me how to use
The love that people say you made

6. Rory Gallagher - Laundromat

Rory Gallagher sleeps inside a washing machine. Those crazy 70s.

5. The Detergents - Leader of the Laundromat

An answer song written as the male response to Leader of the Pack. I remember hearing Brian Matthews play this years ago. It's quirky and kitsch, but can't hold a candle to the original.

4. Trent Willmon - Dixie Rose Deluxe's Honky Tonk, Feed Store, Gun Shop, Used Car, Beer, Bait, BBQ, Barber Shop, Laundromat.

I might give this one to Charity Chic for his Most Country of Country Song Titles series...

3. Albert King - Laundromat Blues / Answer To The Laundromat Blues

Don't put your blues in with your whites, Albert.

You take two or three pieces
And go down to the laundromat
An' take ya eight hours to wash 'em
No good!

2. The Pretenders - Watching The Clothes

Imagine bumping into Chrissie Hynde down the washeteria!

1. Vivien Goldman - Laundrette

Thanks again to The Swede for this lost early 80s gem. Had to make it Number One because it's just so quirky/offbeat/cool.



What's in your washing basket?

My Top Ten Bowling Songs

Fuck it, dude... let's go bowling.

(Special mention to Bowling For Soup, the only band to ever read one of my blog posts and tweet a reply about it. Pity they never wrote a bowling song.)



10. The Blue Nile - High

Bowling alleys as a metaphor for the modern malaise? Yes please, Paul.

In the bowling alleys
In the easy living
Something good got lost along the way

9. The White Stripes - Red Bowling Ball Ruth

What a racket. In a good way, of course.

8. Donald Fagen - Miss Marlene

Now we know where Donald Fagen spends his Saturday nights...

Whether straight or hammered
She was the best in town
When she released a red ball
All the pins fall down

Can't you hear the balls rumble?
Can't you hear the balls rumble?
Miss Marlene
Were still bowling
Every Saturday night
Saturday night

7. The Auteurs - Showgirl

Luke Haines knows how to show a girl a good time...

I took a show girl for my bride
Thought my life would be right
Took her bowling, got her high
Got myself a showgirl bride

6. The Handsome Family - Bowling Alley Bar

When Brett and Renee are on fire, they can't be beaten...

Dented cars make me think of you
Sitting on a red leather stool
Drinking with your sunglasses on
In the bowling alley bar

And the sound of crashing pins
Behind us when we kissed
The night I wrecked my father's car
Behind the bowling alley bar

5. John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John - Summer Nights

Can't listen to this without remembering that time Adam Buxton interviewed Paul Weller...

Took her bowling
In the arcade
We went strolling
Drank lemonade
Do you think
This rhymes with laid?

4. Camera Obscura - Let's Go Bowling

More Glaswegian heartbreak from Tracyanne and the gang...

Anyway, I got myself some bowling shoes
An' they are all that I can see
With all my might I scored a strike
My friend you wouldn't believe
My teenage years were wasted all on me

Yeah, I can relate to that last line.

3. Lambchop - Let's Go Bowling

Musically, this wouldn't be out of place on The Big Lebowski soundtrack.

Lyrically: it is devastating.

Put that camera away
Take no pictures of the ruins of our life
That died without a fight and oh
We're doing everything just right
Except for touching and for holding and consoling
Let's go bowling

2. Elvis Presley - Down In The Alley

Originally recorded by The Clovers in 1957, Elvis brought a desperate energy to it that lifts it above much of the soundtrack fodder he was recording at the time. I love the anoraky detail you can find on iffypedia about old Elvis songs: "Presley recorded it between 4 and 7 AM in the early morning of May 26, 1966 at the May 25—28 studio sessions for RCA at the RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee". Did this guy ever sleep?

Janie, Janie, Janie, Janie, Jane Jane
Down in the alley, just you and me
We're going bowlin' till half past three
Just rockin' and reelin', we'll get that feelin'
Down in the alley, oh baby gee

1. Camper Van Beethoven - Take The Skinheads Bowling

Of course, there could only be one Number One on this chart. The Manics do a pretty faithful cover too. From the album Telephone Free Landslide Victory. Mark E. Smith would be proud.

Maybe it's a metaphor for racism, maybe it's just nonsense. Either way, it scores 300.

Which one is right up your alley?

My Top Ten Hairstyle Songs

Thinking of trying a new hairstyle? Here's ten suggestions from the best barbers in pop...


Special mentions to The Voice of the Beehive, Braid, The Crewcuts, Popcorn & The Mohawks, Mohawk Lodge... and, at a push, (The) Pixies.


10. Tom Waits - Trouble's Braid

It's only 1 minute 17 seconds long, but sometimes that's all Tom needs.

Well, I pulled on trouble's braids
And I hid in the briars out by the quickmud
Stayin' away from the main roads
Passin' out wolf tickets, downwind from the bloodhounds

9. Luxembourg - Close Cropped

David Shah's original band, Luxembourg, should have been massive. So should his next band, The Melting Ice Caps. He's an undiscovered indie genius as far as I'm concerned - the bastard son of Jarvis Cocker and David Gedge. Or something like that.

I want your close-cropped hair
I want your pale blue eyes
And I want your soft hands
And your handsome thighs
I want your gormless grin
Your regional accent
And I want your cracked lips
And I want your snake hips
And I want it right now

8. The Charlatans - Jesus Hairdo

 So baggy it's trippy.

7. They Might Be Giants - Bangs

 Bangs are basically what we in the UK would call a floppy fringe.

Bangs
To drape across your forehead
To swing concordant angles as you incline your head
And although I like you anyway, check out your haircut
A proscenium to stage a face that needs no makeup

I was going to say that this must surely be the only pop song in the world to feature the word 'proscenium'... then I found at least five more. Go figure...

6. The Divine Comedy - Bernice Bobs Her Hair

Anyone else adapting an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story into song, you'd have to accuse them of pretentiousness. Neil Hannon...

...no, it's still pretentious. But that's why we love him.

5. Super Furry Animals - Ice Hockey Hair

A not particularly complementary tribute to the much-maligned mullet - according to Gruff Rhys, you've sunk to the lowest of the low if you stoop to asking advice off a woman with Ice Hockey Hair. Or Bono.

For other famous mullets in rock songs, see Army in which Ben Folds grows a moustache and a mullet and gets a job at Chic-Filet when his band split up then reform without him. And then there's Mullet Head by the Beastie Boys: 'nuff said. And finally, of course, there's the peerless National Shite Day by Half Man Half Biscuit, in which we get...

There's a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets...

4. 10CC - Dreadlock Holiday

The story behind Dreadlock Holiday casts this oddball 70s Number One in an interesting light. The song's based on the experiences of 10CC's Eric Stewart and The Moody Blues' Justin Hayward when on holiday in Barbados (although the lyrics change that to Jamaica). In an attempt to talk themselves out of a) getting robbed and b) a dodgy drugs transaction, they explain to the locals harrassing them how much they like cricket and reggae. They don't just like it: they love it!

The 1970s, ladies and gentlemen: different times.

3. Happy Mondays - Kinky Afro

Son, I'm 30
I only went with your mother 'cause she's dirty

...was a serious contender for My Top Ten Opening Lines Vol. 1. 

Maybe when I get round to Volume 2...

See also  James - Afro Lover and Luke Haines - White Honky Afro.

2. Camper Van Beethoven - Take The Skinheads Bowling

CVB's David Lowery claims he has no idea why this song was a hit, and that the lyrics are utter nonsense with no hidden meaning. Which is pretty frustrating, because I was certain I knew what it was all about. Drat. Still, it's from an album called Telephone Free Landslide Victory, which should have tipped me off. 

TTSB was famously featured in Michael Moore's movie Bowling For Columbine and has also been well-covered by the likes of the Manics and Teenage Fanclub.

1. Morrissey - Suedehead

Why do you come here?
And why do you hang around?

Morrissey's debut solo single, and still one of his best. Much was made at the time that it charted higher than any Smiths single, and while Morrissey solo won't ever match his former band, it's interesting to note that he's had far more success as a solo artist, and a career that's lasted almost five times as long.

The video is gloriously dated though, beginning with Moz reclining in a bubble bath in his swanky Chelsea apartment (complete with There Is A Light... bathmat and the complete works of Byron) before a local urchin arrives to invite him to Fairmont, Indiana to visit the place where James Dean died. Once there, Moz stalks the snowy streets dressed like Chris Lowe from the Pet Shop Boys, graffitis his name in the local school, drives a tractor (see above) and plays the bongo for a herd of cows before camping out for the night on Dean's gravestone. If you've never seen it before, look up "hilarious bollocks" in the dictionary. All of which has nothing to do with the song OR the suedehead subculture, but it's still a winner.





Which will you be asking your salon for...?

My Top Ten Caravan Songs

Apologies for the dearth of Top Tens over the last couple of weeks. May is the busiest month in teaching - the GCSE English exam is just over a week away as I type this and so things have been pretty hectic for me (not that my students seem unduly concerned by its imminence).

Anyway, it's a Bank Holiday Weekend here in the UK, and across the country folk are dusting down their caravans and heading off to seek the sun. Here's ten songs they might play on the way.

Special mentions to Caravan*  and the mighty, mighty Camper Van Beethoven.

(*A curious psych-folk band with a very dubious taste in album titles: Cunning Stunts, For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night and If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You. Ah, the 70s. Different times.)



10. Blur - Caravan

I'm glad Blur finally got their act together and brought out a new album this year. I've only listened to it a few times, but I already know it's better than their last, Graham Coxon-less, effort, 2003's Think Tank. Caravan comes from that record, and like most of the rest of the album, it sorely misses Coxo's guitar.

9. Black Sabbath - Planet Caravan

Normally, if you went on holiday and ended up parking your caravan next to Ozzy & co., you'd very quickly move somewhere quieter. However, you might stick around if all they played was this trippy psychedelic number. Not at all what you expect from the BS Boys...

8. Courtney Barnett - Kim's Caravan

A haunting, mesmeric ode to our dying world from the Australian wunderkind's debut album, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. (Great title.)

7. The Adventure Babies - Camper Van

A lost indie gem from the last band to sign to Factory records before they went bust in the early 90s. The EP this came from is available to download free from the band's website.

6. Ella Fitzgerald & The Duke Ellington Orchestra - Caravan

Wow.

5. Van Morrison - Caravan

Van The Man and his Caravan. CaraVan The Man. Etc.

Timeless.

4. The Doors - Spanish Caravan

See, the Doors weren't all portentous doom, Oedipal urges and Viet Nam. They liked to travel round Europe in a caravan with a flamenco guitar too.

3. Jim White - If Jesus Drove A Motor Home

If Jesus drove a motor home,
And he come to your town,
Would you try to talk to him?
Would you follow him around?
Honking horns at the drive thru.
Double-parking at the mall.
Midnight at the Waffle House...
Jesus eating eggs with ya'll.

Well, would you?

2. Inspiral Carpets - Caravan

Can't go wrong with a bit of Clint Boon's majestic organ.

1. The Housemartins - Caravan of Love

Christmas 1986, and fourteen year old Rol stands on the edge of the dancefloor at the school disco wondering if anyone will ever slow dance with him to the Housemartins' a capella cover of the Isley Jasper Isley song Caravan of Love.

No one ever did.





So... which one will you get stuck behind on the motorway?

My Top Ten Non-Olympic Sport Songs

One day, the Olympics will include all the following "sports" and more... then we'll all have the chance of a gold medal.


10. Luke Haines - Secret Yoga

At first I was a bit scared
Then I got this amazing feeling...

9. Admiral Fallow - Subbuteo

Just my luck, I found myself drawn against Feargal Sharkey's cousin Kevin. He flicked to kick and I didn't know.

8. Super Furry Animals - Frisbee

Forget Beach Volleyball - this is what the Olympics really needs!

7. The Long Blondes - Darts

I miss the Long Blondes... but the Long Blondes never miss when they're playing Darts!

6. Silver Sun - Cheerleading

Another band I miss terribly. The chunky guitar riffs and sweet harmonies in Cheerleading recall Mercury & May at their tightest. Silver Sun should have been massive.

5. Half Man Half Biscuit - Bad Losers On Yahoo Chess

See also Paintball's Coming Home.

4. Art Brut - Unprofessional Wrestling

Probably another metaphor for shagging.

3. Morrissey - Ouija Board, Ouija Board

And representing England / Ireland in the International Ouija Board Olympics... Stephen from Stretford. With a little help from Joan Sims and Kathy Burke.

2. Lana Del Rey - Video Games

In the future, the entire Olympics will be played on the Wii.

1. Camper Van Beethoven - Take The Skinheads Bowling

One day, I'll compile a Top Songs Bowling Songs, dude. This will, of course, be Number One.



Any other sport songs you'd like to see included in the Top Ten Olympics?