Showing posts with label Carla Bruni. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carla Bruni. Show all posts

Tuesday, 2 July 2019

Hot 100 #35


Welcoming us to the number 35 on our countdown is Italian "cinematic funk band" Milano 35. Here they are in action. 

35 proved a tricky number for those of you who are playing along at home, with only 4 of our regular correspondents having anything to offer. Here's a selection of those...

Martin started us out with a lyrical reference which sent him down a scary internet rabbithole of old The Word performances.

Inspiral Carpets - Saturn 5

Laying down the lifeless corpse of President 35
The lady crying by his side is the most beautiful woman alive

I should have included that in My Top Ten JFK Songs.

Lynchie also had a lyrical offering...

Christy Moore - Blackjack County Chains

I was sittin' beside the road in Black Jack County.
Not knowing that the Sheriff paid a bounty,
For men like me that hadn't got a penny to their name.
So he locked my leg to 35 pounds of Black Jack County Chains.

Whereas our Canadian correspondent, Douglas, chose to play it safe this week with suggestions from two of my all-time favourite artists. Surely one of these must be the winner?

Bruce Springsteen - My Hometown

Last night me and Kate we laid in bed
Talking about getting out
Packing up our bags maybe heading south
I'm 35, we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel and said, 
"Son take a good look around...
This is your hometown."

Billy Bragg - Speedway Hero

So fill her up and pick her up
And ride into the breeze,
You're taking all the corners
That were at the 35 degrees.
It's so hard to face up to
It's not in no highway code,
Another speedway hero's coming home.

That one even feels like Billy channeling Bruce, so extra points right there.

However, I decided to go another way this week, and I'll explain why in a moment. First though, the usual trawl through suggestions kicked up by my own hard-drive...

Saint Etienne - 4:35 In The Morning

Spacemen 3 - 2:35

Rodney Crowell - I Want You #35

Carla Bruni - Ballade At Thirty-Five

Onto this week's winner then, as suggested by The Swede (good to have you back) and seconded by Lynchie. Regular readers will know that The Swede suggests a Bob Dylan track most weeks on this feature, and most weeks his suggestions fall on deaf ears. This week he hit on an obvious classic though. Blonde on Blonde, the album this comes from, was the first Dylan album I ever bought, and for a good few years it was the only one I owned. I listened to it a fair bit while trying to get into his Bobness at a young age, and while it didn't quite persuade me to obsessively hunt down the rest of his back catalogue, I fostered a strange affection for it. If I was forced at gunpoint to name a favourite Dylan album, this would be my go-to. Everybody must get stoned.

That said, don't expect it to show up again at number 12. I can easily think of a dozen songs that would come before it.



34 next week. Another tough one. Your help greatly appreciated.


Monday, 16 October 2017

My Top Ten Ingrid Bergman Songs


Yes, it's the series nobody really likes, but I do it anyway. Indulge me!

Having done Bogie, it seems only fair I give some thought to his Casablanca co-star. Was that cannon fire, or is it my heart pounding?


10. Duran Duran - Notorious

When I started in radio, this record had been out a couple of years and so the jocks (who still had free choice back then... for a short time) would dig it out and give it a spin quite often. Mostly so they could make the same gag: Mo-mo-monotonous...

Still, good memories.

Notorious is a great Hitchcock film, with Ingrid and Cary Grant.

9. Serge Lama & Carla Bruni - Casablanca

Most of it's in French, so I don't understand a word of it... except when they sing about Bogart et Ingrid Bergman...

8. Bee Gees - For Whom The Bell Tolls

Hard to imagine that Robin, Maurice and Barry were big Hemingway fans, but they did steal the title of one of his most famous novels... made into a 1943 movie starring Ingrid & Gary Cooper.

7. The Alan Parsons Project - Call Up

If Alan had a time machine, he'd use it to rescue a bunch of dead stars. Ingrid would be among them, in excellent company.

6. Siouxsie & The Banshees - Spellbound

More Hitchcock, this time with Gregory Peck. Siouxsie is a huge Hitchcock fan.

5. Sleeper - Lie Detector
She's a movie star arrangement
Got a touch of Bergman to her face
She wears suits and buys him flowers
Smokes his cigarettes and bakes him cakes
He says uh oh I love you
But I'm not sure I trust you
Weird thing is, I reckon Louise Wener had a touch of Bergman to her face too. 

4. Richard Thompson - Jerusalem On The Jukebox
In the bathroom mirror they try that Joan of Arc look again
Two parts Ingrid Bergman to one part Shirley MacLaine...
3. The Beautiful South - Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud)
I want my sun-drenched, windswept Ingrid Bergman kiss...
Don't we all?

2. Pulp - The Day After The Revolution

The closing track on the greatest album of the 90s, and the one that killed Britpop. I loved Britpop, but it needed killing.

Fair enough, the Bergman that Jarvis claims is over may well be Ingmar (no relation to Ingrid), but it's my blog and so I'll pretend he was singing about Ingrid just so I get to play this amazing track.

1. Billy Bragg - Ingrid Bergman

I know I featured this a few weeks back in My Top Ten Innuendo Songs, but it's worth giving it another spin without the phnarrs... because it's beautiful. Woody Guthrie lives, through the Bard of Barking.




Play it once, Sam. For old times' sake.


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