Snapshots #320: A Top Ten Café Songs

What do you mean, this is a Catherine, not a Café?

Am I bovvered?

Here are ten songs to sing in your local caff...

10. Pardon, Sir?

Deaf School - Capaldi's Café

9. Two snooker greats will grow up to be a bit of a perv.

Ray Reardon and Steve Davis get Kinky.

(Aren't you impressed with my sporting knowledge?)

Ray Davies - Working Man's Café

8. The McNamara brothers were also...

Danny and Richard McNamara are two members of the rock band Embrace. This lot, from the early 80s, were also In Embrace,

In Embrace - Shouting In Cafés

7. Vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person's or animal's ear.

Definition Of Sound - Moira Jane's Café

6. At best, they're golden.

The Eagles - The Sad Café

Not to be confused with these guys...

Sad Café - Everyday Hurts

5. Lads often found on a cake.

The Cherry Boys - Kardomah Café

4. Killer Michael's Mum?

Michael Fassbender is in The Killer, which I reviewed here (if you can call that a review). This isn't his mum, but it could be...

Susan Fassbender ‎– Twilight Café

#21 in 1981, folks.

3. Day & Wright, Thicke & Dick.

Robin Day, Robin Wright, Robin Thicke and Dick Grayson, aka Batman's original partner.

The Robins - Smokey Joe's Café

2. A Christmas tune fit for royalty.

A carol fit for a king.

Carole King - Hard Rock Café

1. Roy.

If you can get past the fact that the lead singer looks like a young David Cameron in the video (and you probably can't), this is is a great tune.

Keane - Sovereign Light Café

Saturday Snapshots #52 - The Answers

It's been twenty-three hours and zero days since you finished answering (most of) this week's Saturday Snapshots... and, as often is the case, the early bird walked away with the prize. Well done, C! Nothing compares to you lot...



10. Riding through Dublin or Lynchburg (but not Campbeltown) with Bruce's dad.

Dublin and Lynchburg are towns that produce Whiskey with an e. Campbeltown produces Whisky without an e. Back when I was a whiskey/y connoisseur (20+ years ago), I preferred Scotch to Irish, but Bourbon beat them both.

In the song My Hometown, an 8 year old Bruce Springsteen rides through town with his dad. This is a different song with the same title.

Yes, Martin, that is Ryan Adams. But it could also have been Tim Burgess with that haircut.

Whiskeytown - My Hometown

9. Dick Kapital ☠.

Dick Kapital was easy: Richard being Dick, Marx writing Das Kapital.

The skull & crossbones caused a lot more trouble - it's used as a hazard symbol, specifically for poisons and other lethal substances.

Nice mullet/stubble combo, by the way.

Richard Marx - Hazard

8. Earthquake breaks up angelic ork.

Easy, it seems. Anagram.

Carole King - I Feel The Earth Move

7. Short hello in Oo fancies a big dipper.

Stick hi in the middle of Oo and you get Ohio.

A big dipper is a rollercoaster.

Ohio Players - Love Rollercoaster

6. The longest key on your street.

The longest key on a keyboard is the space bar.

Space - Neighbourhood

5. Troglodyte onomatopoeia.

Troglodytes were primitives.

Crash is an onomatopoeia.

Primitives - Crash

4. Washington Butler can see clearly.

George Washington.

Robert Guillaume played the Butler Benson.

If you can see clearly, you have 20/20 vision.

George Benson - 20/20

3. Wilde meat glares at Joan Crawford.

Kim Wilde.

Meat = carne (as in carnivore).

Bette Davis glared at Joan Crawford.

Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes

2. Bad bad (almost) Beach Boy Brown ups the bidding.

Bad Bad Leroy Brown + Van Dyke Parks.

My dad used to be an auctioneer. This song always makes me think of him.

Leroy Van Dyke - The Auctioneer

1. What if Alan Bennett only wrote one monologue?

Alan Bennett wrote a series of monologues called Talking Heads. But if he'd only written one...

(If you've not seen it before, check out the Donald Trump version.)



Erm... Mandinka next Saturday. Or something.

My Top Ten Alligator Songs

An album with an alligator on the cover.

A much better album without an alligator on the cover.

As promised, here is the inevitable follow-up to My Top Ten Crocodile Songs... in a snap!

Be warned... though there were lots of alligator songs in my tomb of tunes... there weren't very many great ones.


10. Bill Haley & The Comets - See You Later, Alligator

Buddy Holly. Chuck Berry. Gene Vincent. Eddie Cochran. Fats Domino. The Everly Brothers. Jerry Lee Lewis. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I love them all.

Never quite got Bill Haley though. He never felt rock 'n' roll enough for me. (Ironic, considering a lot of people call his biggest hit 'the first rock 'n' roll record'.)

9. REM - Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter

If you ever wondered why REM called it a day, this video offers ample evidence. From their final album, for good reason.

As for alligator alliteration, Carole King does a better job on Alligators All Around.

8. Foxboro Hot Tubs - Alligator

What Green Day did on their day off. Pretended to be The Who. 

7. Paul Gilbert - Alligator Farm

This really rocks. You might enjoy it. (So I won't tell you it's by the bloke who used to be in Mr. Big.)

6. Curve - Alligators Getting Up

Sounds a bit like a rejected Bond theme. Maybe Curve were thinking of remaking Live & Let Die? (i.e. The One With Alligators. Or Crocodiles. Don't be pedantic.)


5. Chely Wright - Alligator Purse

The alligator version of Crocodile Shoes. Only better.

4. Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Alligator Wine

Genuinely scary.

3. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Gator On The Lawn

Tom does his best Elvis shuffle because every other day he's got a gator on his lawn.

2. ZZ Top - Alley-Gator

Sounds like most  other ZZ Top songs you've ever heard, only twice as fuzzy. Therefore it's amazing. (At least in the context of this list.)

1. Cameo - Alligator Woman / Lionel Ritchie - Night Train (Smooth Alligator)

Look, I know this particular Top Ten hasn't been my finest moment. There are some top notch artists on this countdown, but they've all done far better things in their careers, and none of the songs featured today can hold a candle to last week's Crocodile post. But I promised an alligator follow-up, and so I felt contractually obliged. Hence this two-fer-one Number One of 80s soul shudders which I'm sure will make most of you run for the hills, but I actually think are quite fun in a very much of-their-time sort of way.

Look, it was either this or Paul McCartney and Mark Ronson. Believe me, you got off lightly.





Maybe I missed the lost classic alligator song that's lurking in your swamp. If so, do tell...

My Top Ten Shotgun Songs

Lots of songs about guns in my arsenal... here's ten that come with a double-barrelled blast.


Special mention to Shotgun Jimmie.


10. Guns 'n' Roses - Shotgun Blues

One of those GnR stroppy songs where Axl gets all sweary and slags off his critics and anyone who ever let their dog crap on his lawn. But not half as good as Get In The Ring. I like the end though. 

9. Sheryl Crow - Shotgun

Sheryl goes country. See also Carrie Underwood - Cupid's Got A Shotgun & Miranda Lambert - Gunpowder & Lead... but Sheryl still shows them both how to shoot it.

8. Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Shotgun Blues

I should be against adding artificial vinyl crackle to a song recorded in 2008, but this just sounds so old, nasty and dirrrrty, I can see why they did it.

7. Superman Revenge Squad -  Joe Concedes Ultimate Defeat By Blowing His Face Skywards With A Shotgun

'Nuff said?

No?

Even The Fonz must be afraid of what lies beyond
Even Steven Seagal must wake up in a cold sweat sometimes
Pondering the nature of time...
How it only seems to disappear
One day you're born 
And the next you're hearing voices from the corner of the old folks home
Was that a burglar?
Or something much more sinister?
Like the ghost of someone you used to know?
Maybe an ex-husband or wife, I dunno
But what they're saying is there's no room for you up there in heaven
You did those ouija boards when you where young
And you brought one or two records by Iron Maiden

6. Carole King - Smackwater Jack

A superb gunslinging western showdown between Smackwater Jack and Big Jim The Chief (not to mention Carole King and her lyrical partner Gerry Goffin), possibly my favourite song from Tapestry... I love a good story.  

You can't talk to a man 
With a shotgun in his hand

5. Elvis Costello - Shot With His Own Gun

Possibly not about a shogun, though it does have both in the title.Wonderful early Costello song though with some amazing piano playing from Steve Nieve.

On your marks, man, ready, set
Let's get loaded and forget

4. Roy C - Shotgun Wedding

Roy C gets marched up the aisle by an angry father when "the baby makes three". Later covered by Rod Stewart, who no doubt has been threatened with similar reprisals once or twice in his life.

3. Willie Nelson - Shotgun Willie

Willie Nelson with a shotgun is one scary prospect... especially if he's sitting around in his underwear.

Written, according to iffypedia, "on the empty packaging of a sanitary napkin while in the bathroom of his hotel room."

Well, you can't make a record if you ain't got nothin' to say...

I dunno about that, Willie... have you heard the Top 40 these days? (Token "sad old man" comment for this week.)

2. Billy Idol - White Wedding Pt. 1

There was a moment when I considered making this Number One. I do love me some classic Billy Idol. And you can't beat the bit in the video where he's singing with a tea towel on his head. Plus, without Billy, we probably would never have had Spike, my favourite character from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Also interesting to see Dexys, Tracey Ullman and the cast of Flash Gordon among the wedding guests. Billy certainly had some interesting friends. Then the bride starts wrecking her lovely red MFI kitchen with her bad dancing and Billy drives a motorbike through a stained glass window. Videos were so much more interesting in the 80s. (Bonus "sad old man" comment for this week.)

Hey, little sister - SHOTGUN!

1. Jr. Walker & the All-Stars - Shotgun

Classic Motown, with a cool Hammond organ and Walker's amazing sax playing. Doesn't get much better than this.





Which one gives you both blasts?