It's been a busy week, so this is the earliest opportunity I've had to pay tribute to singer and songwriter Chip Taylor who died towards the end of March. I write a lot of these eulogies lately, and every one of them affects me in some way or other (otherwise, I wouldn't write them), but even then... the news of Chip's death hit me hard. Because through the songs he wrote in the latter part of his career, I felt like I knew him. Whenever I listened to one of his new records, it began to feel like I was catching up with an old friend. I felt like we had a certain simpatico, even though he was thirty years older than me and lived half a world away. I knew where he was coming from.
I only really discovered Chip Taylor in 2019 when I heard the above song on the radio. But it turned out that I'd known his songs much, much longer.
And then, a couple of years later, he wrote this, a song I became very familiar with as a child because the 1981 version by Juice Newton was a firm favourite of my old friend Tel...
Chip released a number of solo albums in the 70s, and then apparently spent most of the 80s playing blackjack and betting on horse races, only curing himself of that particular addiction following the death of his mother in the mid-90s. After that, he returned to recording and released some wonderfully individual and idiosyncratic solo records, as well as a string of excellent collaborations.
Of all the celebrities featured in the Jukebox since it began, Brigitte Bardot must surely be one with the most songs written about her. So much so, I've no chance of squeezing them all into one post.
It's ironic then that I know very little about Bardot beyond her iconography. Despite being quite the cinephile in my younger days, I'm not even sure I've ever seen one of her films. Clearly I need a crash course in Bardot. Let's see what I can learn from her many, many fans...
Let's start with another Wild Thing - Mr. Chip Taylor. He usually knows what he's talking about...
And the moving pictures move in sexy ways
These days
Son, lay low
Don't go...
To see Bardot
If I heed Chip's warning, this post won't go any further.
Ernie suggested an appropriate little ditty last week... quite lovely it is too.
As for me... well, I've posted this many times before (and each time, I probably mention that Chip wrote Wild Thing & Angel Of The Morning, so he's The Man)... but it never grows old as far as I'm concerned.
In the week before Easter, I was off work for three days with a bad cold. I'd been fighting through the cold over a week by the time I finally gave in and called in sick, but I just didn't seem able to shake it and I was feeling worse, rather than better, every day.
I still felt guilty calling in sick though. I don't like being absent from work, especially with a bloody cold! I've never thrown a sickie in my life... I just can't handle the stress. Everyone seemed fine about my absence, but that didn't stop my paranoia taking hold. The nice lady I called from HR said she hoped I'd be better for the Easter holiday, and even though I knew she wasn't having a dig... part of me wondered if she was.
It doesn't help that in my previous job at The Bad Place, we were put under pressure not to ever be ill, since there was never any staff free to cover our classes and management hated paying for agency cover. I recall one year I was off sick on my birthday, and my boss made a point of sending me a Happy Birthday! text. I was convinced it contained an inference that I was only taking the day off to celebrate... and how the hell did she even know it was my birthday? I never told her! As a course leader, I was also put under pressure to call or message anyone who was absent on my team and ask them when they thought they'd be back. Will you be in tomorrow? I refused to do it, because I felt it crossed a line, but I know other people who followed that practice.
I also knew that if I was off sick, it would put extra pressure on the other teachers in my team who were already over-worked and up against it. Many of my colleagues felt the same... and the ones who didn't, I was almost conditioned to believe they were swinging the lead. I guess in that, I was just as guilty of perpetuating the guilt cycle as my employers were. This was the culture that was bred into us in The Bad Place.
My current employers are much more understanding when it comes to sick leave, and because I know my colleagues are less over-worked, I don't feel like I'm imposing on them too much if I take time off. And yet... I still feel the guilt.
A report on patient.info asks "Why do we feel anxious about calling in sick when we are genuinely unwell?" Human behaviour expert Claire Brummell suggests...
The feeling of guilt we experience in these situations is because we are conditioned as a society to view doing anything to prioritise our own well-being as selfish.
This means that, even when we are physically in need of prioritising ourselves and our healing because we are genuinely ill, we still respond in a way that suggests we are doing something wrong.
Not only is it not selfish to call in sick, it is Selfirst - the practice of meeting your own needs as a priority, in ways that do not do harm to others, and sometimes can benefit them. It is actually taking care of the needs of others as well.
I get all that, and it's good to hear that I'm not the only one who has these feelings. But I'm not sure it's enough to stop me feeling them. Maybe after a few more years in this more supportive work environment, some of the mental scars from The Bad Place will start to fade. Until then, I just need to remember Chip Taylor's rather extreme solution...
I hate dealing with car repairs and mechanics. I always feel
like they’re going to be patronising, supercilious and out to rip me off every
chance they get. Unfortunately, due to the amount of mileage I do these days,
my dealings with car repair “specialists” have increased… and any such
encounter I can drive away from without a hole in my pocket or a bigger hole in
my ego gives me cause for cheer. Actual turn up the radio, thump the steering
wheel, whoop for joy jubilation. Survived another one! Got out with my wallet
and my dignity (mostly) intact!
There were bad times when my tank was running dry And my machine couldn't shift into its gears And on cold days it would stall So I almost junked it all
In her book Don’t Feed The Monkey Mind, Jennifer Shannon
identifies three “assumptions” which our stressed out amygdala loves to
accentuate. Last week I talked about Fear of Uncertainty… this week: Perfectionism.
I don’t think of myself as a perfectionist. I'm too lazy. Of Dr. Shannon’s three
assumptions, this was the one I'd almost ruled out from the start. Until I read
the chapter and realised that perfectionism goes hand in hand with something else
which I am extremely familiar with: fear of failure. The expert explains…
While others find motivation from challenge, a higher
purpose, a promised prize, or simply the joy of doing the thing itself, if you
are a perfectionist, your motivation is fear of failing. Your mantra is: don’t screw it up! Only when you’ve
completed the social interaction or task without making any mistakes will you
be able to relax.
This explains the whoop of joy I let out on escaping the maw
of the mechanic, unscathed.
This also explains why I never asked a girl out in my teens,
and only really stumbled into relationships in my 20s when the green light was
showing and the welcome mat was thrown at my feet.
As I’ve grown older, I have learned to take more risks, step
outside my comfort zone, force myself to flirt with danger if the prize was really
worth having. That’s how I managed to get out of my old job… but I had to be
backed into a corner by the firing squad to do it.
And this is the place where failure goes If your dreams won't die This is where all your hopes survive If they're not a lie This is where all the might-have-beens Triumph and forgive This is where all the star-crossed loves Have the chance to live
Perfectionists hedge their bets, only doing things they know
they’ll be good at. If you do get saddled with something you aren’t good at,
you may just put it off until the last minute, where you’ll have an excuse –
not enough time – to be less than perfect.
The argument goes that really successful people achieve
their goals because they’re unafraid of failure. They fall off the horse... then they get back on and try again. Eventually they get where they want to be. I’ve often argued
that the reason I didn’t make it as a professional writer is that I didn’t push myself enough. Every rejection letter was a kick in the teeth. Many of
my contemporaries who did succeed in that field lost all their teeth but just
kept growing new ones. I don’t believe they were better writers than me. They
were just better at recovering from a kicking, or as Jennifer Shannon puts it…
…relatively few high achievers expect perfectionism from
themselves.
Just everyday problems Find a way of bringin' you down But if you want it bad enough Find a way of turning it around You find a way of turning it around
There's one thing that'll beat failing That's trying If anybody tells you different They gotta be lying
A former colleague (notably more successful than me
in most aspects of her life, but also a major screw-up in certain areas) used
to swear by a popular self-help book of the late 80s / early 90s called Feel
The Fear & Do It Anyway. She adopted the book’s title as her mantra and it
appeared to serve her well. Cynical moi used to pour scorn on the very notion,
but the more I read about the way our brain works against us, the more I’m
coming to accept the wisdom in that mantra.
Oh baby, here comes the fear again, oh-oh The end is near again, oh-oh A monkey's built a house on your back You can't get anyone to come in the sack And here comes another panic attack, oh Here we go again
When we allow for some risk, we give ourselves more choices
and we prepare ourselves for when things go wrong. If we deny ourselves the
privilege of being wrong or failing, we’ll be unable to take the risks that are
necessary for meeting our personal goals. This is why, in addition to anxiety,
perfectionism is associated with depression, procrastination, addiction and low
self-esteem.
Failure hurts though. It’s not just a metaphorical kicking,
it can feel as painful, as brutal, as any physical assault. I remember when I
was applying for my current job. There was a moment when an obstacle was placed
in my way which seemed insurmountable. All the hope I’d placed in this one
opportunity, this lifeline escape from the mental misery of The Bad Place… and
now it looked like it was all a pipe dream. I actually collapsed on the floor
like I’d been punched in the stomach. I remember sitting there in abject
despair… feeling actual physical pain.
Somehow though, I managed to pick myself up and try to find
a solution. I still don’t know where I found that impetus. It doesn’t come
naturally. Maybe for some people, you only get it when you hit rock bottom.
I insisted that I'd wait till I was 50. Given that my back and my ears went a long time ago, I was hanging onto my eyesight as the last vestiges of some kind of youthful something, even though the small print has been getting harder to read for some time now.
Reading glasses, then. My head is having a hard time getting used to the adjustment. But on the bright side, maybe I'll read more, if I'm not struggling so much to read the print late at night. I remember grumbling a while back that Stephen King novels were getting harder to read because the text kept getting smaller. Now I'm wondering if the text hadn't changed at all, it was just my eyes.
I have two pairs, and I haven't lost them yet, so I can't play James McMurtry today. Instead, here's the always-reliable Chip Taylor...
Just as I thought I could put this series to bed, up rises Vlad The Invader to take us all back to the end times.
Swiss Adam and Charity Chic both posted songs by English band The Ukrainians in support of the resistance, so here's my two-penneth... courtesy of our old friend Chip Taylor and his backing band The New Ukrainians...
For the benefits of this post, let's just say that Vlad obviously considers himself one of the Perfect People. Therefore...
As someone who has been dubbed, and even self-applied, the moniker "Billy Nomates" at various times in his life, I was immediately interested to hear that a new punk-pop star had taken that name. Interested enough to give her debut album a try...
Imagine a Bristolian Patti Smith with a David Coverdale mullet and an old Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip cassette in her glove box, and you're halfway to imagining Billy Nomates. She shouts (because "sings" doesn't really cut it) lyrics full of breadline chic for the disenfranchised of today... and though I can't really class myself in that category, I still enjoy the grubby window into her world.
I could have used the following song in my previous job... the closest thing you'll hear to Chip Taylor's Phoned In Dead this side of the JobCentre Plus. (And no, I'm not putting down anyone forced to frequent that particular establishment: I did my time there ten years ago, for my sins.)
One thing's for certain, Debbie: I'm not going in if Andy's working Friday.
In the spirit of resurrecting old blog series to help me survive pass the time, we return you to the ever popular Grumpy Old Men thread, and one of my very favourite GOMs, Chip 'Wild Thing' Taylor.
Since discovering Chip's solo output a couple of years back, I'm astounded by just how much there is to enjoy. After forty plus years of musical digging, getting into Chip was like cracking a particularly rich seam of gold in the mine.
Here he is with another song from his 2012 masterpiece Fuck All The Perfect People, this one taking aim at record reviewers. Hopefully it'll bring a smile to your Friday. God knows we could all use one.
Imagine being "too dynamic". Chance would be a fine thing...
So there's a TV show on Netflix called Sex Education. I haven't watched it, despite the fact that it features Gillian Anderson. Then again, I haven't watched The Crown either, despite the fact that also features Gillian Anderson. The very idea of her playing Margaret Thatcher break my heart... and stamps on other parts of my anatomy too.
Louise has watched Sex Education though. Make of that what you will. The other day, she was listening to the soundtrack when I recognised a familiar voice...
Yes, it's our old pal Chip 'Wild Thing' Taylor. Perhaps not the first person you'd imagined to be featured in the soundtrack to a hip, yoof-oriented Netflix show... nor the first person you'd imagine to find covering a song by Regina Spektor about listening to Guns 'n' Roses. Despite all those facts... this is a belter.
First week back at work after the Christmas holidays is a killer for most people, but particularly those of us who hate our jobs with a passion. All I can say is, it's like I've never been away.
A colleague of mine has been on long-term sick since October. The sick notes from his doctor that he emails through every two weeks reveal his symptoms to be "low mood".
Excuse my French, but LOW FUCKING MOOD?!? There's not a single person in our office... hell, you'd struggle to find anyone in the entire building... who isn't suffering from PERMANENT low mood! My mood's so low, it's already 6 feet under. God knows what it'll be like after another 20 years of this shit - 30, if Iain Duncan Smith has his way on upping the state pension age to 75+.
Low mood. Jesus wept.
Here's Chip Taylor. He's used up all his sick days, so he just phoned in dead.
As a fervent believer that you shouldn't play Christmas songs after December 25th, I wanted to get something new up on the blog today, but as I've not quite completed my compilation of the year's best albums... here's the first half*, which I managed to complete last week.
For someone who professes to not know much about new music and is always whinging on about how the charts mean nothing to me after the 20th Century... I don't half find a load of records to listen to. I'm kind of glad that chart music largely leaves me cold these days, because if it didn't I'd never find the time to keep up with all that AND all the nonsense below.
As in previous years, I've limited my Best Of list to the big number on the calendar, hence 19 albums in 2019. But I could easily have done 30, like Brian. (Always ahead of the crowd.)
I won't bore you with the runners-up. Regular readers will have heard me going on about most of them already, and as usual there will be a few stragglers that stretch out into the new year.
This list is only a snapshot anyway. The Top 3 are pretty much set in stone, but the rest could move up and down a bit depending my my mood. There are some fine records here though, and though they won't all be to your taste, I hope you find something among them that tickles your fancy.
19. Better Oblivion Community Centre - Better Oblivion Community Centre
Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst. Not sure what brought them together, but it works.
"And if I bust out and the highway is really the key
Everyone can follow, everyone can overtake me"
*Keen mathematicians among you will already have worked out that that's not quite half of 19... but it's as far as I got before the lurgy struck me down.
I don't know how come I've only just discovered Chip Taylor, when it appears he's been writing great tunes for over 50 years and has released over 25 solo albums in that time... but that's why I like the music industry. It never stops giving. There's always somebody new to discover... even if that somebody has been doing their thing for half a century.
(I'm particularly impressed that Chip Taylor released a song and an album in 2012 called Fuck All The Perfect People. That's going on the list of songs for my funeral.)
Anyway, Chip Taylor has a new album out at the moment. He's 79 now and his voice and delivery owe much to latter days Johnny Cash & Leonard Cohen. Here's the title track (with a little help from an old George Jones tune). It's a belter.
