Positive Songs For Negative Times #34: Golden Brown

 

First there was this...

Then there was this...

And somewhere along the way was this...

I'm a bit confused now. Not quite sure of the exact order they came in... 

If you're unsure too, you could ask this guy.

Hot 100 #5

I know a lot of people found the joke of the Ben Folds Five - that there were only three of them - to be rather smug, but they're still my favourite band with a Five in their name... yes, I like them even more than 5ive.

Ben Folds Five - Underground

There were loads of other Five bands though, including...

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five - The Message

The Jackson 5 - I Want You Back

Dave Clark Five - Glad All Over

The MC5 - Kick Out The Jams

5 Seconds of Summer - She Looks So Perfect

Five Thirty - 13th Disciple

(Should have had that 8 posts ago!)

Five Man Electrical Band - Werewolf

(That's bloody excellent if you've never heard it before.)

Pizzicato Five - Twiggy Twiggy

Fiver - Horse Pill Vector

The Jive Five - My True Story

The Five Breezes - My Buddy Blues

The Five Stairsteps - Ooh Child

Five Finger Death Punch - Remember Everything

Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five - Caladonia

Five Go Down To The Sleep - The Glee Club

Maroon 5 - Moves Like Jagger

Tape Five - Geraldine's Routine

The Phantom Five - She's Not

And a very different band with the same name...

The Phantom Five - Graveyard

The Five Teenbeats - Time To Rock

The Berkley Five - You're Gonna Cry

5 Chinese Brothers - Let's Kill Saturday Night

The Five Discs - My Baby Loves Me

Five For Fighting - Superman

Brendan Croker and the 5 O`Clock Shadows - No Money At All

Funboy Five - Life After Death

The Five Satins - In The Still Of The Night

The Count Five - Psychotic Reaction

The Five Quails - It's Been A Long Time

The 5th Dimension - Age Of Aquarius

And, of course...

Five Star - Rain Or Shine

(Sorry, Martin.)

Oh, and this from Lynchie...

The best ever band with 5 in their name is "Five Hand Reel".

If this disnae stir the blood, yer deid!

Five Hand Reel - Haughs O Cromdale

Sad to say, every one of those can be found in my hard-drive (except Five Hand Reel, I'm afraid). That's what I was doing while the rest of the male population were out drinking beer, watching football and meeting girls.

"But what about the Five songs?" I heard nobody cry.

Over to Swiss Adam to kick us off this week...

The Third Bardot - 5 Years Ahead Of My Time

Iggy Pop - 5' 1"

I'm pretty sure someone has pointed this out before. It may even have been you. Super Hans! And that is a fantastic video.

Stockholm Monsters - Five o 'Clock

The Jam - Just Who Is the 5 O'Clock Hero?

The early birds certainly gets the pick of the juiciest worms, don't they?

Mazzy Star - Five String Serenade

The Belbury Circle - Cloudburst Five

Onto Charity Chic...

Louis Jordan - Five Guys Named Mo

That really makes me smile. And it takes a lot to do that these days.

Nanci Griffith - Love at the Five and Dime

I didn't think you liked Nanci Griffith. Is that for Mrs. Charity Chic?

David Bowie - Five Years (potential winner)

It'd certainly be up there with Iggy, Weller & Louis.

John Medd put all his chips on one track this week...

Martin Taylor - Five-Oh

That is a lovely reinterpretation. Although nothing beats the original for me.

Then came C, with a very telling observation...

Five Minutes or Five Years feel about the same at the moment so my first thoughts are Stranglers and Bowie.

The Stranglers - Five Minutes 

But, wait, there's more!

The Vogues: Five O'Clock World

and Dave Brubeck Quartet: Take Five

Thank you, C. We'll come back to you later...

Here comes Lynchie...

Tom Waits or The Eagles - Ol' 55

I think you can probably work out for yourself why I'm not allowing that one. Not just because it already featured here in Week 55, but because if I started allowing every mention of a 5 as part of a bigger number, not only would that contravene the Tom Robinson Rule, it would also mean revisiting every song we featured in Week #15, #25, #35, #45, all the 50s, etc. etc. etc. My brain just melted at the very prospect.

Oh damnation - Just realised that the Tom Waits song is 55 so we've probably done that one. And suppose Manfred Mann's "5-4-3-2-1" is no use. *sigh*

Thank you.

The Andrews Sisters - Mister Five by Five

That's more like it. Although there's something rather disturbing about the character described therein... and it probably contravenes all kinds of size-ist PC rules these days.

And then came Martin...

The Jam's gone already, so's (one) Bowie. So...

Lenny Kravitz - 5 More Days 'Til Summer 

I never really got Lenny Kravitz.

Gene Vincent - Five Days, Five Days

Christine and the Queens - 5 Dollars

Beck - High 5

Jeff Beck - Five Feet of Lovin'

Tricky feat. Cyndi Lauper - Five Days

David Bowie - When I'm Five (tbh, not as good as Five Years)

No. I kinda like it though.

Ziggy Marley - Five Days A Year

Cocteau Twins - Five Ten Fiftyfold

Tom Robinson Rule.

Hang on, Lynchie's back...

Natalie Cole - 5 Minutes Away

Sesame Street - Five People in My Family

We have a winner. (Maybe in a couple of weeks.)

Also back for a second go - Swiss Adam...

The Stone Roses - Full Fathom Five for some psychedelic backwards nonsense...

I am now worshipping the devil.

Also Minutemen - Take 5, D

That's great.

Time for Alyson...

I wrote about bands with 5 in their title a while back when I published my 101st post - as has been pointed out around here before (by George I think) the binary number 101 equates to the decimal number 5 so the 101ers could be a contender. 

I don't understand binary because I'm not a robot. These guys seem to understand it though...

Flight of the Conchords - Robots

Lots of binary code in there.

Wait, Alyson's not done yet... she has some songs too!

McFly - 5 Colours In Her Hair (one of DD's old favourites)

I have a lot of time for McFly.

Everything But The Girl - Five Fathoms

My personal favourite is this one although it won't qualify I'm sure - George was at his best here and it made for a memorable performance shared many times in the aftermath of his death.

George Michael and Queen with Lisa Stansfield - Five Live

Well, no, because that's the name of the EP, not a song. Great performance though.

Over to Dubai now, for our weekly visit with Jim...

The Blessing - Highway 5

I had that on 7".

The Luniz - I Got 5 on It

Forgotten all about that!

Presidents of The USA - Mach 5

Inspiral Carpets - Saturn 5

Martin gave that an extra vote.

Noah & The Whale - 5 Year Time

Serious contender.

Kirk Lake / Jaques - Five Finger Discount

Ooh. That deserves further investigation.

Adam & The Ants - Five Guns West

Ada & The Ants - Magnificent 5

(Jim's typo left in, because I love the idea of a tribute band called Ada & The Ants. They're all grannies, of course.)

Reverend Horton Heat - Five O Ford

Les Georges Leningrand - George 5 (First time i heard this song it was on quite loud at home, came on a Rough Trade CD, i had to turn it down as i was worried i would scare the neighbours. It is one of the strangest songs i have ever heard but i love it, took a few listens though).

All I could find, Jim, was this...

Les Georges Leningrad - George IV

...but if that's it, you're welcome to resubmit it next week.

Over to Rigid Digit...

Avoiding all the good ones I already had on my little list:

David Gilmour - 5AM

Live at Pompeii. From the middle of a volcano. Why do people call Pink Floyd pretentious?

Yes - Five% Of Nothing

Speaking of pretentious... that's only 37 seconds long, but you'll want them back.

Judge Dread - Big Five

Sadly not the one from 2000AD.

It was looking like Rigid Digit was definitely going for this week's booby prize... until he unearthed this little gem. An absolute cracker. I liked it so much, I wrote a short story with the same title.

Alan Jackson (featuring Jimmy Buffett) - It's Five O'Clock Somewhere

Tom Robinson Rule?

Doors - Five To One

Arctic Monkeys - Four Out Of Five

Flagrant abuse of the rules there, RD. Watch out, Charity Chic will start comparing you to Dominic Cummings if you're not careful. Speak of the devil (CC, not DC, thankfully), here he is again...

Johnny Cash - Five Feet High and Rising

Classic.

Tim Carroll - Five Year Town

Not bad at all.

Time to pop over to Douglas in Canada, who starts off with another belter from the Man In Black...

Johnny Cash - Five Minutes To Live

Before going on to protest that ultra-contentious rule himself...

I can't believe that Mattiel's "Fives and Tens" would fall afoul of the Tom Robinson Rule?

Well, it does. But I do like Mattiel (certainly more than Dave Gilmour or Judge Dread), so...

Mattiel - Fives And Tens

Or what of "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (Has Anybody Seen My Gal?)", which since its penning in 1914 just about everyone has covered, but for the sake of argument here let's suggest Dean Martin's version as well as Guy Lombardo's. Not sure which of those two version my dad had in mind as he went about the house singing it throughout my childhood...

Dean Martin - Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (Has Anybody Seen My Gal?)

I think that might just scrape in. Particularly as it gives CC the chance to add...

Scottish football fans used to sing "Six foot two,eyes of blu; Big Jim Holton's after you" about a nonsense centre half.

Next up is Brian, who has his eyes on a couple of the week's big contenders, but also throws these two into the pot...

Elvis Costello and the Attractions - 5ive Gears in Reverse

Wonder if the band 5ive stole their name from that?

The Go-Betweens - Five Words

Can't go wrong there.

Well, I guess that's it for your suggestions this week.

Oh, wait, no... we saved the best for last! Her comes The Swede, who took his time this week...

Here are the results of my wanderings around the old external hard-drives scattered around this house:

Fridge - Five Combs

Fridge - Five Four Child Voice

Soft Machine - Sign of Five

Soft Machine - Spaced Five

Sleaford Mods - Stick in a Five and Go

Fire! - You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago

Serge Gainsbourg - Wake Me at Five

Roscoe Mitchell - Off Five Dark Six

Couldn't find that, so I'm calling Tom Robinson Rule.

Marianne Segal & Silver Jade - Five of Us

Grandpa Jones - Five String Banjo Boogie

Bob Dylan - Obviously Five Believers

Michael Gibbs - Five For England

Billy Joe Shaver - Old Five and Dimers Like Me

Menomena - Five Little Rooms

Saturday's Children - Deck Five

The Heliocentrics - The Five Thing

Bonnie Prince Billy - Jolly Five

Serge Gainsbourg - Five Easy Pisseues

Sadly, I didn't have time to listen to or comment on any of The Swede's suggestions this week, because it's already 8.30 on Monday evening and I've not had my tea yet. I'm sure they were all lovely. I'm also not going to spend too long scraping my own hard drive this week. But here's a few...

Georgia Satellites - Dan Takes Five

Jeff Klein - Five Good Reasons

The Pogues - Five Green Queens & Jean

REO Speedwagon - Five Men Were Killed Today

Gretchen Peters - Five Minutes

Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip - Five Minutes

Frank Sinatra - Five Minutes More

Jim Croce - Five Short Minutes

Flaming Lips - Five Stop Mother Superior Rain

The Long Blondes - Five Ways To End It

Dawes - Less Than Five Miles Away

Art Brut - Martin Kemp Welch Five A-Side Football Rules!

There were probably many more, down in the recesses, but I really want my tea now, so let's just call a winner, shall we?

Truth be told, I was really rather stuck between two of your fine suggestions.

Firstly this... which is pure Fun, Fun, Fun, as suggested by both Alyson and Brian...

Housemartins - Five Get Overexcited 

However, much as I love that, I'm going to have to plump for the one suggested by C and Swiss Adam this week, mainly because it was the first one I thought of. Yes, it's a cover version of a track mentioned earlier. Or, more accurately, it's two cover versions in one, since it segues effortlessly into Petula Clark's I Know A Place about halfway through... and that's one of the reasons I love it.

As cover versions go there, it manages that rare trick of being better than the original. I think it may well be one of the most exciting songs I've ever heard (I know, I'm delirious from lack of food, humour me).



OK... who's ready for a little four-play?

(Apologies for any typos this week. I had no time to proofread!)

Saturday Snapshots #113 - The Answers

Whoopi! It's this week's answers...


10. Almost like a lone cuckoo, above its nest, on a rack, surrounded by water, screaming.

OK, McMurphy was the character Jack Nicholson played in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest... so this guy almost sounds like him.

An island is surrounded by water. If it were on a rack, it would be a long island. The screams would be the sound it made as I stretched it to make this clue work.

Honestly, the effort I go into some weeks.

James McMurtry - Long Island Sound

9. Bunch of evil bastards and feckless idiots, carrying a torch.

This, on the other hand, should require no further explanation.

Parliament - Flashlight

8. A small amount of fuel for Henry's car: pucker up, zombie Bruce.

A litre in the Ford?

"Kiss me, Dead Lee!"

Lita Ford - Kiss Me, Deadly

When I watch that, I am forever 16.

7. See wild animals in the waves and obliterate them.

Safari in the surf?

Surfaris - Wipe Out!

6. You should take one on de canal... drums after dark.

What else are you going to take on de canal but de barge!?

DeBarge - Rhythm of the Night

There's something wonderfully innocent about that.

5. A make believe clock for short bosses.

Short bosses would be MGMT.

MGMT - Time To Pretend

4. Ask a Loser if he wants a cuppa... you'll be surprised by how many sugars he wants.

"Brew, Beck?"

"You take five!?"

Dave Brubeck - Take Five

Nice.

3. "They're all out to get me!"

     Rubbish!

Garbage - I Think I'm Paranoid

2. Vowel-free gym teacher in the Yellowhammer state.

Their gym teacher was Leonard Skinner. He didn't like long hair or loud music.

No, really. This is the guy who gave them their name...

"Turn it up!"

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama

1. Artist not with Brand T gives up seat.

Rembrandt without Brand T = Rem.

Stand the drummer at the front then it's harder to identify the band. (Except... those eyebrows...)

Simple existentialism in a 3 minute pop song...

If you want a Ghost of a chance of getting the answers before anyone else next week - get in on the act early, sister!

My Top Ten Maths Songs (Volume 3: Subtraction)

Maths lessons continue. This week: subtraction. Take it away...


10. Pavement - 5-4 = Unity

Malkmus goes jazz. It makes sense on the album, and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is arguably the very best Pavement album. There is a rare version with vocals, but I think I prefer the instrumental... and you won't hear me say that very often. Yeah, I know the 5-4 is a time signature, not a subtraction... but it looks enough like a sum to make the grade.

Of course, this track owes a huge debt to my Number #2 this week... but we'll get to that soon enough.

9. Charlie Louvin - Two Minus One

Here's country pioneers The Louvin Brothers minus one (Charlie's brother Ira). No wonder he's lonesome.

8. Marion - Minus You

Britpop casualties, though this out-take from their second album (released only on the Japanese version) stands up strong, if you like that Suede-y sound. Marion are touring the 20th anniversary of their debut record this month. It's good to see there's life in the old dogs yet.

7. Tavares - Don't Take Away The Music

Ralph, Pooch, Tubby, Butch and Tiny give it their all in this triumphant disco anthem. Not as good as Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel or Whodunit, but few things are.

6.  Dr. John - Me Minus You Equals Loneliness

Voodoo blues direct from New Orleans. Perfect for a warm summer evening... sorry, Ihave a feeling we saw the last of those for a while this week...

5. Paul McCartney - Take It Away

80s cod-reggae McCartney: do I apologise now or later? Look, it's got George Martin on keyboards! Look, it's got Ringo on drums! Look, it's got John Hurt in the video! Look it's got...

How is it possible to be so annoyed by one smugly-slappable star yet find so many of his songs addictive? I wish I understood pop music.

4. Beck - Minus

Remember when Beck sounded mad and scary like this? It seems so long ago...

It's a sensation
A bankrupt corpse
In the garbage classes
With the crutches of frogs
Frogs! Frogs! Frogs!

Yeah, thanks, Beck. Nice Beck. Don't hurt me, Beck.

3. ABC - All Of My Heart

Add and subtract
But as a matter of fact
Now that you're gone
I still want you back.

See, I could have featured this last week, but it strikes me that this is a song of loss, so the subtraction has already won out over the addition.

Epic. Majestic. Heartbreaking.

Don't let anyone tell you the 80s were rubbish...

2. Dave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five

I'm not the world's biggest jazz fan, and certainly no expert, but I won't turn away any genre in my search for a good tune. And Take Five is more than a good tune. It's a masterpiece.

Plus, the composer, Paul Desmond, left the royalties to charity on his death. The American Red Cross make around a hundred grand a year off this song (and other, less famous compositions Desmond bequeathed them).

1. Frank Sinatra - They Can't Take That Away From Me

George & Ira Gershwin. Frank Sinatra at his peak. It doesn't much get better than this.

Of course, there are many other fine versions, by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday, Natalie Cole, Tony Bennett, Robbie Willia--

See you next week.





Which one takes you away?