If anyone wants to take me to task that Metal Mickey isn't holding a camera in the above image (as is customary for this feature), I have but one retort: he has an in-built camera, of course!
Here are ten songs featuring precious, and not-so-precious, metals.
A red lynx would be a bobcat. Marley was a naughty dog in Marley & Me... with a sad end.
(This was actually a photo of Bob and a couple of the future Wailers in their first band, The Teenagers. But you try to find a photo of Bob Marley that isn't instantly recognisable!)
Bob Marley & The Wailers - Iron Lion Zion
Snapshots will be back next Saturday. I'm not taking the Mickey!
One of my earliest memories is staying up late on a Saturday night with my dad, squeezed into his red leather armchair with him, watching Starsky & Hutch on BBC1.
Around the same time, weekday mornings before school, I'd listen to Terry Wogan on Radio 2, playing recent MOR hits like this...
Here's David himself again, playing the keyboards for Frank Sidebottom (alongside Paul Ryder of the Happy Mondays on guitar) in their "supergroup" cover of a famous tune by The Fall...
David Soul wasn't just Detective Kenneth Hutchinson though. He was also Ben Mears in Salem's Lot, a film that chilled many 80s youngsters, especially when the little vampire kid starts scratching on the window, wanting to be let in. And before all that, David even faced off against Dirty Harry in the 1973 Clint Eastwood movie Sudden Impact, a role which inspired this... the tune that sprang immediately to mind when I heard of his passing.
Rest in peace, David. I hope there's plenty of bonnets to roll over in Hutch heaven.
4. I was born pretty much slap bang in the middle...
According to the interweb, to be part of Generation X, you must have been born between 1965 and 1980. 1972 is pretty much slap bang in the middle of that.
Interesting noise. I like it when the bass comes in.
"I also have an album called 27 Passports by The Ex. There is no title track and, as far as I can recall, no lyrical reference to the number 27 on any track, so I'm guessing that this doesn't really count?"
Probably not. But we can hear the full album on that link.
Alyson & C appeared next, not with a song, but a rather more morbid link to The 27 Club, a list of artists who tragically died at that very young age, including...
New to me, that lot, Jim. They don't pass because the 27 is a band not a song (see The Swede's SEctor 27 suggestion above). However, I don't disqualify years anymore. So you could have had this...
He put a spell on some poor little Crutchfield girl
And stayed like that for 27 seven years
As for your third suggestion... we'll come back to that.
Last week I said I was certain I knew what Martin's suggestion would be. But I reckon Martin was too busy preparing for his Land's End to John O'Groats bike ride to make the suggestion. (Wouldn't it be easier to do it the other way round? Surely there's more down-hill if you start in the Highlands?) Here's what I thought you were going to suggest anyway...
The other thing I pondered last week was where our Canadian pal Douglas had got to. Holiday? Sadly not...
"For the record, I have not in fact been on holiday, but rather on strike. I am a teacher in the province of Ontario, Canada, and we are currently in the midst of troubled contract negotiations with the government over quality of education issues, and have been so for a while now, I regret to report.
Much to my surprise and chagrin, I have discovered that standing in a picket line in the midst of a Canadian winter is in fact not much like a holiday at all. The occasional cheery mid-finger salute from passing cars, the cheap coffee roasting on an open fire, the magically diminishing pay-checks as we prepare for the Yuletide season...very festive those.
But as we have gone from province wide strikes to rotating board-by-board strikes as of today, I had a chance to look in, and after being inspired immediately to think of "Never Had No One Ever", I realized that I was, sadly, late to the game, and it had been taken! (So perhaps in the spirit of having a horse in the game for that song, I will bypass the obvious Smith's version (perhaps the fact that a certain singer seems to be persona non grata in some quarters at the moment will mean a second-stringer may get a chance off the bench?) and suggest Billy Bragg's cover?
Other than that, I place my real serious cash down on John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High", which of course opens with some delightfully contradictory lyrics...
And I am going big money on this bet as I am confident I am on to a winner; I did my research once again, and discovered that on a certain 10th of May in 2018, Mr John Denver placed 1st in a Top Ten list with a different song, "Leaving On A Jet Plane", so I am hoping there is a soft spot there for all things Denver.
Now, back to the "job action" (and what a delightful term that is!)."
Firstly, you have my sympathy - and solidarity, Douglas. As a teacher myself - and one constantly under attack - I wish you every success in your action. Even though, realistically, we're all doomed.
As to your suggestions... can I come back to those too?
First, the inevitable trawl through my own hard-drive...
And to be honest, I'm really torn this week. The Queen Is Dead is still my favourite album of the 80s. But Never Had No One ever is probably the bleakest song on there, and do we really need more misery this week?
Rocky Mountain High, meanwhile, is a fine entry from Mr. Denver... but can I really choose it over The Smiths, even in the era of Mozaggedon?
Probably not. But it was closer than you'd think...
Next week - the final letter of the alphabet. #26. Go!
