I think we can safely say that The Swede is this week's winner!
10. Lost your afterlife? Ask Syd's heartbreakers.
Syd Barrett recorded a song called Gigolo Aunt, which Urban Dictionary defines as "A Girl who is usually very cute and pretty that seduces men makes them madly fall in love with her using her specific ways".
As we're not getting a summer holiday this year, this is as close as I'll get to the seaside. I was always an East Coast lad myself - Scarborough, Brid, Filey - but I've had the occasional foray to the Las Vegas of the north over the years (last time we went, I swore off rollercoasters forever after Louise persuaded me to go on The Grand National).
Blackpool has produced many a great musical son and daughter - including Robert Smith, Maddy Prior, Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys... and some of the artists featured below.
Special mention to George Formby and his euphemistic little stick of Blackpool rock.
Originally recorded by Blackpool's punk sons, The Membranes, this is their tribute to those hot August nights when it all kicks off in the 'pool.
The Membranes were apparently the first band ever signed by Alan McGee to Creation... until the deal fell through because McGee didn't have the cash to pay their studio fees. According to t'internet.
Having said all that, I prefer the cover by this bunch of Irish punk-tuation freaks. Sorry.
Punk fans: see also Blackpool by Sham 69 who aren't from Blackpool... they're from Hersham.
Another famous Blackpudlian tunesmith, though Harper doesn't appear to have much to say about his hometown on this eponymous ode. It's mostly instrumental (featuring some fantastic guitar work from Roy) punctuated by one short verse...
The rain falls like diamonds Pinpricks the still waters Spreadeagles its laughter Across the green sheet of The sleeping sea
Do we get the feeling Roy was biting his tongue...?
Arguably Blackpool's most famous musical son (fans of The Cure are most likely to argue), although Nash's mum moved him back to Salford after the war. There, he became a founding member of the Hollies before buggering off to California to super-group team up with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and (occasionally) Neil Young.
Military Madness tells of his childhood in Blackpool and his anger over the war that took his father.
Lyrically, this is the best song about Blackpool you'll find anywhere, and if this blog was completely objective, it'd be Number One with a Kiss Me Quick Hat. But though lyrics are often a priority for me, the tunes below are better: in my humble opinion. Still, a good effort from the beardy seed drill inventors...
There'll be bucket, spades and bingo, cockles, mussels, rainy days, seaweed and sand castles, icy waves. Deck chairs, rubber dinghies, old vests, braces dangling down, sun-tanned stranded starfish in a daze.
Blackpool born David Ball was the Chris Lowe of Soft Cell... curiously, Lowe is also from Blackpool, yet Chris doesn't ever appear to have persuaded Neil to set any songs in his hometown. Marc Almond, on the other hand, was happy to reference Blackpool's famous gay nightspot The Flamingo in one of Soft Cell's biggest hits.
Standing in the door of the Pink FlamingoCrying in the rainIt was a kind of so-so loveAnd I'm going to make sure it neverHappens again
Paul Heaton's ode to Blackpool from the first Beautiful South album is actually a stinging attack on the Liberal Democrats - or were they the SDP in 1987? It's a jaunty pop tune that shows Heato's Housemartins roots more than most BS tracks and challenges the notion of a left wing party swinging to the "centre (right)" just to get more votes. Still topical, then.
I'm out tonight and can't decide Between Soviet hip or British pride...
Heaton has written more songs that mention Blackpool than any of the other artists in my record collection: see also When I'm 84 and Get Here. Strange, considering he's a lad from the opposite side of the country. Do people from Hull really go all that way for their holidays? 1. The Kinks - Autumn Almanac
Blackpool only gets one mention in Ray Davies' tribute to Muswell Hill's hunchbacked gardener, but it stands out amid the wonderfully quirky lyrics...
I like my football on a Saturday,Roast beef on Sundays, all right. I go to Blackpool for my holidays, Sit in the open sunlight.
Moreover, this is another Kinks song that celebrates Britain in all its oddball glory - a land of toasted, buttered currant buns, rheumatism and disappointing summers. And that says Blackpool to me more than all the trams, tower and illuminations...
So, it's Two Thousand Thirteen, or Twenty Thirteen, or Another Bloody Miserable Year... whatever you choose to call it. Thirteen's traditionally an unlucky number... but then again, considering the world was supposed to end in '12, we're already starting ahead of the game.
Happy New Year to you anyway - may 2013 bring you all your heart desires... or, at the very least, ten great songs with the number 13 in the title...
When the H-bomb goes off, Ann Margret finds herself the only girl in town... with 13 blokes in hot pursuit.
Uh, there were two men every morning
A-seein' that I was well fed
And believ-a you me, one sweetened my tea
While the other one a-buttered my bread
Simon Armitage and the Scaremongers recorded a song with the same title, but that was a tribute to a local Rugby League team... and sadly, it's not online anywhere for me to play it for you.
Obviously Pink remembers what it feels like to be 13 - she's hardly grown up since. If you're a 13 year old Pink fan, this will obviously offer you some comfort... good luck in growing up like your heroine though.
One of many classic Costello songs I fell in love with despite having zero idea what it was all about.
When nobody knows, she puts on secret clothes
And lies in her splendour for a picture opportunity
Cover up that bruise, put on patent leather shoes
Just stop playing that bad mood music
Dan Popplewell spends the majority of this song wishing he was still 13. And then he changes his mind...
Do you remember rounders on the top field? Playing 'three and in' in
your Dunlop Green Flash? Getting chucked in the park lake by the thick
lads on the way back from school? Actually when I think about it, when I
was 13 I was a deeply unpopular child... 13... Thank God I'm not 13...
1. Big Star - Thirteen
Alex Chilton, on the other hand, recaptures the crazy, confusing, combustible feeling of being a newly-heeled teenager with one of his most simple yet heart-wrenchingballads...
Won't you let me walk you home from school?
Won't you let me meet you at the pool?
Maybe Friday I can
Get tickets for the dance
And I'll take you.
Those were my favourite 13 songs. Which one gives you triskaidekaphobia?
