Richard Herring is back, with another conversation starter from his book Emergency Questions...
If you had to marry a muppet - if you had to - which muppet would you marry?
Now it strikes me that this question gives (straight) female readers more choice, since the only potential muppet wife most blokes will be able to think of is Miss Piggy... and who would want to marry Miss Piggy? Except Kermit.
Well, I mean, there's that girl from the band too, but I don't even know her name.
If gender were no issue though, and I had to choose a Muppet purely on chances of compatibility, I'd probably go for Gonzo. I feel a certain simpatico for The Great Gonzo and his resilience in the face of utter failure.
The poster above is from the late 1980s. HMV were barking mad, because they were selling new chart CDs for £9.99 in their sale.
35 years later, I still balk at paying more than a tenner for a new CD. Inflation is in the news a lot these days, but the cost of a CD seems to have been immune to 30+ years of price increases. Of course, CDs were grossly over-priced back when they were first released, especially compared to the mass-produced market-leader, vinyl. That's turned on its head now as well. The renaissance in record collecting, combined with a world wide vinyl shortage, means you're now paying up to three times as much for an new vinyl album as for a CD... which would have been unthinkable in the late 80s.
I can never get my head around inflation. The idea of paying nearly a pound for a bar of chocolate (that is smaller than the ones I paid 15p for when I was a kid) is almost enough to put me off chocolate forever. So I guess I should be grateful that CDs appear inflation-proof. For now, at least... until the hipster collectors ruin it for us all. Watch out. That day is coming.
From 1980, here's the only single (though it was a double A side) from Irish punk band The Threat. I'm not sure it was ever released on CD.
And here's something a little more like the kind of nonsense you expect from this blog, from Don Henley & Merle Haggard...
Welcome back to Saturday Snapshots. Yesterday's clues were so fiendish, you may well have needed a Black Magic Woman to help you work out the answers. Hopefully you didn't have to make a Soul Sacrifice to Satan, or Santa, or anyone with a similar name. Sigh. Let's put the crowbar away and get on with the answers...
Yesterday saw a closely fought three-way battle between Alyson, Chris and George... who might have been a joint winner with Chris, had he not gone off to brush his teeth, allowing Lynchie to sneak in and steal his final point. So Chris takes this week's crown. Thanks for playing, as always.
10. Starting fires with a score of tiny cars makes you sick.
A score is 20.
Matchbox make tiny cars. Matchboxes contain matches to start fires. But really, when was the last time you used a match? I get quite nostalgic when I see one.
Regular viewers will realise we can't let Morrissey win one of these - not even to a band who named themselves after one of his songs. I say because it's because he needs to maintain that perpetual losing streak, you probably say it's because he's a nazi.
"Jack who?" you cry. Surely Judith Durham claims a victory here.
Except...
There's something about the perkiness of Georgie Girl that has the worst kind of 60s sound to my ears... and that Jack Lukeman track is pretty damned good, actually.
A nice simple acoustic John Martyn song vs. the operatic pomp of Freddie & Montserrat, a track from the Barcelona album which I've not listened to in ages. I was almost about to give this one to the girls too, but around the 2 1/2 minute mark, Freddie only goes and blows the bloody doors off. Wow.
I'm going to confess something now... for many years, I considered Andrew Gold's Lonely Boy to be a masterpiece on a par with Morrissey's I Have Forgiven Jesus in regard to describing how my life felt... in fact I think I may have listened to it a bit too much.
On the other hand, I first heard Lonely Girls on an Uncut compilation CD and it was probably the track that introduced me to Lucinda Williams.
Arab Strab are hilarious, and this is one of their best.
But... Boys of Summer is one of the greatest songs of the 80s, and one of the best summer songs ever recorded. I saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac...
5-4 to the boys.
1. The Cure - Boys Don't Cry vs. Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons - Big Girls Don't Cry
Too close to call, surely?
Let's call it a draw to keep everyone happy...
But what would your verdict be? Boys or girls? Whoever wins, the losers don't cry...
Summertime and the living is easy. Perhaps not as easy as you lot keep proving the answers to Saturday Snapshots to be...
I think Rigid Digit took it again this week. I tried to mix it up a bit by changing the start time. Maybe next week I'll start it at 5am and see who's up then (Brian?). Well done to the rest of you who worked hard on the rest though - the winner isn't always the one who gets up first and nabs the easy ones. The true winners are the ones who work at hard the tougher ones... sometimes discovering answers involving bands you've never heard of (so top marks to Alyson for #6).
I guess I shouldn't be surprised by how many Captain & Tennille fans there are reading this blog. Or maybe just people who once they've seen The Captain... have had many, many sleepless nights as a result.
10. Young Strummer wasn't a pretty boy - and he didn't think much of you either.
Here's a proper grumpy old man for you. Famously grumpy in his youth with his fellow bandmates. Reckoned hell would freeze over before he'd get back together with those guys... then did a tour called Hell Freezes Over. Spent many years fighting David Geffen to get out of his contract. Puts out a new record about once a decade, if we're lucky. And in his last one, he went proper country - the true sign of a grumpy old man in the music industry.
But... we lost his old songwriting partner a year or so back though, so we should be grateful to have this grumpy old 70 year old still kicking around.
Here's the grumpiest song from his most recent record, Cass County...
3. Don Henley - No, Thank You
These are hard times we're living in
Nobody cuts you any slack
We got Space Age machinery, Stone Age emotions
Today a man had better watch his back
Everybody's selling somethin', the baron and the bumpkin
A man has got to fight for what is his
If what they're offering to you looks too good to be true
You can bet your bottom dollar that it is!
No, thank you
I don't think so
I think I'm smellin' a rat
Don't tell me what you're gonna do for me
'Cause I've been there done that
B.S. blaring from the radio, the TV
Hot wind blowin' off the hill
It's a mystery to me we can't agree to disagree
It's lookin' like we never, ever will
Like a drunkard in the night, swingin' left and swingin' right
Republican or Democrat
Well, I ain't got no love for none of the above
'Cause I've been there, done that
Oh, and he's too grumpy to let his music appear on youtube too. So here's a link...
Now that's an album cover, isn't it? I'd have bought that from the charity shop even if I hadn't recognised the artist. Don't you just want to be there, standing out on that street in the early 70s twilight, waiting for the world to take you somewhere interesting? No? Just me then.
Apparently the image is based on a Rene Magritte painting from the 50s...
Lovely too, but I prefer Jackson's homage...
9. Jackson Browne - The Late Show
My love affair with the 70s continues. It is now my favourite decade, musically. It's aged a lot better than the 60s, the 80s, even the 90s. In my humble opinion. Particularly American rock and pop, much of which seems timeless from that decade. Not the case quite so much in the UK: both glam and punk are sounding a little creaky now, much as I still enjoy them. But let's not get started on The Bay City Rollers.
It's an age thing too. I tried getting into Jackson Browne 10, 15 years ago. Bought myself an Essential Collection or somesuch. A couple of the songs hit their mark, most notably Running On Empty, but I don't think I was ready. And now I am. Picked this "classic" album up in a 5 for a quid sale a few weeks back and haven't looked back. It's a time machine I can use to escape the horrors of 2017 back to a simpler, more innocent time. I mean, it's not like there was a psychopathic con man in the White House back in 1974...
What?
Oh.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Forget all that. Just listen to the music. That smoky, late night piano. Those gorgeous harmonies (including Don Henley and Dan Fogelberg). The plaintive steel guitar. The car door slamming towards the end. Who'd ever think a slamming car door could sound so good?
So last week, Martin set me a challenge (perhaps jokingly) to see if I could come up with 10 songs featuring toasters. Well, I always like a challenge... here's the best I could pop up. No burnt offerings. Etc. Etc.
Let's start with the obvious one to make things harder. Before he started laying his hat in the lap of the common people, Paul Young was in a bunch of different bands (including Kat Kool & the Kool Cats and The Q-Tips). Some still consider this novelty b-side (flipped into a hit by Kenny Everett) to be his greatest moment.
See also Yeah, Toast!, which the internet claims is by Arcade Fire. I'm not sure I believe the internet though...
Lately I've been thinking bout' stickin' my hand in a toaster...
...sings lead Atari Kris Rose on this track from the band's punky (if not Punky - that's #6) debut album from 1997. Woman problems, obviously. Sadly, the live version on t'internet doesn't do it justice.
Great female empowerment tune from the fourth Squeeze album, East Side Story, in which a housewife has enough of housework...
Press the button on the toaster, it's a woman's world Tuck the sheets in on the bed, it's a woman's world Take your apron from your holster, it's a woman's world Shoot the crown off of your head, it's a woman's world
Sometime member of Robert Pollard's US indie band Guided By Voices, Tobin has also released a loaf of solo records over the years. This was his debut solo single from 1995.
Sadly the toaster in question is someone making a toast, rather than making toast. Still, it was the only song I could find that was actually called Toaster, so it deserved a place.
Even when he was writing piffle, Paul Simon still made gold. This was submitted for The Graduate soundtrack but the producers rejected it - perhaps it was a bit too goofy for them, but it still sounds great to me. Somehow far less annoying than when Paul McCartney wrote the same kind of nonsense...
Wish I was an English muffin ‘Bout to make the most out of a toaster I’d ease myself down Comin’ up brown I prefer boysenberry More than any ordinary jam I’m a “Citizens for Boysenberry Jam” fan
I wanted to include Henley's earlier song Long Way Home in which Don moans...
The heat don't work The toaster don't work The car don't work And I guess I know why This house don't work and this dream don't Work no more And lover, neither do you and I
...sadly, it's not available on youtube (not in this country, anyway), so I had to settle for using the grill... which, given the toaster isn't working, seemed like a viable option.
A delicious slice of whimsy written by cartoonist and children's author (not to mention the songwriter who gave Johnny Cash A Boy Named Sue and got Dr. Hook to call Sylvia's Mother) Shel Silverstein. When Bobby's girl leaves him for another man, he goes down to the cellar and cobbles together a mechanical replacement. You can guess the rest...
She always did what she was supposed to Right up to this evening but then She had an affair with a toaster And they ran off and left me again.
See also Tim McGraw's What She Left Behind, in which Tim's lady buggers off and takes the toaster with her. Tim's not smart enough to build a replacement.
Some serious Health & Safety advice from the Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm dudes...
If your toast gets stuck in the toaster Do not put a fork in the toaster while it is hooked up, or look out I did and I got caught in the current Pulled me in and shook me while it held me tight...
A song about the frustrations of being a mother, particular if all Daddy does is breeze in every now and then and your toaster is constantly on the blink.
Pay the grocer You fix the toaster You kiss the host goodbye Then you break a window Burn the soufflé Scream the lullaby
If you can get past the big hair and 80s power-drums, this is still a classic. If you can't, try this cool cover by Ash.
1. Grandaddy - Broken Household Appliance National Forest
Possibly Grandaddy's finest hour, an epic protest song about people dumping their old electrical appliances in areas of natural beauty. You might think that's not a fitting subject for a rock song, but if you ask me, it's a lot more relevant than anything Sting or U2 ever wrote.
Sit on the toaster like a rock No need to worry about a shock All of the microwaves are dead Just like the salamander said The refrigerators house the frogs The conduit is the hollow log...
I came across a good haul of Charlatans CDs in a local charity shop recently and was able to stock up my collection beyond the obvious titles. This is from their 2004 album Up At The Lake, apparently the only Charlies album never to receive an American release (not sure why, but whenever they do release records in the US they have to stick a UK on the end of their name because of an obscure American band from the 60s). Iffypedia tells me this particular song was only available on the UK release of the album - again, not sure why, it's a perfectly decent laid-back, Stonesy groove.
I originally came across this song on Harry Nilsson's album Pandemonium Shadow Show but I hadn't listened to that in years, so it took me a while when I heard Don Henley's version (on last year's Cass County) to work out where I knew it from. It was originally written by Jesse Lee Kincaid, a member of 60s folk-rock band Rising Sons along with Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal.
I've listened to the lyrics of this song a lot trying to work out what they're all about... there's a spooky, otherworldly quality to them. The People Who Are strike me as the sort you don't want to mess with.
Two contrasting hymns from The King Is Dead album (Colin Meloy was always a huge Smiths fan). The first is an ode to shovelling snow, the second a celebration of pegging out your washing. Ironically, it's the latter which appears to steal its chords from Simon & Garfunkel's I Am A Rock (y'know, the one that begins 'A winter's day, In a deep and dark December...')
Aztec Camera were a brilliant band, but I sometimes feel Roddy Frame has done better work since he packed in his famous job and turned solo. In the one-man-and-a-guitar stakes, he takes some beating.
No, I like The Magic Numbers. This is from their first album, when they showed the most promise. You have to wonder if, in our looks-obsessed culture, lead singer Romeo Stoddard's Steven Toast meets Giant Haystacks image prevented the band from getting on any magazine covers. Shame...
Of course, this wasn't the most famous song with that awful pun-title. I'm presuming Romeo stole it from the band at #3.
Hefner have written more hymns than Charles Wesley or Isaac Watts (look: if I can google them, you can). See also The Hymn For Alcohol, The Hymn For Coffee, The Hymn For The Things We Didn't Do, etc. etc. This one's my favourite. Although I've never been a smoker, I like the way Darren Hayman pays tribute to all his favourite cigarette brands, but mostly I like it because it contains one of the greastest questions in the history of pop...
Written by Chrissie's old school pal, Meg Keene, this is as close as The Pretenders ever got to becoming Fleetwood Mac. Apparently there are pagan themes to the lyrics, which would have fit the White Witch, Stevie Nicks, very well. Chrissie even sounds like Stevie on this.
Before she became famous, Chrissie Hynde worked for the NME. Among others, she interviewed Brian Eno, Tim Buckley and David Cassidy. Not Nicks though... I wonder if she was a Mac fan?
From their second EP, released in 1985 (their first record was out in '83!). It's still a pretty powerful mission statement from a band just starting out...
This song's made up, made second rate Cosmetic music, powderpuff Pop tunes, false rhymes, all lightweight bluffs Second-hand ideas, no soul, no hate Wasn't mean to be Built on complacency The nightmares ride away When you refuse to play Oh go and read a book It's so much more worth while Being a song-smith crook Study death in style Death in style
And thirty years later, they're still at it. Their 14th album, Girl At The End of the World, will be out in March.
1. Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
I bang on a lot on this site about how much I love storytelling songs and how important lyrics are to me, but I have to confess I've never really paid much attention to the lyrics of White Winter Hymnal. I know it's about something, and there's some wonderful imagery, but the effect the song has on me is purely down to the sound: the harmonies and the canon effect work together to make this a mesmerising piece of music. When something sounds this good, I don't need to know what it's all about.
As we move house next week, I'd be thankful if the white winter can stay away this year, please.
Four times a week, I have a 50 min - 1 hr 10 minute commute to work (depending on whether I'm taking Sam to nursery or not) and this is where I listen to most of my music these days. Most days enjoy the journey - it's country lanes most of the way - but every now and then, a bad driver comes along and spoils it all. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who thinks he's the best driver on the road. I just think everyone else is worse. ("L'enfer, c'est les autres." Or, "L'enfer, c'est les autos", if you prefer.) I chose the image above not because Neko Case features in this list, but because you'd hate to meet her coming the other way on your way to work, if that's how she drives...
We start out in 1954 with this terrifying anti-drink drive death disc. I think it's fair to say, if you've never heard this before, you've never heard anything like it before. You probably won't ever want to hear it again, unless you have some kind of sick, macabre sense of humour. Or you like tragic 50s death discs. As I do.
If you're
reading this post from outside the UK (and, bizarrely, blogger tells me I
have more readers from the rest of the world than I do from my home
country), you might not know that a Blue Badge is the thing that allows you to park in a disabled parking space in the UK. And little gets us as hot under the collar as seeing some able-bodied type who's managed to con a Blue Badge out of the council, thereby allowing him to park wherever the chuff he choose. (Personally I get more mad at people who park in the Parent & Child bays but quite clearly have no children... but that's just where I am in my life anymore.)
I park up in the pouring rain The space was empty, who's to complain? And if they did, I'd say I'm due for the op And sprint wilfully off to the shop
A typical Nigel Blackwell rant then, written from the perspective of this "ne'er-do-well of the highest accord".
Presumably, Kurt Wagner is driving slowly to prolong the time he spends with his new love before dropping her off. Which is all very romantic... but a pain in the arse if you're stuck behind him.
Lambchop sound a bit like REM on this one - not something I've ever noticed before.
I'll play this one for Dave on his 69th birthday. New album out today also: I'll get round to it soon as I can afford, Dave.
Released back in '77, this Low album track apparently describes coked up Dave taking revenge on a drug dealer who'd ripped him off, smashing into his car before going for a spin in his hotel's underground garage. They don't make rock stars like they used to.
I'm obviously on a bit of a Don Henley kick at the moment, following last year's comeback album. This is from the same album as his biggest hit, the astounding Boys of Summer, and while it's not in the same league as that, it is a very intriguing record, laced with the usual Henley cynicism and some bizarre references to French poets which I don't understand at all because I'm only an English teacher and the only French writer I can quote is Sartre.
This is what bad girls become when they grow up. Doesn't mean they become better drivers.
Classic Everclear single from 2003, although none of my muso pals will agree with me when I say this: I see it as kind of the American equivalent of...
Leave it to Moz to write an ode to that most loathed of bad drivers - he always has a knack for sympathising the underdogs. Even when he wants to kill them.
He's got too many girlfriends
He thinks he owns this city
He overspeeds and he never gets pulled over
Have you seen him go, though, oh?
The second and final single from the album many consider to be Moz's nadir, Southpaw Grammar, on which he flirts with grunge and 10 minute drum solos. I think Boy Racer stands up well now - but then, when compared to the album's first single, the lamentable Dagenham Dave, this could be How Soon Is Now II.
Oh yeah, and if anyone ever tries to convince you of that old Moz=Miseryguts chestnut, can you kindly direct them here...
He thinks he got the whole world in his hands
Stood at the urinal
He thinks he got the whole world in his hands
And I'm gonna ... kill him!
Aimee at the height of her powers, from an album with a curious story behind it, Bachelor No. 2 or, the Last Remains of the Dodo.Back in 2000 when the album was finished, her record company refused to release it as they felt it wasn't commercial, despite a number of the songs - including this one - already having featured in the hit soundtrack for Paul Thomas Anderson's film Magnolia... you know, the one where Tom Cruise plays a sexist dick.
(Insert your own punchline here.)
Anyway, Aimee bought the music back off her record company (for a shitload, by all accounts) and released it independently via her own website where it became one of the internet's first big sales success stories (CD-wise).
Having said all that, Driving Sideways isn't on the UK edition of Bachelor (which I own) because it was swapped for Save Me (also from the Magnolia soundtrack, and arguably a much better song). Thus endeth today's lesson on semi-obscure Aimee Mann records.
Taken literally, this would be one very bad driver indeed. If their feet could reach the pedals, none of us would be safe. Of course, when you get to my age, the average 17 year old looks like a Baby Driver... and watching them scoot down the road always fills me with dread.
Baby Driver is from Bridge Over Troubled Water and was originally the b-side of The Boxer. Jack Kerouac's daughter Janet used the title for her first (semi-autobiographical) novel, released in the early 80s.
1. Del Amitri - Driving With The Brakes On
I don't feature Del Amitri on this site half as much as I should, because I do consider Justin Currie one of the greatest songwriters of his generation. Gloriously grumpy too, which is why you'd be perfectly in your right to consider this just another one of his "moaning at the world" songs, written after being stuck behind one of those drivers who has to test those new brake lights he got for Christmas every three seconds.
Other interpretations are that the song's about an abortion the male partner was unable to prevent, and his attempts to come to terms with that and whether the relationship has any future. Certainly gives you an alternate reading for the lyrics...
Driving through the long night
Trying to figure who's right and who's wrong
Now the kid has gone. I sit belted up tight,
She sucks on a match light, glowing bronze, steering on.
And I might be more a man if I stopped this in its tracks
And said come on, let's go home. But she's got the wheel,
And I've got nothing except what I have on.
The song's from 1995, though it sounds as far away from Britpop as you could have got and still be a guitar band. At the time, that made Del Amitri unfashionable. 20 years later, it makes them timeless.
The Dude abides. The Dude is my hero. The Dude can do no wrong.
But that doesn't mean I agree with everything The Dude says... and there is one area in particular in which I just cannot agree with him.
"Not the Eagles, man. I hate the fuckin' Eagles."
And I know it's not just The Dude. It's a popular opinion, particularly among snobbish musos... but I for one love The Eagles, and I have a special fondness for their drummer - surely the greatest singing drummer in the history of rock? Surely only Dave Grohl can offer him any competition? Who else are you going to suggest? Ringo? Collins!? Maybe Father John Misty...
Anyway, Henley released a couple of my favourite albums of the 80s, but he's been pretty quiet of late. In fact, Cass County is his first record in 15 years (the kind of statistic that makes me and my record collection feel very old). Still, as soon as I heard the debut single, Take A Picture Of This, on the radio, I knew very little had changed.
Let's put it like this: he's still got that voice. And he can still tell a damned good story.
Much hullaballoo was made around the time of Cass County's release that this was "Henley's country record"... but the Eagles were always a country rock band... and although there are fine collaborations here with the likes of Miranda Lambert, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams and Merle Haggard (not to mention Mick Jagger), much of the record sounds like classic Henley. Take A Picture... could easily be an out-take from his 80s highlights The End of the Innocence or Building The Perfect Beast.
Although some of the tracks do veer closer to old-style country than he's ventured before, they all tell very affecting stories - many from the perspective of a seasoned 60-something, which is not a voice you hear a lot of in rock songs (despite the fact that many classic artists are now that age and older). Take A Picture... is told from the perspective of a man looking back on a long marriage (with a sting in its tail); That Old Flame finds an older guy flirting with the possibility of rekindling a long-dead romance; Train In The Distance (not the Paul Simon song) has a Stephen King-esque quality to its childhood nostalgia.
Henley was always well known for his political activism - both in his lyrics and in his support of the Democratic party - and the angry young man still has something to say at 68, especially on tracks like No, Thank You and The Cost of Living.
Finally, there's a couple of stand-out short stories that deserve repeated readings. Waiting Tables and Praying For Rain prove Henley can still turn his imagination to lives outside the world of a grumpy old Eagle.
A very satisfying return, then - let's not leave it another 15 years, eh, Don?
"Yes, The Eagles, Dude. I love the fuckin' Eagles."
Next, at Number 8, a rambling lunatic reads the entire contents of his diary onto record.
This is the first time I've ever edited a Top Ten after publishing...but shortly after posting it for the first time earlier this afternoon, Simon popped up in the comments and pointed out the most egregious ommision I have ever made. I've forgotten great songs before when compiling Top Tens, but I've never neglected a glaringly obvious Number One before. Well, I just couldn't let it stand. So let's try this one again...
Ten songs dedicated to hard-working waitresses everywhere.
The image above is the cover to the Felice Brothers' album Favourite Waitress... but sadly, there's no song to go with it.
Special mention (as it's getting close to Christmas) to The Waitresses...
Leave it to Loudon to describe the horrors a real waitress faces every night...
She's been on her feet nearly half the damned night
Bringing your beverage and your late night bite
She remains cheerful, when you're nasty and tight
Makes change for a 50 in dim candlelight
Ignoring the groping, hoping you might
Come across with a tip and sympathize with her plight
Tip that waitress!
A sage warning from the brothers who weren't Chinese (not sure they were brothers either... were there even 5 of them?) about never falling for that smile the waitress gives you...
In her tight uniform with a low-cut neck
And the way that the grease mixes with her sweat
She smells as good as the inside of a new Corvette
She fits your dreams like a baseball glove
And when she smiles at you, that's when you realize
That's not the way she smiles at all the other guys
You see her sneak a peek from behind the pies
She's a waitress, and you're in love
The
title track from Stuart Murdoch's most outrageously "pop" album (he
even hired Trevor 'Buggles' Horn to produce). Lyrically, it's the usual
Murdoch mix: equal parts melancholic whimsy and 'the sun'll come out
tomorrow' pipe dreams.
Any excuse to play some Fountains. This is one of the most laidback tunes in their repertoire. Reminds me a bit of Steely Dan, yet it's still unmistakably FOW.
OK, it's a shameless Prince spoof from a sitcom soundtrack album... but that doesn't stop it being one of my favourite songs of the last 15 years. The musos would have you believe that the above disqualify it from contention. I firmly disagree. This song makes me smile every time I hear it. In that alone, it's on a par with Wichita Lineman...
You're so beautiful... You could be a waitress You're so beautiful... You could be an air hostess in the 60s You're so beautiful... Well, you could be a part-time model (But you'd probably still have to keep your normal job)
I'd probably have made it Number One, but I wanted to save it up so I could use it again on my Top Ten Flight Attendant Songs*, Model Songs, and Beautiful Girl Songs...
(*And if you're wondering where Waitress In The Sky by The Replacements is (Miller), there's your answer.)
Taken from Don Henley's first album in 15 years, Cass County, which is a damned fine record. Proof, if proof were needed, that he can still tell a great story... and sing it with the voice of a weary angel.
Three waitresses all wearing
Black diamond earrings
Talking about zombies and Singapore slings
No trouble in their faces
Not one anxious voice
None of the crazy you get
From too much choice
The thumb and the satchel
Or the rented Rolls-Royce
And you think she knows something
By the second refill
You think she's enlightened
As she totals your bill
You say "show me the way
To Barangrill"
...apparently inspired by a stop-off at a late night gas station where the attendant started singing to her (when she wouldn't sing to him).
11 months on and Stay Gold is still my favourite album of 2014. (I'm currently considering this year's Top Ten... a tough selection process!) This is one (of many) stand out tracks, a song about wishing you could run away and start over somewhere else, with a sly nod to Cyndi Lauper.
And yes, First Aid Kit were originally Number One on this countdown. Until Simon pointed out the obvious... 1. The Human League - Don't You Want Me?
One of the great songs of the 80s? Apparently Phil Oakey thought it was a substandard filler track and didn't even want it releasing as a single (particularly as the album it came from had already spawned three hits and he thought the record buying public was "sick of the Human League"). It went on to become the 23rd best-selling single in UK chart history - and a Christmas Number One to boot.
Sheffield has a lot to answer for... although the video was filmed in Slough.
You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar When I met you...
Please don't leave a tip. I don't deserve one this week. Just don't tell me I forgot another classic waitress song...
How can you not want to listen to a band called The Bastard Fairies? Especially when they sound like Amanda Palmer backed by the Eels? Get out while you still can!
Last I checked, this was even available for free download from their website.
Lou takes a serious shot at his hometown. Amazing storytelling.
Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor I'll piss on 'em
That's what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses
Let's club 'em to death
And get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard
Written by Jim Steinman, like all the best Bonnie Tyler songs. You could probably guess that from the length of the title and the inclusion of orchestra, 12 sticks of dynamite and kitchen sink in the score.The video is also a work of demented 80s genius... featuring Hywel Bennett in the Todd Rundgren role.
There were times when we fought like tigers
There were times we were damn good liars
There were times we extinguished every
That was burning, burning, burning up each other alive
From the heavens on down to the dives
There were times we lost it all we lost it all
There were times we lost it all we lost it all
1. Steely Dan - Dirty Work
I've been listening to this a lot lately since its appearance in my Film of 2014 (so far... but then, I have only seen two), American Hustle. However, over the last few months I've also been listening to a helluva lot more Steely Dan than I ever have before. I am officially middle-aged. (I reach The Meaning of Life, The Universe & Everything this week, folks!)
So I am now at the stage in my life where I'd rather listen to a 42 year-old Steely Dan song (this, from their debut album, is as old as I am) than anything Radio 1 would ever play. These Top Tens used to contain a lot more Cool Young Indie Music and a lot less Sad Old Muso Music. I always dreaded this day... but you know what? It ain't that bad...
How bizarre has this weather been lately? It's July in the UK and the temperature is heading into the thirties. There's no rain. And everyone's complaining about the heat! Not a traditional British summer at all... who can remember the last time we had a sunny Glastonbury AND a red hot Wimbledon. It's like the mythical long hot summers of our youths...
Anyway, to celebrate here are ten songs about hot summers. Enjoy them while they last.
For many, many years, I thought John Sebastian was singing "'Til I'm weezin' like a bus stop" which I considered a beautiful line, even though the imagery was rather skewed. Imagine my disappointment to discover it's actually "'Til I'm weezin' at the bus stop". Never mind, it spoils this perfect pop record not one jot.
Please be upstanding for the utter insanity that is the full, minute-long spoken word intro performed by Jim Steinman and Ellen Foley... after that, you wonder how Meat's song can ever live up to it. Amazingly, it does. If I could marry this record, I would.
I bet you say that to all the boys...
1. Don Henley - The Boys of Summer
Nothing says the summers of my teenage years like this song. Not that my own teenage years resembled those described by Don Henley one bit... but I could dream.
I can see you
Your brown skin shining in the sun
You got that top pulled down and that radio on baby
And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
after the boys of summer have gone
I was always quite fond of The Ataris' cover version too.
Hot damn, there are just too many great hot summer songs... ten barely scratches the surface. If the weather sticks, I'll come back with Volume 2 soon... your suggestions welcome, as always (though no guarantees I'll include them).
So, the Olympics is over and so are my Olympic Top Tens. If you'd asked me three weeks ago if I'd had enough of the Olympics yet, I'd probably have answered 'yes'. Yet, amazingly, I found myself suckered in, addicted to sports I've never had the remotest interest in before (not football though - I still found that dull). I'm really missing the Games now they're done - there's a hole in my life. I just couldn't get enough...
"Enough" is one of those words: the more you look at it, the weirder it looks. There's not enough time to list all my favourite Not Enough Songs, so Ten will just have to be... enough.
You may have expected to find this at Number One... but although it is the Mode's most well known single, and a great singalong radio hit, it's not one of my favourites. The band have made far better records and this one's just a little over-played compared to the rest of their back catalogue. IMHO.
The ultimate question of unrequited teenage love - "Am I not pretty enough? Why do you see right through me?" If you've never been there, count yourself lucky. Or arrogant and self-deluded.
1. Manic Street Preachers & Nina Persson - Your Love Alone Is Not Enough
One of the Manic's best ever singles, from a point in their career when most bands have given up trying so hard.
