Title Fight #9: Jam After School

Welcome back to my appreciation of song titles that leap off the record sleeve and demand to be listened to. The songs themselves might not always live up to the hype, but they're usually worthy of at least a little consideration.

Diana Ross is clearly one very tough cookie - and not someone I'd get in a boxing ring with, since she has a history of taking few prisoners. Whatever personality flaws she may or may not possess, there's no denying the power of her musical legacy. The Supremes, for me at least, were supreme... and her solo years are full of gems too, with a little sifting. Title-wise, this is probably my favourite song she's performed on. It makes you wonder why a certain Manchester Miserablist never thought to cover it...

Diana Ross & The Supremes - Misery Makes Its Home In My Heart

Another seemingly indestructible woman from the world of pop is Skin from Skunk Anansie. She always looks like the type to knock you down as soon as look at you... though she also possesses a welcome self-awareness, as demonstrated below... 

Skunk Anansie - It Takes Blood And Guts To Be This Cool But I'm Still Just A Cliché

Makes you wonder if Skin was channeling the late Poly Styrene...

X-Ray Spex - I Am A Cliché

When it came to self-awareness, Poly was definitely ahead of the pack...

X-Ray Spex - I Am A Poseur 

...though you can take that self-deprecation shtick a little too far, Poly...

X-Ray Spex - I Can't Do Anything

Especially when, if we're talking about song titles, you go down in history as having written one of the absolute greats...

Resilience and determination are also on display from our next lady. Barbara Brown hailed from Memphis in the early 60s, signing a deal with Stax that really was a family affair - sisters Roberta, Betty and Maurice (?) were on backing vocals, while brothers Walter and Richard contributed to the songwriting. 

Barbara & The Browns - If I Can't Run To You, I'll Crawl 

Still in the southern States, but a few decades later, we find a lady called Keri Leigh, presumably helping clean the floor so that Barbara can crawl on it. I couldn't find much about Keri on the web of lies, but this track came from a collection I've been dipping into lately called The Last Soul Company: Malaco - A 30 Year Restrospective.

Keri Leigh - Here's Your Mop, Mr. Johnson

Back up to date - almost, because this is from Dry Cleaning's debut EP of 2019, though it's recently been remastered and made all sparkly. I hope you enjoy the wonderful stream-of-consciousness wordplay and deadpan vocals of Florence Cleopatra Shaw as much as I do. 

Imaginary hot romance with Daniel Day Lewis
Welcome to the county of Hampshire
Jam after school

Dry Cleaning - Jam After School

Here's another southern diva, a lady who's mostly known around these parts for warning you not to mess with her toot toot. Scratch below the surface, and Ms. LaSalle (real name: Ora Denise Allen) had an enviable career as a smooth soul chanteuse, songwriter, producer and record company boss. Here's a great little number from her back catalogue, and a title that raises all kinds of questions...

Denise LaSalle - Your Husband Is Cheating On Us

And finally, we have the return of a band who haven't made music together in 35 years. Back in the late 80s, they released one classic album, then started working on a second... which never really happened. A jumbled collection of b-sides and out-takes appeared in its place, and that was all she wrote. Lead singer Eddi Reader went off to a solo career, while guitarist Mark Nevin co-wrote Morrissey's most underappreciated album, Kill Uncle, and a bunch of other stuff he kept to himself. They finally appear to have patched up their differences though, and the result sounds as though they've never been away. Great title too...

 

2023: The Best Of The Rest

Before we get to the Top Ten, a brief round up of other noteworthy records I've been listening to this year that I couldn't shoehorn into previous posts.

Karine Polwart didn't have a new album out this year, otherwise she would have been in the Old Faithfuls category. She did, however, release an EP called Seek The Light, from which came one of my favourite tunes of 2023, Windblown. Folk Radio explains the song's background...

"...the story of the old Sabal bermudana palm that was the pride of Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden (RBGE), the oldest specimen in its living collection. Sadly, the plant’s desire to seek the light sealed its own fate. Its towering growth threatened to push through the dome of the garden’s iconic Victorian tropical glasshouse."

Karine Polwart, Dave Milligan & Pippa Murphy - Wind Blown

Staying in Edinburgh, we find local lad (although he was born in London), Dan Wilson, who released his latest Withered Hand record this year. He's hardly what you'd call prolific - this is only his third release since 2009 - but he's always worth a listen.

Withered Hand - Waking Up

Our final Scottish offering comes from another perennial favourite, Daniel Meade, who describes his latest album, Your Madness Is My Medicine, as "a welcome return to the boogie woogie & rock n roll".

Daniel Meade - Your Madness Is My Medicine

Andrew Blackaby comes from London where he became a Born Again Christian at age 13, and then had to fight to extract himself from the grip of his church. His latest record, Comeback Innocence, deals with the extra dollop of teenage angst that ensued...

And we're doing our best, we're doing our best
I guess that much is true
But like Travis Driftwood on The Man Who
I'll drift away from you

Blackaby - Teenage Purity

Another Andrew, though far more Savage than the last, is the co-frontman of New York-via Texas band Parquet Courts. He also does his own thing, and I was rather taken by this single... not just because I like songs about Elvis. It reminds me of Stephen Malkmus.

A. Savage - Elvis In The Army

The Gaslight Anthem came back this year, bringing their old pal / idol Bruce Springsteen along for the ride. Bruce appears to be filling his spare time by guesting on other people's records these days - he's popped up on songs by Bleachers, John Mellencamp, Jesse Malin, Lucinda Williams and probably a load more I haven't come across just yet. Anyway, I've only just started giving serious time to the latest Gaslight Anthem album, but it does appear to be something of a return to form.

The Gaslight Anthem (ft. Bruce Springsteen) - History Books  

The Sleaford Mods are a band I can only take in small doses, because they look and sound like the kind of dodgy geezers you'd steer well clear of if you saw them walking down your local high street on a Saturday night. Still, when they drafted in Florence Shaw from Dry Cleaning to start swearing along with them in her usual deadpan style, they got a sizable amount of plays from me. Extra marks for re-using the title of the 1978 sequel to The Guns of Navarone...

Sleaford Mods feat. Florence Shaw - Force 10 From Navarone 

And while we're here, it's worth mentioning the Mods' "Christmas single", a cover of West End Girls by The Pet Shop Boys which sounds exactly like one of the blokes described above grabbing the mic on Karaoke Night and giving it his "best"... with everybody in the audience too scared to snatch the mic back. All profits going to Shelter though, so you can't knock 'em for it.

Sleaford Mods - West End Girls

Finally, the album that I would have placed at #11 in my Year End Countdown, if I could have been bothered to count past ten. Rare Birds: Hour of Song by ramshackle Welsh wonders The Bug Club is as good as most of my Top Ten, to be fair, but I was annoyed by all the spoken word between-song interludes... to the point that I edited them out to create a music more enjoyable record. A hugely enjoyable purchase, nevertheless...

The Bug Club - We Can't All Play Saxophones

The Bug Club - Short And Round

My Top 22 of 2022: #13 - 11

13. Father John Misty - Chloë and the Next 20th Century

I know a lot of people don't like Father John Misty, or at the very least don't "get" him. I'm not sure this is the record to change your mind, though it is far more accessible than some of his records if you're a fan of jazzy crooners of the 50s and 60s, performing Bacharach and tunes from the great American songbook. Because musically, that's the sound Josh Tillman has gone for here: lush orchestration and lounge swing. Lyrically, it's a much more complex beast, fragments of stories that might hint at a wider novel (Truman Capote meets Scott Fitzgerald) if you had the patience to piece them together. If all that sounds a tad pretentious, I direct you to the Pitchfork review, which will blow your mind. 

If you can get past all that, this is a great record...

Father John Misty - Buddy’s Rendezvous

Father John Misty - Funny Girl

12. Dry Cleaning - Stumpwork

If ever the phrase "from the sublime to the ridiculous" was apt... we follow Father John with Dry Cleaning, a band that are just as Marmite, but in a very different way. I used to be on the other side of the fence when it came to Dry Cleaning, but this year, a startling metamorphosis occurred. It was all the fault of Gary Ashby, a tortoise that went missing during lockdown. 

People who know more about music than me say that Florence Shaw's rambling, stream of consciousness / bored stand-up comedy routine vocals flow alongside the Wire / Magazine guitars and curious post-punk rhythms the rest of the band are playing in complementary fashion. I hear it slightly differently. When I was a university student, we would record random conversations from people on the bus or in the cafe and then pull them apart for linguistic analysis. Oh, the wild student nights I had! Anyway, Florence's "lyrics" remind me of those conversations I recorded way back when, and the fact that there's some music going on in the background seems almost incidental to her. I prefer the idea that she doesn't even know she's in a band... these guys with instruments just keep following her around, soundtracking her day.  

Oh, and much as I still love Gary Ashby, the track that's obsessing me the most at the moment is Kwenchy Kups, which appears to feature a gloriously passive-aggressive argument about a trip to the zoo. 

Well, things are shit, but they're gonna okay

And I'm gonna see the otters

There aren't any otters

There are

Well, we can check

And I'm gonna see the water caterpillar

There's no such thing

Hmm?

Nice idea

Dry Cleaning - Gary Ashby

Dry Cleaning - Stumpwork

11. Helen Love - This Is My World

"This is awful," said Louise, when the title track from Helen Love's latest album popped up on one of Sam's in-car CDs. "I can sing better than that."

This interaction alone was enough to propel Helen Love's latest album into my Top Ten of 2022... almost. That aside though, this is still the 11th best album I've heard this year, an intensely personal record that takes in childhood nostalgia through the eyes of someone who's recently lost her parents; Born To Run rewritten by someone who was quite happy staying in Swansea and never running anywhere, thanks. 

Musically, this is a broader and more emotional affair than the usual DIY punk pop you might expect from Helen Love, while that title track could well be the best thing the Pet Shop Boys and the Lightning Seeds have done this century. In interview, Helen spoke openly about this change of direction, and also saw fit to answer Louise's snipe...

"I don’t get up in the morning shouting ‘Hey Ho Let’s Go’ to the dog, it’s not all disco dancing round my place, I have had bouts of pretty bad depression, just because loads of my songs are happy doesn’t mean I am. There has always been a part of me that  wants to be Anne Briggs or Sandy Denny. My God, if I could sing or play properly that’s what I would do, play folk clubs and live in a big jumper."

Despite all that, this is a joyous, occasionally heartbreaking, often hilarious record. And don't worry, Helen, I've heard her sing. You're safe.

Helen Love - My Seaside Town

Helen Love - A Quite Good Time

Helen Love - Clearing Out Mum's House

Memory Mixtape #21: Lost Pets

Snow & Lad

When I was a teenager, one of our dogs got scared by fireworks and ran away from home. The dog was a Border Collie called Lad. My dad chose the name. “When I call him, I’m just going to say ‘Come here, Lad’, so we might as well just call him Lad.” 

Lad was the son of Snow, an all-white sheepdog who had the sweetest temperament of any animal I’ve ever met, but was also easily scared as he’d been beaten as a pup by the farmer my dad rescued him from. Neither of them would have been any good at actually rounding up sheep, but that was OK because my dad only had cows. Lad’s mum was my sister’s dog, Bess. She was a bit of a bimbo too, as dog's go, but also very affectionate. Really, Lad had no chance when it came to brains.

Lad was missing for what felt like weeks, and we’d pretty much given up on ever seeing him again, when one night my brother was driving home through Marsden and saw what appeared to be a very familiar dog running around in a farmer’s field. He stopped and knocked on the farmer’s door, asking him if he’d found any stray dogs recently. The farmer denied having done so, and my brother couldn’t see Lad anywhere around on the farm, so he had to abandon his quest. He asked the farmer to get in touch if he saw Lad anywhere around. The farmer grunted and told him not to come back.

The following morning, a little after 5am, I woke up to hear a tractor stopping outside our house. A door slammed and then the tractor drove away. I didn’t think much of it, but when we all got up… Lad was back! Waiting outside the back door as if he’d never been away.

There are loads of songs about pets dying. Seven years ago, I compiled A Top Ten Dead Pet Songs. The Number One would be unchanged even if I did it again today. However, there aren’t half as many songs about pets going missing. Here are a handful, starting with the most appropriate band I could find…

The Lost Dog Street Band – September Doves

And we were never made for love
Our souls are far too old
But loneliness needs company
And a lost dog needs a home

Despite the fact that it begins, “Lost cast in Arthur Street, black and white…” I suspect this isn’t really about a lost cat at all.

Catatonia – Lost Cat

Of course, Half Man Half Biscuit have a song featuring a lost dog. Although it has since been found, and you should do something about that…

Half Man Half Biscuit – Rogation Sunday's Here Again

Your dog got lost, you got distraught
You plastered posters all round town
The dog was found and it was fine
High time… you took those posters down

For me, that lyric sums up everything that is wonderful about Nigel Blackwell in just four lines. But then comes the real kicker…

Ruth Gould’s been out every evening
Ruth Gould has got pneumonia

We end with not a lost cat or a lost dog… but a lost tortoise. 

I wasn’t sure about Dry Cleaning at first, but they’ve really captured my attention with their latest album, Stumpwork. Undertones drummer Mickey Bradley does a very entertaining show on BBC Radio Ulster (which you can catch on the Sounds app if you have any sense). He recently summed Dry Cleaning perfectly by saying that the band were doing their thing in the background while lead singer Florence Shaw rings her mate and has a random conversation about the dull minutiae of her life, oblivious to the fact she’s in a band. Gary Ashby is the perfect example of that. You see, Gary is Florence’s tortoise. Only he went missing during lockdown. And this is the result…

Gary Ashby
Have you seen Gary?
Family tortoise

Are you stuck on your back without me?
Dogs running free
Dad’s got blood on his head

Have you seen Gary?
With his tinfoil ball
He used to love to kick it with his stumpy legs