Snapshots #439: Religious People In Songs

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to listen to some songs about men and women of the cloth...

15. The only trains James Brown would ever take.

Grand Funk Railroad - Goin' For The Pastor

14. Hello - this is...

Joni Mitchell - The Priest

13. Black, Hammer, Simon.

Blacksmith, Hammersmith, Simon Smith...

The Smiths - Vicar In A Tutu

12. High in Antioxidants.

Black Grape - Reverend Black Grape

11. They get around, rather aimlessly.

The Drifters - Like Sister And Brother

Sisters being nuns, brothers being monks. Of course.

10. All-important band for Mr. Spock.

Essential Logic - Shabby Abbott

9. Don't confuse him with a thick Jew.

"A thick Jew" was an anagram for one of Donald Trump's least favourite pop stars... 

Jack White - Archbishop Harold Holmes

8. Paper, Black, Shoe.

Paper Lace, Black Lace, Shoelace.

Lace - The Nun

7. Able footballers and keen fans of Thelonious Monk.

Named after a Thelonious Monk album... and an amazing football shot.

The Brilliant Corners - The Pope, the Monkey and the Queen

What a great tune. Not the best Pope song I know, but this guy gets far too much exposure round thes parts...

Prince - Pope

6. Witch hunter who found wonder in the invisible world.

Check your history books.

Cotton Mather - The Words Of Shaman Roger 

5. U.N. medics.

The World Health Organisation...

The Who - Baba O'Reilly

There are days when I'm certain that is The Who's finest hour.

4. Yoof speak.

Modern Talking - Brother Louie

I was a little upset to discover I didn't own that track... I thought I had pretty much everything that ever made the Top 20 in the early 80s. Then I listened to it again and figured it was no great loss.

3. Todd gets in between Tim Booth and Morrissey.

James - Todd - Smith.

Also known as...

LL Cool J - Father

2. Walk this way!

Pavement - Box Elder

1. Deputy finds girls in muddle.

"Deputy finds girls" was an anagram for a very young Mary O'Brien...

Dusty Springfield - Son Of A Preacher Man

Please leave something in the collection plate on your way out of the church.

Bertie Fridays #4: What The World Needs Now...

Time for Bertie the dog to pick another of his favourite music Berts... or Burts in the case of this week's star.

I'm sure I can't tell you anything about Burt Bacharach that you don't already know, although I can confirm that he's NOT related to one of my favourite actors of recent years, Ebon Moss-Bacharach of The Bear (soon to play The Thing in the new Fantastic Four movie).

I think we'll just let the music speak for itself today...

Jackie DeShannon - What the World Needs Now (Is Love)

Herb Alpert - This Guy's In Love With You

Perry Como - Magic Moments 

Shirelles - Baby It's You

Walker Brothers - Make It Easy On Yourself

Dusty Springfield - I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself

Gene Pitney - Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa

Isaac Hayes - Walk On By

Dionne Warwick - Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

The Carpenters - (They Long To Be) Close To You

Love - My Little Red Book

Tom Jones - What's New, Pussycat?

Aretha Franklin - I Say A Little Prayer

Neil Diamond - Heartlight

BJ Thomas - Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Christopher Cross - Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)

Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald - On My Own

Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach - Toledo

The majority of those were written with lyricist Hal David, of course. But he's not a Bertie. Or even a Burty.

If I was forced at gunpoint to choose a favourite recording of a Bacharach composition, it would be this one, which I bought as a 7" single in 1990. I was convinced it made Number One, but clearly I needed to buy a couple more copies, because it was held off the top spot by Timmy Mallet. Oh, the inDignity*!

*I'm particularly proud of that pun. Little things please little minds.

Next week... "For the money, for the glory, and for the fun. Mostly for the money."

Product Placement Friday #10: Mother's Pride

I noticed there was some debate in Wednesday's Daktari post about Mother's Pride, with George questioning The Proclaimers...

Mother’s Pride on the table, Batman on TV

A Man in a Suitcase, and Daktari and Skippy

The Proclaimers - Lulu Selling Tea

Mother’s Pride, Misters Reid, not a proper Scottish plain loaf?

Charity Chic was swift to come to the defence of the bread which began life in the north of England but soon spread all across the British Isles...

Mother's Pride is a proper loaf!

So proper, in fact, that they got Dusty Springfield in to sing their praises...

They don't make adverts like that anymore.

Where else can we find Mother's Pride mentioned in song?

Let's start with another Scot...

You with yer brand new shoes and

You with yer greasy hair and

You with your Mother's Pride and poetry

Don't you want to feel the shame?

The Eurythmics - Shame

And then another. Stevie Jackson is the guitarist in Belle & Sebastian. He also released a solo album in 2011 with the superb title (I Can't Get No) Stevie Jackson. Who wouldn't want that in their collection?

Sitting with my lunchbox

Plain bread, Mother's Pride

Brown crust on the outside

I couldn't take my eyes off her

She was playing and I was staying pure of heart

Stevie Jackson - Pure Of Heart

We can always rely on Jim Bob to turn product placement into a metaphor for crumbling society...

And the grass grows bluer on the other side

Where the old girls queue for their Mother's Pride

For a slice of life it's a bargain sale

The price is right but the bread is stale

Carter USM - Rubbish

Meanwhile, the Rentals take their passion for a sliced loaf to the extreme...

Why do I have to die for Mother’s Pride?

Why didn’t they tell me before?

The Rentals - Breaking & Breaking & Breaking

While Chrissie Hynde clearly uses it in the boudoir...

I'm potent, baby, I'm potent

Dangerous to the naked eye

Rest your head on this bed of Mother's Pride

And find out why

The Pretenders - Sense Of Purpose

And Damon Albarn only gets his on a Sunday...

Sunday, Sunday here again, tidy attire

You read the color supplement, the TV guide

You dream of protein on a plate, regret you left it quite so late

To gather the family around the table, to eat enough to sleep

And Mother's Pride is your epithet, that extra slice you'll soon regret

So going out is your best bet, then bingo yourself to sleep

Oh that Sunday sleep

Blur - Sunday Sunday

Not all the lyrical references above are pure product placement, of course. The term "mother's pride (and joy)" is commonly used to refer to "the emotion a mother feels when one of her children succeeds in some endeavor, and I rejected quite a few lyrics on the basis that I doubted they'd ever heard of the bread. However, both the artists below grew up in the 60s and 70s and would have been familiar with the brand when they came to name songs after it, even if the songs in question might have more to do with maternal delight than sliced bread. They knew what they were doing, is my point.

Let's start with George... a different George than the one who inspired this post...

That's a pretty emotional tune about loss, one I've not heard in years.

On the other hand, we have a Paul Heaton song that compares Mother's Pride with Father's Pride... and the dads have a lot to answer for.

 

Another slice of product placement next Friday...

Snapshots #248: A Top Ten Garden Songs

I'm very sorry to say that I couldn't find a picture of Alan Titchmarsh holding a camera, so this nice lady had to fill in.

Ten songs about gardens. I hope the weather stays nice.

10. The shortest of you replaces PJ. 

When I said the shortest, I meant shortest name, nothing to do with stature. That would be C. 

And if C replaced PJ in PJ & Duncan, we would get...

C Duncan - Garden

9. "Open up and say ahhhhhhh."

The Dentists, obviously.

The Dentists - Strawberries Are Growing In My Garden (And It's Wintertime)

8. He looked at me and then I blushed, Stevie Ray.

"He looked at me and then I blushed," is a line from Frankie.

Add that to Stevie Ray Vaughan and you get...

Frankie Vaughan - Garden of Eden

7. Time is the greatest of them. 

Time may be a great healer, but it is also a great leveller.

The Levellers - This Garden

6. Lennon's randy mix-up.

Mix up the letters in "Lennon's randy" and you get...

Lynn Anderson - (I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden

I know I'm not supposed to anymore, but I really like Morrisey's version of that.

5. Wake up, little wailer.

Wake up, little Susie, there's a wailing banshee at the door.

Siouxsie And The Banshees - Hong Kong Garden

4. Puds rising deftly.

Anagram!

This is rather an obscure Dusty song, but it was written by Jimmy Webb, so it's obviously amazing.

Dusty Springfield - Magic Garden

3. So I go and I stand on my own, and I leave on my own...

"So I go and I stand on my own" is what happens to Wallflowers at discos. As Morrissey obviously knows.

The Wallflowers - Who's That Man Walking Round My Garden?

If you missed that the last time I featured it on this blog, give it a spin today.

2. The One With Monica's New Haircut.

Sounds like an episode of Friends in which Courtney Cox has a new barnet...

Courtney Barnett - Avant Gardener

So many great lines in that track, but my favourite is the bit where she gets carted away in an ambulance after quoting All Shook Up...

The paramedic thinks I'm clever 'cause I play guitar
I think she's clever 'cos she stops people dying

1. Office boss with a column. 

The boss in The Office was Ricky Gervais. Add Nelson's Column and you get...

Ricky Nelson - Garden Party

Enjoy your gardens this weekend, if you're lucky enough to have a garden. Snapshots will return next week...

Saturday Snapshots #111 & 112: The Answers

Adrienne! Adrienne! It's the answers! Or, as some people call them, the expendables... two lots this week, 'cos my brain is all rocky.

#111 ANSWERS

10. Drat! Raving uzi mixed up with masterpiece.

Drat! Raving uzi is an anagram.

This song opens with possibly the worst rhyming couplet in the history of pop.

Adrian Gurvitz - Classic

I've not listened to that in years. It's worse than I remember.

9. Hell to get out of your shirt... coffee jazz.

The Ink Spots - Java Jive

Waiter, waiter, percolator!

Now that's how you write a rhyming couplet, Adrian!

8. Clean-up needed at Moe's... where there's nothing else around.

Moe's Tavern is in Springfield. Apparently it's pretty dusty.

Dusty Springfield - Middle of Nowhere

7. Funky procession to the ranch.

The Farm - Groovy Train

6. Contemporary Yankee spoken by desperate arsonist.

Desperate Dan burns things?

Dan Bern - New American Language

I can't believe this is (according to Labels) the first time Dan Bern has featured on this blog. That means the last time I wrote about him was on the old blog, nearly 8 years ago. I probably need to rectify that soon.

5. Beauty & fame... it's all anybody wants nowadays.

Beauty = belle. Fame = stars.

The Belle Stars - Sign of the Times

4. Ulysses & Stan with a woolly bison.

Ulysses S. Grant + Stan Lee + a buffalo.

Woolly is fuzzy.

Grant Lee Buffalo - Fuzzy 

3. Fashion news: we're all the same.

Depeche Mode are named after a French magazine, the name of which roughly translates as “Fast Fashion” or “Fashion Dispatch” or “Fashion News”. Martin Gore thought it translated as “hurried fashion".

Depeche Mode - People Are People

I can't understand what makes a man hate another man.

2. Small wonder - a copper's phone number.

A wonder is a marvel. A small one would be a marvelette.

Copper beech is a type of wood.

The Marvelettes - Beechwood 4-5789

Yes, kids, phone numbers really used to be this short. My mum still answers the phone "2381".

1. Fuzzy leather robot.

#112 ANSWERS

10. Exile Janet.

Outkast - Ms. Jackson

9. A Midsummer Night's fairy shrinks into the space between us, rejecting a little lass.

The imp in A Midsummer Night's Dream was Puck. Smaller would be a Puck-ette.

A union joins us together, but there's a gap in this one.

Gary Puckett & The Union Gap - Young Girl

8. Stop mucking about with the horn, ale lens ladies.

"Ale lens ladies" is an anagram.

Denise LaSalle - Don't Mess With My Toot Toot

(Youtube is attempting to convince me this song was called Don't Mess My Tu-Tu. Hogwash!)

7. Locomotive STD, switches to lorry.

You can get a cream for that.

Boxcar Willie - Truck Drivin' Man

6. French political activists refuse to leave.

Don't Leave Me This Way doesn't quite fit the clue.

The Communards - Never Can Say Goodbye

5. Time for an American beer? Magic!

Steve Miller Band - Abracadabra

Great song. Awful, awful video.

4. Trainer procurers dig down to grave depth.

Trainers are sneakers.

Pimps procure.

Graves are dug six feet under.

Sneaker Pimps - 6 Underground

3. Art's rabbits are born.

Art Garfunkel sang Bright Eyes, about rabbits.

Bright Eyes - First Day Of My Life

2. Lightweight vicars turn out the lights between midnight and one.

Parsons that only weigh a gram?

Gram Parsons - In My Hour Of Darkness

1. Cheeky fantasies accepted.

Cheeky monkeys, obviously.



Phew. Good job I work well in advance planning these things. Seriously though, if you want more Snapshots next Saturday... don't push me!