As a follow-up to yesterday's post about the power of boredom, here are some song titles in similar vein. As we've got Barbra Streisand socking it to Ryan O'Neal above, in the 1979 movie The Main Event, I thought we'd let Babs kick off proceedings today...
That one was written by the songwriting team of Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen who also wrote a bunch of classic Frank Sinatra hits including High Hopes, Come Fly With Me and the majestic All The Way. Nothing boring about those guys.
Still, at least Babs only finds love boring. These guys are bored with pretty much everything...
I always admire a title that spills over onto the next line. The Front Bottoms are from New Jersey. Iffypedia explains their name, in case you can't work it out for yourself. They also quote singer Brian Sella: "This is our name. If you don't like it then you don't like it."
Next we have Jason Lytle, with a song he presumably wrote about The Supreme Leader of North Korea...
Blimey. What a bunch of bores. Still, as the aforementioned Manchester miserablist turned dubiously-opinionated bore once had it...
What really lies Beyond the constraints of my mind? Could it be the sea With fate mooning back at me? No, it's just more lock-jawed pop-stars Thicker than pig-shit Nothing to convey They're so scared to show intelligence It might smear their lovely career
While writing last week's post about my love of a good old cup of Joe, I realised that I have hundreds of tunes in my library about said beverage... any excuse for another occasional series! This one will just be a chat, like we're sitting in a coffee shop together, shooting the breeze, maybe talking about the songs they're playing in the background, maybe ignoring them and talking random shit instead. And for those of you who don't like coffee (like Martin), I'll make sure other popular beverages are available too...
Is there a better one minute song than that? Seriously, if there is, I want to know about it. I mean - look at the way it builds! I can think of 8 minute album track epics that don't develop as well as that does... and then it's gone. It's perfect... although I can't help but wonder if it would have been better if it had carried on... or if the effect would have been lost with the addition of another three verses.
Louise left her scarf at the cinema during half term, so Sam and I called back there on Saturday morning to see if they had it.
"Hi," I asked the happy chappy checking e-tickets on mobile phones, "do you have a lost and found?"
"Yeah," said Stephen Patrick Morrissey's slightly less affable younger brother, "but you'll have to wait till I've checked all these people in to their films."
There weren't really any people waiting, just a couple going through the options on the automated booking screen. Eventually they finished buying their tickets and strolled over in a leisurely fashion to be checked in.
"I suppose you better come with me then," said the gushing usher, leading us through to a dingy corridor and a door with a security code lock on it. When he opened it, we could just about make out a huge pile of coats, bags and other misplaced miscellany dumped on the floor in the corner of what looked like a cleaner's closet. "You can have a look in there, if you want."
"Is there a light?"
"No."
And so we began to rumble through the jumble. Every time we found something that might have been vaguely scarf shaped, we had to hold it out into the corridor where there was just enough light to discern vaguely recognisable details. Eventually we found the right one and went home.
"Thanks so much," I said as we left, "you're a life-saver!"
There was no reply as the gloomy flunkey shuffled back to his post.
One final thing before I leave you to your day - what the hell have they done with Google Maps?
They've changed the look so you can now see individual buildings, tiny little house and office shapes rather than just the blocked out areas of grey that used to represent buildings. It's very distracting when you're driving (and I rely on Google Maps far more than I used to, purely because I'm often on a tight schedule to get to and from work after dropping Sam off or picking him up from wraparound club).
Now I find my attention drawn not to the blue line representing my route, but to all the little shapes - is that really the shape of that house I'm driving past? Is their garden really so big? Is there a block to represent their garden shed? Does the new housing estate they're building show up, or is it still a field? If I have a crash sometime in the next few weeks, I'm telling my insurance company to call Google for compensation.
It makes me wonder about the future too... how much more detail can they add to these apps? Will we soon have live satellite surveillance zapped into our phones? Will we be able to see people walking down the streets, stray dogs cocking a leg at tiny lamp posts, our own car pootling down the road, as seen from above? How much of it do we actually really need? I'm not so much of a luddite that I can't admit to finding Google Maps more useful than my trusty yet tattered old Road Atlas... but where does it all end?
What could be more wholesome than a nice juicy peach? Unless you're a songwriter...
(Special mention to Peaches, Peaches & Herb and The Moldy Peaches.) Be warned: not all the peaches in this list will be fruit of the prunus persica tree. Some peaches may have an alternative meaning... remember Nicolas Cage's first time in Wild At Heart?
Merle (extra points for having a first name like Merle) Haggard (extra points for having a surname like Haggard) takes a tour of the southern United States at harvest time... with added self-pity.
When it's peach-picking time in Georgia Apple-picking time in Tennessee Cotton-picking time in Mississippi Everybody picks on me!
Finally got round to watching the first series of True Detective over Christmas. Very happy to see T. Bone Burnett chose a Handsome Family song as the show's theme tune. Experts at the fine art of murder balladry, this one would fit in very well on that show too...
Ahead of me ran Jackson Who took a bullet to the chest And beneath the swaying peaches Jackson slowly bled to death
With a band called The Front Bottoms, you're probably expecting pure filth from this track. But this is pretty much a love song... albeit one that goes a little vampiric halfway through.
In which Hugh Cornwell pops down his local beach to perv it up. Banned by the BBC in the same summer as The Sex Pistols were getting up all our safety-pinned noses with God Save The Queen, it's been claimed that the innuendo of Peaches was a savage critique of macho mores. Which is kind of like having your peach-melba and eating it.
At least with Prince you don't have to wonder if there's any innuendo going on... the purple one doesn't believe in innuendo. As ever, he's about as subtle as a giraffe.
Her hotpants can't hide her cheeks...
And yet, because it's so very, very funky, we let him get away with it.
1. Presidents of the United States of America - Peaches
The great thing about the Presidents' Peach song is that there's no metaphor here at all (I don't think): this is purely a song about peaches. Except the President of the Presidents, lead singer Chris Ballew, seems a little unclear about where peaches actually come from (i.e. someone puts them in that can, Chris). Worth watching the whole video as the band inexplicably get attacked by ninjas about two-thirds of the way through. When has that ever happened in a Coldplay video?
