Snapshots Spillover: More Hospital Songs

When I'm putting Snapshot together, I try to get a mix of bands that haven't featured often before, which means that some of the usual suspects and old favourites end up on the operating room floor...

Manic Street Preachers - Roses In The Hospital

Goldfrapp - A&E

Art Brut - Maternity Ward 

Art Brut - Hospital!

Frightened Rabbit - State Hospital

Morrissey - The Operation

The Fall - Mr. Pharmacist

And then there are those less obvious contenders who I'm forced to leave out for no other reason than I doubt anybody would ever identify them.

Fuzztones - Ward 81

The Amatones - Plastic Surgeon

The Veils - Night Thoughts Of A Tired Surgeon

Engineers - Emergency Room

Jad Fair & Yo La Tengo - X-Ray Reveals Doctor Left Wristwatch Inside Patient

But there were loads of leftovers this week. I guess everybody just loves singing about hospitals...

UFO - Doctor Doctor

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros - X-Ray Style

St. Vincent - Surgeon

Wire - Surgeon's Girl

Cold War Kids - Hospital Beds

Robyn Hitchcock - Surgery

Trashcan Sinatras - The Therapist

Silver Sun - Patients

Neil Ray - The Medic 

That's the b-side of a song called Big Fanny. I don't know why I'm telling you that.

Jimmy Hughes - The Loving Physician

John Manning - Free Clinic Song

But we'll close today with an old favourite. I'm a big fan of the Robert Palmer version, but here's the original by the wonderful Moon Martin...

Hot 100 Countdown #81

Some very good suggestions this week, introducing me to all manner of songs I hadn't heard before...

Alyson suggested Joanna Newsom - '81.

Nice harp there, as always from Joanna.

C & The Swede came up with Miles Davis - 81.

I wish I could be hip enough to pretend to have loads of Miles Davis in my record collection. I'm not, but I do like a nice bit of trumpet.

The Swede also offered Gato Barbieri & Dollar Brand - '81st Street'.

The Swede is doing his best to get me into proper jazz... and to be fair, he's got more chance of that than getting me into Simple Minds, though it was inevitable that New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) would crop up again this week.

Meanwhile, Rigid Digit - who's just about given up on trying to get me into Jim Kerr and his buddies - tried Marillion - White Feather, which contains the following lyric...

When I hit the streets back in '81
Found a heart in the gutter and a poet's crown
I felt barbed wire kisses and icicle tears
Where have I been for all these years?

Not in my collection either, but still more palatable than SM.

Much more my cup of tea (but sadly not yet in my collection) was Lynchie's suggestion: Candy & The Kisses - The 81. That would be a winner if I owned it.

Chris also came up with a suggestion I liked... but don't own... Roger Whittaker - New World In The Morning. Another lyrical 81... but that doesn't rule it out... as you'll see shortly.

I met a man who had a dream he'd had since he was twenty,
I met that man when he was 81

If all those weren't in my collection... what was? I was struggling a bit this week. The only titular 81 I could find was this...

The Fuzztones - Ward 81

It's not bad. Actually, it's MAD. But it didn't really feel like a winner. So I went lyrics diving myself... and this is what I came up with. One of my favourite from MCC... great Tom Petty nod in the chorus.

All the way down 81

I've got some friends in Nashville

Atlanta it's been way too long

By morning I'll make Asheville

...all of which takes us to the last of the 80s: number 80. Any suggestions?