OK, I realise this is a cheap way of filling blog posts on my first week back at work, but don't blame me - blame all these songwriters who were obsessed with the late Ms. B.
Last lot today, I promise. Though I did leave a load out... and probably missed a bunch too.
We'll start with a suggestion from The Swede, which I'm kicking myself I didn't remember...
Will Serge's own 'Initials BB' will be making an appearance?
And the reason I'm kicking myself? I'm a big fan of the Mick Harvey version...
On with the show... and I suppose we have to get this one out of the way...
Zig-zag, walk like Marilyn Monroe Zig-zag, talk like Brigitte Bardot No stone gonna be unturned When you're out there, walkin' and a talkin' Baby, doin' the Zig-Zag Walk
You know what, you're a supersonic flight A song by Lennon and McCartney A Mohammed Ali fight You're like Brigitte Bardot No way Danny La Rue... But most important of all You are you
That's the problem with being an icon. You can choose your lyrical bedfellows. Still, given what C said about Brigitte's latter-day politics, maybe she'd appreciate spending time with Tricky Dicky?
Well you may not look like Brigitte Bardot But you got rhythm in your big black toe
That's got to be the weirdest lyric yet. Can Noddy beat that?
I get weird imaginin's about all different kinds of things, but I always try To get fantasising thoughts, maybe Bardot in her shorts, like a natural guy So I took a trip to Tutankhamen's tomb He was alone and said he hoped I'd come back soon
Bobby boy's full of bravado His girlfriend looks like Bridgette Bardot
You know, I wouldn't normally lower myself to the Menswear level, but credit where it's due - that's one of the better rhymes I've seen since starting this list.
I should be raising the bar high, avoiding the bar low I'll write a million songs for you as if I was Barlow 'Cause you're my Bridget Bardot, my precious cargo I'm tryna speak my mind but I don't get very far though
Lots of blokes squeezing her into their songs? What about a lady for a change?
Every time I see you, I see Paris in your eyes A hint of the forbidden, Brigitte Bardot style Every time I dream of you, I dream that distant land Where I once held tomorrow in my hand
And another female perspective... from a male songwriter.
'Cause when I was a little girl, you'd dress me like Bardot And the hallway'd become a catwalk, and you'd watch me go to the show Said, "All the little girls were pretty, but I was pretty like fresh flowers" I was a superhero, mama, with superpowers
Welcome to a new interactive blog feature in which we look at old records that might not have aged particularly well. Nothing to do with cancelling Boy George and pals - that just made a good name / visual.
I'm not an advocate of Cancel Culture. Like all these movements, I believe it started with good intentions, before being hijacked by reactionaries and zealots. I also think there's a danger in cancelling things or people and pretending they never existed, even if they deserve it. Better to open a debate and consider context, try to examine how times have changed and why our responses today might be different than they were 20/30/40/50 years ago.
To help me with this process, I invited a crack team of bloggers and friends to give us their opinions... so it's not just me boring you with my namby pamby snowflake / misanthropic traditionalist attitudes. We'll call them The Cancel Culture Club Committee.
Let's see what they make of today's tune...
I was going to write more of an introduction, but the good thing about co-opting this features to some of the finest writers on the interweb (apart from the bots, obviously) is that other people do a far better job of it than I ever could.
Prime example - here's Alyson from the Jukebox Time Machine. What's It All About, Alyson...?
Rol, I see you are looking for people’s opinions on whether certain songs from the past should be seen in a rather different light in these modern, progressive times. Should they be cancelled/banned/never played or listened to again? Or do they still have merit despite their old-fashioned attitudes?
The first example you give of such a song is Young Girl by Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, lyrically all about a man who finds out that the girl he is with is younger than she initially made out. He therefore asks her to leave before things “go too far”.
I am just about old enough to remember this song from when it first came out in 1968, but I reckon it was when it was re-released in 1974 that I took a real shine to it. The chorus especially has a very jaunty, upbeat sound to it, like other songs from the era such as Everlasting Love. The session musicians who worked on it were part of The Wrecking Crew, that group of top LA session musicians who helped the Beach Boys, Phil Spector, and many others to make classic songs and albums. What could possibly be the problem with it? Because the lyrics refer to an older man with a “young girl”, it doesn’t sit well with our 21st century sensibilities, and quite rightly. But it wasn’t written in the 21st century, and as it turns out, the chap in the lyrics is doing the honourable thing telling the girl she has to get out of his life – something I don’t think many chaps from my neck of the woods would have done in 1968. I don’t feel it should be banned or cancelled but treated in the same way as certain books and films are now, a product of their time, 1968.
A bit of background to those times: again, I am old enough to remember that the school leaving age in Scotland until 1972 was still 14. Many stayed longer of course but my Primary School also had a Junior Secondary for those local pupils who hadn’t passed their 11+. The girls concentrated on Home Economics (preparing them for being housewives) and the boys on technical subjects. They had their own cloakroom area, and as few wore school uniform we were in awe of these “women” in their fashionable coats, boots, earrings, and perms just like their mums. Once they left school the girls often found jobs in local shops and started going out with local chaps, driving around in their cars ahead of giving up work at 16/17 to get married and have babies. I really don’t think anyone considered the “age of consent” back then and just let nature take its course. What I’m saying is that in 1968, many girls were a lot more mature than girls of a similar age today so we can’t directly compare the definition of what is a “young girl”. Saying the times were different isn’t always a valid excuse for keeping things in the public domain, but I’m giving Young Girl a pass.
So, Rol, that’s my take on this first song on your list of many. Hope I’m not totally out of kilter with everyone else. One more example before I go: I don’t think there was national outrage back in the day when we heard that Elvis’s relationship with Priscilla started when she was 14, and that she moved into Graceland with him at 16, that has only happened in more recent enlightened times. Again, she looked like her mother, not a schoolgirl, and there were plenty more just like her. A reflection of “the times”.
Thank you, Alyson. Without pre-empting the comments below too much, I think it's fair to say you won't be completely out of kilter. And I knew when I asked for your opinion that it would come filled with a warm touch of nostalgic anecdote and level-headed thinking. You raise an interesting question though - just because times and attitudes change, does it automatically mean we should view previous attitudes as "wrong"? What you suggest here is that those attitudes were right, in their way, for those times... just as today's attitudes are just as right for the here and now. I don't think that will always be the case in this series, but I certainly think Young Girl deserves a little more credit than it might be given by contemporary mores.
Now I had wanted the wonderful John Medd to open today's commentary, purely because he always runs my pictures first in his monthly Photo Challenge (even though they rarely match up to the images that follow) and I wanted to pay him back for that. Still, I'm sure you'll all understand why I let Alyson go first. So John goes next...
As jailbait songs go I think Young Girl is pretty tame. Gary Puckett is hardly in the same league as Jeffrey Epstein; it appears he's realised where this could potentially lead and is deploying reverse gear. As to whether it should be cherished or cancelled, I'm sorry but I don't care enough about the record/song to get that invested in it. If it were to come on the radio I wouldn't be grinding my teeth and penning a letter to Ofcom, let's put it that way.
Of course, our own personal taste - whether we like a tune or (to quote George) think it's bobbins, will doubtlessly feed into our reactions, but I'm glad that John won't be writing to Ofcom. Not that I think he'd need to - I honestly can't remember the last time I heard Young Girl on the radio. In fact, I only heard it again recently when I was listening to a compilation of songs featuring The Wrecking Crew. Unlike John though, I think I had a far more positive reaction - musically, it's a belter, Puckett's soulful voice complemented by some of the best musicians LA had to offer at the time. It really got stuck in my head... but then I found myself feeling rather awkward about wanting to sing along. And it turns out I'm not alone in that...
All the way from sunny Portugal, here's George...
I can't stop singing this song!! Walking the dogs the other day, I was even "singing" it out loud. Without delving into the lyrics, it's simply a great 1960s pop song, driven by that fantastic, strong Gary Puckett vocal. And now, thanks to Rol, I've actually listened closely to the lyrics "and though you know it's wrong to be alone with me....that come-on look is in your eyes". To say the least, that's a bit distasteful. I've probably got this song on more than one compilation album, and I would not skip over it, indeed I'd probably sing along, divorcing myself from the sentiment and just warble along with "young girl get out of my mind" etc. And I just can't bring myself to saying that it should be cancelled.
And that ability to divorce ourselves from distasteful sentiment is very similar to that old discussion we often have about separating song from singer, art from artist. It's the only way I can keep enjoying The Smiths, by disconnecting myself from how I feel about Morrissey as a person. And we all do that to some extent in our appreciation of art, something which will doubtless be a recurring motif in this series. Still, while George is fine singing along to Young Girl while walking the sun-scorched fields of Portugal... I'm sure we'd all think twice these days about singing it on the high street. And as a retired teacher, I'm sure George would understand the dangers of walking across the playground with this song in his head... as a non-retired teacher, I shudder at the thought.
Next up, it's time to hear from World Traveller and (some believe) secret agent / super-spy, Ernie Goggins...
I don't really have a problem with this one. Yes, Gary admits to inappropriate desires, but ultimately he decides not to act on them, unlike actual paedophiles like R. Kelly, G. Glitter etc. who rightly were cancelled and should be strung up by their goolies. And while the lyrics are a bit creepy, there are countless songs on the same subject that are much creepier (any version of 'Good Morning Little Schoolgirl' for example) and others that are innocent in intent but sound very dodgy if you don't know what they are meant to be about (like 'Clair' by Gilbert O'Sullivan).
Sadly, it was impossible to dip our toe into this subject without mentioned those whose names have gone down in infamy. A distinction would, I hope, be made between the convicted predators mentioned above and others who have had age-gap relationships which might now be classed as statutory rape. John Peel and David Bowie, to name but two. The waters grow murkier the more we wade into them wearing Contemporary Perspective wellies... here's an interesting piece about why "we should not judge people with problematic pasts by how much we like their work" by John Sturgis. As a self-confessed fan of both Peel and Bowie though, I'm not sure he reaches any kind of firm conclusion.
Going back to George for a second. When I first announced this series, George emailed me to express a very relevant concern...
I am wondering about this, it is an interesting idea but is there a chance that some people might get extremely offended? Would you consider songs from certain glam-era pop stars who have been imprisoned? Would it include blues singers who killed someone? Or are you just going by potentially inappropriate song titles and sentiments such as the one you sent out? (I'm now thinking of a Nirvana song on their In Utero album that I have a problem with).
And my answer to that was that was that I didn't intend for this series to be about the singers, just the songs. Still, while I'm trying to keep things light-hearted, we will inevitably touch upon very serious subject matter, and pose questions to which there are no straightforward answers. But I respect the opinions of everyone I've asked to take part, and I knew they would approach their task in a sensible fashion. There's no place for reactionaries at Top Ten Towers.
Ernie and CC both mention a number of other songs which could be lumped into the same category, and maybe we'll look at those in more detail in future instalments. Although the defence lawyer for many of those old rock 'n' roll records that mentioned the number 16 would no doubt argue that those songs were aimed at teenage girls, and that many of the singers were meant to represent teenage boys. Which leads us to Martin from New Amusements, today's primary dissenting voice...
Tricky one. It's not like Gary was singing this at 17... he was 25, and Jerry Fuller (who wrote it) was 29 at the time. Even as I type this, I can hear Harold Steptoe in my head - "You dirty old man", etc.
Also, if you consider that the song might have been meant as a serious meditation on a man realising the object of his desire is younger than she appeared, well, you think that would be a slow, contemplative song, perhaps sad, perhaps poignant. But it fairly bounces along, major key, brass, the lot.
Also, Gary/Jerry seems to be trying to put the blame on the young girl in question if lyrics like "You've kept the secret of your youth, You led me to believe you're old enough" are anything to go by. Victim-shaming!
And then there's the slightly forbidding "You'd better run, girl" which sets a quite different tone from, say, the cautionary tale nature of something like U16 Girls by Travis.
I'm not a big believer in cancellation, and even less so in banning... but I could happily never listen to this again, and just let it die a natural death. Does it still have merit? Musically, I guess - lots of Wrecking Crew on there, I think. But lyrically? It's a no from me.
Thank you, Martin - and you raise a number of interesting points that we haven't yet tackled. I'm intrigued by your idea that serious meditations should only be the province of slower songs. I'm not sure I agree, but then I'm not sure you meant it as a blanket rule either. I can think of quite a few songs by that artist whose songs we both (still, unfortunately) enjoy which tackle very sombre or serious subject matter in jaunty sing-a-long fashion. Sometimes that contrast can be used to effect. You did make me wonder though if Young Girl would have raised quite so many alarm bells if it was performed as a Scott Walker melodrama.
I think Martin's response perfectly encapsulated how, as 21st Century men, we are conditioned to respond to this question. Because, to paraphrase Bruce Willis in Die Hard, if you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem. And none of us would want to be lumped in with some of the nefarious names mentioned elsewhere in this post.
Martin wasn't the only person to bring up the concept of victim-shaming. Those of you who have been reading this blog far longer than is good for your mental health will remember that back in the glorious days of the Covid Lockdown, my own sanity was saved by regular Whatsapp conversations with my old friend and former colleague, Ben. As a sociologist, I invited him to contribute to this series and he sent me a brief plan for his response to Young Girl, but then he was called away on a super-secret mission somewhere in the groves of Academe. I hesitate to say that Ben is like an Intellectual Ernie, because I don't doubt Ernie's mental capacity one bit. But they both have a habit of going off to save the world at the drop of a hat, and when they do, you won't hear from them again until all communication restrictions have been lifted.
Ben's response would have touched upon societal context, suggesting that Young Girl was the product, not the cause of a "victim-blaming misogyny that was embedded in culture" back then. Anyway, he sends his apologies and asked that I post the image below as an illustration of his response...
All of which brings us to today's final contributor, and I saved her contribution till last as I felt it encapsulated much of what has already been mentioned, while also (like Alyson before her) offering a female perspective of someone who lived through these particular trenches.
As for Gary Puckett & Union Gap, 'Young Girl', I must admit I'm ok with it - no need to cancel. 14 year old me, and all my 14 year old friends at the time too, know that young girl rather too well I think and, to be perfectly honest, after dousing ourselves in Charlie perfume and applying too much lipgloss, I think we would've been more offended at our narrator telling us to hurry home to mummy (I mean, how patronising! It's not even a school night!) But in all seriousness, he is trying to do the decent thing, being very candid about it too - and I'm happy to believe that he does. Plus, it's a good song. Of course if the object of his salacious affection is a lot, lot younger than I've surmised, then we're straying into different territory altogether...but I'm in the camp that thinks that maybe it would say more about the listener than the songwriter to naturally assume that particular scenario.
Hope that sounds ok, and I'm not on my own here!
You're never on your own here, C. You're always among friends.
Young Girl, then - some of you would be quite happy to never hear it again, while others can't help singing along to it (at least in their head). This isn't Room 101 though, and I'm never going to even attempt to reach a conclusion in this series... for me, the debate is enough.
Thank you to everyone for taking the time to contribute. We'll examine another contentious tune soon.
I was unsure if this series would be a success, so I limited the invitations to its maiden voyage. But maybe there are other people reading who would like to take part?
If you'd like to join the Cancel Culture Club Committee and share your opinions on our next dubious ditty, then please drop me a line, or let me know in the comments box, and you're in. The more the merrier, as long as you're not a nutter.
I thought about calling this collection: Songs With Nonsense titles. But some of them aren't strictly nonsense, they're just not words you'd find in the dictionary. (Watches all the pedants run to find their dictionaries.) Call them what you want, here are fifteen songs with no actual words in their titles...
A couple of weekends back, Louise and I went to see Stewart Lee at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. He's long been my favourite comedian - Louise isn't quite as big a fan, but she did admit he was "quite good" this time.
I found this painfully funny. Painful and funny. The dull repetition of banalities seemed a metaphor for our treadmill existences... well, you can probably see why I approved.
The show's being filmed for Netflix, I think. I won't recommend it, because comedy is even more subjective than music, but it did make me laugh. A lot. And then cry myself to sleep that night...
There are many songs which include both Hello and Goodbye in the title. Beyond the obvious one by That Scouse Band. Gilbert O'Sullivan wrote one too, although it's about him trying to seduce a lady and her telling him to do one. Like a lot of Gilbert's songs, it sounds vaguely creepy nowadays.
Here's another one of those, though it fits perfectly with our Mid-Life Crisis theme, as it's about an older man worrying he can't keep up with a younger woman. Which we dismissed last time as a non-starter. There are some great lines in it though, regarding the passing of time... and all its sickening crimes...
And I'm not getting any younger
Gone are those days when school reports were all I feared
Now for the first time in my life
I'm seeing something I don't like
And am powerless to prevent from happening
One day you'll find out for yourself just what I mean
The irony is, I'm sure that when I retire, I'll miss those casual day-to-day exchanges that Stewart Lee mocked. Because I largely like the people I work with. And always have, thinking back, in every job I've had. Not management, obviously. I have had some good bosses, but they were mostly line managers. The bigger bosses were largely tossers - both in radio and Further Education. Only in my current job can I look all the way up to the head teacher and find people I generally respect and get along with.
Of course, there's always a few people in every workforce who are complete tools. There's only one particularly big eejit in my current setting... you all know the type, the sort of person who as soon as you see them in the corridor, the first word that pops into your head is "knob", or your own equivalent of choice. (Side note: I just blew up Google by asking for a synonym of synonym.) Interestingly, all my immediate colleagues find this one individual just as loathsome as I do... which makes me wonder, what must it be like to go through life either:
a) blissfully unaware that everyone you work with thinks you're an arsehole?
I was in the local shop the other day, and the proprietor was bemoaning the state of the economy. A tin of beans which cost 29p when he first opened now costs £1.55. And he ordered a new crate of HP Sauce yesterday and the price had gone up by £12!
What can we do?
Well, all I can do is look for songs that mention "the original brown sauce", which is ironically named after the House of Parliament, those same bastards who got us into this mess.
HP Sauce is sold throughout Europe... which makes me wonder if sales suffered after we deserted the EU. Here's the late Arno Hintjens, lead singer of Belgian rock band TC Matic...
I'm like meat and potatoes Eggs and bacon, fish and chips Rock'n'roll, H.P. Sauce I feel like Pinocchio with broken strings Heaven is higher than the tree I saw myself on MTV
Somewhat further into Europe, we find Austrian punk Hans Platzgumer, who shares his initials with the famous brown sauce, and so named his 1989 EP A Portion Of Geniune HP Sauce...
Back in Blighty, The Ravengers were a 90s punk band that released a couple of records on West Sussex-based Detour Records. That's as much as I could find out about them, but their solo album did contain a self-composed jingle promoting HP sauce with the line "He likes a bit on the side..."
Finally, here's Gilbert O'Sullivan, with a b-side that displays some rather old-fashioned notions (Gilbert's quite shocked by the idea of two men getting married), but then... it was 1977.
And I've seen some how can I put this Funny things in my life Like the time a woman said sorry to a man She stabbed with a knife And in view of all of this nonsense I think it's only fair To point out that despite its faults England still has HP sauce
I don't want to live forever I just want to live as long as I can
Not the best crop today, I'll admit. I'd almost given up on finding a worthy final tune. And then I heard this...
...which leads us neatly to a 70's classic, albeit another one that hasn't stood the test of time lyrically. Remember, kids, drinking and driving is wrong.
I've been listening to lots of cool music lately that I really should be writing about here, when I can find the energy. But I'm also suffering from a repetitive earworm that has been drilling into my cranium for the past couple of weeks and I've no idea where it came from or how to get shut of it.
Get Down is not one of my favourite Gilbert O'Sullivan songs. It's from the self-consciously wacky side of his catalogue that also brought us Ooh Wakka Day and Mr Moody's Garden. The same Gilbert who thought it would be a good idea to call his Greatest Hits album "The Berry Vest..." (do you see what he did there?)
The thing is... (as Sam would say, only for me to continue "...a member of the Fantastic Four"), when he's not being wacky, Gilbert can break you heart into a million pieces. Case in point, two of the saddest songs of the 70s... Alone Again (Naturally) and Nothing Rhymed. If you don't believe me, ask Paul Weller, who called them, "two of my favourite songs, great lyrics, great tunes".
In an effort to remove my earworm then, I'm going to play these two on loop for a couple of hours, and wallow in the blissful misery of them...
My old friend Sally bought me the above book many years ago when we worked in the same commercial production department. We shared a love of morbid songs that got us through the horrors of that job. (I now look back fondly on the "horrors" of that job, of course: further proof that life only gets worse.)
The book tells the story of some of the most depressing songs ever written - from Tell Laura I Love Her to One by Metallica. Alone Again (Naturally), Seasons In The Sun, Hurt... a great read, though it always rankled that the author hadn't chosen a Smiths track. Bruce is in there though, with The River, and Billy Joel, with Captain Jack, which I always thought was about masturbation, but the author insists is a drugs dirge. Anyway, it's a fun read - the author keeps his tongue firmly in his cheek throughout, and it has persuaded me to hear a fair few tunes with fresh ears over the years.
The other day I stumbled across a song I'd never heard before, but I immediately had to send it to Sally. It's by Bobby Goldsboro, who does make the above book with Honey... although the song below takes the melodramatic misery to a whole different level. Like Ruby (also chosen by Tom Reynolds), it's the story of a soldier who comes back from war, no longer the man he once was.
Tissues at the ready...
No, no, wait for the talky bit... the talky bit will always get you... if only for its needless exposition...
It's the Easter holidays at college so I have no classes... which you might expect would mean I'd have more time to work on the blog. Unfortunately, the boss has dumped a ton of extra work on me so I have even less time than usual. Apologies then if I have to keep this brief. Today's band, +44, were, apparently, an offshoot of Blink-182. I've not heard anything by them and don't have time to investigate right now. The Swede set the ball rolling last week with a load of jazz and blues...
McCoy Tyner - '44th Street Suite' (couldn't find that one, but I'm sure it's NICE).
Lynchie, meanwhile, came tooled up with a mean '44, having realised "There are a LOT of blues songs about men killing women or other men with a .44 pistol."
Hey Joe, where you goin' with that money in your hand? Hey Joe, where you goin' with that money in your hand? I'm gonna go down to town to buy a blue steel 44 I'm gonna go down to town to buy a blue steel 44
(In case you're wondering, Jimi Hendrix doesn't appear to specify the calibre of his own gun.)
Lynchie continues, "But one woman did shoot a man with a .44 in the song Frankie & Johnny..."
Well, Frankie lifted up her kimono dress And she drew out a little .44 She shot once, twice, three times she shot him And through that hardwood door Yeah she shot her man (yeah he was her man) Well but he been doin' her wrong yeah
Lots of people recorded that, but here's Sam Cooke because... well, he's Sam Cooke.
Good call, though my first thought was I'd have gone with Nick Cave... except Nick's Stagger Lee carried a Colt 45... so he should have been here last week.
After last week's splurge, Martin decided to rein himself in this week with only two suggestions...
And for the lyrics that could have made it into a maths or multiplication top ten, the (frankly not very good) 15 Times by Gilbert O'Sullivan, which has the lines:
You and me and baby makes
3, 4, 5, 6, 7
8, 9, 10 and 11
12, 13, 14, 15 times 44 is 660!
Despite his whole "not very good" ruse (methinks he protests too much), I fully expect Martin to suggest this song consecutively for weeks 15 - 3 of this feature.
Swiss Adam was up next with a tune I didn't know, but always got time for this gentleman...
...which did appear 44 posts ago, but it's still worth another play.
After all that... and a little surprise that nobody mention Fats Domino - 44... I was left with a clear choice between just two songs, both suggested by The Swede (although C seconded the first one).
It would have been a worthy winner, were it not for this, from a band that Brian introduced me to a year or so ago and I've had a great affection for ever since...
I think I have a clear winner for next week... but I'm always open to having my mind changed. Go for it!
I think we can safely say that The Swede is this week's winner!
10. Lost your afterlife? Ask Syd's heartbreakers.
Syd Barrett recorded a song called Gigolo Aunt, which Urban Dictionary defines as "A Girl who is usually very cute and pretty that seduces men makes them madly fall in love with her using her specific ways".
One of the reasons I do this blog is because it forces me to listen to songs that exist in my record collection that I've never listened to before. This was ripped from one of those free magazine CDs a few years back... and it's pretty cool.
Because we don't get enough Bee Gees round these parts.
7. Spearmint - Alone In A Town
According to google, this song does not exist. Which is a crying shame because it's a tragic story of Shirley Lee's loneliest student Christmas. Track it down and share his misery.
Do not watch the video. Remember this song without sullying your eyeballs with the worst excesses of 80s pop nonsense. No wonder Paul King ended up working for MTV.
First Gilbert gets dumped at the altar, then his mum and dad pop their clogs. No wonder he wants to top himself...
In a little while from now,
If I'm not feeling any less sour
I promised myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower,
And climbing to the top,
Will throw myself off
In an effort to make it clear to who
Ever what it's like when your shattered
Left standing in the lurch, at a church
where people 're saying,
"My God that's tough, she stood him up!
No point in us remaining.
We may as well go home."
As I did on my own,
Alone again, naturally
Pure suicide anthem joy. No wonder Morrissey was a fan. 1. Love - Alone Again, Or
One of the greatest songs of the sixties, just mesmerising. Love that Spanish guitar.
