Product Placement #22: Jelly Babies

In case you've just arrived from another planet, iffypedia tells us that, "Jelly Babies are a type of soft sugar jelly sweets in the shape of plump babies, sold in a variety of colours." Something about the use of the phrase "plump babies" in that sentence makes me consider Jelly Babies in a far more sinister light than I ever have. If you have just arrived from another planet, please note that we do not eat human babies, no matter how plump and tasty they might look.

To make matters worse, Jelly Babies were originally called "Unclaimed Babies". I'd like to reiterate... we do not eat human babies, claimed or unclaimed.

Jelly Babies were a big favourite of Tom Baker's Doctor Who...

When Beatles fans found out that George Harrison liked the odd Jelly Baby, they started chucking them at the band. But they didn't have Jelly Babies in the USA, so when the band went over there, people chucked Jelly Beans at them instead. Which were a lot harder.

George Harrison on Jelly Beans.

Even more dangerous is the popular school science experiment, The Screaming Jelly Baby. Luckily nobody ever chucked one of those at The Beatles.

There were a couple of bands named after Jelly Babies, but I could only find music by one of them...

The Jelly Babies - The Pleasure Of Her Company

Beyond those guys, who else likes their Jelly Babies in the world of pop...?

Let's start with a classy B-side from Hot Chip...

You're choosing something sweet, you chew on something sweet
A fleshy rubber made of me
A packet does contain a beautiful refrain
Least when the two of you stand free

Hot Chip - Jelly Babies

1982 was a great year for music. And then there was Johnny Demestos...

Johnny Demestos – Leave My Jelly Babies Alone

Did you know that Barbra Streisand once sang a song about Jelly Babies?

OK, that's not strictly the truth. However, once you've read the lyrics below, you might wish that was what the song was about...

Like Guava Jelly 
Baby, here I am,
Come rub it on my belly 
Like Guava Jelly 

Barbra Streisand - Guava Jelly

I always thought Babs was such a sweet young thing. Like butter wouldn't melt. Then I saw the cover of the album that came from...

 ...which has surely got to be one of the worst album covers ever. You call your album ButterFly, and that's the image you decide to go with, Babs? 

I subsequently learned that the album was solely produced by her then-boyfriend, Jon Peters... so I'm guessing clear heads might not have been involved in the cover selection process.

Guava Jelly was originally recorded by Bob Marley. And somehow, his version seems a lot less sordid...

Bob Marley - Guava Jelly

But I've gone off on a tangent as I'm pretty sure neither Bob nor Babs were thinking about Jelly Babies when they sang that song (although the white powder the sweets are often covered in might have been of interest to Jon Peters).

Here's a whole shop full of sweets, including Jelly Babies, Rhubarb & Custard and a quarter of Sherbet Lemons...

Eddie's Brother - Sweet Shop

But today's best tune comes from Ipswich punks The Adicts (originally known as Afterbirth, until wiser minds prevailed), from their 1985 album, Smart Alex. If only because it includes the lyrical couplet below...

Why do you have to be such a party-pooper?
You wouldn't even dance to Alice Cooper!

They don't write 'em like that anymore.

My Top Ten Songs About Prince

It's been a year since he died and I still haven't quite come to terms with it. I accepted Bowie's death, I knew Leonard wasn't long for this world. George was a shock, but not entirely. Prince though...

Of all the artists we lost last year, Prince was the one I felt the hardest. For about a month after his death, I listened to little else but his back catalogue on repeat. He was one of the biggest superstars of my life. Many of the others had been recording long before I was born, but Prince started making music in my lifetime, created some of the most amazing records I ever heard... and then was taken far too soon. I wanted to honour that again, but since I've already compiled My Top Ten Prince Songs, here's the next best thing...


10. The Bloodhound Gang - The Bad Touch

This one again. Sorry about that.

It's just, they're (dreaming) of doing "the kind of stuff only Prince would sing about"...

9. Jesus Jones - Right Here Right Now

It did seem in the early 90s like the world might well be changing for the better. When Jesus Jones wrote this, they proclaimed Bob Dylan's dream was coming true...

I saw the decade in, when it seemed 
The world could change at the blink of an eye
And if anything
Then there's your Sign o' the Times

So... did the world wake up from history?

Did it heck as like.

8. Goldie Lookin' Chain - Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do

Witty Welsh rap. What's not to love?

Guns don't kill people rappers do,
From Bristol Zoo to B&Q,
I want to rap, I want to rhyme
Heard it in a song now I'm into gun crime,
Its a sign of the times like Prince changin his name,
Gotta have a shooter to be in the rap game,
Like Michael Ryan about to snap,
Guns don't kill people its just rap!

7. Missy Elliott - Work It

This is probably the first time I've featured Missy Elliott here, but I am a fan in small doses. I particularly like this one: always impressed by her ability to rap backwards. Wonder how she does that live?

You know Missy feel supa dupa
Prince couldn't get me change my name, papa
Kunta Kinte a slave again, no sir
Picture black sayin', "Oh, yessa, massa"

6. Beck - Debra

Beck's whole Midnite Vultures album was a huge departure from his earlier work and wears its Prince influence proudly. A lot of artists have been influenced by Prince musically, but this song also shows huge lyrical influence. It could be the b-side to Raspberry Beret. Speaking of which...

5. Clint Boon Experience - Not Enough Purple, Too Much Grey

I'll just slip this one in here and leave you to decide whether it's about Prince or not. It certainly sums up the post-Prince world to me.

4. Hot Chip - Down With Prince

I'm not always the biggest Hot Chip fan, but how can I resist when they channel the purple one?

3. Eminem - Without Me

Eminem, the self-proclaimed "worst thing since Elvis Presley", rarely has a positive word to say about any other artist (except, maybe, Dr. Dre). But while he cheerfully puts the boot into NSYNCH, Limp Bizkit and Moby in this track, he really can't bring himself to say anything bad about Prince, using him instead as a comparison for how long Marshall Mathers spent writing songs before he got his break.

2. Smog - Prince, Alone In The Studio

Bill Callahan's epic captures better than anything what made Prince a superstar. He was a perfectionist. He lived for his music, more than just about any other artist we've had in popular music. Not all of that music was perfect, but it was his life. More than food, more than sex, more than anything else... music was what mattered to him.

1. Prince - My Name Is Prince

And he is funky.

Of course, the irony of this song was: very soon after, he stopped calling himself Prince and changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol just to piss Warner Brothers off. We all had to call him TAFKAP for the next eight years. But he was always Prince in our hearts.



Goodnight sweet Prince. I Wish You Heaven.

My Top Ten Wrestling Songs

Easy! Easy! Easy! Easy!


10. Does It Offend You, Yeah? - The Wrestler

I'm getting too old for this shit.

9. Reverend & The Makers - The Wrestler

The Reverend gets pinned down by his conscience.

8. Hot Chip - Wrestlers

The gloves are off...

Hang on, do wrestlers wear gloves?

7. Superman Revenge Squad - Kendo Nagasaki

You may be surprised to learn that this is not the only song about Peter Thornley in this Top Ten.

I don't often steal an entire song's lyrics... but these are worth repeating.

I caught myself crying in the mirror

I was pathetic, I was the angriest dog in the world, 
I was Kendo Nagaski looking back over a lifetime just spent sweating in the ring, in a mask, and feeling ashamed.

I put your postcard on the side

And it makes me happy that you're not happy – it makes me smile

Was in your top eight friends on myspace for half a week, but Thursday night I'd disappeared, but you made me feel special for a while.

I guess everything leads to loneliness
And Weatherspoons meals are cheaper when there's two
We're gonna gather all the lonely people, let them enjoy the two-for-one
Then go back to being strangers when they're through
And maybe one or two won't be strangers anymore

And it makes me happy that you're not happy – it makes me smile

Find out more about Superman Revenge Squad here.

6. Jill Sobule - Mexican Wrestler

Sometimes I wish that I was a wrestler
A Mexican wrestler in a red vinyl mask
And I might grab you, body slam you, and maybe cause
Physical harm

No, really, it's a love song.

5. Art Brut - Unprofessional Wrestling

Art Brut have just released a two-disc best of compilation. Great - like I don't have little enough money as it is. (Unprofessional Wrestling isn't on it, by the way.)

4. Frightened Rabbit - The Wrestle

Apparently, this is about sex...

I'm torn limb from limb
There is bone, there is gristle, and spit
In the clotheless wrestle
The clotheless animal
Animal, animal, animal 

..I must be doing it wrong. (Thankfully.)

3. Carter, The Unstoppable Sex Machine - Is Wrestling Fixed?

Am I un H A P P why?
Does a new born baby cry?
Did Little Red Riding wear a hood?
Did the three bears shit in the woods?
Was Humpty Dumpty fat?
Does the Pope wear a funny hat?
Is wrestling fixed?

Probably.

2. Bruce Springsteen - The Wrestler

One of Bruce's best songs of the 21st Century, hard not to picture a battered Mickey Rourke when you hear it.

1. Luke Haines - Inside The Restless Mind Of Rollerball Rocko / Big Daddy Got A Casio VL Tone / Haystacks In Heaven / Gorgeous George / I Am Catweazle / etc.

Only Luke Haines could write an entire album about spending Saturday afternoons watching wrestling on World of Sport (as I did, in my distant childhood). If you don't believe me, I suggest you track down a copy of Nine and a Half Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s & early 80s.



Which one takes you down?