To end the week, a handful of songs that follow on nicely from yesterday's post...
Showing posts with label John Prine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Prine. Show all posts
Friday, 21 August 2026
Sunday, 22 February 2026
Snapshots #436: Songs that share a title with an Elvis hit
They sound like an Elvis song... until you listen to them, and then they don't sound anything like an Elvis song!
15. Samuel, Gordon, Kate.
Three famous Jacksons.
The
Jacksons - This Place Hotel (a.k.a. Heartbreak Hotel)
Michael Jackson wrote this song in 1980. When the record
company told him to change the title, he claimed never to have heard the Elvis
song. The Jacksons still sing “Heartbreak Hotel” all the way through. Bearing
in mind that you can’t copyright a title, they should have left it as it was.
Elvis
Presley – Heartbreak Hotel
14. Goes with Harvey and Ziggy’s son.
PJ Harvey and David “Ziggy Stardust” Bowie’s son, Duncan.
Not to be confused with…
13. My hearing’s getting worse – I think he’s on Prime.
Not to be confused with…
12. Sportsman Vivian comes a cropper.
“Sportsman Vivian” was an anagram.
Transvision
Vamp – Baby I Don’t Care
Not to be confused with…
Elvis
Presley – Baby I Don’t Care
11. Seveny dwarves not pictured.
Not to be confused with…
10. I bet they all feel The Mark of a Man these days.
The Mark of a Man was the tagline for Old Spice. They’re ALL
Old Spice these days!
Not to be confused with…
9. Quattro di Corleone.
Not to be confused with…
8. Sultans Wipe Shakespeare’s… erm, you can guess the rest.
Sultans of SWING, Wipe OUT, Shakespeare’s SISTER.
Not to be confused with…
7. Moolah, Scratch, Wonga.
Not to be confused with…
6. Interior: nine pm… it’s all confused.
“Interior: nine pm” was an anagram.
Not to be confused with…
5. ¾ ft + 88/44 lines.
Three quarters of a foot is nine inches. The Nails sang 88
Lines About 44 Women.
Not to be confused with…
4. Robert, a Citizen, on his way to the Palace.
Robert Lindsay was Citizen Smith. He never got into
Buckingham Palace.
Not to be confused with…
3. He’s Wilder about a hussy.
Gene Wilder loves a Jezebel.
Gene
Loves Jezebel – Suspicion
Not to be confused with…
2. Concentrate.
I’m sure these guys were Not From Concentrate.
Not to be confused with…
1. Lana and Kathleen join a creepy family.
Lana & Kathleen Turner with the Addams Family.
Elvis Presley - It's Only Love
Bryan Adams & Tina Turner – It’s Only Love
Put on your Blue Suede Shoes and prepare to get All Shook Up again next Saturday...
Wednesday, 2 October 2024
Midlife Crisis Songs #114: Take The D*ckheads Bowling
On Saturday, we took Sam and his mates bowling for his birthday. The title of this post is directed at the family who were in the lane next to ours.
A family with two very small kids, both much younger than Sam. (One was little bigger than a bowling ball.)
The mum's bowling name, up on the screen for the whole place to see, was "C*ntyflaps".
Dad was "Ballbag", in case you were wondering.
Sometimes I despair for the human race...
Sunday, 29 September 2024
Snapshots #363: A Top Ten Songs Featuring Cities That Have Changed Their Names
It's Prince, of course, because he knew a thing or two about changing his name.
Here then are Ten Songs Featuring Towns Or Cities That Changed Their Names. Yep, another snappily titled Top Ten. Sadly I had to leave out the town of Fugging in Austria, which up until 2021 was known by a slightly different name...
One of the reasons they changed the name was that people kept nicking the sign.
10. Switched off the TV.
He abandoned his Television after only two albums (not counting the 1992 "let's-get-the-band- back-together-for-dollars comeback record").
It's now called Volgograd. What did Stalin do wrong?
9. Tangled up cello? Solve its mystery!
"Cello... Solve its" was an anagram.
Elvis Costello - New Amsterdam
So good, they named it once.
8. Ron Moody, Martin Jarvis, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Ben Whishaw.
Four actors who have played the part of Uriah Heep in David Copperfield.
As well as being a city in England, Salisbury was also the original name of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.
7. Swears he never had any matches.
He did not start the fire!
Now Saint Petersburg. I would also have allowed...
Billy Joel - Goodnight, Saigon
...although a gentleman below also had that answer.
6. Found in red and yellow swill. I am simply not going looking for it!
...red and yellow swill I am simply...
Andy Williams - The Peking Theme (So Little Time)
Peking, of course, is now Beijing. I'm still waiting for them to change the name of our local Chinese restaurant.
5. Changed, to protect the innocent.
A rather apt band, and clue, given today's theme...
4. A diamond in the rough.
That was the name of his second album. John isn't an easy man to come up with clues for...
...and it's Ho Chi Minh City these days.
3. Rich studs.
Mumbai, if you please.
2. Awake, but not taking part.
Surely the most un-Cerys picture of Cerys on the internet. The 90s have a lot to answer for.
1. Try to unravel Betty's thigh enigma.
"Betty's thigh enigma" was an anagram, you say? No way!
They Might Be Giants - Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
Only one choice for Number One this week...
Friday, 17 November 2023
Conversations With Ben #30: Bobby Ewing In The Shower
Anyway, I was rather amused by the aged cultural reference, so I shared the image with my work colleagues on our Whatsapp group. Being teachers, they're a bunch of politically-minded so-and-sos who regularly carp on about the malevolent excesses of the Tory regime, so I figured they'd find it funny.
Only one person got the joke though. Everyone else just thought I was sharing a picture of a naked David Cameron. If they didn't think I was weird already...
In despair, I decided to consult another young person about my faux pas. So I messaged Ben.
I'm sure I had my dinner watching something on TV
Someone asked me, "Why is youth
Blow up your TV
Along with the Salad Fingers and Burnt Face Man stuff. They were all shared the same way those early emails used to contain funny pictures. Or the earliest meme: "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog".
I should also point out that a few days earlier, I'd sent Ben a disgusted message regarding the Hollywood remake of 80's TV favourite The Fall Guy, starring Ryan 'as much charisma as a plank of 2x4' Gosling in the Lee Majors role and Aaron 'Oh my god, why does this guy keep getting work?' Taylor-Johnson as Howie Munson. To say I was horrified at this desecration of my childhood is a gross understatement.
Ben replied that he'd never heard of The Fall Guy. Worse still, he was less than complimentary when I sent him a video of the opening credits featuring the classic Lee Majors-sung theme tune. Frankly, he's lucky I was still talking to him.
Popular culture no longer applies to me.
Rol: As a 30-something who's never seen The Fall Guy, do you understand the cultural reference in this?
Ben: David Cameron at uni with his pig-lover in the shower?
So you're not aware of Bobby Ewing in the shower and what that represents?
Dallas or Dynasty? Is that the who shot JR bit?
I'm aware of these things existing in a loose form.
Or is it the this is all a dream bit?
Dallas. They killed Bobby off. He was dead for a whole series. Ratings dived, so they brought him back to life. The explanation was, yes, the previous season had all been a dream. His resurrection happened with his wife waking up and finding him in the shower.
I kinda got there with some help.
Did the ratings return?
For a while, yes. But a lot of people were pissed off that they'd watched a whole season that was just a dream.
I'm sure I had my dinner watching something on TV
There's not, I think, a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see
Abba - The Day Before You Came
Thanks though. You answered my question about how well this would be understood by a young person.
Hate to break it to you, but as I'm in my mid 30s, I'm not sure I class as a "young person".
You'll always be a young person to me.
Someone asked me, "Why is youth
Wasted on the rude and uncouth?
Blinded on cheap vermouth
A would be poet in Duluth
Long on time, short in the tooth
Fantasies of John Wilkes Booth
Come back when you're younger
See you had that, but I grew up in the early days of the internet where shock tactics were the shared things that are now cultural flagstones. Ask anyone my age what "goatse", "lemon party" or "meat spinner" are and you'll get nostalgia for an internet before it became corporatised. None of those are pleasant things but it represents the wider culture of the internet as a mysterious entity prior to it becoming standardised. The rise of these standardised sites can be attributed to places like blogger, Tumblr and myspace who sought tohomogenise how the internet looked and was consumed before the rise of the true current social media spaces. You just got shit telly.
That last line is a complete reduction, but I felt it hit as a good punchline.
Blow up your TV
Throw away your paper
Go to the country
Build you a home
Plant a little garden
Eat a lot of peaches
Try an' find Jesus on your own
Don't google those things by the way.
I won't. But I feel like I've just seen a Lynchian glimpse behind a curtain I don't want to look behind.
Was it like the dark web?
I think dark web is exaggerating quite a bit, yet excessive gore, violence and stuff of a sexual nature was pretty much everywhere. But it wasn't for consuming content the way we use the internet now, it was just for shock. If that makes sense?
So people weren't hunting it down for kicks, it was just randomly placed to cause upset?
Elvis Presley - How the Web Was Woven
I spent a lot of time online in the early days of the Web. Why didn't I stumble across this shit?
The websites were passed along like folklore. The internet wasn't monetised at that point so there was no impetus to drive traffic.
Was this widely shared by your whole generation though? I wonder if it's comparable to the collective consciousness from my generation regarding the TV shows of our youth, even the ones we didn't watch.
Because there was far less choice, there was much more shared cultural knowledge back then.
These things were the early version of memes. Links sent to others in msn messenger, written on each other's schoolbooks, typed into a friend's computer in the computer room at school (before siteblocking).
Like sharing pages from the porn mags we found in the woods?
Exactly.
Bis - Dial-Up Internet Is the Purest Internet
Because you have to remember, my generation is the one that grew up in the world you mentioned whilst also growing up in the early days of widespread internet, meaning the habits from the former informed the way we used the internet.
Sam's generation however will experience a curated internet.
Not quite the same then. I'm consistently surprised by the lack of a shared cultural knowledge by today's teenagers. Like how many of them don't know who Homer Simpson or Indiana Jones or Darth Vader are. I know they're all older generation examples, but I knew about John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart when I was a kid. Everything is fractured now, little pockets of knowledge but very few shared cultural touchstones.
Look, the internet now is curated along two distinct lines...
1) a company wishing to monopolise visits to the internet (i.e the platform).
2) content curated by the ways in which Sam will view the internet ( i.e. logarithms).
I feel like you're just sending me pages from your thesis now.
My last point ties directly into yours though: the internet now is so curated towards likes and viewing habits (down to how long on average we stay on a single image or video, so as to then recommend more of the same to keep us engaged) that a level of shared culture isn't possible anymore.
Is this why nobody reads my blog?
The internet doesn't show you content about what you *think* you want to see anymore. It gives you stuff that you *do* engage with (positively or negatively). It needs you to stay engaged. And the data which it uses to provide you with this is based on hundreds of thousands of hours of billions of people's viewing habits.
So whilst it sounds utopian, it's not driven by enjoying, just engaging. You take a second to read how terrible that Daily Mail headline is on your Google news feed? You engaged with it. It'll show you more. But it needs time to work out why you engaged with it. So it shows you soft politically biased things in that area to see if you engage with those. If you do, you might get some alt-right stuff. It knows you're male based on how you view and men engage with alt right stuff more than women. Not engaging with that stuff enough, it'll move to testing your engagement with things until it finds where you are.
This is how so many young men end up engaged with alt right stuff. Once they begin, it'll start flooding their feeds with it. Cars - sports cars - luxury cars - alpha mindset - Andrew Tate. Comic books - whining about certain aspects - woke comics nowadays - anti woke - Andrew Tate. And it's not set up to force people into certain beliefs, but because of how we engage with the internet and the "need" to monetise it, it's the conclusion.
Populist beliefs have become far stronger across the western world since the late 90s and increase year on year. That means it gets engagement so is viewed more. And on the internet, views = money, so notoriety and fame are the same thing. As a result, people who want to be successful express extreme opinions. Those get views. People want to make money, so they replicate those views.
They Might Be Giants - Youth Culture Killed My Dog
By no means am I saying Sam is destined to end up with those views. You're too decent a person and I know he'll learn from you. But he will be exposed to it. A lot of it. Without ever searching for it. His friends will. And some will identify with it. And people are trying to blame particular websites or certain heads of the hydra instead of dealing with having to have difficult conversations with their kids.
Is this why nobody reads my blog?
It's more that it's not monetisable, so the people who do read it or come across it will always be a small group, but they will have a level of interest in the subject matter that equals yours.
I was hoping for a better punchline than that.
Thursday, 20 July 2023
Product Placement #18: Orange Crush
I'm not sure if Orange Crush has ever been sold in the UK, though I do have a vague memory of it from my childhood. These days you're more likely to find Fanta or Tango in your local shop, but Orange Crush is still big business in other parts of the world, and if there's a top tune attached, it's worthy of a mention here.
First though, let's have some Nicole Dollanganger, and a song she wrote to her ex-boyfriend in prison...
You're so cool, you're so cool
I'll bet when you were born
All the Orange Crush and Ne-Hi soda
Bottles in the world fizzed over
Remember the 90s? Remember Stone Temple Pilots? I presume Mick & Keef's lawyers do...
Sell your soul and sign an autograph
Big bang baby, it's a crash, crash, crash
I wanna cry, but I gotta laugh
Orange Crush mama is a laugh, laugh, laugh
For my own sanity, I'm trying to cut down on the number of songs I include in this feature, but here are a couple of titular mentions...
Almost there! But first, the great John Prine is a worthy runner-up...
Sally used to play with her hula hoops
Now she tells her problems to therapy groups
Grandpa's on the front lawn staring at a rake
Wondering if his marriage was a terrible mistake
I'm sitting on the front steps drinking Orange Crush
Wondering if it's possible for me to still blush
Uh huh, oh yeah
No prizes for guessing the winner today, Martin!
Orange Crush was the first single from R.E.M.'s 1988 album Green, leading to their debut TOTP appearance in the UK. In the US it was only released as a promotional single, although it did top the airplay charts for 8 weeks, beating The Irish Band. If I didn't love the song already, the last bit would be enough.
Orange Crush is about a young man forced to go to Vietnam and his worries over exposure to Agent Orange. Michael Stipe sings "I've got my spine" in the chorus as Spina Bifida was one of the side effects of exposure to the gas, and often affected soldiers' chances of having healthy children.
Wednesday, 1 March 2023
Celebrity Jukebox #74: Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift is another of those names I recognise more from song lyrics than actual movies, though his name is mentioned in the same breath as Marlon Brando and James Dean as a pioneer of method acting. Red River, From Here To Eternity and The Misfits are among his most famous roles, though he turned downing iconic roles in High Noon, Sunset Boulevard and Shane. A car crash in 1956 left him dependent on alcohol and drugs for pain relief, ultimately leading to his untimely death ten years later.
Montgomery's filmography is pretty strong... but his Celebrity Jukebox contains some real heavy hitters, starting with The Clash...
Say, where did I see this guy?
In "Red River"?
Or a "Place In The Sun"?
Maybe "The Misfits"?
Or "From Here To Eternity"?
And everybody say, "Is he all right?"
And everybody say, "What's he like?"
And everybody say, "He sure looks funny"
That's Montgomery Clift, honey!
From there, let's visit my favourite Tom Waits album, Nighthawks At The Diner...
And it's a skid mark tattoo on the asphalt blue
Was that a Malibu?
Vroooooom, vroooooom
Yeah, it's Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift
Coming on to the broads with the same old riff, yeah
What about The Waterboys?
Grandma
We are Jonah
Rolling along
In the teeth of the whale
Then the scene did shift
To a sun kissed sea
There was Montgomery Clift,
Jonah, the whale and me
As the sun it set
Montgomery placed his bet
Then the whale did yawn
And fell asleep in four
And, just to take a break from the heavy hitters, I take you to back to 1979 for an encounter with Italian Prog Rock band New Trolls who namedrop Montgomery along with Gregory Peck and Deborah Kerr in this joyous little ditty...
Moving on, here's Earth Kitt... a lady who's anything but monotonous...
I met a rather amusing fool
While on my way to Istanbul
He bought me the Black Sea for my swimming pool
Monotonous!
For thirty days, salt air I sniffed
While I was shipwrecked and cast adrift
With a man who looked like Montgomery Clift
Monotonous!
Simon Joyner is not as big a name as Eartha, but he has some famous fans. Beck, Bright Eyes and Gillian Welch all consider him an influence.
You don't know me
He said to the swinging door
You used to look like Montgomery Clift, he reminded the mirror
I know how you got so sick
The mirror hypothesized
But he'd already turned his back and then he rolled his eyes
Random Hold formed in Dulwich, back in 1976. If you were reading the Melody Maker back then, you may remember their name...
This lot, on the other hand, hail from the early years of the current century... but count among their influences The Birthday Party, Suicide & The Gun Club...
Doug Powell gets filed under "Power Pop", which guarantees he'll get a listen...
How about some overblown melodramatic 90s Europop? Go on. You know you want to...
How do I follow that? Easy.
John Prine can follow anybody... and he's even brought Tom Petty along with him.
Hamburgers, Cheeseburgers
Wilbur and Orville Wright
John Garfield in the afternoon
Montgomery Clift at night
Sunday, 16 January 2022
Snapshots #223: A Top Ten Knocking Songs
10. Webster Earplug.
Anagram!
Paul Westerberg - Knockin' On Mine
9. What to do with empty acorn producers.
Fill it. Fill the oaks.
8. One Wanted hitmaker, plus Brian, Al or Jackie.
The Dooleys were Wanted. Yes, they were.
Jackie & Brian Wilson.
(Play it again, Sam!*)
(*Yes, I know Bogie doesn't actually say that line in the film.)
7. Where none of the students listen.
Deaf School - Knock Knock Knocking
6. #1 + Chief ARP Warden.
We'll get to this week's #1 in a minute, but it was Chief ARP Warden Hodges in Dad's Army.
Eddie Hodges - I'm Gonna Knock On Your Door
(I only know that because it was in a Tarantino soundtrack. Honest.)
5. SUV demanded by Welsh rocker.
"SUV demanded" is an anagram...
Dave Edmunds - I Hear You Knocking
Great intro.
4. 68 + A Good Year...
68 Guns + A Good Year For The Roses.
Guns 'n' Roses - Knocking On Heaven's Door
(Because Dylan would have been too obvious. And I like how Axl string out the notes.)
3. Sounds like he's online.
It's a rhyme.
Online...
John Prine - Knocking On Your Screendoor
2. Follows darkness.
It's always darkest before the dawn.
I'm pretty sure that video was filmed at Greenhead Park in Huddersfield. They must have had a dome on the cafe in the 70s.
1. Martin's dog and Muppet bassist.
Martin Crane (see the top of this page) had a dog called Eddie.
Floyd was the bass player in the Muppet band.
Snapshots will come knocking again next Saturday. Please answer your door.
Monday, 4 January 2021
Mid-Life Crisis Songs #55: Please Let Me Go Round Again
Back to work today, and I don't even want to think about that as I type this on Friday evening... though it has blackened my thoughts for the past few days. If you feel the same, here's the Nicholas Cage coaster I got for Christmas. Don't have nightmares.
As the New Year begins, it's customarily the time that I begin sharing with you the songs that would have been included in my countdown of the previous year... if I'd discovered them in time. More of those will be coming up later in the week, under the heading 2020 Latecomers (there's one party we'd all happily have arrived late to... or missed altogether), but the first one deserves the Mid-Life Crisis heading even more.
I discovered the latest album from Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams Jr. a month or so ago because it features two of the last vocal recordings from the late great John Prine. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the album as a whole. At 78, Swamp Dogg has had a pretty amazing career, working with Patti Labelle, Gary US Bonds, Gene Pitney, Irma Thomas, Dr. Dre and Kid Rock, among others. He's been a songwriter, producer, A&R man and performer, though his record releases have tended towards the esoteric and satirical... but this is his country blues album, drafting in John Prine, Bon Iver and Jenny Lewis to help. The more I listen to it, the more I want to dig deeper into Swamp Dogg's back catalogue, though I have been warned not to expect anything else that sounds like this.
The song below, however - one of the very last John Prine would ever lend his vocals to - is in a league of its own. Especially for those of us hip-deep in what Sam has started to call "The Middle Ages" ("you and mummy are in the Middle Ages, you won't be old for a few years yet")...
Everything I put my hands on, I blew it
Women, jobs, money, friends, and I knew it
Actin' crazy, talkin' dumb all the time
I woke up yesterday, I was forty years old, life had passed me by
Please let me go 'round again
Oh, life, can't you afford me another chance?
If you'll let me go 'round again
I'll build a better mousetrap from a far more better plan
As I head back to work today, I wish I had the opportunity to go round again and build a far better mousetrap from a far better plan...
Tuesday, 29 September 2020
Name That Tune: Our Top Ten Barbara Songs
No surprises who introduces us to this week's post. Here she is with Neil, showing us how showbiz should be done...
Barbra Streisand & Neil Diamond - You Don't Bring Me Flowers
As you might expect, this Babs gets name-checked all over the place (in a surprising number of rap tunes, for one thing).
Alyson says...
A DJ duo called Duck Sauce recorded something called Barbra Streisand in 2010 sampling a Boney M song. Truly terrible but it was big hit.
Duck Sauce - Barbara Streisand
Ms. Streisand also pops up here...
Livin' in the car, make it to the bar
We'll meet up with the guys who
Make love to Barbara Streisand
Then we'll all split the scene
Make it like a dream
West Side Brighton, or we're just ridin'
Turn on the chicks and then we'll blow our kicks
And we'll fly high
And, best of all, here...
American Music Club - All Your Jeans Were Too Tight
You and I brawl
To give me all your clothes
But all your jeans were too tight
And why did you paint your bathroom black
I can understand liking Barbara Streisand
But I'm not sure about the soundtrack from Diva
To give me all your clothes
But all your jeans were too tight
And why did you paint your bathroom black
I can understand liking Barbara Streisand
But I'm not sure about the soundtrack from Diva
But back to Alyson...
Other than the obvious Barbra (whom I adore, especially when she sang Guilty with Barry Gibb - there is an excellent clip when she introduces him and he appears from the darkness, a vision in his tight white trousers - 'It oughta be illegal'), there is Barbara Dickson.
This Barbara worked for my friend's dad as a junior civil servant in Rosyth before becoming famous. Quite liked her early stuff and Answer Me is one of the few songs I can sing quite well, as no high notes.
Is there any end to your famous connections, Alyson?
I hope you won't mind that I picked this one as it stuck in my mind from a very young age... I suspect I have Mr. Wogan to thank for that.
Barbara Dickson - January, February
Still, as Charity Chic points out, there are many other famous singing Barbaras...
I've a plethora of Barbara soul singers...
Barbara Acklin - Am I The Same Girl?
Barbara Pennington - 24 Hours A Day
Barbara Lynn - You'll Lose A Good Thing
Barbara McNair - It Happens Every Time
Barbara Randolph - I Got A Feeling
Barbara Jean English - I'm Living A Lie
And let's not forget...
Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin - It's My Party
Barbara Mandrell & George Jones - I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool
Barbara Jones - Just When I Needed You Most
Barbara Keith - Detroit Or Buffalo
And they were just the ones I found on my hard-drive.
But what of the Barbara songs?
Let's start with this week's elephant in the room, shall we?
Heaven help us, says Martin...
I listened to one second of that and it was enough to bring back nightmares. And Rigid Digit agrees...
I'll happily never hear that song again having spent a weeks holiday with 4 daughters under 10 singing it constantly.
I still get shivers.
I should probably have not suggested Barbie... I'm not even sure it is derived from Barbara. Still, while we're here, can we find a decent Barbie song?
Jim in Dubai thinks not...
Big In Japan - Cindy & The Barbi Dolls
(Almost as bad as Aqua.)
Still, Jim does also offer this, which is a hell of a lot better...
And I also found these, each one better than the last...
Dolly Parton - Backwoods Barbie
However, Rigid Digit wins the prize for best song to mention a Barbie... although it's a bit of a stretch.
Moving up on second base
Behind Nicholas van what's-his-face
At six foot six and a hundred tons
The undisputed king of the slums
With more aliases than Klaus Barbie
The master butcher of Leigh-on-Sea
Just about to take the stage
The one and only - hold the front page
Stay with Rigid Digit, but moving on to actual Barbaras...
Peggy
Carrie Ann
And Betty Jean
Jill
Jan
Joan
And Sue
Alice
Cindy
Barbara Ann
It's all because of you
It's all because of you girl
Although I do have to disqualify that under the Song For Whoever Rule. Sorry, RD.
What else did you have for me this week?
Let's ask C...
Herman's Hermits - Lady Barbara
A sweet song, and Peter Noone was so sweet-faced too (my big sister had such a crush on him she used to cry whenever he came on the telly).
Reminds me of listening to Brian Matthews, Radio 2, Saturday mornings. As for Peter and his Hermits... well, they don't make album covers like this anymore, do they?
For a different kind of loveliness, says The Swede (from whom, more in a moment) try...
John Fahey - Barbara Namkin Blues
Meanwhile Martin also offers...
Lyrically, there's...
In Santa Barbara Hannah cried, amidst those frozen beaches
And didn't We Are Scientists have an album called Barbara?
Apparently so. I have no idea why.
We Are Scientists - I Don't Bite
Jim in Dubai adds...
If you could stretch it a little, I could have also added
Duran Duran - Electric Barbarella
(That last one was on my longlist, Jim.)
Finally, you'll be be glad to know that my millennial hipster politico friend, Ben, found himself dragged back into making suggestions again this week... even though it wasn't all about him. I don't expect him to stay around since I'm sure he'll be distracted by some other bright shiny things very soon. Young people today. Etc. Still, while he's here, I'm happy to share his ideas...
Oh my god, Barbara
She looks so much just like my mom
Because that was on my longlist too. Along with...
Johnny Cash - The Ballad of Barbara
Dolly Parton - Barbara On Your Mind
Bobby Vee - Please Don't Ask About Barbara
Peter Frampton - Barbara's Vacation
That's pretty awful. I only include it to show there are worse Barbara records than Duck Sauce or even Barbie Girl. I mean, it's almost as bad as this...
Barbara and me in our English garden.
Barbara, buster and me in our English garden
(and you too Monty) in our English garden.
Barbara, buster and me in our English garden
(and you too Monty) in our English garden.
Better lyrical offerings came from...
Boz Scaggs - You Got Some Imagination
Lean and mean, Barbara Jean
You got a mind like a tattle tale magazine
So stop your scheming you must be dreaming
To think I'd fall for you
You got some imagination
Now the captain ran for cover when the steamboats crashed
Driving off the bridges cause they got no class
Barbara's got my number, now I've got to run
Pizzas to deliver in the crackhouse slum, you know
Bobby Bare - A Million Miles To The City
Well, how far away is the city?
You know that's a great big town
And Barbara said why it's a million miles
And then the story got around
I'll get to cry to Barbara Walters when things don't go my way
And I'll get community service no matter which law I break
I'll make the supermarket tabloids, they'll write some awful stuff
But the more they run my name down the more my price goes up
Melissa Etheridge - You Can Sleep While I Drive
We'll go thorough Tucson up to Santa Fe
And Barbara in Nashville says we're welcome to stay
I'll buy you glasses in Texas a hat from New Orleans
And in the morning you can tell me your dreams
And finally this, which came very close just because it's The Hold Steady...
The Hold Steady - Don't Let Me Explode
Saint Barbara I'm calling your name.
Don't let me blow up.
We'll hook it all up.
I guess there's fields of speed where there's fields of grain.
Saint Barbara don't let me explode.
I can feel the whole scene starting to corrode when we're fooling around on the frontage roads.
But there could only be ten.
And here they are...
10. Father John Misty - Leaving LA
I'm starting the countdown with this one just to bait my millennial hipster politico friend, Ben, who texted earlier in the week to tell me:
New Fleet Foxes album is awful. There, I saved you some time.
I'll make up my own mind about that, thank you very much.
The worst thing that could ever come from Foxes? I Love You, Honeybear.
Undaunted in the face of his youthful denunciation, I do like me some Father John Misty. As has been previously established here. I'm sorry, but lyrically, this is right up my cross-section...
My first memory of music's from
The time at JC Penney's with my mom
The watermelon candy I was choking on
Barbara screaming, "Someone help my son!"
I relive it most times the radio's on
That "tell me lies, sweet little white lies" song
That's when I first saw the comedy won't stop for
Even little boys dying in department stores
The time at JC Penney's with my mom
The watermelon candy I was choking on
Barbara screaming, "Someone help my son!"
I relive it most times the radio's on
That "tell me lies, sweet little white lies" song
That's when I first saw the comedy won't stop for
Even little boys dying in department stores
9. The Everly Brothers - Barbara Allen
The Swede says...
Shirley Collins has recorded the ballad 'Barbara Allen' at least three times over the years, most recently for her latest LP 'Heart’s Ease', but I'd personally go for the 1968 version from 'The Power Of The True Love Knot', featuring her sister Dolly's ghostly flute-organ accompaniment.
Shirley Collins - Barbara Allen
But, with a song as old as this, there were many different versions to choose from, and I found the Everly's harmonies a little easier on the ear. Sorry about that, Swede.
I was even tempted to go with this version...
Charity Chic adds:
Emmylou Harris' Going Down to Harlan also references Barbara Allen...
Emmylou Harris - Going Down to Harlan
And if you were Willie Moore
And I was Barbara Allen
Or Fair Ellen all sad at the cabin door
A weepin' and a-pinin' for love
A weepin' and a-pinin' for love
8. Pavement - Rattled By The Rush
Winning the Rhyme of The Week award, hands down...
Getting off, on the candelabra
We call her Barbara
Breeding like larva
7. The Boomtown Rats - Diamond Smiles
Before saving the world and losing his cool in one go, Bob Geldof was a great pop star. This is one of my favourite Rats songs that wasn't a Number One. Plus it mentions Barbara Cartland, so any excuse...
Everybody tries,
It's Dale Carnegie gone wild,
But Barbara Cartland's child
Long ago perfected the motionless glide.
Grant Hart had a song called Barbara on his Hot Wax album, says Swiss Adam, who's still kicking himself for missing the first post in this series. Never mind, this is a cracking track that more than makes up for your absence there, SA.
Barbara, always avoids unpleasant situations
She rides right next to me, between the streetcar stations
Her knees are big and bony, she takes up all the cushions
Barbara, always avoids unpleasant situations
And I just added Grant Hart to my Requires Further Investigation list. Even before I realised he used to be in Hüsker Dü.
5. Shirley Brown - Woman To Woman
Shirley finds Barbara's name & number in her husband's pocket and makes a call that basically says: Back off, Bitch.
As a sweet soul ballad, of course.
4. John Prine - Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis, Hare Krishna Beauregard
It's John Prine. I'd happily give John Prine a honorary position in this chart every week.
I gotta shake myself and wonder
Why she even bothers me
For if heartaches were commercials
We'd all be on TV
3. Fountains of Wayne - Barbara H
Martin suggested Seatbacks and Traytables for another Santa Barbara reference...
Is that Santa Barbara?
I think I've been there
I think I've been there
It's a fine song, but I felt there was a more obvious song from the FoW guys.
So did Jim in Dubai.
I think the obvious FoW song is Barbara H.
2. Flight of the Conchords - We're Both In Love With A Sexy Lady
Came very close to topping the chart this time, especially as it's about both a Barbara and a... erm... Brabra.
This was also the first suggestion to come through from my millennial hipster politico friend Ben... so there's obviously a reason I keep him around.
1. The Beach Boys - Barbara Ann
As Martin said, this was the "obligatory, obvious" Number One.
Not a Brian Wilson original, it was originally recorded in 1961 by The Regents. There are similarities to the more famous version, but it also sounds very much of its time. The Beach Boys version (with Dean Torrance from Jan & Dean sharing an uncredited lead vocal with Brian) is timeless.
There's a purity to early Beach Boys recordings that is unmatched in the entire sphere of popular music.
A pretty hyperbolic statement, no?
Listen to this and tell me I'm wrong...
NEXT WEEK: OUR TOP TEN CHARLES OR CHARLIE SONGS
(We may need a bigger boat.)
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