The Warmest Room wouldn't leap immediately to my mind, but it came up on a compilation the other day and stopped me in my tracks. And thinking back, it's not the only time that's happened.
When did I first get into Billy Bragg? I'd love to tell you I caught that first, mushroom biryani-stoked John Peel radio play of The Milkman of Human Kindness (at the wrong speed, naturally)... but clearly I wasn't cool enough to be listening to Peel back in '83. I was still a Radio 2 man back then anyway. And I was far more familiar with Kirsty's version of A New England (although Billy always says that's his favourite anyway). It's possible then that I didn't pay much attention to Billy until he had first Number One in 1988. I do remember watching him sing She's Leaving Home on TOTP with Cara Tivey... and thinking, hey, that's much better than the A-side that actually propelled this single to the top of the charts. It was probably at this point that I bought my first Billy Bragg album, which I'm pretty sure was a vinyl copy of Worker's Playtime.
Soon after I acquired the CD re-issue of Billy's self-proclaimed "Difficult Third Album", Talking with the Taxman About Poetry and discovered The Warmest Room. It's tucked away at the end Side 2, long after the Johnny Marr-fuelled glory of Greetings To The New Brunette and the devastating gut-punch of Levi Stubbs... but in its own way, it's just as wonderful.
Whenever I've seen Billy live, he's keen to state that there are two types of Billy Bragg fan - the ones who come to him for the politics, and the ones who prefer the humanity of his relationship stories. I'm firmly in the latter camp - while I agree with many (if not all) of his political opinions, and can appreciate how heartfelt they are when he puts them to song, I'd much rather listen to his tales of woe. Of course, the politics do creeps into those songs too, as Billy confesses in The Warmest Room...
Though you cannot be blamed But I've become inflamed With thoughts of lust and thoughts of power Thoughts of love and thoughts of Chairman Mao
...but maybe it's more the politics of love and war in this instance. Whatever - The Warmest Room is a love story, and it even starts with a hint of sex to grab our attention...
A rainy afternoon Spent in the warmest room She lay before me and said Yes, it's true that I have seen some naked men
To me, that opening reeks of unrequited lust. A flirtatious young woman toying with a love-struck young dupe who probably doesn't have the nerve to make a move...
The best songs are malleable - we bend them to fit our own experiences.
As she made for the door Leaving me on the floor I wish I'd done biology For an urge within me wanted to do it then
I particularly like that line, because it suggests a sexually inexperienced young guy, well out of his depth in this "relationship". There's also a big difference between the way she provocatively "lays before" him in the previous verse, and then leaves him "on the floor" here. You can immediately tell who holds all the power.
Then comes the chorus, where all that desperate yearning becomes crystallised...
And here she comes again And I'm sitting on my hands And she sings to me that siren song Here she comes again and I'm biting my lip But it won't be long
She's a Siren - and yet he's sitting on his hands, unable to make any kind of move, biting his lip with nerves... and kidding himself he has some kind of chance. Been there, got the T-shirt.
What do Sirens do? They lure men to their doom... although in this case, the Siren might well be using her feminine wiles to lure Billy into supporting her own personal political ideologies. Not that he'd need such pretty persuasion nowadays... but whenever I listen to this song, I do wonder if that's how he first became interested in such things.
And then, to lighten the mood, a little comedic interlude...
As Brother Barry said,
As he married Marion,
"The wife has three great attributes:
Intelligence, a Swiss army knife and charm."
What I love about this joke, from an English teacher's point of view, is that it utilises the Rule of Three... in a most unusual fashion. That trusted comedic trope usually works thus...
Item 1 - introduce the topic...
Item 2 - establish what looks like a pattern...
Item 3 - surprise us or confound our expectations to create a humorous reaction.
For example...
Have you ever woken up next to someone and you can't remember what their name is, how you met, or why they're dead?
By the regulations of comedy then, this lyric should go...
"The wife has three great attributes:
Intelligence, charm and a Swiss Army Knife."
That's how the joke would normally work. But there are competing masters to be satisfied here, and the songwriter's need to scan trumps the comedian's need for a laugh. And yet... it works. Better than the alternative, I'd argue, but maybe that's down to familiarity - after all these years, I can't imagine the line any other way.
And then it's time to mix the pop with the politics again...
And she did speak her mind And told them all that she believed The only way to disarm is to disarm
The repetition of "disarm" allows for multiple interpretations. The one to do with stopping warfare ("let's make love not war" was always a dodgy chat up line) but also "to remove hostility, suspicion, etc. by being charming: a disarming smile." But who's disarming who in this tale? Is it possible the Siren feels threatened by Billy's advances? Is he actually what we might call a stalker or a sex pest nowadays? That's not an interpretation I favour, but as I said... songs are malleable.
Then we get to the crux of the matter: the insinuation of seduction as indoctrination, and the idea that Billy's Marxist ideology was originally stirred by post-adolescent hormones. Of course, he wouldn't be the first young man to engage with a political theory in order to get his end away, and does it really matter how we arrive at our individual belief system as long as it's the right one for us?
However, before Billy becomes completely inflamed with thoughts of lust and thoughts of power, we first have to contend with his own resistance efforts...
I know people whose idea of fun Is throwing stones in the river in the afternoon sun Oh, let me be as free as them...
For me, these are among the best lines Billy's ever written. They're simple, yet they speak volumes. Putting aside everything else this song is about, here's a straightforward plea to live in the moment, to not (as Wendell Berry puts it in The Peace Of Wild Things) "tax [our] lives with forethought of grief". Don't we all want to be as free as them? Sadly, it's clear our narrator fears that won't be possible once his Siren returns...
Don't let her pass this way again!
It's like his brain is screaming out in a rare lucid moment, knowing full well the fug of lust will soon descend and he'll be lost again.
All of which leads us to the denouement, and the only lines I don't have a clear interpretation of...
We have such little time At your place or mine I can't wait till we take our blood tests Oh baby, let's take our blood tests now
The first two - fine: it's romantic desperation mixed with an ever more desperate chat up line. But the blood tests? I've seen those interpreted as a response to the AIDS crisis in the 80s, and maybe that's partly it... but I also wonder if it's not just another excuse to string the hapless, lovesick fool along with. This Siren's got no intention of letting Billy have his way... but boy, does she enjoy the attention! When those blood tests do come back, you can bet there'll be some other reason to delay the evitable...
Sadly, in December 1963, Pat Hare made this song a reality when he shot his girlfriend and a policeman who came to question him. He spent the last 16 years of his life in prison, where he formed the band Sounds Incarcerated.
It can't have escaped your notice that Doctor Who celebrated its 60th anniversary last week, blasting its way back onto screen with an old face and a Disney+ budget. Like most British kids, I grew up with The Doctor, and your first Doctor will always be your favourite. Which means you can't beat Tom Baker in my eyes.
Still, I have a great fondness for most of the other Doctors, including the modern incarnations (although Huddersfield lass Jodie Whittaker was let down during her tenure by terrible scripts). They say we spent large parts of our youth hiding behind the sofa to avoid the show's scarier bits... and I do have vivid memories of being behind that old red leather sofa in our living room on a Saturday night... but I'm pretty sure I was acting out the adventures I'd just seen on screen rather than escaping in terror.
Here then is a special edition of TV On The Radio dedicated to all the Doctors.
Search for songs that include the words "Doctor Who" in that order and you're on a hiding to nothing. Unless you want to hear a load of tunes that have nothing to do with Timelords such as this...
She sent me to the doctor who sent me straight to bed
I had far more luck searching for words that were unique to the Whoniverse. Such as TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, as I'm sure you will recall).
Here's someone who would look right at home in an episode of Doctor Who... Thom Yorke.
I'm stuck in the TARDIS Trapped in hyperspace One minute, snake charming The next in a motorcade
Step outside the TARDIS and you may encounter some of The Doctor's greatest enemies. For reasons explained above, I didn't bother looking for The Master, and only found the odd song that mentioned Cybermen... but the Daleks were all over the place.
Dave Balfe and Alan Gill from The Teardrop Explodes formed the most famous band to be named after the psychotic pepper pots, possibly my favourite science fiction bad guys (the Daleks, not Balfe and Gill).
Despite my difficulties in searching for "Doctor Who" songs, I still found quite a few that mentioned the Timelord by name (or, not actually by name, since Doctor Who isn't actually his name, is it?). Although many of them fall into the category that causes serious musos to gnash their teeth to the gums... comedy or novelty records.
Frazer Hines was a minor Yorkshire celebrity due to his role on Emmerdale Farm in the 70s and 80s (back when my dad used to watch it because they had actual farmyard scenes). Prior to that, Frazer was an early Doctor Who assistant when he recorded this...
Once All About Eve were done, lead singer Julianne Regan formed Mice. Here's a little timely advice for any of you who might be considering running off with a stranger in a blue police box...
He's my blue sonic boy I believed in his watery lies And his half-arsed scheme to rule the world But you know it isn't easy hanging out with the timelords When you're a Dalek and can't even climb up the stairs So when you wake tomorrow, stick a bell in your van
There were lots of artists I discovered during this search who looked like they'd only ever get a gig at Comicon, but these guys deserved a special mention, for enthusiasm, if nothing else...
But there was only one song I could choose to close this post, from the insane genius of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, The KLF, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu and The Timelords... with a little help from The Sweet and (whisper it now) Gary Glitter. A Number One smash that Melody Maker described as "pure, unadulterated agony" and "excruciating", while Sounds called it "rancid" and "a record so noxious that a top ten place can be its only destiny". What's not to love?
When Shane MacGowan stayed at Bono's house, he did what only Shane MacGowan could do...
“Bono put in a glass roof and wall,” MacGowan explained in an interview with The Times. “I used to wave my willy at the train as it passed and hope that they thought it was Bono’s.”
Sad to say I must be on my way So buy me beer and whiskey 'cause I'm going far away I'd like to think of me returning when I can To the greatest little boozer and to Sally MacLennane
I've been giving the Celebrity Jukebox a rest over the past couple of weeks. It's been nice to have a stretch without any big name deaths. But I've been worrying about Shane MacGowan a lot lately, hoping his time wasn't nigh. The pictures from his hospital bed didn't look great, and... I dunno... could we really stand to lose both Sinéad and Shane in the same year?
Another post then, written with a very heavy heart...
Let's start with a Canadian Irish band who owe their entire act to Shane...
Well, the next thing you know I was lying on the ground
I drank some more whiskey, you know I was feeling sound
I dreamt I met MacGowan and he bought me another round
It was Ben who alerted me to the new of Shane's death, and he was pretty certain the mainstream media coverage would hinge around that Christmas song he did with Kirsty. A fine tune (if over-played), but there's so much more to Shane's legacy. There were more great duets to start with. Such as this...
And this, which I no doubt posted back in July when Sinéad passed because it's a high point in both their careers...
Final word to Shane himself. I hope they follow his wishes to the letter...
Bury me at sea
Where no murdered ghost can haunt me
If I rock upon the waves
And no corpse can lie upon me
Let me go, boys, let me go, boys
Let me go down in the mud, where the rivers all run dry
The mothers of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent both shared the same first name, a fact that was used as a cringe-worthy "let's stop fighting and make friends" plot twist in the awful Batman Vs. Superman movie.
With the new format of Saturday Snapshots essentially becoming the new way for me to continue doing thematic Top Tens on this blog, I've found I often don't get to feature all the songs I'd like. Partly to avoid too much repetition of artists, eras or genres in the quiz. That's why I label it "A Top Ten..." ratherthan "The Top Ten..."
Then it occurred to me: why not start a new Monday feature where I squeeze in some of the songs I didn't have room for? Not every week. Just when I have an overspill.
Now, I have to admit I get a bit rankled by Talk Talk, so when my millennial hipster politico friend, Ben, also suggested this one, I might have snapped.
You're not part of that whole "Spirit of Eden is the greatest album in the history of recorded music" conspiracy, are you? (Both Guy Garvey and Huey Morgan are among the disciples of this particular cult.)
My millennial hipster politico friend, Ben, replied:
It's a key album in the development of post-rock music. The blueprints are there but I don't think they knew what to do with it properly.
This turned into a whole argument with me railing against the very concept of "post rock" and Ben quoting Mogwai and post-metal and Math rock and me saying I'd rather listen to Twisted Sister. It got ugly. But there are worse ways to spend a Friday afternoon.
She's still thinking about this when the bus goes passed caroline lee's house where there was a party last week. There were some german exchange students there who were very mature; they all ended up jumping out of the bedroom window. One of them tried to get her to kiss him on the stairs, so she kicked him. Later she was sick because she drunk too much cider. Caroline was drunk as well; she was pretending she was married to a tall boy in glasses, and she had to wear a polo-neck for three days afterwards to cover up the love-bite on her neck.
That was a very strong contender, partly because it scratches my "short stories in songs" itch and partly because it was the first Pulp song I ever fell in love with. But I guess I had to save it for Our Top Ten Susan Songs.
My name is Caroline Cell phone number here, call if you have the time Twenty-eight and bored, grieving over loss Sorry to be heavy, but heavy is the cost Heavy is the cost
Which, if I ever get round to completing it, will be a strong contender for Number One in My Top Ten Lonely Hearts Column Songs. Although it will obviously be up again Rupert Holmes.
Also on the lyrical side of things, strong calls from Walter...
I am enthused to be able to introduce you to another strong Canadian contender here!
If your willing to stretch out a little into the Country realm (as I believe by your other selections you are on occasion) my collection yields up the somewhat shocking voice of Colter Wall, from Saskatchewan (that's prairie town, Canada style if you are not up on your Canadian geography, the heart of Canadian Country music). A little test? See if you too, like the Proclaimers, "can say "Saskatchewan" without starting to stutter..." Anyway, give a listen to his song "Caroline" from 2015, and see if you can believe that the lad had barely turned 20 at the time of recording that song.
No, he certainly doesn't sound 20. I have heard Ricky Ross playing Colter on his Radio Scotland Country show, but I hadn't heard this one. It's utterly bewitching though. Thanks, Douglas.
Can't argue with this suggestion from John Medd. How many other songs can you think of where the roses smell like poo poo?
Caroline (Caroline) Caroline All the guys would say she's mighty fine (mighty fine) But mighty fine only got you somewhere half the time And the other half either got you cussed out, or coming up short
Born in the very same year Alive at a similar time It gave me something small that I could feel That maybe as you grew, you knew how I'd feel And Caroline and I knew how you'd feel Rattled through our teenage years Battled and loved who we fought The first time you left home on your own I knew A little bit of you is gone when you do And Caroline and I well we grew, well that's true Caroline and I
You've beaten me to it C, as that was the song I would have suggested. I think I discovered it from one of the other blogs a couple of years ago and was blown away it - there isa great YouTube clipwith loads of '60s/'70s scenes in black and white which brings always brings on an overwhelming sense of nostalgia when I watch it: just matches the sound of the song so well.
Spot on C, an absolute beauty. Another Robert Wyatt tune at least partially inspired by Caroline Coon (as well as Carla Bley and Marsha Hunt) is 'To Carla, Marsha and Caroline(For Making Everything Beautifuller)' from his 1970 LP 'The End of an Ear'. Not sure if Rol will allow that though.
That may bend the Song For Whoever rule, Swede, but it is quite lovely. Matching Mole for the win though... if only there weren't such stiff competition this week.
Martin and Rigid Digit both picked this for Number One. I respect that. But sometimes there's just no competition.
Now I lie here with you, can't get her out my head
Do you think she knows that you share my bed
Well, I don't want to see Caroline
Don't want to see her face when she finds out you're mine
How could a friend be so unkind
Well, I don't want to see Caroline
1. Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline
There are those of you who may not like Sweet Caroline, and I don't often say this, because everyone is entitled to their opinion and it's all subjective and opinions are like arseholes... but you're wrong.
Sweet Caroline has a wistful nostalgia about it. It starts small but grows and then explodes. This is where Nirvana got the whole quiet quiet LOUD thing from. And best of all, it has the "Der der ders!" which even Bublé can't beat. I'm really sad if you don't like it because when I'm down, Sweet Caroline can pick me up like virtually no other song.
Good times never seemed so good...
My millennial hipster politico friend, Ben, says...
"Also, if you do Sweet Caroline, make it the Hoff version or Me First & The Gimme Gimmes."
...which just goes to show you, there really is little hope for the youth of today.
I had to start this week's Elvis Friday with the Sesame Street version of the Elvis Costello song I posted last week. Thanks very much to Rigid Digit for bringing this to my attention. It was too good to stay languishing in a comment box though...
The purpose of Elvis Fridays is to cheer me (and maybe you too) up after another long hard week of lockdown working. And that certainly did the trick.
Which other Elvis might I call upon to put a smile on my face this morning?
How about this one...?
And what about the King himself? What has he got that can compete with Kirsty and the Cookie Monster?
How about this rare live recording of Elvis singing Tony Joe White's classic Polk Salad Annie in his Vegas years. People make fun of the Vegas years, but I watch a performance like this, and damn it, what I wouldn't give to have been in that audience. From a 2020 perspective, 1970 looks like the place to be...
This is Microsoft Teams, the virtual office software many businesses are using to allow their workforce to work from home... and I loathe it.
With Teams, your home is your workplace... but you're always on call. If I'm at work, I have limited communication with my boss and colleagues throughout the day, because I'm often off somewhere else doing something else. Doing the job. And everybody trusts me to get on with that.
Because I'm working from home though, if I don't reply to a message or answer a call as soon as it comes, the inference is that I'm skiving off. Teams makes every one of us into anxiety slaves, feeling guilty about taking a comfort break or spending time with our family instead of answering that ultra urgent question that I might not have answered until the next day if I was at work, but now every response has to be NOW.
I hated this job before the lockdown... I hate it ten times more now.
This track jumped into my head the other day and it's been worming its way between my ears ever since. Do you remember perfect days? A perfect day? If you do, if you had one - or maybe more - I bet they seem a hell of a long time ago right now, don't they?
