Snapshots #425: Furniture Songs

Here's someone with an eye for a nice piece of furniture. Hopefully he'll be impressed by some of the antiques below...

16. Hawaiian Dick. 

Thomas Magnum was a Private Dick who worked in Hawaii.

Magnum - Rockin' Chair

15. County Lineman goes Statewide.

Wichita is in Kansas.

Kansas - Closet Chronicles

14. That’s original.

Genesis is another word for origin.

Genesis - I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

13. Up early for a jog.

Morning Runner - Burning Benches

12. A Chandler, and a friend of Bing.

Chas was a famous Chandler. Bing Crosby went drumming with David Bowie.

Chas & Dave – The Sideboard Song

11. They’re knock outs – OK?

KO-OKs.

Kooks - Sofa Song

10. Eric, likes Bruce.

Eric Church sang about Springsteen.

The Church – Shadow Cabinet

9. In the styles of US TV ratings.

US TV ratings are the Nielsen Ratings. Harry brought the Styles.

Harry Nilsson - Good Old Desk

8. Trapped in the Soweto battleground.

SoWETo battLEGround.

Wet Leg - Chaise Longue

 

7. Basil, the Fantastic Doctor.

Basil Brush, the Fantastic Mr. Fox, Dr. Fox (he wasn't a real doctor).

Fox - S-S-Single Bed

6. A young mix of languages and a non-dairy milk.

Kids are young. Mixed languages are creole. Non-dairy milk might be coconut.

Kid Creole & The Coconuts - Stool Pigeon

5. Basic card game for Puff and Toothless.

The Snapdragons - Dole Boys On Futons

4. Elton Johny was very confused.

"Elton Johny" was an angram.

John Leyton - Cupboard Love

3. Partridge: like a small version of a Smith.

Alan (Partridge) is Morrissette.

Alanis Morrissette – The Couch

2. Stevie is a strong, resilient guy… but he can’t spell.

Wonder's tough.

The Wonder Stuff - Welcome To the Cheap Seats

1. Feeling trapped in a shadeless garden.

ShADELEss garden.

Adele - Turning Tables

You'll Love the Joy of more Snapshots next Saturday.

TV On The Radio #7: Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

"Hmm, Betty, the doggy’s done a whoopsie on the floor.”

Frank Spencer never actually uttered this line in the popular 70s sitcom, but thanks to Mike Yardwood, the rest of the country started doing Michael Crawford impressions and the line became a legend. And if that wasn't bad enough...

The Barron Knights - The Ballad of Frank Spencer

Humour is a very subjective thing. Me, I prefer The Shirehorses...

The Shirehorses - Frank Spencer Blues Explosion

You'll only get that if you're familiar with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

I remember watching Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em when I was a kid and generally finding it annoying in the same way that I would find Adam Sandler's man-child act intensely irritating 20 years later. It never fails to amaze me that Crawford would go on to become a West End legend as The Phantom of the Opera. Quite a leap up from Frank.

Let's kick off our Frank tribute, appropriately enough, in Mu Mu Land...

Trapped in a rerun

Of a seventies sitcom soap

"Some Mothers Do Have 'Em"

Or "The Archie Bunker Show"

I was snogging with Felicity

“The Good Life” begins in bed

Richard was in the garden

Or I think that's what she said

The KLF - Kylie Said To Jason

I think it's also fair to say that Frank was a pretty Kooky kind of guy...

Watches black and white movies to get thin

Curls her hair just like Marilyn

Oh, what an enigmatic woman

My gosh do some mothers have 'em

The Kooks - Pamela

Next a band who also wrote a song about Freddy Kreuger. I'd have loved to see a Frank Spencer vs. Freddy Kreuger movie...

Reuben - Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

I can't imagine Justin Currie was much of a Frank Spencer fan... but I have been wrong before.

Del Amitri - Some Mothers Do Have Them

Today's winner though is a song about thinking that the singer onstage is looking straight at you (and maybe you've got a chance with them!) when actually they can't see the crowd's faces at all because of the stage lights. Which is just the kind of idiotic thing that Frank Spencer would probably do...

One look sends it coursin' through the veins, oh, how the feelin' races

Back up to their brains to form expressions on their stupid faces

They don't want to say hello like I want to say hello

Well, the heartbeat's at its peak when you're coming up to speak

And oh, I'm so tense, never tenser, could all go a bit Frank Spencer

And I'm talkin' gibberish, tip of the tongue but I can't deliver it

Properly, oh, it's all gettin' on top of me

And if it weren't this dark, you'd see how red my face has gone, yeah

Saturday Snapshots #157 - The Answers

 

Welcome back to the quiz that's always the Bridesmaid, never the bride. Still, I hope you all Wiigured out this week's answers... and there were no Cheetahs.

10. First swinging king lacks staple diet.

King Louis was the king of the swingers in The Jungle Book, and this was his voice. King Louis was also an orangutan whose staple diet would be bananas...

Prima would be the first.

Louis Prima - Yes, We Have No Bananas

9. Hellish tippers, 24 hours later.

"Hellish tippers" was an anagram.

Esther Phillips - What A Difference A Day Makes

8. Kayleigh's bloke starts crying again... cheer up, it's party time!

Kayleigh's bloke was Fish.

An Emotional Fish - Celebrate

7. Wait! The Real Thing can't spell Charlie Brown's pal.

The real thing is the real McCoy.

Charlie Brown's pal was Snoopy.

The McCoys - Hang On, Sloopy

6. Throwing homework on the fire long before Morrissey... this lady has a unique way of walking.

Long before Sheila Take A Bow, in which Morrissey entreated us to throw your homework onto the fire, David Bowie gave a similar exhortation in Kooks...

And if the homework brings you down

Then we'll throw it on the fire

And take the car downtown

The Kooks - She Moves In Her Own Way

5. A B C D F J K M N O P Q S U V W X Y Z.

(That may be my favourite clue in the history of Saturday Snapshots.)

What's MISSING from the alphabet above? The letters E G H I L R and T. And if you mix those around a bit, you get THE GIRL.

Everything But The Girl - Missing

4. Pardon self-inflicted wounds in Scotch toun.

Note how I said Scotch toun, not Scottish?

Whiskeytown - Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight

3. The Farun Ningily takes an elevator to the meaning of life. 

Wondering what a Famrun Ningily is? It's Running in the middle of Family. FAM-RUNNING-ILY.

42 was the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

Level 42 - Running In The Family

2. Unhurried hearsay.

Rumer - Slow

1. Candid landscape painter has not lost his faith.

Turner was a landscape painter, to be frank.

I Still Believe Saturday Snapshots will be back next week...