Saturday Snapshots #60 - The Answers

"What are the answers to yesterday's Saturday Snapshots, Rol? I Need To Know!"

Apparently this week's Saturday Snapshots was a tough one. OK guys, don't have a Breakdown. Hopefully you'll Feel A Whole Lot Better now... well done to Lynchie for reclaiming the early bird crown this week...



10. Nathaniel holds his own against the 7th rabbit house. Control.

Nate is short for Nathaniel and he is holding a dog.

Rabbits live in warrens. G is the 7th letter of the alphabet.

Warren G & Nate Dogg - Regulate

9. Goes with Bella and Mad to see the sun, wireless.

Bella-Donna
Mad-(D)onna.

Summer sun.

Wireless radio.

Donna Summer - On The Radio

8. Straightening the shelves, always in the same direction.

Whenever I put up a shelf, I have to make sure it's level.

Going in the same direction would be one way.

The Levellers - One Way

7. Uncaring sods go for a 42.195 kilometre run.

A bit obscure, but... tune!

Heartless Bastards - Marathon

6. Where prayers are answered... could be 50% better.

"The part of a Methodist meeting house formerly occupied by worshippers who responded to the preacher's utterances with occasional shouts of ‘Amen!’."

The Amen Corner - (If Paradise Is) Half As Nice

5. Portable computer goes through customs without any trouble.

If you don't know this one, you should give it a go. Kooky but fun.

Laptop - Nothing To Declare

4. Enterprise on rocky foundations.

The Enterprise was a Starship.

Starship - We Built This City (On Rock 'n' Roll)

Apparently, this has been voted the worst song of the 80s. Hard to imagine why, in a decade where Stock, Aitken & Waterman were active.

3. Fall singer becomes lunatic on the box.

Mark E. sounds very much like Marquee.

Lunatic means driven mad by the moon.

Television is The Box. (Although they're not really boxes anymore, are they?)

Television - Marquee Moon

2. Proustian detective agency from the 80s.

Proust was Marcel.

The Blue Moon Detective Agency was where David Addison & Maddie Hayes worked in the 80s.

The Marcels - Blue Moon

So much better than the Showaddywaddy cover... discuss?

1. Where Richard met Judy... after you left.

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain is a mnemonic to help you remember the colours in a rainbow.

Judy Garland went Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

I Won't Back Down. Saturday Snapshots returns next week!

The Glorious 10th: My Top Ten Gimme... Songs

I'm putting The Glorious 10th on hold for a while as it's become a bit of a chore. I'm enjoying Saturday Snapshots a lot more and that's kind of made The Glorious 10th superfluous. Apologies if you enjoyed it, but the second something on your blog becomes like work, you're better off retiring it or you'll just end up resenting the whole blog. I may bring it back next year in a slightly different way (that takes less adding up). We'll see.

Anyway, here's the answers to last month's Gimme... Top Ten. You can add up your own points if you want... that was starting to give me palpitations.


10. Iggy & The Stooges - Gimme Danger

The Swede bagged this one. Classic Iggy.

9. Violent Femmes - Gimme The Car

Martin was first out of the traps this month... and he was the only one to suggest this.

8. Abba - Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)

Most of you knew this would be a definite contender. Martin got it first by default.

7. The Subs - Gimme Your Heart

Really surprised that nobody got this, a lost power-punk gem from Stiff Records. Not to be confused with The UK Subs. This was their only single, but it was a belter.

6. Laptop - Gimme The Night

Less surprising that this one wasn't guessed, but I was very into Jesse Hartman's music 15-20 years ago, and I had hoped one of you guys might have remembered him too.

5. Queen - Gimme The Prize

Another one I'm hardly flabbergasted nobody got since the handful of you who'll admit to Queen fans promptly draw the line once the band enter the 80s. A Kind of Magic was my first Queen album though and I loved it to death - still do. This is one of many tracks from that album taken from the soundtrack of Highlander. Brian May's fireplace guitar is burning up here and how anyone can resist Freddie singing about being "the god of Kingdom Come", I'll never know.

4. Brenton Wood - Gimme Little Sign

Back to the ones you did get - well done to Lynchie & C for remembering this lost soul gem.

3. ZZ Top - Gimme All Your Lovin'

Onto the obvious ones, then. I love ZZ Top, and most of you seemed to agree that this should be in there - Walter even guessed its #3 position on my chart!

The video is a masterpiece of 80s cheese.

2. The Spencer Davis Group - Gimme Some Lovin'

Steve Winwood was still in nappies when he recorded this one. Both Jez and Walter thought it should have been Number One. They may well be right,

1. The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

Lynchie called this one. End of the world desperation writ large. The Stones were rarely so powerful or scary.

Extra point to Jez for namechecking Merry Clayton.



Don't worry, Saturday Snapshots will continue... tomorrow!

My Top Ten Answering Machine Songs

Ten great songs left on answering machines...


10.  Ben Folds Five - Your Most Valuable Possession

So, apparently, Ben Folds' dad suffers from somniloquy, a condition where you talk in your sleep... which makes you, apparently, ring up your rock star son and leave garbled messages on his answering machine which he then sets to music and uses to pad out his records. Or so the internet would have me believe.

9. Dandy Warhols - Phone Call

I don't know the story behind this disturbing series of answer phone messages set to haunting music... but it scares the hell out of me nevertheless.

8. Laptop - End Credits

If you came home to an answering message like this one, you'd probably never sleep again.

7. Blake Shelton - Austin

Big-stetson C&W at its most shamelessly cheesey. Nothing wrong with that.

If you're callin' 'bout the car, I sold it
If this is Tuesday night, I'm bowling
If you've got somethin' to sell, you're wastin' your time, I'm not
buyin'
If it's anybody else, wait for the tone,
You know what to do
And P.S. if this is Austin, I still love you

6. Cinerama - Maniac

On the other hand, some exes leave rather less romantic answerphone messages. This one drives David Gedge to call back... no doubt making matters much worse. You've got to learn when to let it drop, Dave.

And when I made that stupid oath
About how I was going to
Pay for someone to kill you both
It was just my way of showing you
That I wasn't playing

Oh yeah, you're right, I sounded like a maniac
But that's just what I'm saying
You'll only see how much I've changed
If you come back

5. Shirley Lee - The Reservoir

Not the first time I've found a way to include this song in a Top Ten... doubt it'll be the last. A tribute to Shirley's dear departed dad, it's one of the most emotionally devastating songs I've ever heard. Never fails to bring a tear to my eye*, especially when he plays that answerphone message at the end.



(*As proof, I just listened to it again now and my eyes are streaming.)

4. Paul Evans - Hello, This is Joannie (The Telephone Answering Machine Song)

Wow. Not heard this for years, but it does remind me of my childhood. Guess they must have played it lots on Radio 2 when I was 7.

Evans was an old rock 'n' roller from the 50s - he had a hit with the original version of Seven Little Girls (Sitting in the Back Seat). This was a surprise comeback hit in 1979, another excellent car crash song... with a morbid twist. The answerphone chorus is sung by Lea Jane Berinati. In case you were wondering.

3. De La Soul - Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)

You know, the one that Curiosity Killed The Cat... borrowed.

2. Pulp - Ansaphone

Are you really not at home?
Or are you there but not alone?
Screening calls you don't want to receive
Meaning calls... calls that come from me.

If you weren't such  perv, Jarvis, she'd pick up.

1. The Replacements - Answering Machine

Raw and beautiful, Paul Westerberg and co. at their best.

How do you say goodnight to an answering machine?

Leave your favourite after the bleep.

My Top Ten Rat Songs

Ten songs about vermin. Because it's a wet Monday.


10. Roland Rat - Rat Rapping

You had to be there.

9. UB40 - Rat In Mi Kitchen

Yes, I know I featured this not long ago in my Top Ten Kitchen songs, but I can hardly ignore it here, can I?

Short of me doing a Top Ten 'In My' songs, this should be the last you hear of it.

8. The Automatic - Rats

...does sound a little like a car alarm. Still.

I remember someone saying
That there's always at rat close by

7. The Pogues - Gartloney Rats

The Gartloney Rats they play away
They'd play for the pints and not for the pay
And the pints they'd go down in the usual way
And they'd never get drunk but stay sober

6. Badly Drawn Boy - Year Of The Rat

Not a badly drawn song... but I prefer the Al Stewart one it's paraphrasing. Cats beat rats any day.

5. Laptop - Ratso Rizzo

Whatever happened to Jesse Hartman? Here's his tribute to Dustin Hoffman...

4. The King Blues - The Schemers, The Scroungers & The Rats

Sadly, the King Blues broke up earlier this year... just a few months after I discovered them. I miss them already.

So hats off to the schemers, to the scroungers, to the rats,
To the ones who sleep on mattresses on the floor, clutching baseball bats,
To the beggars and the cheaters and the kings who rise at noon,
To the scoundrels, the misfits, the parasites, this one’s for you.

The crummy live recording on youtube doesn't really do the song or the band justice, but try and seek out the original if you can. It's well worth your time.

3. The Specials - Rat Race

Did Roddy “Radiation” Byers write Common People 15 years before Jarvis? (I had to check - I almost credited this to either Terry or Jerry.)

You plan your conversation to impress the college bar
Just talking about your Mother and Daddy's Jaguar
Wear your political T-shirt and sacred college scarf
Discussing the worlds situation but just for a laugh

2. The White Stripes - I Think I Smell A Rat

Jack White makes songwriting look so damned easy, doesn't he?

1. The Boomtown Rats - Rat Trap

The best Bruce Springsteen song ever written by a bunch of Irish reprobates and their soon-to-be-swearing-on-TV frontman, Sir Bob. This is Born To Run without the escape clause. I've always loved this record.

Top of the Pops obviously made Mr. Geldof change the lyrics to the line "Pus and grime ooze from the scab-crusted sores". Unfortunately, I can't make out what he's singing instead. Any guesses?




These are the vermin I found scuttling about in my record collection. Which one is your pet rat?