Teacher Songs #8: The Return Of Mrs. Tebb

I've written about Mrs. Tebb before.

She was the primary teacher, you may recall, who insisted I drink my free school milk even when I told her I didn't drink milk because it made me throw up. And Mrs. Kaye never made me drink it last year! "Drink your milk," ordered Mrs. Tebb. 

So I did. And I threw up.

The Beach Boys - Be True To Your School 

Maybe this set the tone of our relationship and explained why Mrs. Tebb didn't like me for the rest of the year. She thought she knew better than a 7 year old, but actually... guess what, Mrs. Tebb... sometimes you don't.

The Lemon Twigs - The Student Becomes The Teacher

Then last week, while discussing knocking down walls in Emergency Questions, Alyson jogged my memory about another incident - one in which I was far more culpable - which cemented the animosity Mrs. Tebb felt towards me. The time I pushed Andrew Lodge through the classroom wall.

I'm pretty sure it was Andrew Lodge, but I might be wrong about that. Either way, my apologies to him. And my apologies for the time that he attended my birthday party and I threw a dart in his eye, almost blinding him. Believe it or not, Andrew Lodge was a good mate of mine in junior school. But these things happened. 

Supertramp - School

Mrs. Tebb didn't have a classroom in the main school. She taught her class in a portacabin out in the school garden. It was a very nice portacabin in a very nice garden (we had school chickens too, provided by my mate Simon, whose dad was a chicken farmer). Far be it from me to suggest that the Head had arranged it that way to keep Mrs. Tebb away from Gen-Pop... or the other teachers... but if he had done that, I could easily understand why.

Jim Bob - The School Is Not The Building (It's The Children)

Anyway, as you entered the portacabin, there was a small cloak room, then a door that led into the main classroom. One morning, I was messing around with Andrew Lodge (or someone else whose name has been lost to antiquity, but Andrew Lodge is taking his place), playfighting, and... y'know, I had a bit of a temper when I was a kid, and maybe things got a bit out of hand... so I pushed Andrew Lodge straight through the cloakroom wall (which to be fair, was obviously made of an amalgam of tissue paper and spit) and into Mrs. Tebb's store-room. 

Looking back, I'm starting to understand why Mrs. Tebb didn't like me. She was never going to teach me love, to quote Rockpile...

Title Fight #5: From Doomsday to Worst Days

Welcome back to my weekly celebration of great song titles. Do the songs in question live up to their names? You decide...

1. Elvis Costello - Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)

We'll start with some Elvis, as he's pictured at the top of the page. There are those who will tell you that his 1991 album Mighty Like A Rose is where it all started to go south for Mr. McManus. I'm not one of them, maybe because I was in my prime-Costello phase when this was released and had just devoured all his earlier albums through the extensive re-issue series that was going on around then. He could do no wrong for me in 1991.

I did a big search of Elvis song titles before choosing this one (my computer tells me there are 1892 Costello-sung or Costello-written files in my hard drive, though a good number of those are duplicates). I could have gone with Tear Off Your Own Head (It's A Doll Revolution) (although I prefer the version by The Bangles), I Hope You're Happy Now (for its sheer, unadulterated spite) or even (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea)... among many others... but I chose this one because I like songs that cheerfully welcome the end of civilization.

2. Treat Her Right - I'm Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail

Mark Sandman is a somewhat legendary figure in American alt-rock circles, and not just because that's his real name. He was the lead singer of Morphine, who formed in 1989, but prior to that he was in a number of groups, including Treat Her Right, named after a song  by Roy Head & The Traits.

One critic called Treat Her Right, "not quite a blues band, not exactly swamp trash and too stylized for basic rock'n'roll". I'm Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail is a two minute blast of wonder that makes sense of that whole description.

3. The Peppermint Rainbow - Will You Be Staying After Sunday?

The Peppermint Rainbow came from Baltimore in 1967 and looked like this...

I miss the days when pop groups could look like that and still sell records. 

Will You Be Staying After Sunday? sold over a million copies, presumably to families who wanted to drop a subtle hint to annoying house guests that it might be time for them to bugger off home now, thanks. They followed with another equally grumpy single, presumably aimed at that same visitor, Don't Wake Me Up In The Morning, Michael. 

Of course, this is sunshine pop, so it's not at all grumpy when you listen to it, but still, it appeals to the curmudgeon in me.

4. Clinic - IPC Sub-Editors Dictate Our Youth

The 1997 debut single from Liverpudlian post-punkers Clinic was a dig at the NME and the  way they "try to set up scenes all the time, and people actually believe that, 'Oh, I should listen to this, just because it's in the NME.'". Which was very true in 1997, although the title obviously got Clinic some serious attention from that same music paper, because there's nothing music journos like more than having their egos massaged, even in a sarcastic way. 

Clinic wore surgical masks on stage. I saw them live once at a festival, and I'll be honest, that's the only thing I remember. I hope they stopped wearing them after COVID when fashion finally caught up with them. Lead singer Ade Blackburn was also a bingo caller at the Regent Bingo Hall in Crosby. I wonder if he wore a mask there too?

5. The Lemon Twigs - Every Day Is The Worst Day Of My Life

We close today with Brian and Michael. No, not the Mancunian Lowry fans, but two brothers from Long Island called Brian and Michael D'Addario. Although they're only in their mid-20s, the brothers' favourite album is apparently Todd Rundgren's 1972 opus Something/Anything?, a very inconsistent recording if you ask me. I love large parts of it, but it really is all over the place... kinda like the Lemon Twigs themselves. When they're good though, they're great. And they had me as soon as I heard the title to the lead single from their latest release, Everything Harmony. Typically, the rest of the album can't hold a candle to it... Todd would be proud.

 

Which title wins the fight this week?

Self-Help For Cynics #2: Everybody's Happy Nowadays

Bet you are tired of being upset

Always wanting something you never can get

Life's no illusion, love's not a dream

Now, I know just what it is

The Buzzcocks - Everybody's Happy Nowadays

Except they're not, are they, Pete? I'm sure if you googled it, the statistics would show there's more unhappiness - coupled with anxiety, stress and anger - than ever before. The statistics will prove it, like they always do. I don't need to list the reasons why. 

Ev'rybody's gonna be happy

Which means you and me, my love

The Kinks - Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy

You're not helping either, Ray. Actually, for many years I thought he was singing "Everybody's gonna be happy, except you and me, my love", which made more sense to me. But I'm trying to change that attitude, that's the whole point of this series. 

So I'm not googling unhappiness statistics - they're bound to make me unhappy! Instead, I googled "Why am I so unhappy?" And I found so much advice, I could keep this series running every day for the next ten years. How happy does that make you?

For a start, I found a list of 50 Things That Drain Your Happiness. There's lots of useful answers in there, and not too much unicorns and rainbows bullshit. I'll be dipping into that Top 50 a few times over the next few weeks, but let's start with this one... 

You hang out with unhappy people.

Hmm. Rob... what do you make of that?

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss.

Chicken or egg? I think the easiest answer to that question returns us to something I wrote about a few months back, the idea that the unhappiest people are the ones who think too much. Those same people are probably going to be drawn to pop music that thinks too much. And they'll probably find their own thoughts echoed in the thoughts of lyrical philosophers, which in turn will make them connect to those artists and stick around to hear more and more of their miserable mumblings. 

And you even spoke to me, and said:

"If you're so funny

Then why are you on your own tonight ?

And if you're so clever

Then why are you on your own tonight ?

If you're so very entertaining

Then why are you on your own tonight ?

If you're so very good-looking

Why do you sleep alone tonight ?

I know...

… 'Cause tonight is just like any other night

That's why you're on your own tonight

With your triumphs and your charms

While they're in each other's arms..."

Didn't take me long to get to this bloke, did it?

The Smiths - I Know It's Over

Alternatively, you could switch onto the hedonism of dance music which has nothing to say lyrically, but instead taps into more positive vibes. Here's FreQ Nasty, aka Darin McFadyen, a DJ and producer who's worked with the likes of Fatboy Slim, Santigold and Roots Manuva... 

I believe that there is a connection between the exalted states on the dancefloor and the spiritual states achieved in meditation...

Music and meditation both allow a fuller and richer experience of our emotions: They stop our incessant and often negative mental chatter and offer us an opportunity to inhabit the present moment more fully and meaningfully. These are all important for good health and happiness in human beings.

So that's where I've been going wrong all these years! I need to get into dance music. 

Sadly, that boat has sailed. 

But I'm being facetious for comic effect. (Who, me?) Because I do get everything from my own musical choices that Mr. Nasty describes above, even the miserable stuff. Here's a song that's made me very happy recently...

The expert says...

If your friends are constant sources of negativity in your life, it may be time to find more positive people.

But I don't think I agree. So my quest continues...

To close, here's a cheery thought to take home with you.