Self-Help For Cynics #5: The Glass Half Empty

Keith Gattis - Half Empty

If ever anyone calls me a "glass half empty kind of guy", I usually respond that the glass has been dry for years and is currently shattered into a million pieces that lacerate my feet whenever I cross the kitchen floor. 

Nick Lowe - I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass

Being a grumpy old git, and playing on it, has been my default setting since I was a teenager. It usually raises a laugh, and then I get the social validation that comes from people reacting in a positive way to something I've said. Don't look at me like that, we all know that's how it works - you get a smile or a laugh from a friend, a colleague, or even a total stranger, and you get that little dopamine hit that keeps you going. 

Little Man Tate - Half Empty Glass

But as part of my Cynical Self-Help Programme, I'm challenging everything now. And I've started to wonder if playing this part all these years has been a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Well, d'oh. 

My mental state is all a-jumble
I sit around and sadly mumble
Fools rush in, so here I am
Very glad to be unhappy
I can't win, but here I am
More than glad to be unhappy

Frank Sinatra - Glad To Be Unhappy

The question is, can I still get the same response from others by being a happy person? I mean, as we all know, there's nothing more annoying than... well...

REM - Shiny Happy People 

When I started this series, I toyed with the idea of calling it Positive Thinking For Negative Bastards. How do you turn that frown upside down... without being the kind of person who says things like "Turn that frown upside down"? Because you know how annoying those people are.

I'm sorry for all of my insecurities, but they're just a part of me
"Envy is thin because it bites but never eats"
That's what a nice old Spanish lady once told me
"Hey Debbie-Downer, turn that frown upside down and just be happy"

Courtney Barnett - Debbie Downer

Part of the answer is not to preach. 

But what are you doing here right now, yiu hypocrite? 

Oh look, there's the voice of my intrusive thoughts again. I'm going to call him Ian. Ian Trusive. I think it's important we acknowledge him when he has something to say. 

Patronising git. Isn't the very act of blogging about this subject preachy? Come read Rol's great sermon on how to be a better man? 

Nick Lowe - A Better Man

"Oh woe is me, and just listen to how smug and sanctimonious I am about it..." 

Maybe so, Ian. But I'm not writing this series for anybody other than myself. It's nice if people do read and occasionally leave a comment (all hail the dopamine hits!), but that's not why I'm writing it.

At the end of his album Peace Queer, Todd Snider talks about how some people have accused him of getting more and more opinionated in his songs. He replies with a line I'm going to steal, because it perfectly sums up this series...

I did not do this to change your mind about anything
I did this to ease my own mind about everything 

Todd Snider - Ponce Of The Flaming Peace Queer

Whether the glass is half empty or half full is only a matter of perception. And like a lot of the things we think, it's a matter of choice. I'm trying to choose the other path - and if Ian and his pals consider that the high road, well fair enough. I'll still be in Scotland before him...

I heard enough of the white man's blues
I've sang enough about myself
So if you're looking for some bad news
You can find it somewhere else

Last year was a son of a bitch
For nearly everyone we know
But I ain't fighting with you down in a ditch
I'll meet you up here on the road

Hot 100 #75

We all know what Dave Grohl did after the sad death of Kurt Cobain and the end of Nirvana. Bassist Krist Novoselic was slightly less successful in maintaining a career in the music industry. His own post-Nirvana band Sweet 75 lasted one album, but it does give us an image to open this week's entry in the Hot 100...


Onto your suggestions for #75, the most popular of which was this...


The Connells - 74/75


A fine tune, but is it a 74 song or a 75 song? What a dilemma. It's definitely a year song. I'm not saying I won't use it next week if I get desperate... but it's not my obvious winner this week.


As well as suggesting this, Martin also offered the following. I'm not sure if any of them are in his record collection, or whether he's just resorting to google. If he does own them all, well...much respect.


Joe Nichols - Sunny & 75 (Martin told me not to youtube it. I did. I think I liked it more than he does. But then, I love cheese. Joe Nichols does seem a bit smug in the video though... but I guess I would too if I was him.)


Aaron Lewis - 75 ("Better", says Martin, "if you like that kind of thing". Aaron Lewis is the lead singer of metal band Staind, but this track is acoustic country if anything. Whisper it, but I think I enjoyed Joe Nichols more.)


Brian Jonestown Massacre - Miss June 75 (Not bad, but I think I'd still rather have Joe Nichols, smug or not.)


Any of those could have been a contender... if they were in my collection. But they're not, so let's move on.


Best lyrical suggestion of the week came from Rigid Digit and Alyson...


Billy Joel - Scenes From An Italian Restaurant

Brenda and Eddie were still going steady in the summer of '75...

...and to be honest, this would have been in serious contention most other weeks. But lyrics will always be trumped by titles, if the title song is good enough. That's not to say this week's winner is better than Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, since clearly few songs are. But the selection process is very complex in this feature. I can't even begin to explain the hierarchy of it all.


Sticking with lyrics, The Swede had another T-Rex suggestion this week (Mr. Bolan is doing very well out of this feature)…


T-Rex - Funky London Childhood

The gilded cage we call '75, some is fabulous, some is jive...

Grammatically suspect, but as we've discussed before, Marc Bolan gets a pass when it comes to his use of the English language.


The Swede also offered anything from Neu's album 75 or anything by 75 Dollar Bill. Break all the rules, but worthy of mention.


Meanwhile, Jim returned from Dubai to offer the following this week, which he describes as "a bit 60's girlyish, great little tune".


Lushy - French 75


I concur.


From my own collection then... apart from the Connells, there were just two other options. Firstly this...


Stereolab - Melochord 75


If I'm honest though, I'm not sure I get Stereolab. They're one of those bands I own music by because people in the know keep telling me I should dig them.


This, on the other hand, I love. One of the bands that rode the coat-tails of the Arctic Monkeys (they were both from Sheffield) but failed to make it out of their shadow. I still have great affection for the music they recorded before they packed it all in though.



So then... do I award week 74 to The Connells? Or do you (or I) have a better suggestion? Answers on the back of a stuck-down envelope, please...

My Top Ten Jeans Songs

Surprisingly, despite making Number One in last week's Top Ten Jean Songs, Bruce doesn't make the Songs About Jeans chart at all... despite that iconic image above. (However, a band of his biggest fans do feature at #5.)

Here are ten songs about pulling your blue jeans on and getting that denim all dirty...

Special mentions to The Swinging Blue Jeans, Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves Of Destiny, Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans, Mr. Little Jeans, Pissed Jeans, and Jack Jeans (I had to link to that one).



10. Gene Vincent - Blue Jean Bop

Be-Bop-A-Lula is one of the defining records of rock 'n' roll, but Gene Vincent was never really able to bottle that lightning again. This is about as close as he got, a "minor" follow-up "hit"... although this was back in the days when "minor" hits still sold a million copies even if they only made number 49 in the charts.

9. Little Man Tate - Hello Miss Lovely (So You Like My Jeans)

Unfairly labeled a poor man's Arctic Monkeys, Little Man Tate called it a day in 2009. Which is a shame, because they wrote witty, spiky guitar pop songs... the sort of thing the radio is sorely missing these days.

8. David Dundas - Jeans On

The 70s was obviously a great decade for songs about jeans (see below) and this is the one that famously doubled up as an advert for Brutus Jeans. It seems Dundas was a member of British nobility - his full name and title is Lord David Paul Nicholas Dundas - as his dad was Lawrence Aldred Mervyn Dundas, 3rd Marquess of Zetland (also a famous tennis player in the 40s).

Well, I never knew that.

Of course, iffypedia might have made it all up... you never know.

The song was also covered a few years back by Chungking... but sadly, I can't find their version on youtube.

7. The View - Same Jeans

Scruffy Scottish indie kids - they've had the same jeans on for four days now - with their only Top Ten hit from 2007. It's rare I say this... but it seems longer ago than that.

6. Jimmy Webb - Lady Fits Her Blue Jeans

As previously discussed on this site, Jimmy Webb is god. Although he's more famous as a songwriter than a performer, he's also released a succession of excellent solo albums over the last 40 years, five of which were recently reissued in an extremely affordable box set on the Rhino label. Considering how rare these albums were prior to the box set, it's pretty much an essential purchase for fans of quality songwriting. This is taken from the 4th album in the 5 disc set, 1974's Land's End. Gorgeous stuff.

5. The Gaslight Anthem - Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts

The Gaslight Anthem always wear their New Jersey roots on their sleeves and this one describes perfectly Bruce's famous 80s dress sense... while also throwing in a sly reference to early Tom Waits.

This track's a bit of a rarity, from the 2008 EP Señor and the Queen, but it stands up as well as some of their better known songs.

4. The Donnas - Dirty Denim

Classic spunky & punky girl-pop from the California foursome led by the female Brett Anderson. In the Suede versus Denim battle, it's hard to call a winner. The other Brett never wrote anything as bitchy as this...

You look like you've only slept for an hour
You smell like you haven't taken a shower
And your hair is so dirty
It makes you look like you're thirty

Your pants are slung way too low
I see stuff I don't wanna know
I wonder why you're so moody?
Is it 'cause you've got no booty?

3. Lana Del Rey - Blue Jeans

That second Lana Del Rey album - the one with Video Games on, the one that made her a star - is still an amazing piece of work, even if she's failed to live up to its potential since. The cognoscenti may have tried to expose her as a phoney or a poseur... but what do the cognoscenti know? She has a new album out this week - fingers crossed it's a return to form.

2. Denim - Back In Denim

Lawrence (he has no second name... except he does, and it's Hayward) started life in fondly remembered 80s indie band Felt. Then sometime in the early 90s, he folded up the Felt and embraced Denim - with added glam stomp. Since then, he's gone ultra lo-fi with Go Kart Mozart... but if you ask me, Denim will always be his finest hour.

1. Neil Diamond - Forever In Blue Jeans

Listen - money talks, all right? Even if it don't sing or dance or walk...

There is a popular mondgreen associated with this tune, that Neil's actually singing "Reverend Blue Jeans". Which would be wonderful... if it were true.

What can I say, if you don't appreciate a bit of classic Neil... there's something missing in your life.




Next week (if I have time) - the final part of the trilogy. My Top Ten Gene Songs.

Meanwhile, don't put your jeans back in the wardrobe just yet. Which is your Nick Kamen?

My Top Ten 'I Hate You' Songs

Seriously, guys, hate is such a negative emotion, m'kay. Can't we all, like, just learn to love one another...


(Special mention - tying into last week's post - to the song I Hate You recorded for the soundtrack of Star Trek IV by fictional band The Edge of Etiquette.)



10. The Monks - I Hate You

60s garage rock classic from a bunch of American GIs who were also a band. Immortalised because it's one of the songs playing in the bowling alley in The Big Lebowski. You mark that frame an 8, and you're entering a world of pain, Smokey...

9. Symposium - The Answer To Why I Hate You

Clumsily lumped in with the Britpop crowd, though they were much louder and more energetic. Maybe Damon got the idea for Song 2 from this lot? (Probably not.) Still, I never hated them.

8. Honeyblood - Super Rat

You are the smartest rat in the sewer...

As opening lines go, you know this love song isn't going to end well.

7. The Stranglers - I Hate You

The Stranglers go country: excellent!

6. Little Man Tate - Mann I Hate Your Band

Sadly remembered now as riding the coat tails of fellow Sheffield poets the Arctic Monkeys, I always felt LMT had the potential to step out of Alex Turner's shadow. But they obviously had some pretty negative experiences in the music industry... as this track illustrates.

See also the even angrier I Hate Your Band by Keith Top Of The Pops & His Minor UK Indie Celebrity All-Star Backing Band.

5. Green Day - Platypus (I Hate You)

Don't worry, platypus, I'm sure Green Day don't really hate you...

Dickhead, fuckface, cock-smoking, motherfucking asshole
Dirty twat, waste of semen, hope you die...

On second thoughts... maybe it's your duck's bill? Some people are so duck's bill-ist. It makes me sick.

4. Erasure - Love To Hate You

Because we should always try to find time for a little Erasure in our lives.

I love to read a murder mystery
I love to know the killer isn't me...

And check out that video - they really don't make 'em like that anymore.

3. The Beautiful South - In Other Words I Hate You

The b-side to TBS's only Number One, A Little Time, this is crammed with typically Heaton barbs.

Those winter nights just spent indoors
That criminal fizz in the drink he pours
We smooch all night to "The Theme From Jaws"
(In other words I hate you)

See also I Hate You (But You're Interesting), a haunting response to their own I Love You (But You're Boring).

I went to see a doctor and she said 'Yes, go ahead'
'Throw yourself into the sea'
I wrote a will for my friends
And this is how it read
'Me, me, me, me, me, me, me'
No friends, everything for me, me, me
No friends, just me, just me

I love the way that one switches from haunting acoustic guitar to jaunty seaside piano and back again

2. Kelis - Caught Out There

Yes, it's a female empowerment anthem, and infidelity is a horrible thing so Kelis's hatred is well justified... but you've got to spare a thought for the bloke. No, wait, hear me out... you've got to have some balls to go messing around behind a woman like Kelis's back. I mean, she will cut them off in a heartbeat, sunshine.

Oh, sorry, was he not all there? My bad.

(P.S. Kelis, honey - you need a bigger bath towel.)

1. Ugly Kid Joe - Everything About You

What I liked about this song - and felt UKJ could have developed further rather than resorting to bizarre Harry Chapin covers and a fast slide into obscurity - was its bouncy sense of fun. There wasn't a lot of that going around in rock music at the time. Fun had pretty much died out in the late 80s (apart from when we were laughing at Axl for being a dick) and grunge nailed the coffin shut. Imagine if Nirvana had had a sense of humour... only I guess they wouldn't have been Nirvana, wouldn't have surfed the zeitgeist as they did, wouldn't have sold half as many records... but Kurt might still be with us. Is it better to live fast, die young and leave a miserable-looking corpse... or still be around 30 years later (the Uglies apparently reformed in 2010) even though most people only remember you as a one hit wonder?




Which one do you hate the least?