This is the late River Phoenix. I was going to put his picture up here yesterday, but I figured it'd make the link too easy. I have to be so careful with you guys. Instead, I went with Mr. Bragg because...
King Cnut could not hold back the tide, and I cannot hold back society's full-throttle descent into dystopia. All I can do is watch helplessly from the sidelines, and nod my head sagely when others hold a mirror up to the madness.
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There's an episode of Black Mirror called Nosedive, in which Bryce Dallas Howard plays a young woman living in a society where every aspect of your life is rated by everyone you meet. People are encouraged to rate every interaction they have during the course of their day out of 5 stars, and everyone carries around their own aggregate score which is visible to anyone they meet via special eye filters. People go out of their way to be extra nice and keep their star rating high... because once those ratings start to dip, it becomes harder and harder to function in society.
It's all a typical Charlie Brooker satire of our need for approval and the dopamine hits that come with smileys, thumbs up and blog comments (as we've been talking about recently in Self-Help For Cynics). And like all the best satires, it feels like it's only one step away from reality.
Except... the one area where Black Mirror diverts from reality is that the people in that episode are only expected to provide a star rating. More and more these days, I'm being asked to write actual reviews every time I make a purchase or use a service... and as much as I like writing, I take umbrage at the idea of providing free marketing copy. Maybe it's because I used to work in advertising, where I got paid to write that kind of stuff. But also, I get little enough time to write... why would I waste it this way?
Clearly there are many people who like to do this. It started with eBay feedback and Amazon reviews, then came Tripadvisor and Trustpilot... and now everyone expects written feedback for everything. The blurb at the top of the page is an edited version of one of many emails I've received over the last couple of months from a company I bought a T-shirt from. It was a very nice T-shirt, but I paid you a fair amount for it and had no complaints about the service... surely that's enough? I'm not writing your marketing on top of that! STOP EMAILING ME EVERY FIVE MINUTES LIKE SOME BABY REINDEER STALKER OR A NEEDY EX!
Look. I posted a picture of the T-shirt on my blog. Please. Leave me alone now.
It's 10 years since I last did a Top Ten Weather Forecast Songs, and although I did re-use a couple of the tracks from that old list this weekend, I also skipped some of the more obvious selections, including The Weather Girls, ELO, and... of course... this...
Every week I try to include a mix of well-known artists alongside artists that have never featured here before... otherwise, you guys get them all immediately, and where's the fun in that? Hence why I always call it "A Top Ten..." rather than "My Top Ten...", since chances are, I might include a track or artist I don't really care for. Although even the ones I might not choose to listen to in my own time uusally spark a brief nostalgic smile. Even the worst bits of the pop past look better from a distance.
Anyway, with thanks to C for suggesting it, here are ten songs about weather forecasting...
By the time December 25th rolls around, you're probably sick of hearing the same old Christmas songs played over and over again on the radio... maybe even Fairytale of New York.
So here are ten alternatives to brighten your Christmas morning. Not that I'd usually expect anybody to be wasting their Christmas Day reading this nonsense, but maybe in Christmas lockdown you'll find the odd five minutes...
Is Die Hard the greatest Christmas movie? No, that's It's A Wonderful Life. Die Hard is just the second greatest Christmas movie. This, however, is indisputably the best Christmas song about Die Hard...
From one of the best Christmas albums of the 21st Century. Every track's a classic.
1. The Black Arts - Christmas Number One
What do you get when you combine Black Box Recorder with Art Brut? A perfect recreation of the golden age of Christmas pop songs. A 70s glam stomper... with a sly postmodern cynicism.
We threw in some sleigh bells and some other festive stuff
A video with artificial snow, like the devil's own dandruff
I see there's a new Jason Statham movie coming out today called The Meg featuring a giant prehistoric shark. I'm not a great fan of Jason 'The Plank' Statham, but I do like a good shark movie. And ten good shark songs...
Special mention to that terrifying predator that preyed on innocent bloggers a few years back... Feargal Sharkey.
I will be the first to admit that this is not a classic. The video, however, is a wonder to behold. Sharks. Goats. Witch doctors. Guns. Ghosts. Unicorns. Snakes. Dragons. A giant dove. A shooting star... or is it a shooting shark? Plus that moustache. Utterly, utterly bonkers.
I love the lyrics to this, in which Kristin Hersh picks up an absolute loser of a bloke on the docks and tries to convince herself he's not that bad really.
This afternoon Your bite's not so bad Your bark's not too scary I could kiss you For remembering my address
Because you can never have enough Jimmy Buffett. (Well, you probably can. But I can't.) Bearing in mind that most of Jimmy's songs involve lazing about on a boat, it shouldn't surprise us that he occasionally gets scared of sharks. Turns out the sharks in this song are of the two legged variety though...
She came down from Cincinnati, It took her three days on the train. Lookin' for some peace and quiet, Hoped to see the sun again.
But now she lives down by the ocean She's takin' care to look for sharks. They hang out in the local bars, And they feed right after dark.
Can't you feel 'em circlin', honey? Can't you feel 'em swimmin' around? You got fins to the left, fins to the right, And you're the only bait in town.
Like a horror film in two and a half minutes - this starts out with sharks preying on bleeding hearts, but the twist soon shows us a much greater threat: "Hey! Watch out for those kids! They'll tear you apart!"
For Mash, get... ten songs that will make you want to do the mashed potato...
Although the Top 3 is inevitable, this may well be the most mashed-up Top Ten I've ever compiled, genre-wise. I'm not too proud to say I Love It.
This week's post is dedicated to jjdaddyo (sorry, jj, I don't have a
link anymore since blogger deleted my bloglist a while back: if you still have a blog, let me know where it is) who recommended our
opening tune for the second volume of My Top Ten Supermarket Songs a few weeks back. It would have fit in well there... but it fits even better here.
As
previously discussed, there are by now very few subjects Neil Young
hasn't written a song about, but this is out-there even by his
standards. 9 and a quarter minutes of Neil complaining that he's only
got mashed potato: no T-bone. From 1981's Re-Ac-Tor album, not one of his most critically-acclaimed records. I doubt he gives a shit what the critics think. I
hope he eventually got his T-bone.
There are a number of records on this Top Ten (as well as a bunch more I didn't have room for) which refer to the Mashed Potato dance craze of the early 60s. This is the one that does so most directly, originally recorded by Dee Dee Sharp, it was re-recorded by the Ronettes under Phil Spector, who then credited it to The Crystals once the Ronettes had split up. That Phil Spector, eh? What a genius / maniac / tool.
From
the superb 1994 album, How To Make Friends & Influence People,
Terrorvision cheekily steal the mashed potato lyrics from this week's
Number One and slip them effortlessly into this superfly guitar stomper
which confirms them as Bradford's finest rock band.
We should be hot as a couple of hot tomatoes But you're as cold as yesterday's mashed potatoes...
Written by Jerome Kern and lyricist Dorothy Fields for the Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers movie Swing Time, this will be more familiar to anyone of a certain age as the theme tune to an 80s ITV sitcom starring Judi Dench and Michael Williams. That version was sung by Dame Judi herself, but the problem with it was, as the rhyme above shows, this is a song that should only ever be sung by Americans... because no matter what Fred & Ginger sang in Let's Call The Whole Thing Off... nobody, British or American, ever says "po-taa-toes".
So we'll stick with Ella and Louis, because you can't beat them. Or mash them.
One of the best tracks from Eminem's 2013 comeback album, Marshall Mathers 2, this is built around the chorus to Joe Walsh's Life's Been Good and features the usual First World whinging about how hard it is to be a white, rich rap star. Luckily, Eminem understands the irony of this and... damn it, say what you like Eminem, but dude can rhyme...
Can't pump my gas without causin' an accident
Pump my gas, cut my grass, I can't take out the fuckin' trash
Without someone passin' through my sub harassin'
I'd count my blessings but I suck at math
I'd rather wallow than bask, suffering succotash, but the ant-
Acid it gives my stomach gas
When I mix my corn with my fuckin' mashed
Potatoes, so what hoe kiss my country bumpkin ass
Missouri southern roots, what the fuck is upper class?
There are some mashed potatoes in there if you look for them.
Oh boy, I'd forgotten how much I loved this. It's so easy to remember Kurt Cobain for the tragedy, the reluctant artist stuff, the end... so easy to forget this guy had one hell of a sense of humour too. Occasionally. Here, his mum and dad leave him at grandma's house while they go to a show and he has to eat her mashed potato and can't chew his meat too good.
I was amused to discover though that the song's original 1962 recording, by New Orleans r 'n' b man Chris Kenner, didn't feature any nanas at all though. They were added three years later in a version by Cannibal & The Headhunters. But it was Wilson who took all those nas to another level.
That said, it's interesting to hear what Jimi Hendrix and Patti Smith do with this song too.
Of course, the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital had very little to do with mashed spuds... but then, as already discussed, very few songs on this list are actually about potatoes.
Interesting story behind this one. Robert Altman, director of the original M.A.S.H. movie wanted a song called 'Suicide Is Painless' to feature in a key scene of the movie... and specifically wanted its lyrics to be duff: "the stupidest song ever written". He tried to write those lyrics himself but couldn't get them stupid enough... so he gave the task to his 14 year-old son Michael, who wrote them in 5 minutes... and became a millionaire in the process. Not too stupid then, eh, Robert?
The thing is, there's a thin line between stupid and profound, and in the context of the film... and certainly the TV show that followed, using this song as its theme tune... this nonsense suddenly began to feel very profound indeed. I loved M.A.S.H. when I was a teen, not so much the Altman version, but certainly the Alan Alda show. I was one of the hundred million plus viewers who tuned in to the final episode and sobbed when this song played out for its final time. Stupid, yeah.
I found it impossible to choose between the original and the Manics' 1992 cover version, released as a charity single, double A-sided with the Fatima Mansions' cover of Bryan Adams' Everything I Do, I Do It For You. (Punctuation note: it's not often you see a sentence that contains three apostrophes after the s like that. Sorry, English teacher geeking out here.) James Dean Bradfield's guitar and vocal suit this song perfectly. Sadly, it would become a little too prophetic for another member of the band though...
1. The Contours - Do You Love Me?
You broke my heart 'Cos I couldn't dance You didn't even want me around But now I'm back To let you know I can Really Shake 'em down
Another one featuring that ridiculous mashed potato dance step. Originally written for The Temptations, who'd done a runner that day, so Berry Gordy gave it to The Contours instead when he bumped into them in the Motown corridor. It was their only real hit: but what a hit.
Of course, being of a certain age, my first exposure to this song was in Dirty Dancing. I was 16 when that film his video in the UK. It was regular Friday night viewing, at least when Ferris Bueller's Day Off (or Friday the 13th... I was a complex child) was unavailable for rental at the local video shop.
Personally, I prefer roasties, jackets or chips. But if you've got to have your potatoes mashed, I don't think you can deny the tastiness of this Top 10. Any favourites I missed out?
They should keep her away from all sharp objects. Don't even let her run with scissors.
Flowers I can do without
I don't wanna be tied down
White material will stain
My pocket knife's gotta shiny blade
I'm not trying to cause a fuss
I just wanna make my own fuck-ups
I'm not trying to break your heart
I'm just trying not to fall apart...
My shameless middle-aged sojourn into Dad-Rock continues. Dire Straits are another band who, like Steely Dan, I'd only listened to in Greatest Hits form until very recently. Now I can't get enough of them.
This, from their eponymous 1978 debut album is SEX + DEATH = ROCK 'N' ROLL. (Honest.)
Every time I play a Long Blondes track on this blog, it is customary for me to bemoan their untimely passing. One listen to this creepy little bedsit stalker anthem will prove why...
1. Louis Armstrong - Mack The Knife
Like it could have been anything else.
Written by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brech (the original German title is "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer"... which doesn't trip off the tongue quite as smoothly) and recorded by everybody from Frank to Bobby Darin to Sting and Robbie Williams... but Louis' version is the definitive one for me.
This one's for Sukie Tawdry...
Those were my knives... but which one is stuck in your back?
Apparently there's a new James Bond film out this week. I know, I wish they'd spend a little more money promoting it too, it can be very easy for low-budget films like this to slip through the cracks and not find their audience at the multiplex. Still, if you can't find a cinema in your local area that's taking a punt on it, here's a reminder of some of 007's greatest hits. I actually quite like Adele's new theme song... but not as much as these...
I never rated Timothy Dalton, he's probably my least favourite Bond (Lazenby might clinch it... were On Her Majesty's Secret Service not such a great film despite him). That whole "new man" thing was such an 80s blunder for a character like Bond. This was by far the best thing about The Living Daylights.
Possibly the first Bond film I ever saw, so Roger Moore and his eyebrows were officially MY Bond... as a kid, at least. I like Macca's original, but I do prefer Axl's sneering cover. It's just so nasty.
Whenever I'm stuck behind a car driving at 20 miles an hour, I call the driver a 'Louis'. Well, it's better than some of the words I might choose.
As mentioned previously, though I don't particularly rate Lazenby, OHMSS has possibly the best Bond plot ever. That final scene is just a killer. And this - John Barry and Hal David... well, nobody does it better.
Not the Moby version, the David Arnold version or the one where some idiot decided it might be a good idea to let random tone-deaf Irish egomaniacs with a God Complex have a go. The original... and still the best.
Those were my best Bonds... but which is your Nobody Does It Better?
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