The new "single" by Mattiel caught my attention, though I didn't realise it was a cover version. Mattiel appears to have split from her longtime producer Jonah Swilley, so this new one is credited to Mattiel and Troy Stains... which sounds to me like something you'd clean off your wooden horse. No offence, Troy.
The original, it turns out, was a country hit back in the early 80s for Terri Gibbs... and it's just as good / even better (depending on your mileage) as Mattiel's version.
We took Sam to see the latest Jurassic Park movie last weekend. It wasn't particularly great, but then I've never been much of a fan of those movies. I remember coming out of the first one, when I was 21, wondering what all the fuss was about. Still, I liked the bits with Jeff Goldblum.
On paper, I really shouldn't like Jeff Goldblum. His whole act is arrogant and smug, and he always sticks to that shtick, whatever the role. And yet, I can't help but think he's a cool dude. I don't like arrogance and I don't like smug... yet I like Jeff Goldblum. It defies logic.
Songwriters appear to like Jeff too. Neil Hannon (who does a pretty good line in smug, if tempered by a decidedly un-Goldbloomy self-deprecation) mentioned him right at the end of Gin Soaked Boy back in 1998...
I'm the spirit in the sky
I'm the catcher in the rye
I'm the twinkle in her eye
I'm Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly"
Well, who am I?
Meanwhile, if you stick the name "Goldblum" into a lyrical search engine, you'll be inundated with songs that namedrop the Big Jeffy... too many to list here, but I did you the favour of listening to them all to confirm that most of them aren't worthy of your attention.
However, the latest record from our old favourites Mattiel (well, old favourites of me and Rigid Digit, at least) features a Jeff Goldblum song that is really quite... ahem... Fly. (Look at me using hip 90s slang to be down wiv da kidz and all.)
Ben: I think that makes me hate him even more because he's just thrown the rest of his band under a bus.
Once again it's all about him.
Rol: Not to mention disrespecting their entire fanbase.
(Still, more points for Robert Palmer though.)
I was having a pleasant evening.
Now I'm really wound up.
Just watched the first two episodes of Archive 81 on Netflix.
Pretty good so far.
Is that out? I read about it a while back. Not sure I'll be able to persuade Louise to watch it. How scary is it? How "real"? She can cope with fantasy horror like Midnight Mass, but not stuff that looks too real anymore...
Not scary. More like a creepy thriller mystery. Just come out. Very real.
Hmm. I'll see if I can trick her into watching it.
I went to get my haircut today. Had to find a new hairdresser now I'm no longer in Barnsley. Drove past a shop on the way home from Leeds with an old guy cutting hair, immediately thought: he's my guy.
He didn't let me down. It was like having my hair cut by one of the Last of the Summer Wine cast. He kept making sweeping sexist statements, of the "will your tea be on the table when you get home?" kind, and then he told me a lengthy story about a rag and bone man who kept a donkey in his kitchen, and another about a guy he knew who had no brakes in his car, so if he gave you a lift, he would slow down by sticking his feet out the door.
I'm definitely going back there.
Was your tea on the table?
Pak choi?
With miso and udon?
My tea was in the dog.
And we only have cats.
Did the barber make a joke about Chinese food there?
You'll be disappointed to hear that he made no racist remarks at all.
Not all bigots are into everything.
I bow to your superior knowledge of bigotry.
I think you need to read the anti racist baby book again.
Is the baby meant to be singing a song and doing an interpretive dance there?
Kate Bush's choreographer?
I'm going to buy you a copy for your birthday.
I already have enough books I can't get through.
Thoughts on Yard Act?
I can't decide whether I like them or not.
Their new album is out and I still can't decide.
Never heard of them. Wait a minute...
I see what you mean. Can't decide if they deserve more of my attention or if he's just a bad stand up character.
Yeah, that's exactly it. I sit down with it but go back and forth whether it's good or not.
And he reminds me of Mr. C. from The Shamen.
I got a new badge at work today.
Still using your Witness Protection name when you teach, I see.
They'll never find me.
Plus, it keeps the kids from googling my blog.
They managed to make your forehead both smaller and larger at the same time.
And look at you rocking an under t-shirt!
I wear under t-shirts all the time in the summer. Never been a vest man.
Is it like starting a new identity at a new school?
It's a chance to reinvent myself.
I persuaded Louise to watch the first Archive 81. She just about made it through.
How much did they pay you to play Samuel?
(The actor in the green top looks exactly like Ben. In case you were wondering what he looks like.)
£12.50 and a Lion Bar.
Need to fire my agent.
Can't even eat the Lion Bar since it's got dairy in it.
And lions.
They stopped that back in the 80s.
Bloody PC brigade!
Huh. Next you'll be telling me the same applies to Penguins.
World gone mad.
They've always used imitation penguins, like crab sticks.
Shut up.
Hopefully now we're out of the bloody EU we can get back to being great and using the real thing again.
And none of those shite metric measurements.
I want seven quibwongs to a yard again.
(Do you mean a yard act?)
I'm looking forward to breaking my teeth on a post-Brexit Double Decker.
As we move away from the EU food and drink directive, we can enjoy moving towards the US FDA style FREEDOM Res restrictions.
You will soon be able to enjoy 100% naturally synthetic nougat style chew.
All natural, obviously.
Which in the US is legally a marketing term and has no basis in natural ingredients.
I'm looking forward to everyone eating those little compressed astronaut meals.
They contain real food. You won't be getting them.
Just seen the new Scream film. It's very good.
Please tell me Courtney Cox dies this time.
Sorry. Ghostface appears before the film and tells us we can't tell anybody anything about it or he'll come for us.
Who better to illustrate our TOP TEN MILLION SONGS than the Six Million Dollar Man himself? You know if they remade that today, he'd probably have to be a Six Billion Dollar Man? Six Million probably wouldn't even buy him a bionic leg.
Now onto the answers. Blame Lynchie if they were too hard this week. He said last week's were too easy!
10. Pow!
Take THAT!
I make no apologies for featuring Take That here. As boy bands go, they have at least three decent songs. Yes, Gary Barlow is a twonk, but Robbie makes up for that.
The version in my music library has brackets. I don't know why, because most of the time the title is just Guilty, no brackets. The Human Nature cover has brackets though, if you're interested. You shouldn't be, because it's awful.
1. He's pretty good at this quiz.
The gentleman above is Ken Sweeney. He was the lead singer of a band called... Brian!
(I did want this clue to involve Mrs. Brian, but that would have been too obvious.)
Join me again next week for more of the unknown snapshots that make Saturday such a star...
I know a lot of people found the joke of the Ben Folds Five - that there were only three of them - to be rather smug, but they're still my favourite band with a Five in their name... yes, I like them even more than 5ive.
Sad to say, every one of those can be found in my hard-drive (except Five Hand Reel, I'm afraid). That's what I was doing while the rest of the male population were out drinking beer, watching football and meeting girls.
"But what about the Five songs?" I heard nobody cry.
I think you can probably work out for yourself why I'm not allowing that one. Not just because it already featured here in Week 55, but because if I started allowing every mention of a 5 as part of a bigger number, not only would that contravene the Tom Robinson Rule, it would also mean revisiting every song we featured in Week #15, #25, #35, #45, all the 50s, etc. etc. etc. My brain just melted at the very prospect.
Oh damnation - Just realised that the Tom Waits song is 55 so we've probably done that one. And suppose Manfred Mann's "5-4-3-2-1" is no use. *sigh*
That's more like it. Although there's something rather disturbing about the character described therein... and it probably contravenes all kinds of size-ist PC rules these days.
I wrote about bands with 5 in their title a while back when I published my 101st post - as has been pointed out around here before (by George I think) the binary number 101 equates to the decimal number 5 so the 101ers could be a contender.
I don't understand binary because I'm not a robot. These guys seem to understand it though...
My personal favourite is this one although it won't qualify I'm sure - George was at his best here and it made for a memorable performance shared many times in the aftermath of his death.
Les Georges Leningrand - George 5 (First time i heard this song it was on quite loud at home, came on a Rough Trade CD, i had to turn it down as i was worried i would scare the neighbours. It is one of the strangest songs i have ever heard but i love it, took a few listens though).
It was looking like Rigid Digit was definitely going for this week's booby prize... until he unearthed this little gem. An absolute cracker. I liked it so much, I wrote a short story with the same title.
Flagrant abuse of the rules there, RD. Watch out, Charity Chic will start comparing you to Dominic Cummings if you're not careful. Speak of the devil (CC, not DC, thankfully), here he is again...
Or what of "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (Has Anybody Seen My Gal?)", which since its penning in 1914 just about everyone has covered, but for the sake of argument here let's suggest Dean Martin's version as well as Guy Lombardo's. Not sure which of those two version my dad had in mind as he went about the house singing it throughout my childhood...
Sadly, I didn't have time to listen to or comment on any of The Swede's suggestions this week, because it's already 8.30 on Monday evening and I've not had my tea yet. I'm sure they were all lovely. I'm also not going to spend too long scraping my own hard drive this week. But here's a few...
However, much as I love that, I'm going to have to plump for the one suggested by C and Swiss Adam this week, mainly because it was the first one I thought of. Yes, it's a cover version of a track mentioned earlier. Or, more accurately, it's two cover versions in one, since it segues effortlessly into Petula Clark's I Know A Place about halfway through... and that's one of the reasons I love it.
As cover versions go there, it manages that rare trick of being better than the original. I think it may well be one of the most exciting songs I've ever heard (I know, I'm delirious from lack of food, humour me).
OK... who's ready for a little four-play?
(Apologies for any typos this week. I had no time to proofread!)
...then a show called "The Apprentice" came on and pretty soon
An old man with a comb-over had sold us the moon
And we stayed tuned in, now here we are
Reality killed by a reality star
11. The Lemonheads - Varshons II
The laziest man in rock (TM) finds his way into a recording studio for the first time in ten years and churns out another effortless & eclectic set of covers that prove he's still got it... he just doesn't use it that often.
You don't have to wait on Hank if you want to raise your glass
You don't have to wait on Cash if you're just here to get trashed
You don't have to wait on Nelson if you're trying to raise some hell, son
You don't have to wait on Cline if you just want some more wine
9. Mattiel - Satis Factory
Gotta hand this one to Rigid Digit; I wouldn't have discovered it without him raving about it.
Dusty Springfield, Debbie Harry, Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin, Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde, Diana Ross, Nico, Courtney Barnett... you can hear them all in this record, yet every track is distinctly Mattiel. Quite an accomplishment.
And it's the expectation, making or breaking, giving me a heart attack
And in twenty years time will it all be mine
Or will I wish that I could take it all back?
(This tune even steals a bit of a Wrecking Ball era Springsteen.)
