Celebrity Jukebox #117

The Grim Reaper's been busy again.

John Hyatt

When Ben messaged me to say that John Hyatt had passed away last week, I mistakenly thought he meant John Hiatt. But it wasn't the American singer-songwriter who had left the stage, it was the singer from 80s post-punk politicos The Three Johns. This John balanced his "pop" career with a day job teaching fine arts at Leeds Poly. 

Benjamin Zephaniah

Ben was also the first to inform me of the death of writer, musician and poet Benjamin Zephaniah. Ben remarked...

I think anyone who knew the alternative 80s and 90s scenes, or was involved in English teaching, had a positive view of him.

Very true. Ben and I have both taught English, and Khayem commented in his own tribute that...

...it was an inspirational English teacher at secondary school who burst our predominantly white working- & middle-class suburban bubble by incorporating the poetry of Benjamin Zephaniah and Linton Kwesi Johnson into our studies, a life changing moment for me.

Coincidentally, I'd just featured a track by the poet in my Self-Help For Cynics post on Responsibility when I heard about his death. And here he is again...

Dean Sullivan

Khayem was also responsible for alerting me to the death of actor Dean Sullivan a couple of weeks back. I was a huge Brookside fan in the 90s, and despite his many flaws (drug addiction & dealing, manslaughter, digging up Trevor Jordache), Jimmy Corkhill was my hero. For a jukebox tribute, I did consider that his brother Billy gets name-checked here...

The Beloved - Hello

...but in the end, this seemed like a far better song to play.

Tony Allen

The moment I heard about the death of the "godfather of alternative comedy", one song... hell, a whole album... came immediately to mind. 

In 2011, Luke Haines, Cathal Coughlan and Andrew Mueller released an album called The North Sea Scrolls. It was purported to be an alternative history of the United Kingdom, as told to them by the "actor" Tony Allen. I'm a huge Luke Haines fan, and I think this may well be the best thing he's ever done. I've no idea what Tony Allen thought of it.

Finally, three more familiar faces to say goodbye to...

Brigit Forsyth 

Still most famous for her role in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, though she went on to appear in many other films and TV shows, including Boon and Still Open All Hours. Brigit was also a musician and singer. Here she is with her band The Fircones...

The Fircones - Girl In The Band

Ryan O'Neal

We used to have a teacher who, if he noticed a couple of students in his class making googly eyes at each other, would loudly whistle the theme tune to Love Story. It became a shorthand for youthful romance in my head. I'm not sure I've ever seen the film myself since someone gave away the ending. But my favourite Ryan O'Neal movie is What's Up Doc? with Babs...

Well, I looked in the mirror can you guess what I saw?

It wasn't Ryan O'Neal kissin' Ali MacGraw 

It was me

It was me

Shirley Anne Field

Another actress not just famous for treading the boards...

Shirley Anne Field - It's Legal

However, Shirley Anne's biggest influence on the world of music must surely come through her role in Karel Reisz's adaptation of Alan Sillitoe's novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, a film which may have inspired a live album by The Stranglers...

The Stranglers - No More Heroes

A studio album by Jake Bugg...

Jake Bugg - All I Need

The title of the Arctic Monkeys debut record, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (taken from a line in the film)...

The Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor

And, most important of all, the best thing Stephen and Johnny ever did together. Another line from the film, "Why don't you take me where it's lively and there's plenty of people?", spoken by Shirley Anne herself, led Morrissey to pen those famous opening lyrics...

Take me out tonight

Where there's music and there's people

And they're young and alive

TV On The Radio #15: It's A Knockout

Even as a six year old, I found little point to It's A Knockout. Surely I was the ideal target audience for a ridiculous game show about people dressed in ridiculously over-sized costumes trying to race and falling in water? But no, even at that age, I found myself thinking, "This is stupid". I'm convinced that the only person who really enjoyed It's A Knockout was Stuart Hall, and the less said about him, the better.

Back in 1996 though, it was still OK to name-drop him in a tune...

Brotherhood is back from their sabbatical

Dramatical and hit, we're here to take it all

Three rounds of verse, it's a knockout, Stuart Hall

The Brotherhood - Mad Headz

The North Sea Scrolls was a 2011 collaboration between Luke Haines, Cathal Coughlan and Andrew Mueller. They only did one album, but if you like twisted 70s nostalgia or things that are mad as a fish driving a lorry, then it's a wonderful, wonderful record.

Blakey and Olive

Freaks and fascists

It's A Knockout

With tiny moustaches

The Mosley frontbench

Cheered on by the masses

Take on the cast of

'On the Buses'

A cry goes up

"I'll get you, Butler"

Mosley leers:

He's played his joker

The North Sea Scrolls - Enoch Powell Space Poet

It's A Knockout was, as I'm sure you all know, based on the French game-show Jeux Sans Frontières. I'd argue that the only decent thing to come out of the whole sorry affair was the tune below, in which Peter Gabriel uses the show's puerile farce as a metaphor for world politics. Games Without Frontiers, with Kate Bush on backing vocals (she's the one who sings 'Jeux sans frontières'), is another classic from Gabriel... from an era when his albums took a bit of work. You come to those albums wanting every track to sound like Solsbury Hill, and when they don't it can be a little disappointing. Persevere though, and after a while a world of riches opens up.

Games Without Frontiers comes from his third eponymous album, one the record company knocked back as "commercial suicide"... until today's song started picking up airplay, when suddenly they became interested. That's when Gabriel told them to bog off and took his master tapes elsewhere. Games Without Frontiers went on to become his highest charting single in the UK (tying with Sledgehammer), so nyah nyah nyah to you ignorant record company bigwigs.

If looks could kill, they probably will

In games without frontiers

War without tears

My Top Ten Tony Songs

The new Iron Man film is out - and it'll be great to see Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark again. But can I find ten great songs about Tony?

Challenge... accepted!


10. The Frank & Walters - Tony Cochrane

The F&Ws go chasing a lilo, wishing they were their eponymous hero.

9. David Bowie - The Gospel According To Tony Day

The b-side to The Laughing Gnome.

Rotten old Tony Day - if you find a girl, he'll take her away.

8. Plans & Apologies - Tony Blair, Fucknut

'Nuff said?

7. The Pixies - Tony's Theme

This is a song about a superhero named Tony... whose name rhymes with pony. As does...

6. Morrissey - Tony The Pony

Just don't say I didn't warn you.

5. The North Sea Scrolls - I'm Not the Man You Think I am Karen, I'm the Actor Tony Allen

Luke Haines and Cathal Coughlan's alternate history of the British Isles throws up an unlikely hero in the shape of failed actor and Inspector Morse costume designer Tony Allen who leads a double life as "...the hidden hand behind the paintings of Sir Francis Bacon, the secret lover of Sid James, a patient of R.D. Laing, an assiduous curator of Northern Soul, and the probable catalyst for the least tedious stretches of the career of Fleetwood Mac..."

It's a Tony Allen world - but we just live in it. 

4. Billy Joel - Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)

One of Billy's best...

You should never argue with a crazy mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind

...if that's movin' up - then I'm movin' out.

3. Belle & Sebastian - Lord Anthony

Anthony gets bullied at school, as did I, as I'm sure, did Stuart Murdoch. Bullying is evil.

When will you realize it doesn't pay
To be smarter than teachers, smarter than most boys?

"So shut your mouth, start kicking the football."
Bang on the teeth. You are off for a week, boy.

2. Patty Griffin - Tony

More bullying... with tragic consequences this time. Patty recalls the suicide of an old highschool classmate... heartbreaking stuff: and yet, it rocks.

I hated every day of high school
It's funny, I guess you did too

1. The Shirehorses (M&M) - Tony

I love Stan, I think it's one of Eminem's best songs... but I can't hear it anymore without wanting to listen to Mark & Lard's hilarious parody.

Anyway, how the kcuf are you?
I'm alright, thanks for asking
I'm listening to the new album 
By Dave Stewart and that old Barbara Gaskin

Listen to Stan first, then listen to Tony... and if you don't laugh your boils off, I'll give you your money back. (Plus, the woman from the canteen beats Dido any day.)




Which one gets your Tony award?

My Top Ten Pope Songs

Because Ratzinger has resigned.

When I first heard that Joe Ratzinger was to be Pope, I thought they meant Cliff from Cheers. Wouldn't that have been preferable...?


10. Tim Minchin - The Pope Song

Let's get the... erm... somewhat controversial one out of the way to begin with, shall we? Not safe for work, or for the easily offended. Though Tim does have a point.

9. George Harrison - P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night)

George takes his confessional - one our father, three hail marys - each Saturday night.

8. James Dean Bradfield - Say Hello To The Pope

JDB loses his girl to religion. Prayers get him nowhere.

7. North Sea Scrolls - The Papal Pagan

In the fifth scroll, Cathal Coughlan takes on an Irish junta led by Dana, Johnny Logan and Louis Walsh and tells the Vatican where to go. Not available online, but the album's a must buy. By papal decree.

6. Morrissey - Dear God, Please Help Me

Well, I had to make room for the Pope of Mope, didn't I? And as we featured I Have Forgiven Jesus quite recently, let's have this one instead. Here we find Moz walking through Rome feeling the weight of the explosive kegs between his legs...

Dear God, does this kind of thing happen to you?

5. Billy Joel - Only The Good Die Young

Billy does his best to talk a good Catholic girl into bed... she's having none of it. Banned by many American radio stations back in the 70s... not that that did it any harm.

Come out, come out, come out Virginia, don't let me wait.
You Catholic girls start much too late.
Sooner or later it comes down to fate.
I might as well be the one.
You know that only the good die young.

4. Half Man Half Biscuit - Vatican Broadside

Look it's only 33 seconds long, so you've no excuse not to listen to it.

Need further persuading? It tells the (true, surely?) story of what happened when the singer out of Slipknot went to Rome to see the Pope. The Pope's response is priceless. 

Also covered by Frank Turner, which is always a good sign.

3. Shane MacGowan & The Popes - The Church of the Holy Spook

Shane asks forgiveness from the Holy Spook too. He'll be in that confessional all day...

2. Prince - Pope

You can be the president, but Prince will always be the Pope. Imagine if the Vatican actually announced him as the successor to Ratzinger? Wouldn't that be fantastic? Especially if he came out on the balcony doing this song... the opening exclamation would be worth the price of admission alone.

(This would probably have been Number One had His Holiness not banned it from being heard on the internet. I wish he'd stop that. Maybe he will, when he takes office.)

1. Elbow - An Audience With The Pope

I have an audience with the Pope
And I'm saving the world at eight
But if she says she needs me, she says she needs me
Everybody's going to have to wait, ah, ah

Guy Garvey -patron saint of romance.




Those were my favourite popes... which one do you want to see elected XVII?