In-depth analysis (or random, disconnected musings) of three
more of the songs from the 108th in-car CD I made for my son, Sam –
the CD that has passed into legend as the one to beat in his eyes/ears… although I’m
not quite sure why.
Track 4: INXS - Devil Inside
INXS are one of those bands who appear to have completely
disappeared off everyone’s radar. There was a point in the late-80s / early-90s when it seemed like they were poised for world-conquering greatness – an
Australian U2, but without the big God Complex eedjit and his dumb-ass cronies…
and with far better tunes (Baby Don’t Cry must surely make Bono weep buckets
every time he hears it).
Then, of course, it all went wrong. First there was
the rather duff 1997 “comeback” record Elegantly Wasted, followed soon after
Michael Hutchence's sudden death. There’s nothing to be gained from rehashing all
that, but I can’t help wondering what might have been. The band soldiered on
without their frontman, trying out a variety of new vocalists (including Terence
Trent D’Arby) and even putting themselves through the humiliation of an
X-Factor-style talent show as part of the auditions. But for many fans, the
idea of INXS without Michael was like Queen without Freddie or The Doors
without Jim. Sometimes it’s better to just call it a day.
Anyway, Devil Inside is by no means my favourite INXS song.
It wasn’t even a hit in the UK, unlike four of the other singles from Kick.
Personally, I’d choose anything from their creative zenith, the outstanding
disc Welcome to Wherever You Are. But it’s a good enough tune, I suppose, and
keeps the CD moving along nicely. Momentum is important in a compilation.
Track 5: The Byrds - I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better
Also not a hit in the UK, and not really one of their
better-known tunes, but I always like a good anti-love song… although there’s
much debate in Byrding Circles about whether this is a plain old diss track or a
more complex ode to indecision. They key word that suggests the latter is the
fact that Gene Clark sings, “I’ll probably feel a whole lot better when
you’re gone”. Because sometimes when we end a relationship, we’re left with a
nagging doubt over whether we’ve done the right thing.
There’s no reason why this tune should appeal to a 12 year
old who likes Juice WRLD, Alex Warren and Imagine Dragons… any more than
thousands of other songs I’ve introduced him to through these CDs. I doubt it’s
directly responsible for CD108’s legendary status… but it fits nicely into the
mix.
Track 6: Ocean Colour Scene - Huckleberry Grove
I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better started life in 1965 as the
B-side to All I Really Want to Do. And that leads us nicely onto another
B-side, or maybe even D-side, since it was track 4 on the CD single release of
Ocean Colour Scene’s first UK Top Ten hit, You've Got It Bad in
1996. Despite its ignoble birth, Huckleberry Grove went on to become one of the
band’s most-loved songs, first when it was given pride of place as Track 1 on
their ragtag off-cuts compilation, B-sides, Seasides and Freerides, and then
later when it popped up on their Greatest Hits collection alongside all the big hits.
It’s the very definition of the Little Engine That Could.
Now I know what many of you think about OCS – that they
somehow represent Britpop at its Satanic, nostalgia-inducing, Weller-shagging
worst – and I’m not about to change your mind about that here. But it’s a
lovely little tune if you can get past all that, and arguably much better than
the single it was initially bolted onto as a throwaway bonus track. (That particular single has yet to make it onto one of Sam's compilations. But I might add it to the next one.)
Where will this CD go next? Find out soon… as if you care.
On Thursday, the 3rd of October, 1996, I went to my first live gig. I was 24 year old... quite late to start gigging, but as I explained to Ben last week, "it took me that long to find some mates who were into music."
You could have stopped that after the first 9 words...
Thank you, Ben. See - he's not just there for the depressing political analysis.
Anyway, the first band I saw live were Ocean Colour Scene. I had a lot of time for them back in '96 - I still consider The Day We Caught The Train one of the greatest pop songs of the Britpop era - though I rather lost track of them around the dawn of the new Millennium. The cool kids told me it wasn't hip to like them anymore, and while I don't often pay attention to the cool kids... sometimes I do, subconsciously, at least... to my chagrin.
Last Friday, I took a time machine back 25 years when Simon Fowler & Oscar Harrison, half of OCS, played our local civic hall. It's a bizarre venue - the only other performance I've seen there is the local panto, written by the dad of one of Sam's school mates... although it's also the place where Louise and I attended ante-natal classes before Sam was born. "Foxy" Fowler remarked it was like playing a school assembly, and my back was screaming by the end of the night from sitting on the stiff, locked-together chairs, but the air was filled with nostalgia, so I pretended not to care.
The support act was also bizarre: former Dexys' bassist Pete Williams (and a young friend of his who thought he was Brian May). I didn't know Williams had a solo career, but he strikes me as the kind of bloke who's just glad to be alive and still making music after 40+ years in the business. He's no Kevin Rowland... but then who is?
The main event was well worth the wait... though I have to say that Simon doesn't exactly look like years have been kind to him, while Oscar looks pretty much the same as he did 25 years ago (with his teenage son on supporting percussion). The first half of the set was lesser known material, which clearly they enjoy playing more than the hits, but once the big tunes started coming, the audience were dancing in the aisles. (Not with my back.) Without guitar man Steve Craddock, they avoided the rockier tunes like The Riverboat Song and Hundred Mile High City, but everything else was as I remembered it, and we all caught a train at the end.
Here's a song from their breakthrough record that I'd forgotten all about, but the rest of the audience clearly hadn't...
I've been a little under the weather this week, hence the reduced service. Not the coronavirus (yet!), but I pulled my back over the weekend (long-term problem) and spent most of Monday in agony. Not ideal for the day I had both my appraisal and annual graded teaching observation... you can imagine how well they went.
Still, I continue to try and look on the bright side (and conjure up a little chaos magic) with the second song in this series - one letter short of the tune that kicked us off last week.
Ocean Colour Scene are a much-maligned band, but for me they had a couple of albums that capture a very specific time in my life and remind me very much of better days. This is one of those songs that just takes me back... I could almost write you a Memory Mixtape post about it (I haven't forgotten that feature... I just need a little more free time than I have right now to devote the right amount of energy to them... and as you can imagine, The Hot 100 is taking up most of my blogging time at the moment). Anyway, I hope it brings back happy memories for you too. If not... play something that does when you get home tonight. You deserve it.
Only one band could illustrate the moment that Life Begins in our Hot 100 Countdown (even though, like Benjamin Button and the hero of Martin Amis's Time's Arrow, we're aging backwards). I was never s huge UB40 fan, and I prefer the Neil Diamond original of the above song to their hit version, but I always quite liked their famous "I'm a prima donna" mondegreen. (Apparently they sing "Ivory Madonna"... but I don't believe it for a second.)
...which is always welcome here because it features Leonard Nimoy in the video. And if you're wondering how The Bangles know what a UB40 is/was, they probably didn't. The original was by Katrina & The Waves.)
Anyway, as you can imagine, there were a hell of a lot of songs with the number 40 in the title. I'm not even getting onto lyrical nods this week, unless you guys specifically brought them up. Let's see how quickly we can rattle through the list...
Starting, as if often the case, with The Swede, who kicked us off with a serious contender...
Longtime readers will know that I've always got time for Jimmy B - I may even be a parrothead. As with many of Jimmy's songs, this one has a nautical theme... yet it also tackles the mid-life crisis in a beautiful way.
Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder
I'm an over-forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late
Ian McNabb does a pretty cool version of that too, but sadly I can't find it on the interweb and don't have time to upload it right now.
Onto The Swede's other fine suggestions, the last of which opens up a whole avenue of possibilities...
And now I shall hand you over to our Canadian correspondent, Douglas McLaren, making a welcome return this week with a whole bunch of fine suggestions...
I felt like I had to keep up the Canadian side once again when we hit 40. A fun one, for starters, is by Canada's (former) house band...
Then there is, of course, the granddaddy of Canadian folk rock, Gordon Lightfoot, who can teach you how to be an Auctioneer. And no, we don't actually have a forty-five dollar bill here in Canada.
Perhaps that's because the original came from the USA, Douglas (it's featured here before as my dad used to be an auctioneer when I was a boy).
From Canada we then journeyed halfway round the world to Australia, with another welcome
return from my old pal Deano who's just about to celebrate a rather relevant birthday. Remember, Deano - "life begins!" Cough cough.
He describes his first offering as "a silly, but oh so much fun, one hit wonder from New Zealand." Sounds perfect!
Next, "a Tasmanian-via California-via Nashville country singer
that I have really started to enjoy recently. She’s lived those forty
years (“I got battle scars around my eyes. I got old boyfriends with
bitchy wives. I look back and I wonder why.I’m forty.”) Sadly, she died
young after a cancer
Deano's final offering comes from a classic country songwriter: "In the process of discovering Tom
T Hall at the moment, and enjoying every moment of it. What a
songwriter. In this one, he talks about a funeral, and reflects on the
fact that the dead guy owed him $40."
All of which leaves me with just a handful of my own selections that nobody else mentioned, so I thought I'd make this post even longer by counting down my Top Five 40 Songs. I actually did a Top Ten 40 Songs seven years ago when I did turn 40 and three of these (as well as a bunch of your suggestions) featured there. That was on the old blog though which exists now only in my archives, so no link, I'm afraid.
Hey There! What Kind of Fool Am I? I almost forgot to post this week's Saturday Snapshots answers. To be fair, it has been a very stressful week. Ofsted never actually stepped into my classroom, but the constant anticipation of them doing so nearly killed me. That was Too Close For Comfort. Still, it's over now.
I think Chris deserves the crown this week for solving the ones nobody else could. Alyson was the Early Bird; it was good to have Lynchie back, CC & C were beaten to the punch.
Time to play The Candyman again and hand out these sweet goodies...
10. Bambi's mum has a special milkman. Spice approaching!
Ernie was the fastest milkman in the West.
Special K.
A female deer is a doe.
Lynchie claimed he only knew one Ernie K. Doe song. Surely you know this one too?
One of my favourite discoveries of the last 12 months: Guy Clark. Even though we lost him last year, there's much more where this came from...
See the wings unfolding that weren't there just before
On a ray of sunshine she dances out the door
Out into the morning light where the sky is all ablaze
This looks like the first of better days
Of
course, this being a George Jones song, you can pretty much guarantee
the better days are in the rear view mirror, disappearing into a blip at
a hundred miles an hour.
I don't hold John Lydon in the same esteem that many of my blogging buddies do. Nothing against him, but I was a bit too young to appreciate punk at the time and by the time I did get to know him, he'd become something of a figure of fun. That said, I like that side of him, the buttery part which seems completely unashamed to make a tit of himself in the service of popular music, and Home is a great example of that. The only song in this list not to feature a "Better Day" in the title: but that phrase is all over the chorus. Plus, you get to see Sideshow Bob trash a house in the video, and that's always worth the price of admission.
One of the best things about writing this blog is when I trip over songs in my record collection that I'd forgotten all about. This is from 1999, and I might not have heard it for 18 years. Brings back some fun memories of my time in radio though...
One foot in the hole One foot gettin' deeper crank it to eleven Blow another speaker And I ain't got, I ain't got much to lose
Cuz I've seen better days Been the star of many plays I've seen better days And the bottom drops out
Ocean Colour Scene were the first band I ever saw live.
(Yes, as with buying records, I was a VERY later starter when it came to
live gigs!) They had a very retro sound which worked perfectly in the
Britpop era but obviously couldn't last. Massively uplifting guitars and
choruses: we could use some of that right now.
The thing about that retro sound is: that's what a lot of present day indie bands are missing, in my humble opinion. I picked up the debut album by The Blossoms the other day and there are some decent indie pop songs on there but they're so glossily produced, there's just no edge to them. It's like they've been created using CGI rather than real actors... like (SPOILER) in that new Star Wars flick everyone is raving about but me. And don't even start me on The 1975! As I get older, I realise I prefer new records that sound old... which I guess is the end of days for me ever being a hipster. Not that I ever was. At least we still have Jack White doing stuff the old way...
One from the charity shop pile. The Jayhawks are a band I've been meaning to check out for awhile. This is from their 2001 album Smile, which I'm guessing is the one on which they filed off most of their folky, Americana edges and made a play for the mainstream. As a result, it's a bit bland in places, but there are some outstanding pop songs here too. Better Days (after a few listens) has a very powerful hook and some great harmonies. Further investigation required.
Back in the early 90s, Bruce lost his mojo a little. I think it was that classic thing of being a bit too happy. Having gone through a turbulent divorce (resulting in the classic Tunnel of Love), he'd found the woman he needed, Patti Scialfa, and they settled down to make a life together. The world seemed bright and so he pottered about in the studio making two records about how happy he was, then released them both on the same day. This was an odd thing a couple of big name artists did in the 90s. Guns 'n' Roses did it too, although - controversially - I think Use Your Illusion Volumes 1 & 2 were far better records than Bruce's Lucky Town and Human Touch. The weird thing is, Bruce has spent his whole career choosing only the very best songs to make up classic albums, then leaving hundreds of still-great tracks to gather dust (or eventually be reissued in collections like Tracks and The Promise). The one time he did a Prince and released virtually everything he'd recorded that week, he really should have used the same restraint. There are enough strong tracks on Lucky Town and Human Touch to make one classic album... not two.
Still, it's good to see him so happy. The video makes that abundantly clear. Watch it, and maybe some of that early 90s optimism will rub off on you too.
1. Billy Bragg - Tomorrow's Gonna Be A Better Day
Come on Billy, make us all feel better...
To the misanthropic misbegotten merchants of gloom Who look into their crystal balls and prophesied our doom: “Let the death knell chime, its the end of time” Let the cynics put their blinkers on and toast our decline. Don't become demoralized by scurrilous complaint, Its a sure sign that the old world is terminally quaint. And tomorrow’s gonna be a better day, No matter what the siren voices say Tomorrow’s gonna be a better day, We’re going to make it that way.
Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late The cannons don't thunder, there's nothin' to plunder I'm an over-forty victim of fate Arriving too late, arriving too late...
Because every Pogues song sounds like it's sung by a lairy, drunken sea captain, I figured I'd have no problem including them in this list. Especially as one of their greatest albums is called Rum, Sodomy & The Lash. I was rather surprised then by how long it took me to track down an appropriate tune... but this one saved the day. Read the full story behind it - and its rather bizarre genesis - here.
In later years, Tom Waits would come to resemble a real life pirate in both vocals and appearance (in fact, only Keith Richards and Shane MacGowan could beat him in a Captain Pugwash Lookalike Contest). Back in 1974, when this was released though... they'd have made him walk the plank as an imposter. Still gorgeous, despite that...
And the fog's liftin' And the sand's shiftin' I'm driftin' on out Ol' Captain Ahab He ain't got nothin' on me So come and swallow me, follow me I'm trav'lin' alone Blue water's my daughter 'n I'm gonna skip like a stone
Ah-harrgh, you scurvy landlubbers... part of me would prefer it if Kurt Wagner made up this day... yet it turns out it's an actual phenomenon (September 19th, if you're interested). Which may even be better.
Without your eye patch and your parrot I've been informed it's National Talk Like A Pirate Day Perhaps this singing is a refuge From other equally uncomfortable thoughts
Warren would have had no problem talking like a pirate... he even begins this song:
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum Hoist the mainsail - here I come...
Like much of this amazing songwriter's work, however, he manages to make his playful lyrics heartfelt and affecting. The more I listen to Warren Zevon, the more I want to hear.
1. Cosmo Jarvis - Gay Pirates
A song so good Stephen Fry tweeted it, Cosmo's Gay Pirates tells of the doomed love affair between two pirates who are victimised because of their sexuality. Both hilarious and heartbreaking, it's a real triumph.
And I'm sick of being beaten And whipped and lashed to death, I want one night with no gang-rape But I won't hold my breath.
But it's you my love You're my land ahoy Yeah, you're my boy
Those were my favourite pirate songs... but which one blows you down?
Suede have a new album out... and it's much better than the one this comes from. Still, some great putdowns here...
You belong among the wild flowers
picked at the side of the road,
You belong among the silent hours
and broken telephones,
You belong among the TV screens
with sound turned down again,
You belong where there's CCTV
watching you every day,
What do you get when you cross Busted! with Blink 182?
Pinch me, is this real?
I'm on a one way ticket out of Loserville
Now I'm off the social flat line
Things are so good that I'm
Taking down my Star Trek shrine
A sentiment shared by Nick 'Wicksy' Berry on his seminal 80s Number One... but honestly, what do you take me for? There's no place for that here. I have to draw the line somewhere.
And I'll keep finding a way to shoehorn this into Top Tens until you've all bought a copy.
Ernie Shackleton retreated
Close to the Pole
He didn’t want men dying
To achieve his goal
But did he get a gob on?
No he gave a little grin
Heed this Dennis Bell
When you next sign in
Bad Losers On Yahoo Chess!
1. Beck - Loser
In the time of chimpanzees, Beck was a monkey. If you don't like it... why don't you kill him?
Fruity berries... because it's harvest time. The internet informs me that strawberries aren't actually berries... but bananas are. I don't believe everything I read on the internet, but for the sake of argument - to make this list, all songs must have the word "berry" in the TITLE. That's the rules for today.
The one you've probably never heard of, and reckon shouldn't even be here. Luckily, it's my blog - and I like Everclear!
8. Ron Sexsmith - Strawberry Blonde
Had a hard day at work? Turn the lights down, put this on and...chill.
Untouchable... but don't blame me if the video below doesn't work by the time you hit play. His highness does hate youtube.
UPDATE... oops, spoke too soon - he's removed it. Good old Prince. Here's the Hindu Love Gods version instead...
Gilbert O'Sullivan's greatest hits album is called 'The Berry Vest of Gilbert O'Sullivan'. (I really need to find a way to shoehorn some Gilbert O'Sullivan into one of these Top Tens.) So, with that in mind, which is your Berry Vest Serry Bong?
