Snapshots #396: Songs With Rhyming Titles

Jack Black stacks a slack sack pack on his back, and has a pet yak in his shack, with a nick knack, paddy-whack for smack, crack and quack.

Here are some songs that rhyme... but not quite as much as that.

15. Rock on... Are you ready for him?

Rock on, Tommy... Cannon. Are you ready for Freddy?

Freddy Cannon - Tallahassee Lassie

14. I'm the same boy I used to be, just like a peanut farmer.

Jimmy Carter was the Peanut Farmer.

"I'm the same boy I used to be," is a lyric from Valerie by Steve Winwood, which was allegedly written about...

Valerie Carter - Wild Child

13. Just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed...

Lyrics from "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head"...

The Raindrops - Hanky Panky

12. Died in 1966?

Or is that just an urban legend?

Paul McCartney - Temporary Secretary

11. Rita Tushingham's kitchen sink.

Rita Tushingham was in the kitchen sink drama, A Taste Of Honey...

A Taste Of Honey - Boogie Oogie Oogie

10. Motivational presentation, not for Old Men. 

A motivational presentation could be a TED Talk. 

Ted Nugent--Wango Tango

9. Those McCartney Oiks will spoil everything.

"McCartney Oiks" was an anagram...

Arctic Monkeys - Fluorescent Adolescent

8. Hats off to Bell and Orbit.

Hats off to Larry. Bell and Orbit are both Williams.

Larry Williams - Bony Moronie

7. Useful for painting in Michigan.

Bay City is in Michigan. You use a roller for painting. 

I'm sure at least one of you recognised those legs...

Bay City Rollers - Money Honey 

6. Bluebell is lost in the middle, and don't call me...

Bluebell is lost in the middle. And don't call me Shirley!

Shirley Ellis - The Name Game

Rol!
Rol, Rol bo-bo-bol
Bo-na-na, fanna fo-fol!
Fee-fi-mo-mol!
Rol!

5. The stone at the heart of the flesh.

Peach Pit - Alrighty Aphrodite 

4. 'Cause, I gotta have... Benny.

"'Cause, I gotta have... Faith." And Benny Hill.

Faith Hill - This Kiss

3. Keeping up with The Joneses.

The Smiths - Still Ill 

Or you could have had...

The Smiths - Frankly, Mr Shankly

I didn't realise you wrote such bloody awful poetry.

2. A Snapshots essential!

Your snapshots won't be any good without Focus.

Focus - Hocus Pocus

1. Inverted woes.

That was an anagram!

Stevie Wonder - Master Blaster

Castaway Potshots returns next week...

One Final Halloween Snapshots Spillover

As it's Halloween, here's a final batch of horror film-inspired songs, starting with the Scream Queen herself. No, not Jamie Lee Curtis...

Kate Bush - The Fog

Next up, a track from the new Nick Lowe album, his first in eleven years. Apparently, he's spent the time catching up on movies like this...

Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets - A Quiet Place

I couldn't let this series close without mentioning "the most amazing motion picture of our time", starring Michael Landon, presumably before he found God in Highway To Heaven...

The Cramps - I Was A Teenage Werewolf

Up into the hills next, for an encounter with some inbred yokels... have you ever been to Holmfirth?

The Meteors - The Hills Have Eyes

Irena Dubrovna discovered she was descended from an ancient tribe of Cat People who metamorphose into black panthers when aroused. Just like Manimal!

The original version of Cat People was released in 1942. Forty years later, a saucy remake roped this guy in to contribute to the soundtrack... 

David Bowie - Cat People (Putting Out The Fire)

Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was banned during the video nasties scare of the 80s, so it became something of a holy grail to teenage horror fans like myself, desperate to see it. When it was finally re-released in 1998, I rushed out to see it. The film does contain one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen... yet it's nothing to do with the infamous chainsaw, or even Leatherface himself. Instead, the bit that got me was the dinner party scene when they fetch Grandpa down from the attic...

The Tyla Gang formed in 1975 following the dissolution of Sean Tyla's previous band, Ducks Deluxe. I suspect there's more than a whiff of bandwagonary going on here... 

Tyla Gang - Texas Chainsaw Massacre Boogie

The other classic horror film banned throughout my adolescent video shop days was Mark Kermode's favourite: The Exorcist. Hard to believe it's 25 years since the censors finally allowed me to watch that...

Curtis Mayfield - Sweet Exorcist

Redd Kross - Linda Blair

The less said about the 2005 remake of House of Wax, starring Paris Hilton, the better. The 1953 original though, with Vincent Price, was one of the first mainstream Hollywood movies to be filmed in 3D. I generally hate 3D movies, but I reckon it'd be worth seeing this one again with the glasses on.

I found a whole bunch of songs named after this flick. Here's a smattering of wax on wax...

Miss Destiny - House of Wax

The Alderman - House of Wax

Bruce Woolley & The Camera Club - House of Wax

Paul McCartney - House of Wax

Nothing beats a good haunted house story for me though. And that one to beat in that genre is the 1963 version of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, known simply as The Haunting.

Whatever you do, do NOT watch the 1999 version with Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta Jones. It's one of the worst films I've ever seen. 

Here are some post-Shane Pogues... so no way as scary as they used to be.

The Pogues - Haunting

And here's some Shane, in case you're missing him, along with Sinéad. I'm missing them both.

Shane MacGowan with Sinéad O'Connor - Haunted

Sadly, I couldn't find any songs named after the best haunted house movies of the 21st Century, the Paranormal Activity flicks, but I'm closing today with the film that got me hooked on horror movies back when I was a kid. I was obsessed with the Amityville Horror, reading all the books, watching all the films, and even looking favourably upon Lovebug Starski... 

Happy Halloween to you all. Hoohahahahahaaaa!

The Past Is Another Blog #3: Spam Ain't What It Used To Be

Paul McCartney - Junk

Back to trawling through my old blog for recycled content. The next post I came across is from...

TUESDAY 19 DECEMBER 2006

...and what's interesting is that I'm writing about a phenomenon which I suspect no longer exists, at least not in the form I describe here. I'd forgotten all about this weird kind of spam email we used to get. I guess the spam blockers are so much more sophisticated nowadays, and the bots have moved onto other things. Still, it's a fascinating window on the past...

Joni Mitchell - Dr. Junk

Natalie polychromes lonely pedant.

Since they decided to take away our spam-filter at work, I’ve been flooded with hundreds of those fascinating emails for stock tips and Viagra from people called Flossie Marks, Gloria Beard, Houston Stout and Carmela Slaughter (which always makes me think that Chris Morris might be involved)… and I’m becoming strangely enamoured by the copy that arrives with them. Presumably it’s just some clever way of bypassing certain spam-detection programmes, but if you take a moment to actually read it, you'll find a twisted genius at work. An Edward Lear, Spike Milligan, or even Grant Morrison of spam.

Alice Cooper - No Baloney Homosapiens

Our priest, carving the bread up the hill, isn't tirelessly unfirm.

Oh, I know it’s nonsense – but it’s often strangely poetic nonsense… and I’m starting to think this could in fact be my dream job – writing email gobbledygook for the world’s spam champions (did someone say ‘Spampions’?) Yes, I know what you’re going to tell me. It’s not an actual human being sitting in a lonely garret composing these odes to penis size and Wall Street… it’s just randomly generated computer blather, an IBM Macbeth churning out idiotic sound and fury that signifies nowt. But still, there’s something beautiful in it. In a sort of ‘found art’ kind of way.

Apparently musical ability and the bread and red sauce, plus… between the furrows. I should be safe enough here. I clamped my jaw.

Ultrasound - Nonsense

My favourites at the moment are these eerie paragraphs of haphazard sentences that follow a set pattern of ‘noun verb adjective noun’ (though occasionally crying out for a definite or indefinite article, the programme’s obviously not smart enough to select the correct one).

Saskatoon plumes wide calypso.

Telugu texturizes sore parrot.

Karloff conscripts dark polio.

Sigur Rós - Gobbledigook

It’s the deliciously bizarre, incongruous and esoteric word choices that make them so appealing. You never get anything as trite as ‘Fred jumps fat dog’. They’re like those creative writing competitions where you’re given a title and asked to make up the story from there. Except these titles are far more interesting. I mean… imagine the story behind:

Edgewood outfloats pleasant incubus.

Leave me now, I’ve got to start writing…

Captain Beefheart - Tropical Hot Dog Night

Is is possible to get nostalgic for email spam? They don't even make that like they used to...

2023: New Music From Old Men

As we grow older, our record collection grows older with us. The rock n roll survivors we grew up with (not to mention the ones who were well established before we were even born) continue making music, and we keep enjoying it. For the most part, anyway. There are, of course, those artists who carry on well past their sell-by date, don't find anything new to say, and become shadows of their former selves... and when I think about them, I have even more respect for Billy Joel, who packed in making new music thirty years ago to protect his legacy. 

Billy Joel - Great Wall Of China (from his final album in 1993)

All that said, sometimes even the faded stars of yesteryear pull a blinder. And credit where it's due, I never though the Rolling Stones would release a single as good as this so far into their bus pass years...

(Damon Albarn hates that video. So they must be doing something right.) 

The album Hackney Diamonds is as good as anything The Stones have released since the beginning of the 80s. That may sound like faint praise, but I was surprised by how solid the whole thing sounded. The Lady Gaga collaboration is a couple of steps down the same ladder as Gimme Shelter, and the video is a hoot, as Ms. Germanotta tries her best to out-Mick Mick.  

The Rolling Stones feat. Lady Gaga - Sweet Sounds Of Heaven

Then there's a Keef sung tune which proves he should do that sort of thing more often ("he's too shy," says Mick) and a proper bluesy throwback at the end... which sounds like the kind of song you'd expect the Rolling Stones to be making in their 80s... were it not for the fact that it closes a record of full-tilt rock n roll riffs from Keef and sneeringly playful invective from Mick. And to top it all off, they only go and invite another old geezer to play bass on one track... and it's a lot more listenable than that "new" Beatles track that was inflicted on us earlier in the year.

The Rolling Stones feat. Paul McCartney - Bite My Head Off

Kevin Rowland turned 70 this year, so he's still a spring chicken by Mick n Keef's standards. The lead single from the latest Dexys album promised great things, a classic Dexys soul stomper that showcased a man dripping self confidence from every pour. There are a couple more tracks on the first half of The Feminine Divine which also stand out, though the latter part of the record turns into a huge celebration / confessional of submissive relationships which borders on unintentionally hilarious at times. Still, it's better than anything Van Morrison's done lately.

Born a year or so earlier than Kevin, but still going strong, is John Mellencamp, who just released another new record, hot on the heels of last year's Strictly a One-Eyed Jack. Orpheus Descending treads similar ground, occasionally going a little too earnest and worthy for my liking, though Mellencamp's late stage Tom Waits growl is pleasing to the ear, and his practiced Grumpy Old Man demeanour is enough to keep me coming back for more.

Ron and Russell Mael are both in their late 70s. You wouldn't know it from listening to the latest Sparks album though. They sound as youthfully irreverent as ever. They're also responsible for the year's ultimate Grumpy Old Man song, a track which delights in telling us that life goes downhill fast from the moment we're born...

Nothing is as good as they say it is

That's the way it is

I wish I'd known beforehand

I was born just 22 hours ago

But I want to go

Back to my former quarters

Take a look around and you'd understand

This is not a place I could ever stand

Ugliness, anxiety, phony tans

It ain't for me

That's all

Another old timer who's definitely refusing to grow old gracefully is Mr. Vincent Furnier. Road is his 29th album (22nd as a solo artist, having taken the name of his former band) and it's much better than it deserves to be. 

Alice Cooper - I'm Alice

Don't get me wrong - it is utterly ridiculous, full of pompous rock 'n' roll cliché and legend pimping, but nobody's expecting a sensitive meditation on the human condition from Alice, and we'd be disappointed if that was what he delivered. He gets away with it - hell, he excels at it - because it's all done with gleefully OTT relish and a sly wink to the camera. 

 

Forgot my life, forgot my face

I'm not a member of the human race

My time is here, my time is now

I play the creature 'cause I know how

My lips are red, my eyes are black

And I'm as scary as a heart attack

Celebrity Jukebox #116: Denny Laine

I'll get round to Henry Kissinger eventually. He may not deserve a tribute, but he certainly appears in plenty of songs.

First though, and far more importantly, we need to celebrate the life of the man who sung this...

If you were to make a list of the best intros to 60s hits, that would be right up there. It's a cover, of course, and the Bessie Banks original is pretty special too... but Denny & co. gave it a bit more zing. Denny didn't stick it out with the Moody Blues and most of their subsequent success came with Justin Hayward at the helm... but for me, they never bettered that track, even when they got decked out in White Satin. 

Denny didn't stop there though, he went on to form The Electric String Band and begin releasing solo material too...

The Electric String Band - Ask The People

Denny Laine - Say You Don't Mind

Colin Blunstone of the Zombies would take that latter track into the charts in 1972.

Denny also took to the skies with Ginger Baker's Air Force, making a credible fist of this old standard... 

Ginger Baker's Air Force - Man Of Constant Sorrow

You might say he earned his Wings with that one. So it's hardly a surprise that Sir Thumbs Aloft would soon be giving Denny a call and asking him to join a new beat combo he was putting together. I often wonder, late at night when I just can't get to sleep, whether Macca invited Denny to join Wings because his name sounded like a pun on Penny Lane. Or did Denny - whose real name was Brian Frederick Hines - choose that particular rock star alias for exactly that reason? Not according to Denny himself, who claimed the Laine came from Frankie, his sister's favourite singer, and Denny because... er... "everyone had a backyard, and a den to hang out. I think I got that nickname there." Turns out that Denny had his stage name before Paul wrote Penny Lane, but as the song is about a real Liverpudlian Street, could the Birmingham lad have visited it in his youth and found it just as inspirational as the Scousers did? You can see why I find it hard to get back to sleep.

As to Wings... well, they were only the band The Beatles could have been. 

You knew that one was coming. 

Which leads us to this...

Mull Of Kintyre is a track I was taught to hate from an early age. It became cool to loathe it, largely due to the fact, I presume, that it was the UK's biggest selling single of all time throughout the late 70s and half the 80s, at least until Band Aid came along and sold a few more copies. But is it really that bad? I mean, OK, it's no Band On The Run or Jet or Goodnight Tonight... it's not even Junior's Farm... but really, it is really worth all the vitriol? Even when the bagpipes come in. Actually, watching that video now, I come over all wistful for times long gone, and that's the power of a good pop song as far as I'm concerned. 

When Ben alerted me to the passing of Denny Laine, he added the following comment...

That means it's only going to be Fairytale of New York and Mull Of Kintyre this Christmas. At least it means Stop The Cavalry will have less airtime. Christ, I hate that song.

Unwittingly, Ben just provided me with an excellent link into the only obvious song that came to mind as a tribute to Denny Laine...

Jona Lewie - Denny Laine's Valet

Sadly that was all I could find that mentioned Denny by name. Well, apart from this live track from the album Wings Over Europe on which Macca graciously cedes the stage to Denny...

I'm sorry you have to Go Now, Denny. I hope your heaven is filled with mist rolling in from the sea.

Namesakes #25: Wings

Last week, Avon came calling, but nobody wanted to hear about what Fred was getting up to in the back seat.

This week, we take flight... I couldn't believe how many bands shared their name with Macca's...

WINGS #1

Paul Simon had a little brother called Eddie. In 1967, Eddie joined forces with Oz Bach, a former member of Spanky & Our Gang, and Pam Robins of the Serendipity Singers to form... Wings! Eddie left by the time they made any records. They're only the band The Beatles could have been. 

I know what you're thinking: "That's not real!" Funny you should say that...

THE WINGS #2

Also coming together in the late 60s, Wings (the definite article) were Afrobeat pioneers from Nigeria formed by front-man Spud Nathan. They're only the band The Beatles could have been. Here's their most popular tune...

WINGS #3

They're only the band The Beatles could have been. 

I realise I'm in the minority, but I do find Paul McCartney's Wings far less annoying than The Beatles. I mean, Mull of Kintyre is horrible, and the less that's said about Give Ireland Back To The Irish, the better. But C Moon. Band On The Run. Jet. Silly Love Songs. Live And Let Die. Maybe I'm Amazed... I'd rather listen to those than anything on Sgt. Pepper. 

WINGS #4

It's 1988. It's some South African funk. It's only the bloke the Beatles could have been.

WINGS #5

Straight out of Kuala Lumpur in the year 1985 came our next Wings. By 1996, they sounded like this...

(They're only the band The Beatles could have been.)

WINGS #6

Anssi Hyvärinen, Harri Kessunmaa, Kai Hahto and Karri Suoraniemi joined forces in the early 90s in Finland. Together they were... only the band The Beatles could have been. 

WINGS #7

DJ Die, DJ Krust and Roni Size banded together in 1997 for one mission and one mission only. And yet, somehow, they come up first when you search for Wings in Discogs... kicking Macca down to a "Wings (2)" designation. Surely these guys were definitely the band The Beatles could have been. 

WINGS #8

K-Pop! It's the new doo-wop! It's only the musical phenomenon the Beatles etc. etc.

8 different acts... but which one gives you wings?

Snapshots #244: A Top Ten Frog Songs

A Top Ten Frog songs to enjoy before we all croak. I'm glad to see you all Kermit yourself to answering these...

10. Samuel L. Jackson promises to leave before Bonnie gets home.

What, you never saw Pulp Fiction?

Jimmie: No, no, no, no, no, don't you ****ing realize, man, that if Bonnie comes home and finds a dead body in her house, I'm gonna get divorced? All right? No marriage counseling, no trial separation, I'm going to get ****ing divorced, okay? And I don't want to get ****ing divorced! Now man, you know, ****, I wanna help you, but I don't want to lose my wife doing it, all right?

Jules: Jimmie, Jimmie, she ain't gonna leave you--

Jimmie: Don't ****ing "Jimmie" me, Jules, okay?! Don't ****ing "Jimmie" me! There's nothing that you're gonna say that's gonna make me forget that I love my wife, is there?! Now look, you know, she comes home from work in about an hour and a half. Graveyard shift at the hospital. You gotta make some phone calls? You gotta call some people? Well, then do it! And then get the **** out of my house before she gets here!

Jules: Hey, that's Kool and the Gang. We don't wanna **** your shit up. All we wanna do is call my people and get them to bring us in, that's all.

Kool & The Gang - Electric Frog

9. Sacked in America for switching off the air con.

If you were sacked in America, you might be canned. For turning up the heat.

Canned Heat - Bluefrog Blues

8. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand clues.

Yes. That's Ian McShane. And Grace Jones. Together on track three of the Slave To The Rhythm album. Although, to be fair, Ian does most of the work, reading extracts from the biography of Jean-Paul Goude, the French artist who designed Jones's album sleeves and directed her videos.

Grace Jones - The Frog & The Princess

That said, I almost preferred C's Jesus Jones answer.

7. A century clamp.

Anagram! Silhouette!

Paul McCartney & The Frog Chorus - We All Stand Together

6. Good for receiving Alecia Beth.

Alecia Beth Moore is the real name of Pink! You receive things with an aerial.

Ariel Pink - Exile On Frog Street

5. Holden's nan.

Anagram!

Del Shannon - Froggy

And if you've never heard that before, it's guaranteed to make you Runaway.

4. Created by Anne-José Madeleine Henriette Bénard.

Anne-José Madeleine Henriette Bénard is the real name of French actress Cécile Aubry, the creator of the Belle & Sebastian characters.

Belle & Sebastian - Funny Little Frog

3. Strength of God.

That's the meaning of the word "Gabriel".

Peter Gabriel - Kiss That Frog

That video pretty much shows where James Cameron got the idea for the movie Avatar. Fortunately, Gabriel's video is much shorter and far less boring.

2. Held up by Hinge & Bracket.

No, not these two...

These two...

The Doors - Peace Frog

1. When half way through the journey of our life, I found that I was in a gloomy wood, because the path which led aright was lost.

Those are the opening lines of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. But you knew that.

The Divine Comedy - The Frog Princess

Hop on back next Saturday for more...

Snapshots #215: A Top Ten Candy Songs

I just read that in the early 70s, Charles Bronson was the world's Number One Box Office Star. I find that incredible to believe... but not as incredible as you guys not solving the Snapshots.

Here are this week's candy-coloured solutions...

10. Hoarse or Wonder Horse?

Hoarse would be gruff. Champion The Wonder Horse was a Super Furry Animal. As is a Candylion.

Gruff Rhys - Candylion 

9. Utopian lion.

Anagram!

Paolo Nutini - Candy

8. Where the Elephant Man likes to swim.

John Hurt was the Elephant Man. He likes to swim in the Mississippi.

Mississippi John Hurt - Candy Man Blues

7. Juvenile boing!

A Teen spring.

Bruce Springsteen - Candy's Room

6. Bomb-loving doctors.

Doctor Strangelove, the movie, was also known as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

The Strangeloves - I Want Candy

The original version of this, which I would have included, except it has appeared here before.

Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy

5. Dirty copper and his alter ego get tangled up with a Scottish octopus.

The Dirty Copper would be Detective Harry Calahan, aka Clint Eastwood. The Scottish Octopus would be Mc-Ock.

Harry McClintock - Big Rock Candy Mountain

See what I did there?

4. Yo, Boris, Ron says you're all mixed up.

"Yo, Boris, Ron" was an anagram.

Roy Orbison - Candyman

Or you could have had "the candy coloured clown the call the Sandman"...

3. Lost Cleo joins a 10CC Army.

Lost Cleo is an anagram... for Costello.

Ten CC Army is an anagram... for McCartney.

Elvis Costello & Paul McCartney - So Like Candy

2. Cream Soda & Morgan's child.

Cream Soda is pop. Morgan's child would be Piers' son.

Iggy Pop & Kate Pierson - Candy

Classic lost Iggy tune... although it's hard to believe he ever had a haircut like Bryan Adams.

1. Listen to the wind blow... on the Mother & Child Reunion.

"Listen to the wind blow..." is the opening lyric to The Chain.

The mother and child were Mary and Jesus.

The Jesus & Mary Chain - Some Candy Talking

Unless you've got a Death Wish, make sure you join me back here next Saturday morning for more Snapshots...