Snapshots Spillover: More Actor Songs

Following on from this weekend's Snapshots, featuring songs named after famous actors, I had something of an overspill... so here are some of the runners up.

April March - Stay Away From Robert Mitchum

Keep your grubby hands off Mitchum
He's rugged and he's handsome
And spurns the likes to you
Touch him and you'll be through

Julian Cope - Robert Mitchum

The part in Ryan's daughter
Where you lose your wife
I've never seen a more dignified man
In my life

Robyn Hitchcock - Gene Hackman

Different to the Hoodoo Gurus song featured yesterday, but equally enjoyable...

He's got an evil grin

He's got curly hair

And every time he smiles

It means trouble somewhere

So don't talk to me about Gene Hackman

Neon Neon - Michael Douglas

'Cause you'll see my reflection (reflection, reflection)

In Michael Douglas's mirrored sunglasses

You'll see my perfection (perfection, perfection)

In Michael Douglas's mirrored sunglasses

The Rakes - When Tom Cruise Cries

TV's on, Tom Cruise crying on his father's bed,

Reminds me what that French guy said,

From news to movies all the crap with it,

Headlines keep you excited,

Like when Tom Cruise cries,

It's all lies

Bananarama - Robert DeNiro's Waiting

I would have included this on Saturday, but I felt it was a little too obvious, even for me.

The Thrills - Whatever Happened To Corey Haim?

Postal Service - Clark Gable

I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would have admired

I thought it classic

Deacon Blue - He Looks Like Spencer Tracy Now

He may have been a nationalist, a physicist or a pacifist

But he's just taking pictures and he'll do it anyhow

Well, I have seen that movie of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde

And I know he looks like Spencer Tracy now

Bree Sharp - David Duchovny

Watching the sky for a sign
The FBI is on my mind
I'm waiting for the day
When my lucky stars align
In the form of...
David Duchovny floating above me
In the alien light of the spaceship of love

Deep Purple - Vincent Price

I want seven screaming virgins on a sacrificial altar
Hell and God, screeching doors, zombies, aaaaah!
It feels so good to be afraid
Vincent Price is back again

Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead

Bela Lugosi's dead

The bats have left the bell tower

The victims have been bled

Red velvet lines the black box

Elton John - Roy Rogers

Oh, the great sequin cowboy who sings of the plains

Of roundups and rustlers and home on the range

Turn on the TV, shut out the lights

Roy Rogers is riding tonight

And my personal favourite...

I want to be your hero,

Kurt Russell, Eastwood and me

There's no doubt plenty more where they came from, but that's enough actors for today. Drop me a comment if I've missed one of your favourites and I might do a follow up post... but remember, we're leaving the ladies for another day.

Saturday Snapshots #51 - The Answers

Shake It Out - The Dog Days Are Over, the answer days are here! Thanks for playing Saturday Snapshots again this week... well done, Lynchie for another well-deserved victory. We might have to start giving him a handicap!



10.  A priest or a bishop is coming.

That would be a Dean of the Parish.

Dean Parrish - I'm On My Way

9. The Royal Mail flies high.

The Postal Service - Such Great Heights

8. The arc of a flyer leads to ill repute.

Joan D'Arc.

Jets fly.

Joan Jett - Bad Reputation

7. Trump builds Jimi's child to block foreign broadcasts.

Jimi Hendrix sung about a Voodoo Child.

Donald Trump wants to build a wall...

...to keep out Mexican Radio.

Wall of Voodoo - Mexican Radio

6. Tuscan capital gets tough love from The Terminator.

The capital of Tuscany is Florence.

The Terminator was a machine.

Florence & The Machine - Kiss With A Fist

5. ❤ 14.

Love - 7 And 7 Is

4. Glennis Rolf, fell snoring, over a quiet sun.

Glennis Rolf and fell snoring are both anagrams for...

Nils Lofgren - Shine Silently

3. Shake hands with the famous Mr. Cribbins and he'll show you what he digs.

Bernard Cribbins had a hole in the ground.

He was also a celebrity.

Shaking hands is "Give me some skin!"

Hole - Celebrity Skin

2. Not Otis Redding or Oprah Winfrey. Having a fantasy or a nightmare?

Otis and Oprah have both been called "The Big O". As has this chap.

Roy Orbison - In Dreams

1. Peggy Sue needs an inhaler.

Great video.



If You've Got The Love for Saturday Snapshots, then it'll be back again next week...

My Top Ten Lonely Night Songs

Night-time is the loneliest time... especially if you're a songwriter.

This was a really tough one to put in order.


10. The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

When Gibbard's girlfriend moved out, to a whole different district of Washington, this was his response.

You seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex
A stranger with your door key, explaining that I am just visiting
And I am finally seeing
Why I was the one worth leaving

Covered by lots of people, though obviously I prefer Frank Turner's version. 

9. James Taylor - Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight

James Taylor made this sort of thing look really easy.

The Isley Brothers did an excellent cover too.

8. Blake Shelton feat. Ashley Monroe - Lonely Tonight

Glossy and as shamelessly bling as the worst of contemporary r 'n' b, it's hard to explain why I dig the poppiest artist in modern country music as much as I do. This one's an outrageously schmaltzy power ballad that harkens back to the 80s (with 21st Century production values) and, frankly, the video made me choke on my Wotsits. But Blake Shelton can do no wrong in my eyes, because he writes pop songs that are catchy as the plague and TELL ACTUAL STORIES. I have no further defence.

7. Dr. Hook - I Don't Want To Be Alone Tonight

Tells basically the same story as the Blake Shelton number, but without the glitz. You see, you can't really believe Blake Shelton would be the guy in this story. Dennis Locorriere, though? He's a true hard-luck hero.

6. Harry Chapin - There's a Lot of Lonely People Tonight

Every time I think there might be a little justice in the world, I remind myself of Harry Chapin: a supremely talented singer-songwriter from the 70s who should have been as big as Elton John or Billy Joel, but for whatever reason never quite made it. (The same could be same of Harry Nilsson. Maybe there's a curse on Harry's. Maybe Cliff was right to change his name.) There's A Lot Of Lonely People Tonight is from the excellent album Short Stories, and while it's nowhere near the best track on there, it's still beautiful. There's a fragility to Chapin's work you don't find elsewhere. You feel like he's lived these stories, every one of them. 

5. Justin Townes Earle - Am I That Lonely Tonight?

Top Charity Shop Buy of the week, the 2012 album Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now by Steve Earle's son, Justin (his middle name is a tribute to legendary country singer Townes Van Zandt). Excellent acoustic Americana that reminds me very much of Ryan Adams' debut (and best) album, Heartbreaker. The CD cost me 75p, but I'll definitely be buying more of this artist's work in the future. If I ever have any money again.

4. Richard Hawley - Lonely Night

Nobody else does loneliness like Sheffield's answer to Roy Orbison. This is from his first full-length album, released in 2001... though it could just as easily have been released in 1957. 

3. Elvis Presley - Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Originally written in 1927, and recorded many times before The King got his hands on it, Are You Lonesome Tonight? was a huge hit in 1960... but is arguably remembered more for the live version recorded in Vegas in '68 where Elvis cracks up laughing and can't make it through the song.

2. John Cougar Mellencamp - Lonely Ol' Night

A single from probably my favourite Mellencamp album, 1985's Scarecrow, this was apparently inspired by the Paul Newman film Hud. Apparently, the wife of one of JM's pals told him not to feature "pretty girls" in the video as it wouldn't be realistic to suggest they had lonely nights. Mellencamp responded by offering her a role. She accepted, and played his girlfriend.

She calls me baby
She calls everybody baby
It's a lonely ol' night
But ain't they all?

Now. Is it a better song than Elvis's masterpiece? Definitely not. But it means a little bit more to me - and that's what this blog is all about.

1. Paul McCartney - No More Lonely Nights

Well, here's a first. As previously mentioned, I have a kind of love/hate relationship with Sir Paulius Thumbs-Aloft, and though I respect all he's given us... sometimes, he doesn't half get on my wick. No More Lonely Nights - a majestically schmaltzy slice of 80s balladeering that Collins would have given his right drumstick for - really ought to be awful. You may well argue that it is. And yet, I have a huge fondness for it, from the shiver-inducing a cappella intro to the Dave friggin' Gilmour guitar solo at the end. Plus, if you read between the lines, it's as good a stalker anthem as Every Breath You Take...

And I won't go away until you tell me so
No, I'll never go away...

The video, which begins with a long sequence in which Macca plays some kind of lonely but jolly Clive Dunn character working the nightshift as a projectionist in a low rent cinema... before jumping into a Victorian dream sequence in which Ringo goes over a waterfall in a rowing boat (and then things get really weird)... almost made me bump it down to #2. (Although it's not as bad as the video to One Lonely Night by REO Speedwagon, which was SO bad it got them disqualified from this whole Top Ten.)




Hopefully, those ten songs made you feel a little less lonely tonight...