If you can't bear the suspense any longer... here are yesterday's bear-faced answers...
10. This drives one crazy!
"Drives one" is an anagram. The artist in question was also famous for his truck-driver-themed hits. Of which this, his only UK chart entry, is surely his worst. I mean, I like a mawkish talky CB-flavoured country tune as much as anyone, but even I have to draw the line somewhere.
#4 in 1981 though... those of you who were old enough to be buying records in that year, I blame you. I was only 9, so nobody can blame me.
I started the year with some quite easy ones as I'm sure you're all feeling depressed about returning to work / normality after your Christmas excesses. But be warned... there are some stinkers coming up in the next few weeks!
10. Do you remember a Danish boardgame? It's incomprehensible.
In Danish "Hüsker Dü?" (meaning “Do you remember?") is a children's memory board game. Apparently. I will rely on Chris to tell me if this is not the case.
OK, so I know L7 weren't named after a Liverpool postcode... but my cred is already in tatters, I'm not about to open a post with a picture of East 17.
Anyway, songs named after (British) postcodes. A challenge I just couldn't resist. I couldn't think of any named after American postcodes... or zip codes... though I'm happy for you to suggest them. The closest I came was Kitchen by The Lemonheads, because they were "thrilled to be in the same postcode as you".
Here's ten songs that even Postman Pat should be able to deliver to the right address...
"A parody of the Sex Pistols." Which is all very good, but if ever there was a band that were perfectly capable of being a parody of themselves without any help from anyone else, it was the Sex Pistols.
Inner city Manchester... although the person who uploaded the song to youtube filled the video with pictures of the South Bank. You can imagine the comments!
Lets the stars shine on Until the break of dawn Let the stars shine on And let her move, move like a queen Of Longsight M13
I was disappointed to learn that M5 by The Fall is about the motorway, not Salford.
Ray writes a letter to the editor from his home in Muswell Hill, complaining about the state of Britain today... a recurring theme from the infamous Little Englander.
I close my eyes and lay back and I think of England I dream about that green and pleasant land we knew as England That throne of kings, that sceptred isle set in a silver sea Has turned into a laughing stock divided without harmony
I've never been a football fan, but I'm a huge fan of Matt 'Skint & Demoralised' Abbott, and although I've no interest in Leeds United (despite them being a local team to me and the team my dad followed when he was younger) I can hear Abbott's passion in every word of this chant.
I'd love to think this track was an autobiographical account of Shane's arrival in Hampstead...
When I got down to the smoke It was 1963 I got a job doing meals on wheels Round NW3 I was terrorising grannies For ten lousy bob a week I was smashed and blacked And drunk and yawning in NW3
...except that he would have been 6 at the time. Still, this is Shane MacGowan we're talking about, so anything's possible.
I stayed in Hampstead once. Walking down the street, I saw the "comedian" Michael McIntyre talking very loudly into his phone. I'm not a violent man, but I had to be physically restrained from punching him hard in the nose.
1. New Model Army - BD3
The track that inspired this particular Top 10, so I thought it deserved to be Number One. Despite working in Bradford for 20+ years of my life, I never really listened to one of the city's biggest bands while I was there (I was always more of a Terrorvision man) but I stumbled across this pretty recently and couldn't stop listening to it. Further investigation required...
We close early when the nights are slow Hit the Shell garage, Thornton Road Take a long drive up on the moors Park up in a place we know In the back seats getting stoned To forget everything at home Mess about with the bleeping phone Gazing down on the city below Where no one's really sure if this is home
And it's not where you're from or where you've been It's not a matter of blood or of family tree Everybody believes what they want to believe But they come from some kind of refugee Running from something, turned out of somewhere All looking for somewhere, exiled from something And no one's really sure if this is home
Very appropriate lyrics for anyone living in Bradford. Unfortunately, when I google search Pudsey (BD3), all I get is hundred of pictures of the Children In Need bear. The video below is probably more accurate...
Know any other songs named after postcodes? Send your answers on a postcard.
Always start with the obvious one. Bobby Darin is seen as the safe side of rock 'n' roll, and most of his tracks do have all the rough edges filed off. But if you're a fan of the era (as I am), it's still fun to give songs like this a spin every now and then.
Ah, the arrogance of youth, perfectly expressed by Doc Watson, covering an old Merle Travis song from the 40s with his son, also called Merle.
I'm three times seven and I do as I doggone pleaseThere ain't no woman this side of heaven gonna get me on my kneesI'm three times seven, gals, and that makes twenty oneLord, I just won't tame, I'm gonna be the same 'till I'm three times twenty one
Mr. Hudson & The Library were guilty of that aggravating mix of beats and guitars I tired of very soon in the decade they will forever refer to as The Noughties (even though there was very little naughtiness involved). They redeemed themselves through evocative lyrics: 2x2 is a fine example of this. I understand Mr. Hudson himself is still in the go, but sadly the Library closed down. Sign of the times...
Where shoe-gazing meets power-pop. Ride split in the late 90s but reformed recently to ride (punintended) the seemingly bottomless wave of nostalgia tours catering to middle-aged men desperate to recapture their misspent youth for at least one night a week... of which I would surely be a part if I had the time or the money.
Cake's cover of the George Jones / Melba Montgomery country song was renamed to include 'Subtract One Love' in the title, so feasibly I could have included it in last week's chart. I stuck with the original name so we don't confuse our budding musical mathematicians.
Hard to believe Cake have been baking up tracks like this for over 20 years now, and they're still going... though there hasn't been a new album since 2011.
Definitely one to irk the musos due to its sheer ubiquity. I don't listen to Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs, but I'd be disappointed if I turned him on and he wasn't playing this. However, as monumental über-ballads go, this one is in a class of its own and Lionel Ritchie is a legend.
If it's still too soppy for you, you might try the Cobra Starship version... but that only really works if you appreciate the original.
James Broad's Silver Sun were one of my favourite bands of the Britpop era - although they weren't Britpop at all. Pure power-pop mixed with Beach Boys harmonies and James's angelic lead vocals; guitars so chunky they give Yorkies a run for their money. 17 Times is a b-side but it doesn't deviate from the template one jot. Like the Ramones, most Silver Sun songs sound exactly the same... but it's such a great song, who cares?
The 7x ingredients for Coca-Cola were a closely guarded secret, although the formula was allegedly revealed a few years ago.
Only David Gedge could use the Coca-Cola formula as a metaphor for a mysterious lady who won't talk to him anymore...
"It's 7X," and that's all that they'll say about Coke And you're just as circumspect and I didn't mean that as a joke Because I know everybody's got a secret deep inside But you, oh you must be quite unique, the things you hide
Schoolhouse Rock was a series of educational songs that ran in and amongst Saturday morning kids shows on American TV in the 70s. These included a song for each of the times tables up to 12, the most famous of which was Bob Dorough's Three Is A Magic Number. This has been covered by a variety of pop and rock acts over the years, most notably Blind Melon, Jeff Buckley and Embrace. They're all fine versions (I'm particularly fond of the Embrace one), but they all stick very closely to Dorough's original. De La Soul, on the other hand, took the basic track and made it their own.
