Snapshots #451: Hospital Songs

Nobody wants to spend their Sunday morning in hospital, so let's get you through this procedure as quickly and painlessly as possible - stat!

15. Batman.

Well, he has been known to chew on them.

Ozzy Osborne - Patient No. 9

14. And the nonchemical reef will leave you perplexed.

"And the nonchemical reef" was an anagram for Florence (Welch) And The Machine (aka Isabella Summers).

Florence & The Machine - Hospital Beds

13. Film director with a singular vision meets a bloke known for his twitchy eyeballs.

An Auteur and a bloke from R.E.M.

Luke Haines & Peter Buck - Rock 'n' Roll Ambulance

12. Turned out nice again.

Sunny - Doctor's Orders

11. Continental cops.

Interpol - Specialist

10. Plonker finds murder in bloody place.

Rodney was a plonker with a crow* in 'ell. (*From a murder of crows.)

Rodney Crowell - Triage

9. You think that you're strong, Rocky Balboa? You're wrong.

Lyrics from a Robbie Williams song, with added Sly Stallone.

Sly & Robbie - Night Nurse

8. The French had a good winter.

"Bon hiver" means good winter in French.

Bon Iver - Blood Bank

7. Opaline or Spangle?

Two types of budgerigar.

Budgie - Crash Course in Brain Surgery

6. Superman's pal goes to work for Charlie.

Superman's Pal is Jimmy Olsen. Charlie employed Angels.

Angel Olsen - Sister

...or you could have...

Angel Olsen - Intern

5. He's not been the same since Dolby died.

"Dolby died" was an anagram.

Bo Diddley - Pills

Call for the Rock 'n' Roll nurse!

4. This klew cud realy youse these guyz.

Editors - Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors

3. Clive Powell doesn't have quite the same ring.

Clive Powell is the real name of...

Georgie Fame - St. James Infirmary

2. Orton.

    Houghton.

Beth Orton.

Beth Jean Houghton.

Ditto!

Beth Ditto - Open Heart Surgery

1. Hard rock Scott, found in banjo-violin combo.

Bon Scott + banjo-violin.

Bon Jovi - Bad Medicine

Hopefully you'll all make a full recovery and be discharged in time for next week's Snapshots.

Sequel Songs #5: Walking The Line

A nice easy one this week...

In 1956, Johnny Cash released a single that Rolling Stone would eventually vote the greatest country song of all time...

It was a song about staying true to your wife, and not falling prey to the temptations of other women, particularly when you're on the road. When he wrote it, Johnny was still with his first wife, Vivian Liberto. Clearly, he didn't walk the line for very long... not with Vivian, anyway. With his second wife, June Carter, though, Johnny found it very, very easy to be true.

I find it very, very easy to be true

I find myself alone when each day is through

Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you

Because you're mine, I walk the line

In 1998, Rodney Crowell released a sequel called I Walk The Line (Revisited). It features a new tune and fresh lyrics, written by Crowell, before switching to Johnny singing the original track, and back again. At this point, Crowell was the former son-in-law of Cash, having been married to Johnny and Vivian's daughter, Roseanne, between 1979 and 1992. Talk about complex family dynamics...

All these long years later, it's still music to my ears

I swear it sounds as good right now as anything I hear

I've seen the Mona Lisa, I've heard Shakespeare read real fine

Just like hearing Johnny Cash sing 'I walk the line'

In 2007, the former Vivian Cash released a memoir about her short-lived marriage entitled I Walked The Line. 

Coffee Break #3: Dead Pheasant

Sinéad O'Connor - Black Coffee

I drink my coffee black, because that's how I prefer it. Despite my previously discussed aversion to cold milk, I can have milk in coffee... I just don't like it. Also, less calories, so it's win/win for me. I also don't have sugar, because... why would you? 

Matthew Jay - Sweet Black Coffee

Apparently there are two calories in double shot Americano and one if you only have a single shot. But why would you only have a single shot?

Redhouse Gasoline - Strong Black Coffee

If you really must increase your calorie intake, you could try it with some toast. But I wouldn't recommend stopping at Mike Pedicin's cafe...

Mike Pedicin - Burnt Toast And Black Coffee

You'd be much better off at Tim Booth's house...

James - Coffee & Toast

Just watch he doesn't try to sneak some milk in. 

All Saints - Black Coffee

The song at the top of this post, by Sinéad, was written by Sonny Burke and Paul Francis Webster back in the late 1940s. This is the original version...

Sarah Vaughan - Black Coffee

...but it's also been recorded by all the usual suspects: Frank, Ella, Petula... Tricky. 

Back when I drank tea, I used to take it black with no sugar as well. I couldn't find any songs about Black Tea, so here's some Pennyroyal Tea for you tea drinkers. 

Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld

So I can sigh eternally

I'm so tired I can't sleep

I'm a liar and a thief

Sit and drink Pennyroyal Tea

I'm anaemic royalty

(Be warned though, although Pennyroyal leaf extracts are relatively harmless, Pennyroyal Oil can cause syncope, seizures, coma, cardiopulmonary collapse, acute liver injury, renal insufficiency and multiorgan failure. You might be better sticking with a nice cup of coffee.)

The big question is... why did I call this post “Dead Pheasant”? Not because the pheasant had been eating from the Pennyroyal plant, I assure you.

Tommy Tsunami - Are You an Angry Pheasant?

No, this comes from an amusing story my mum told me at the weekend, about the time my dad hit a pheasant with his car on his way home from work. If you drive the country lanes round here, kamikaze pheasants are a constant risk. They really are the stupidest of birds, and appear to have a pathological desire to run out in front of oncoming traffic. Watch them run and you can also see how they’re clearly descended from dinosaurs. Although thankfully, they do less damage to your car than hitting a velociraptor. 

Josh Rouse - Pheasant Feather

Anyway, my dad hit the pheasant, and being a Yorkshire farmer, he brought it home for tea. Waste not, want not. “I lit some candles,” Mum told me, “and we had a nice romantic meal.”

Bill Maynard - Pheasant Plucker's Son

I hope they washed it down with a nice cup of coffee. Black, of course. 

I like it black, just black as night

It keeps me up, it keeps me tight

It don't matter the size of the cup

Just as long as you fill it up

With black caffeine

Keeps me lean

You can hear me scream

Give me black caffeine

Celebrity Jukebox #12: Sissy Spacek

To me, and most 80s kids, Mary Elizabeth Spacek will forever be Carrie, the awkward teenage girl who gets a bucket of pigs’ blood dumped on her at the school prom… before carrying out an even bloodier revenge on those responsible.

You may be unsurprised to learn that this famous scene gets referenced in any number of rap, metal and punk songs. I’m not going to listen to all of them, and I won’t make you do either, but this is the most obvious…

Mister Monster – Prom Night

Carrie, Carrie
You're my one true love
You look so good in pigs blood
Carrie, Carrie
Would you wear my ring?
Don't make me dig up what would've been
Carrie, Carrie
You're my one true love
We'd look so good in their blood
Carrie, Carrie
Would you be my date?

I don’t think Cliff’s song was about the same Carrie, but you never know with Cliff…

Sissy Spacek first came to fame a few years prior to Carrie, when she starred opposite Martin Sheen in Terrence Malik’s Badlands, the critically acclaimed story of a young Midwest couple who go on a killing spree across America. The movie was inspired by the true story of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, and Sissy is utterly convincing as Sheen’s 15 year old accomplice, even though she was 24 at the time. Badlands, of course, proved highly influential on a certain Mr. Springsteen, both here…

Bruce Springsteen – Badlands

And here…

Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska

I saw her standin' on her front lawn
Just a-twirlin' her baton
Me and her went for a ride, sir
And ten innocent people died

That opening image comes straight from the movie, so it’s Sissy Bruce is picturing as he sings it.

Before becoming an actress, Sissy tried her hand at a musical career, recording this 1968 single in response to John & Yoko getting their kit off on the Two Virgins album cover…

Rainbo – John, You Went Too Far This Time

Although pop stardom was not to be, this clearly proved useful when Sissy appeared as Loretta Lynn in the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter, a role that won her an Oscar. She pulled off a pretty good Loretta impression on the soundtrack too…

Sissy Spacek – Coal Miner’s Daughter

A few years later, Sissy finally got to realise her pop star ambitions with a solo album that made the Top Twenty on the US Country Music charts.

Sissy Spacek - This Time I'm Gonna Beat You To The Truck

None of this really helps us find a song that mentions Sissy herself though. I did wonder if early noughties electronica band Spacek might have taken their name from her, but it turns out no, they took their name from band members Steve, Ed and Morgan Spacek. So now you know more than one famous Spacek!

Just as I was about to give up, Rodney Crowell came to the rescue with this track from his 2008 album Sex & Gasoline…

I love my friends, I love my wife
Four little babies are the light of my life
I love Sissy Spacek, I love Guy Clark
All the biscuits and gravy I can eat with a fork

My Top Twenty-One of 2021: #17

17. Rodney Crowell: Triage

What can save us from the horrors of the last couple of years? And by that, I don't just mean the pandemic, but also the politicians? Rodney Crowell has the answer, and we should all hope that if we end up in triage, he's the doctor assigned. Because his answer is a very simple one, but still the only thing we need to see us through: love.

Rodney explains his definition of love in great detail on the title track, and goes even further when he says I'm All About Love, 

I love Vladimir Putin and Benedict Arnold

And I'm happy to say I even love Donald, 

I love Greta Thunberg & Jessica Biel

Same goes for the devil if I thought it was real

This is a record about finding beauty and positivity everywhere, because it's possible everywhere. as seen in this famous image...

A sunflower growing on a narrow raft in a fog bank on the Thames

Adrift above the tide slime, where nothing holy swims

Wherever did it come from? Likely bird shit, someone said

Just a random freak of nature that refuses to play dead

Oh to be that stand up straight past seven feet or more

Aye, she ain't no faux silk pansy boys, what washed up on the shore

So let us stop and marvel for as long as we can spare

Seems you have no need for heaven when your hearts already there

Elsewhere on the record, you'll find thoughtful meditations on growing old (This Body Isn't All There is to Who I Am) and the best Don't Leave Me song you'll hear this year. But there's anger here too, because for all his talk of love, Rodney is also well aware that Something Has To Change.

Beginning his career in 1972, Rodney Crowell has been making music as long as I've been on this earth. I've dipped into his catalogue briefly in the past, but this record definitely encouraged me to investigate it in more depth.

Positive Songs For Negative Times #56: Triage

I'm back to work this week and after only two days, my energy and motivation levels have returned to less than zero. Still, the countdown to my escape has begun. Only 9 1/2 weeks to go. Sadly, I won't have Kim Basinger to help me through those...

I will have Rodney Crowell though, whose new album Triage is a very interesting concoction. I'd recommend this one, for all those of you feeling a little creaky this morning...

If I'd known what I know a long time ago

I might have made of my life something more

But then who's to say there was some other way

To open and close every door

Or this, a haunting spoken word piece with some very striking imagery...

Or this, on the state of the world today. (And I like how his backing band are all still wearing their masks.)

Am I ready for times such as these? 

Emphatically, no

Though I did see it coming, a long time ago

Hot 100 #35

Welcoming us to the number 35 on our countdown is Italian "cinematic funk band" Milano 35. Here they are in action. 

35 proved a tricky number for those of you who are playing along at home, with only 4 of our regular correspondents having anything to offer. Here's a selection of those...

Martin started us out with a lyrical reference which sent him down a scary internet rabbithole of old The Word performances.

Inspiral Carpets - Saturn 5

Laying down the lifeless corpse of President 35

The lady crying by his side is the most beautiful woman alive

I should have included that in My Top Ten JFK Songs.

Lynchie also had a lyrical offering...

Christy Moore - Blackjack County Chains

I was sittin' beside the road in Black Jack County.
Not knowing that the Sheriff paid a bounty,
For men like me that hadn't got a penny to their name.
So he locked my leg to 35 pounds of Black Jack County Chains.

Whereas our Canadian correspondent, Douglas, chose to play it safe this week with suggestions from two of my all-time favourite artists. Surely one of these must be the winner?

Bruce Springsteen - My Hometown

Last night me and Kate we laid in bed
Talking about getting out
Packing up our bags maybe heading south
I'm 35, we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel and said, 

"Son take a good look around...
This is your hometown."

Billy Bragg - Speedway Hero

So fill her up and pick her up
And ride into the breeze,
You're taking all the corners
That were at the 35 degrees.
It's so hard to face up to
It's not in no highway code,
Another speedway hero's coming home.

That one even feels like Billy channeling Bruce, so extra points right there.

However, I decided to go another way this week, and I'll explain why in a moment. First though, the usual trawl through suggestions kicked up by my own hard-drive...

Saint Etienne - 4:35 In The Morning

Spacemen 3 - 2:35

Rodney Crowell - I Want You #35

Carla Bruni - Ballade At Thirty-Five

Onto this week's winner then, as suggested by The Swede (good to have you back) and seconded by Lynchie. Regular readers will know that The Swede suggests a Bob Dylan track most weeks on this feature, and most weeks his suggestions fall on deaf ears. This week he hit on an obvious classic though. Blonde on Blonde, the album this comes from, was the first Dylan album I ever bought, and for a good few years it was the only one I owned. I listened to it a fair bit while trying to get into his Bobness at a young age, and while it didn't quite persuade me to obsessively hunt down the rest of his back catalogue, I fostered a strange affection for it. If I was forced at gunpoint to name a favourite Dylan album, this would be my go-to. Everybody must get stoned.

That said, don't expect it to show up again at number 12. I can easily think of a dozen songs that would come before it.



34 next week. Another tough one. Your help greatly appreciated.