Sadly, I couldn't find any songs with a titular mention of the Rozzer, but they did once arrest Sir Thumbs Aloft for wearing a pink balloon about his foot...
Thank you, Vincent. This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
It's Halloween this week, and when I started looking for songs that share their names with horror movies, I hit a bumper bundle. But did you guess them all?
In case you're wondering, Outwood is just down the road from where I work in Leeds. Fortunately, I've never spotted u-two while driving through there...
A tough one this, and probably not one you could guess from the clue alone... but once you worked out the theme... maybe?
Anyway, the photo above is Bernie Nee, the singer on the track below. The rest of the Blobs were session musicians, so no photo exists of the "band" itself...
It's not often you see Damon Gough without his hat on...
Badly Drawn Boy - The Shining
Not Number One because it's my favourite song... but it is my favourite horror film.
Such a bounty of horror-film-related songs did I find, that there will be more to share later in the week... and a much less scary Snapshots will be back next Saturday.
Boris is gone. Only not really. He needs to stick around long enough to sign his chat show deal.
Meantime, a bunch of rich, lying scumbags are fighting over who gets the pleasure of screwing up Britain even more. Apparently there's only two of them left now.
I vote Judge Death.
Alternatively, I might go with Sam Fender's suggestion...
All the silver tongued suits and cartoons that rule my world
Are saying it is a high time for hypersonic missiles
When the bombs drop, darlin', can you say that you've lived your life?
Oh, this is a high time for hypersonic missiles
They all do the same, only their names change honey
You can join their club if you're born in to money
I've written previously of my conversion into the church of Sam Fender, from how I was initially suspicious of the hype and Springsteen comparisons but won over by the authenticity of his voice - both singing voice and writing voice.
Beyond that, there's not much more to say, except that after living with this album (and its excellent predecessor, Hypersonic Missiles) for a couple of months now, I'm convinced that Fender is the most authentic and exciting new voice in British guitar rock since Frank Turner.
He even managed to get Stephen Graham to play his dad in the video below... 'nuff said.
And on the penultimate day, the satchel did break.
We've been through a lot together, that old bag and me. I've had it since I started teaching, and before I even walked into The Bad Place. Tucked away in one of the pockets I found two train tickets from December 2011, when I'd written my car of in an accident and had to make the journey to work on the most antiquated train line in the country. (Never travel from Huddersfield to Barnsley by rail.)
10 years isn't bad for a faux-leather hold-all bought down the market. All the crap I've carried home in it over the years (including the laptop I had to teach on during lockdown), it's more than served its purpose. I'm sorry to say goodbye, but its death seems symbolic of my new beginning.
My old mate Steve messaged me a couple of weeks back to ask if I'd heard any Sam Fender. I was initially dismissive as I'd seen the headline about his latest album going to Number One and outselling the rest of the Top Ten in its first week... and all I could think of was Ed Sheeran. There is a cult of white male singer songwriters that dominate their own corner of popular music in recent years through sheer blandness. Sheeran, Chris Martin, James Blake, Tom Walker... cosy, safe colossi with nothing to say for themselves lyrically beyond surface good times and heartache.
"Guess who they're comparing him to?" said Steve.
"Fender’s primary influence," says Alex Pertridish in The Grauniad, "is still Bruce Springsteen, mostly in soaring-anthems-decorated-with-saxophone mode, although the reflective piano ballad Boss of Racing in the Street or Stolen Car lurks behind closer The Dying Light."
But that's another thing that winds me up. Anyone that writes half decent lyrics these days gets compared to The Boss. Even Lady Gaga. It's a lazy journalistic comparison right up there with the critics who lumped Bruce in with the "new Dylan" crowd back in the early 70s.
All that said, this new Sam Fender record bears further listening. The title track is an instant classic, mixing brutal, autobiographical imagery with a soaring "woa-oa-oah!" chorus.
See I spent my teens enraged
Spiralling in silence
And I armed myself with a grin
'Cause I was always the fuckin' joker
Buried in their humour
Amongst the white noise and boys' boys
Locker-room talkin' lads' lads
Drenched in cheap drink and snide fags
A mirrored picture of my old man
Oh God, the kid's a dab hand
Canny chanter, but he looks sad
North Shields is a long way from New Jersey, and there's as much Weller or Terry Hall or even Geldof in those lines as there is Bruce. But still, it's encouraging to see songwriting such as this at the top of the charts. Gives me hope for the next generation...
_theatrical_poster_(retouched).jpg)
.jpeg)
_UK_poster.jpg)
_theatrical_poster.jpg)
_U.K._release_poster_-_The_tide_of_terror_that_swept_America_IS_HERE.jpg)
