Cover Me Monday #3: Hold On

Hard as it may be to believe, I know that there are some people reading this who just can't get on board the Tom Waits rollercoaster. It's the voice, I know. All those years gargling with whiskey and razor-blades takes its toll. That voice is Marmite - you either love it or hate it. (I have a Billy Bragg sticker on the noticeboard in front of me in which Billy compares himself to Marmite. But Billy is Blueberry Jam compared to Tom Waits.)

Curiously, I'm rather ambivalent about Marmite myself. I don't really care for it on toast, but I do like Marmite flavoured cashew nuts - very more-ish.

Anyway, whether you like Tom's voice or not (I do), you must surely agree that he's written some fine songs. Many of them are collected on this new covers album, Women Sing Waits, and I think it's fair to say that all of the ladies present have more mellifluous voices than old Tom... although that doesn't mean their covers are better than the originals. Strange world isn't it? Still, with Phoebe Bridgers, Roseanne Cash, Iris DeMent, Corinne Bailey-Rae and Courtney Marie Andrews among the sirens gathered to pay tribute to Tom, you're guaranteed some quality renditions, whatever your views on Marmite.

Special mention to Allison Moorer & Shelby Lynne's cover of Ol' 55, a song English teachers everywhere admire because it's where Tom invents the adverb "lickety-splitly": undeniable genius.

The highlight of this collection for me though is the Aimee Mann cover of Hold On. Here's Tom with the original...



Tom turned 70 last week, by the way. You may find that hard to believe as he's sounded 90 for most of his life...

They hung a sign up in our town

"If you live it up, you won't live it down"

Well, go ahead and call the cops

You don't meet nice girls in coffee shops

And now, here's Aimee...

Saturday Snapshots #14 - The Answers

Almost a clean sweep for Brian and Mrs. Brian this week... staying up late on a Friday night to get first dibs.


10. Looks like she will be Jeff, but that could be an untruth.

Jeff would be Jeff Lynne, so... She'll Be Lynne.

Shelby Lynne - Your Lies

Well done to Lynchie, picking up Brian & Mrs. Brian's scraps.


9. Pulp frillies as the Transit Authority get booed off stage.

My favourite clue this week.

Pulp is paper. Lace is frilly.

The Chicago Transit Authority was the original name for the band Chicago. If they got booed off stage, they would have "died", so...

Paper Lace - The Night Chicago Died

Great live version.

Top Ten bands with (lead) singing drummers, anyone?


8. Open people's minds (with poppies), at the angelic skatepark.

OPM stands for "open people's minds", apparently... or "other people's money". It has nothing at all to do with opium.

A half-pipe, as you will all know, is that curved thing skateboarders and bmx-kids do stunts on. It has nothing at all to do with drugs, despite what I thought when this record originally came out.

OPM - Heaven Is A Half Pipe (If I Die)

(Kudos to Mrs. Brian for remembering the parenthesis.)


7. DJ dies on tape: Horny!

Too easy. (The Buggles was prety much Trevor Horn... like you didn't know that.)

The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star

I would listen to anyone who wanted to argue that this is one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded.


6. Greedy simian sings a song for a King... a Freeman... or one of you.

A greedy simian would be a monkey that swallowed the universe.

Martin Luther King. Martin Freeman. Martin.

Monkey Swallows The Universe - Martin

True to his name, Martin turned up just in time to nab this one.


5. Russian dreamer who hears people swearing at a river.

Apparently, Nina means 'dreamer' in Russian.

Simone, the female version of Simon, means "one who hears" in Hebrew.

You obviously need to work on your etymology of names if you're going to play this game for real.

Swearing at a river is a bit more obvious.

Well done to Lynchie & Alyson.

Nina Simone - Mississippi Goddam


4. Golfing saint gets wicked at a tough soiree.

St. Andrews is where the golf takes place.

Wicked is abbreviated to WK in the alcoholic beverage.

A tough soiree would be a hard party.

Andrew WK - Party Hard

This is POWER pop taken to its ridiculous extreme.

Sam likes this song because it features in the movie The Secret Life Of Pets (or Pets At Home as we call it), one of the better kids films I've seen in recent years.


3. Drunks in the smelly shop say bye.

Drunks are lushes.

Lush is also a shop that sells smelly things. (Do they have that shop in America, Brian?)

Lush (featuring Jarvis Cocker) - Ciao!

Best Jarvis duet ever.


2. J.R. piles on the pounds but can still move fast.

Larry Hagman was J.R. Ewing.

If he piled on the pounds, he would be Fat Larry.

If he went fast, he would zoom.

The Swede made a welcome return to deny owning this record. (A signed copy? By the whole band? Really?)

Fat Larry's Band - Zoom

Although "Fat" Larry James was a singing drummer, sadly he doesn't sing lead vocal on this track.


1. A solid yet piercing noise. I always did like him in M*A*S*H*.

Solid gold.

Earrings are piercings (and go through your ears: which register noise: d'uh).

This is Gary Bergoff: Radar in M*A*S*H*...

This is one of Holland's greatest hits...


Thanks for playing. Get up earlier next week, George.

November #6 - The Ex Mrs. Steve Earle

6. Allison Moorer - Tear Me Apart

Another grower from the charity shop pile, the 2015 album Down To Believing from Shelby Lynne's younger sister and the current (edited following Charity Chic's comment below... I trust him to keep reading the Americana version of Heat to keep me up to date on such things) latest ex-Mrs. Steve Earle, Alison Moorer.  Not much more to say about this one: I like it enough to play it here.

My Top Ten Telephone Call Songs

You may have spotted a recurring theme over the last few weeks... There were far too many telephone songs for one Top Ten, so I've tried to group them into some more specific categories. (I know, I spend far too much of my life thinking about this, don't I?)

Anyway, here's ten songs that feature actual telephone conversations... mostly.


10. Meri Wilson - Telephone Man

By popular demand... honest.

Look, she's gossiping on the phone in the video. It fits here as well as it would in any of my other phone-based Top Tens. Let's just get it out of the way, shall we?

9. Shelby Lynne - Telephone

I never really thought you would answer.
Now it's a big blown up thing.
I wish you hadn't been at home when the telephone rang.
When the telephone rang.

8. The Wedding Present - It's For You

David Gedge gets well pissed off when his girlfriend's ex keeps calling up...

No, it’s for you but then you didn’t need me to say that
‘Cos you already knew, how many times is it today that
He’s had to call? 
It’s as if you’re still together
I don’t care at all, 
I’m just wondering whether
You think you and he will ever run out
Of things that you have to talk about?

7. Jonathan Richman -  I'm Straight

Jonathan has seen the object of his affections hanging round with that loser Hippy Johnny... so he calls her up and offers to take his place. Hippy Johnny's always stoned... but Jonathan's straight. Honest.

6.  The Dead Kennedys - Kinky Sex Makes the World Go Round

In which the US Secretary of War calls up the British PM and outlines his plans for a nice war. This was released in the mid-80s... a decade or so later, Tony Blair took the very same call for real.

5. REM - Star 69

There's a lesson here - don't call Michael Stipe without leaving a message. He'll know it was you... and call back, mad as a box of frogs.

I know all about the warehouse fire
I know squirrelies didn't chew the wires
Three people have my number
The other two were with me.
I don't like to tell-tell but I'm not your patsy.
This time you have gone too far with me.

If you're in the UK and you want to know who just called you, you may try 1471 by Arab Strap. I can't find a link to that though.

Still, having included both *69 and Arab Strap in the same post, I'm bound to get a few more hits...

4. Billy Joel - Sometimes A Fantasy

Haunted by a schizophrenic badboy version of himself, Billy (or is that Sly Stallone?) calls up his girlfriend in the middle of the night... the symbolism suggests a heavy bout of phone sex... but then again, it might all be in his head.

I used to like this song... having now watched the video for the first time, it scares the hell out of me. 

3. Department S - Is Vic There?

No, he's out, sorry.

Call back later.

2. Lou Reed - New York Telephone Conversation

Lou gets woken up by the phone... and a most inane conversation follows.

1. The Big Bopper - Chantilly Lace

"Hellllloooooo, baby!"

The only thing I really knew about the Big Bopper was that he recorded this excellent rock 'n' roll song (used to great effect in Tarantino's True Romance) and that he died in the same plane crash as Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. The one thing I didn't know about The Big Bopper was that he was a white guy who looked like Peter Parker's old school bully, Flash Thompson. With a voice like that, I always pictured a black Fats Domino type... and I see from youtube that I wasn't alone in that misapprehension.




I have still got a few telephone songs to feature, but they'll have to wait a while. Meantime, which call would you take... and which one would you let go to the ansaphone?