Today is, I'm presuming in the US, but maybe elsewhere too, "National Repeat Day".
I'll let them explain...
Ever had an experience that was so amazing, it’s worth doing twice? Or said something so brilliant that it simply bears repeating? Well, that’s exactly what this day is all about.
What?!?
National Repeat Day invites people to lean into the oddly satisfying side of doing something again on purpose. It can be as simple as replaying a favourite song or as ambitious as recreating an entire “best day ever” itinerary.
Was this written by AI? What exactly is "oddly satisfying" about doing something you like again? Why do I need a special day to play my favourite song again?
(Other, more recent, covers were considered and rejected, for obvious reasons.)
Inspired by John Medd's recent post about Playboy (which is "burlesque", in case you're casting aspersions John's way), I figured I would reach up to the top shelf for this week's Product Placement.
I would like to start by saying that I have never in my life bought a copy of Razzle, so my knowledge of said publication comes only from school-boy sniggering. We did once find a battered copy of something that might have been Razzle, stuffed inside a tree trunk in the local woods, but it was missing its cover so I can't be 100% sure. In this era of wall-to-wall internet porn, I even find myself nostalgic for scraps of yellowed, rain-damaged nudie books; they were like Blackbeard's treasure to 80's school kids.
When I worked in radio advertising, there was a small newsagent's kiosk outside the building where staff would go to buy snacks. The guy who ran it was called Keith, and his top shelf magazines came in tasteful wrappers. One day, some of my colleagues got into one of those "Do you remember Spangles?" conversations that disrupt productivity in workplaces all across the country. The office wag began waxing lyrical about Razzles. "I used to love a good Razzle myself," making out that it was a chocolate bar from his youth. He then convinced the office junior to go ask Keith if he still sold Razzles. The office junior duly obliged, only to come back a few moments later with a confused look on their face... "Keith says you're winding me up?"
You may have laughed at that story. I laughed at the time. Would you think differently if I told you the office junior in question was a young woman? I've felt guilty about playing along with that joke over the years, wondering if I crossed the line into toxic masculinity for a moment. This was 20 years ago, and the young woman in question remained blissfully ignorant... although I guess she might have found out later. I still feel bad about it.
Well, that brought the mood down, didn't it? Let's cheer ourselves up with some songs about Razzle... not including any of the following...
No, none of those have anything to do with the infamous top shelf magazine.
This sounds like it might do...
Today it is my birthday so me and my friends Took ourselves a trip to an old drive-in Played some 80s hits on an old cassette Bought a couple Razzles and some Raisinets
But since Summer Salt are from Austin, Texas, I think it's unlikely.
Martin has remarked repeatedly about this feature that he loves it when he knows for sure what song is coming at the end just from the blog post title. Some of you may think you've got today's final tune figured, and if so, I'm guessing it's this one...
No bout adoubt it, the b-side to Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll is a very amusing tune. But it wasn't actually the inspiration for today's post... and neither was John Medd!
No, the song that sent me down this particularly sordid rabbit hole comes instead from an artist I only discovered last year (thanks to Khayem). This is from her latest album, one I've been enjoying a lot over the past couple of months, and the lyric in question sums up her style particularly well. It's what I'd call "faded debauchery"... Jarvis would approve, I'm sure.
You're cruising the cosmos, and I'm lying in bed You're writing a novel, and I'm surfing the web But I'm biding my time, you ain't seen nothing yet I was a copy of Razzle, now I'm the Book of the Dead
I've always thought that was the best thing Sting did as a solo artist. It's a cover version, originally featured in the soundtrack to the movie Brimstone & Treacle, and for many years was very difficult to track down as it never appeared on any Greatest Hits collections (despite being a #16 hit in 1982, long before The Police split). The version I had came from an 8 track cartridge at the radio station where I used to work, recorded onto a CD-R. The lengths we used to have to go to to find music!
5. Nazi brothels like Russ Abbott.
Joy Division were named after a nazi brothel in the novel House of Dolls.
Dreadful 80s comedian Russ Abbott had a hit with a song called Atmosphere. It wasn't this song... but (thanks to Jez, who I think initially made me aware of it) the two were scarily amalgamated in the video below...
Once seen, never forgotten. Here's the original, without the frightening visuals...
Before you start Goblin up your Sunday dinner, there's the small matter of the answers to Saturday Snapshots to contend with. Here's a Lighthouse to shine on the... erm... darkness of your... erm...
Sorry, just not feeling the puns today. Great picture of Mr. WD though.
I had one of those moments yesterday. One of the moments when you realise something about your life.
Yesterday, when I was young
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame
The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
I always built to last on weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of the day
And only now I see how the years ran away
I have been a part of the working world now for 30 years. I started my first job (as detailed here in my early Radio Song posts) when I was 16. I've been working for 30 years, and I've probably got another 20 to go.
Yesterday, when I was young
So many happy songs were waiting to be sung
So many wild pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall
Concerned itself with me and nothing else at all
This all coincided with hearing a song on the radio that I hadn't heard in years. The song has been recorded by many people, and has kept cropping up in my record collection over the years. Here are just a few of the versions out there...
It was, of course, originally written by Charles Aznavour, under the French title Hier Encore (Yesterday Again). The lyrics were translated into English by Herbert Kretzmer (the man who wrote the lyrics to Les Miserables) and the song was re-recorded by Aznavour... who also apparently recorded versions in Italian, Danish, Spanish, Japanese and Finnish. Or so says iffypedia, and who am I to doubt? The reason I heard it played on the radio was obviously as a tribute to the man Terry Wogan always used to affectionately call "Charles Az-no-voice", but hearing it again yesterday, I might as well have been hearing it for the first time.
Yesterday the moon was blue
And every crazy day brought something new to do
I used my magic age as if it were a wand
And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died
The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play
30 years in the world of work, another 20 to go. The thing is, I'm terrified of the prospect of another 20 years as a teacher. I've only been in the job seven or eight years, but it gets harder and more pressured every year. I'm aware that in another 20 years I'll look back and wish I was 46 again rather than 66... just as I wish I was 26 again, knowing what I know now. And 46 may well actually be the best years of my life, because I'm getting to watch Sam grow up and nothing else in my life has even come close to that. I'm trying to cling onto that, to appreciate every moment of it, because I know how fast it will go and the loneliness that will follow... I just wish everything else was easier so I could appreciate it more.
There are so many songs in me that won't be sung
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue
The time has come for me to pay for
Yesterday, when I was young
Still, we'll always have Charles. RIP, sir. Thanks for the song...
Neil Hannon updates Noel Coward for the Miss Whiplash era.
So chain me, restrain me and teach me to kneel Bind me and grind me beneath your high heels Crack goes the whip and if someone should tell Bang goes the knighthood, as well
Written by the late Mr. Bono (Sonny, not the other one... he's not late... and I don't want him ever to die because I don't think I'd be able to stomach the fawning obits) and originally a hit for his ex-missus. But Nancy's version edges that one out, for me... it's just that little bit more tragic.
I'll admit it: my love of Art Brut is disproportionate to all the other, more famous artists in the history of pop music. Perhaps because I have a sneaking suspicion that if I'd ever had the guts to form a band, they've have sounded a lot like Eddie Argos and his motley crew. (They'd certainly have sounded more like Art Brut than they would Mötley Crüe.)
I don't want a girl that's with the band I just want a girl that's gonna hold my hand No more songs about sex and drugs and Rock and Roll It's boring!
That said, I don't share Eddie's apparent disregard for The Velvet Underground.
We Are Scientists do an amazing cover of this track too... so good, it sounds like an actual rock song!
According to Iffypedia, this was REM's most successful single since Shiny Happy People and they've not had a more successful record since. I find that a little hard to believe considering that makes it "more successful" than Man On The Moon, Drive, The Great Beyond, What's The Frequency, Kenneth? and Everybody Hurts (among others). Perhaps it was a much bigger hit in the rest of the world than it was in the UK? Anyway, it's a good song... but not as good as the ones mentioned above.
1. The Stone Roses - She Bangs The Drums
From the opening hi-hat tickles to the euphoric chorus, this could well be the Roses' finest moment: it describes the way we feel. (If only we felt that way more often!) And while many might balk at the idea of kissing Ian Brown where the sun don't shine, you can't fault his choice of breakfast: passionfruit and holy bread. Yum.
Apparently there's a new James Bond film out this week. I know, I wish they'd spend a little more money promoting it too, it can be very easy for low-budget films like this to slip through the cracks and not find their audience at the multiplex. Still, if you can't find a cinema in your local area that's taking a punt on it, here's a reminder of some of 007's greatest hits. I actually quite like Adele's new theme song... but not as much as these...
I never rated Timothy Dalton, he's probably my least favourite Bond (Lazenby might clinch it... were On Her Majesty's Secret Service not such a great film despite him). That whole "new man" thing was such an 80s blunder for a character like Bond. This was by far the best thing about The Living Daylights.
Possibly the first Bond film I ever saw, so Roger Moore and his eyebrows were officially MY Bond... as a kid, at least. I like Macca's original, but I do prefer Axl's sneering cover. It's just so nasty.
Whenever I'm stuck behind a car driving at 20 miles an hour, I call the driver a 'Louis'. Well, it's better than some of the words I might choose.
As mentioned previously, though I don't particularly rate Lazenby, OHMSS has possibly the best Bond plot ever. That final scene is just a killer. And this - John Barry and Hal David... well, nobody does it better.
Not the Moby version, the David Arnold version or the one where some idiot decided it might be a good idea to let random tone-deaf Irish egomaniacs with a God Complex have a go. The original... and still the best.
Those were my best Bonds... but which is your Nobody Does It Better?
