Another query to help start conversation, courtesy of Richard Herring's essential book, Emergency Questions...
Do you have a favourite towel? What is your best story about it?
While I'm not sure that I have any stories about towels, I do have very definite opinions about what makes a good towel... and it's not a new, fluffy one.
I'm firmly with Larry David when it comes to towels...
"Towels are better when they're washed over and over again, like a pair of jeans, they dry you a lot better."
Are you with me (and Larry) on the benefits of a nice rough towel? Or do you buy new towels every 6 months because you like them fluffy as heck but don't care whether you're actually dry or not?
Any other towel-related opinions and anecdotes will be gratefully received...
Heavy Jelly is the name of the new album by self-described "Two man boy band from the garden of England" Soft Play.
Soft Play used to be known as Slaves - yes, they were the ones who made this marvellous racket back in 2015...
They changed their name to Soft Play two years ago because, "The name 'Slaves' is an issue [and] doesn't represent who we are as people or what our music stands for any longer.", Also, they did it so that I can do a future edition of Namesakes all about bands called Slaves. So far, there are no other bands I can find called Soft Play.
Here's one of their more recent offerings, which is a little mellower than usual...
The name Heavy Jelly was also used by an early 70s prog-psych band from the UK featuring George Harrison's mate Jackie Lomax (who as also a member of Dee and the Dynamites, The Undertakers, The Lomax Alliance and Badger). Their eponymous debut album was never officially released due to a contract dispute with Apple, but it is available on the interweb...
Heavy Jelly was also the name of a 1968 rock band who were perhaps better known as Skip Bifferty...
And finally, record company moguls Simon Napier-Bell and Ray Singer also released a song under the band name Heavy Jelly back in 1968 which discogs categorises as "prog pop rock funk soul". All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put this one back together again...
Who'd ever have thought there was so much Heavy Jelly out there?
Last weekend, Louise and I had a bit of an argument. It wasn't a particularly important one, just one of the hundreds of squabbles most human beings living under the same roof as other human beings will subject themselves to over the course of the year. I can't even remember what it was about now, but at the time I was livid.
I'm kinda putting off tackling the subject of anger in this series, because it's a huge kettle of anchovies. I'm avoiding it because it looks like it'll be hard work... and those of you who read last week's post will realise that's rather counter-productive of me. Hey, I'm not claiming to be following my own advice all the time - take your "physician, heal thyself" comments and stick them where the sun don't shine.
Anyway, after the argument, I took myself off to stew in the living room. I hate any kind of disagreement, so will take the first opportunity to run away and do whatever I can to avoid it starting up again. This will usually involve not discussing the subject of the argument or anything else for as long as possible, since any form of communication might re-trigger the aggro. Some people might call this sulking. I prefer to term it Crisis Management.
After about a minute though, Louise came to find me. "Here we go again," I thought, at which point Louise said...
"Are you finding those new tuna tins hard to drain? I find they leave a ring and you have to press down and it doesn't get all the water out so you end up with really mushy tuna and..."
I'll spare you the rest, but it was as though our earlier disagreement hadn't even happened and instantly we were back to discussing the trivial annoyances of day to day living. Well, Louise was, anyway. Me... I find it much harder to reset my emotions like that.
In her immensely readable book Unf*ck Your Brain, the delightfully foul-mouthed Dr. Faith G, Harper tells us...
"Our emotions influence our thoughts and behaviours. They are meant to be a physiological signal to the rest of the brain. Once they have done their jobs, they are then meant to dissipate.
Do you know how long an emotion is actually meant to last?
90 seconds.
Seriously, just one and a half minutes for an emotion to run its course.
But you are calling "bullshit" right now, I know. Because if that were really the case, why do our emotions last hours, days, or years? 90 seconds? Not so much.
Emotions last longer than 90 seconds because we continue to fuel them with our thoughts. We do this by telling ourselves the same stories about the triggering situation over and over. This is when they stop being emotions and start becoming moods."
So how do we stop our 90 second emotions becoming full-on hissy fits, extended bouts of pout, or lock-yourself-in-the-toilet meltdowns?
The answer, according to the experts, presumably people who never experience more than 90 seconds of negative emotions at any one time, is to take control of our own feelings and become emotionally self-aware.
This all seems like a shed-load of work to me, but here's a few tips from Psychology Today about how to stop 90 seconds of upset ruining your entire day...
“Look at the second hand on a watch. As soon as you look at it, you’re now observing yourself having this physiological response instead of engaging with it. It will take less than 90 seconds, and you will feel better. Of course, you can always go back to thinking those thoughts that re-stimulate the loop. There’s probably a thought somewhere in your brain of somebody who did you wrong 20 years ago. Every time you think of that person it still starts that circuit. When things are getting hot and you’re getting hot-headed, look at your watch. It takes 90 seconds to dissipate that anger response.”
We keep coming back to this on Self-Help For Cynics. Make yourself aware of what your brain is doing as a first step to taking back control. But how easy is that to do in the heat of the moment when your brain is fired up with the matter at hand? I reckon it'll take practice.
Sweary Dr. Faith takes this idea one step further. She suggests facing your emotions head on. Sitting down and wallowing in them. relishing them, living them to their full potential.
Not avoiding them.
Not just putting up with them.
Actually grasping the nettle and saying to yourself, "Hey, I'm angry / frightened / sad / etc. right now. This is what it feels like. It might feel pretty awful, but I know it won't last, so let's just give it a bit of time, give it its space."
Again, hardly the easiest course of action - particularly for those of us who are Professional Conflict-Avoiders. But, Dr. Faith assures us...
"If you attend to what you're feeling, you get over it way more quickly than if you avoid it. I've noticed I'm bored with myself about three minutes into committing to sitting with my feeling for five. I'm ready to go make a cup of coffee, read a book, find the cookies I hid from myself, or do anything other than perserverate."
All this makes me think that the brain is like a small child that wants our attention when we're otherwise occupied. You can try to ignore the child's continued efforts to disrupt your day... or you can try to muddle along, balancing the thing you're doing with giving the child a bit of attention. Or you can drop everything and give the child your full attention - blatantly. "OK, I'm watching you... what are you doing? Can I watch you do that too? Show me more! Let me watch YOU!"
I've actually done this with Sam on occasion, and often he'll get bored with this sudden bout of hyper-attention and actually want to be left alone for a bit. The people in the know tells us that our brain will do exactly the same thing... if we give it the attention it craves.
For many years, the majority of my musical purchases came from indie/alternative guitar bands. This started in the early Britpop era and lasted well into the 21st Century. Over the last ten years or so, however, my tastes have changed. I've found it harder to engage with the kind of guitar bands that used to excite me, and drawn more to the storytelling of singer-songwriters and Americana. That's not to say I don't still enjoy my indie tunes... just that I'm rarely captivated by a whole album, more the odd track here and there.
Has the world changed or have I changed?
Who knows? Anyway, here are ten top tunes from my old flame that proved it can still flicker quite brightly when it wants to...
I still love James. They produced some of my favourite songs of the 90s. I do struggle a bit with their recent output though. It's unmistakably James, and yet... not quite.
Couldn't get into the latest Courtney Barnett record in the same way I've connected with her previous offerings, but there's no denying the power of the feminist statement (adapted from Margaret Atwood) she makes on Nameless Faceless.
Confounding those who would easily label him once again, Morrissey played The Grand Ol' Opry this year... and covered The Pretenders. For those who want to bury him, he just gave them two more rusty nails to hammer into his coffin. For the dwindling few who remain (semi-)faithful... well, we apologetically squeeze him into our year end reviews with as little fanfare as possible.
Slaves are a band I like a lot... yet they don't half make me feel old. Maybe that's a good thing. Angry guitar pop shouldn't really be aimed at 46 year old fathers. Their latest record was great in places... and way too loud in others. The title track though... wow.
Of all the guitar bands of my youth, the Manics are probably the ones who still manage to deliver more than anyone else, due to the winning combination of Nicky Wire's Slash-style guitar riffs and James Dean Bradfield's voice - easily the best of the Britpop era. Their latest album, Resistance Is Futile, came close to making my end of year list... but in the end, it was a little too derivative, gleefully stealing its best tunes from The Vapors, The Coasters, Boney M, Elton John, Springsteen et al.... more about that here.
1. Idles - Danny Ndelko
Like Slaves & Shame, Idles are intellectual yobs. Occasionally too loud for my aged eardrums, but catchy as hell when they put their mind to it... and they definitely have something to say about the state of their nation. Here's their two-fingered salute to gammon Brexiters...
The Swede recently ran a post about a 24 minute song and asked "Do we have time to listen to it?" Not at the moment, I'm afraid... work is still sucking all the joy out of my life.
So here's ten songs that all clock in at under 30 seconds. Easy enough to compile, I just got my music player to put my library in order by duration.
The only rule I had was it had to be a complete song - no excerpts, reprises, intros, fillers, talky bits or skits. Once I'd sifted all those out, here's what I was left with...
I want to be a field day for the Sundays so they can Fuck up my life Embarrass my wife And leave a bad taste Striped toothpaste can't remove on Monday mornings I want to be a target for the dailies so they can show Pictures of me with a nude on page three So lacking in taste Touched up near the waist, looking as limp as Monday morning Touched up near the waist, looking as limp as Monday morning
You could argue that the second side of Abbey Road is all one long track, but it's probably my favourite Beatles album and this is a fine coda.
1. Slaves - Girl Fight
Very loud, very funny - particularly the end... and I'm making it Number One because, despite being only 15 seconds long... they still made a video for it!
Any short songs you'd recommend? They have to be under 30 seconds... I may well do a follow-up post on songs under a minute.
Welcome, creeps and weirdoes, to the answers to yesterday's Saturday Snapshots. Oh, don't be such a Paranoid Android - I wasn't talking about you!
Thank you all for playing along, and for your nice comments about Saturday Snapshots. Alyson returned to take the victory with some excellent detective work this week.
I see there's a new Jason Statham movie coming out today called The Meg featuring a giant prehistoric shark. I'm not a great fan of Jason 'The Plank' Statham, but I do like a good shark movie. And ten good shark songs...
Special mention to that terrifying predator that preyed on innocent bloggers a few years back... Feargal Sharkey.
I will be the first to admit that this is not a classic. The video, however, is a wonder to behold. Sharks. Goats. Witch doctors. Guns. Ghosts. Unicorns. Snakes. Dragons. A giant dove. A shooting star... or is it a shooting shark? Plus that moustache. Utterly, utterly bonkers.
I love the lyrics to this, in which Kristin Hersh picks up an absolute loser of a bloke on the docks and tries to convince herself he's not that bad really.
This afternoon Your bite's not so bad Your bark's not too scary I could kiss you For remembering my address
Because you can never have enough Jimmy Buffett. (Well, you probably can. But I can't.) Bearing in mind that most of Jimmy's songs involve lazing about on a boat, it shouldn't surprise us that he occasionally gets scared of sharks. Turns out the sharks in this song are of the two legged variety though...
She came down from Cincinnati, It took her three days on the train. Lookin' for some peace and quiet, Hoped to see the sun again.
But now she lives down by the ocean She's takin' care to look for sharks. They hang out in the local bars, And they feed right after dark.
Can't you feel 'em circlin', honey? Can't you feel 'em swimmin' around? You got fins to the left, fins to the right, And you're the only bait in town.
Like a horror film in two and a half minutes - this starts out with sharks preying on bleeding hearts, but the twist soon shows us a much greater threat: "Hey! Watch out for those kids! They'll tear you apart!"
Fortunately, this blog never gets enough traffic to cause congestion, so this is dedicated to all those bloggers who live life in the fast lane... and then have to pay to avoid blockages.
Special mentions, of course to Traffic and The Jam (although, we'll hear from one of those in just a moment).
Can't blame the so-literal-they-hurt lyrics of this one on Weller as it's a rare Bruce Foxton composition. Not sure how well thought out his solution to London traffic jams is though...
Take a look at our cityTake the traffic elsewhereLeave the city free from trafficGive the place a chance to surviveDirt and filth cover LondonGive it a chance to breathe again
Thirty odd years later, Weller would eventually tackle the subject himself in Fast Car, Slow Traffic.
Question: were The Jam named after a traffic jam... or strawberry, raspberry and boysenberry?
Yearning melancholia from the Blue Nile frontman... or an old geezer whinging into his piano about all these new-fangled motor cars clogging up the roads? I remember when this was all fields, etc. You decide.
70s soul is always at its best when there's a long talky intro (this one even begins: "You know, baby...") and this one scores double points because both Peaches AND Herb get to have a mumble at the beginning.
While there was one ever one Herb Fame (real name... well, not really, but don't just wish it was?), seven different women filled the Peaches vacancy between 1966 and the present day. This is from their must successful album, 1978's 2 Hot (the one with Reunited on), when the third Peaches, Linda Greene, was doing her thang. Sadly, at no point in his career did Herb Fame ever consider hooking up with this particular Peaches...
...because, let's face it, that would have been monuMENTAL.
All that aside, I love this track. The lyrics feature a couple talking themselves out of an extra-marital affair because of how it'd hurt their respective spouses and kids.
Our story ends without kissing Fair thee well And a promise not to tell Because...
Leave it to Warren to hit the nail on the head always...
It's 5:00 PM on a weekday, friend I'm going home, but I don't know when I hate this traffic, and I hate this town Gotta honk my horn, try to get around I feel like going on a killing spree Tomorrow I'm going on the R.T.D. The traffic crawls, and the engine stalls I'm stuck on the edge of the urban sprawl
The Go-Go everyone remembers after Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin also released 4 solo albums, although this was her only hit single. Still it must be one of the biggest radio hits of the 80s, so I suspect she made a pretty penny from it.
Anyway, Jane likes traffic jams because it gives her an excuse to smooch her man. She obviously didn't like them enough to feature them in the video though. You can see how that meeting went...
"So, Jane, for the video, I thought we'd get a road full of cars..."
"I wanna swim with dolphins."
"Yeah, but it's about the rush hour. So I thought maybe we start with you behind the wheel of a nice, sexy Mercedes (I'm sure we can do a product placement deal)..."
"Dolphins!"
"Maybe you could stand on the hood of a Porsche playing your guitar...?"
Not, strictly speaking, about traffic jams as such, but included here for three very good reasons:
i) Traffic jams always give me road rage.
ii) Any excuse to hear Cerys's heartbroken Welsh growl again.
iii) It's a far better song than any of the alternatives I had which were more on target.
(By the way, I did reject some other fine songs which mentioned Traffic - Lloyd Cole and Ned's Atomic Dustbin come to mind - because they didn't mention jams at all.)
Incredibly, even though Slaves have only released one album to date, I had two songs to choose from for this Top Ten. The more obvious title would have been Despair & Traffic, but Do Something works better for me, from its apt chorus of 'If you're not moving: do something!" to the Fight Club-esque mantra (appropriately stolen from an advertising campaign, like most 21st Century wisdom): You are not stuck in traffic: You ARE traffic!" The band even close with a little safe driving advice, "cheers!"
Every time I think I'm getting too old for punky rackets and I'd be better off listening to nothing louder than my old Billy Joel records, a band like Slaves come along and blow the cobwebs away...
All hail James Marshall Hendrix and his tissue-paper & comb kazoo. Hendrix is often remembered only as a serious artist and guitar god, but there's a lot of humour to his lyrics too, and Crosstown Traffic is a great example. If you're going to use traffic jams as a troubled relationship metaphor, this is the way to do it...
I'm not the only soul who's accused of hit and runTyre tracks all across your backI can see you had your funBut darlin' can't you see my signals turn from green to red?And with you I can see a traffic jam straight up ahead
1. James Taylor - Traffic Jam
From James Taylor's most successful album, 1977's JT, this fun, jazzy little number is a great antidote to traffic jam blues.
Most of the artists on this list are my age or even older, but the combined age of the guys in Slaves is probably younger than all of them. Which is reassuring to an old muso who thinks he might be falling completely out of touch with teenage pop culture. Circa Waves, The Bohicas, Drenge, Wolf Alice... there's been a brace of interesting new guitar bands this year (let's face it: there is every year, though they rarely trouble the mainstream any more) but Slaves are by far the most exciting.
On the surface, they follow that minimalist guitar 'n' drums approach that worked for The White Stripes, adding lashing of snotty, punky attitude and most important of all, two things that are missing from the majority of contemporary chart music (pay attention James Bay, et al.): A SENSE OF HUMOUR and SOMETHING TO SAY.
Everything kicks off with the wonderfully belligerent The Hunter in which Laurie & Isaac (not the most punk rock names, but in their own strange way they're more punk rock than Johnny Rotten ever was) bemoan the "experts" who are making money out of global warming before spitting out their mission statement...
The feeling is mutual You don't like what we do Because we say what we are thinking And that shocks and frightens you
Next comes a long-awaited dig at the capital... with the indisputable Video of the Year (see below).
Cheer up, London
It's not that bad
Cheer up, London
You're already dead and it's not that bad
Cheer up, London
It's not that bad
Cheer up, London
It's really really not that bad, is it?
How can it be
So bad
When you're already dead?
I've already featured track 3, the glorious Sockets (The Clash meets The Evil Dead), but shortly after that comes the sublime Do Something in which the band turn all Tyler Durden on our asses before forgetting their own second verse.
Your worries and your fears
Manipulating you
The ringing in your ears
Is self-inflicted, too
Doing damage to your health
To get the instant fix
It really is incredible
How people get their kicks
Looking at the floor
Won't get no answers there
The product in your hair
Or her lacy underwear
Are you happy?
Or are there things that could be done?
Whether you're midway through the process
Or you haven't yet begun, come on!!!
And there's what surely must be the Student Anthem of the year: Wow!!! 7AM. (They can't remember the last time they saw that time of day.) To be honest, the second half of the album can't quite live up to Side A, but it doesn't matter. Slaves did more to grab me by the throat on those first seven songs than any other band of urchins or whippersnappers this year... and I have high hops for their future.
You're not stuck in traffic... You ARE traffic. Move. Do not overtake on a bend. Cheers.
Next, at Number 2, let's be frank: plenty of pluses and no minuses at all.
Ten songs about women named Debra, Deborah or Debs.
Special mentions to a couple of the famous Debbies referenced below...
10. Stina Nordenstam - When Debbie's Back From Texas
Frustratingly absent from youtube, but I wanted to include it anyway because I love Stina's voice... and because I always wondered if the Debbie in question had been visiting... erm, Dallas.
All you need to know about this is the title... and the fact that Winona Ryder plays Debbie Gibson in the video. She claims it was her favourite role ever. Well, it's certainly a better performance than the one she gave in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Another irresistible bag of cartoon indie popcorn from Helen, Sheena and Ricardo Autobahn.
When they walked downtown all the people would stare
They used to laugh at their clothes and the colour of their hair
She was 17 and she didn't care
Cause baby's gonna take her everywhere
Cause he said they'd live in New York
And the stars would be their own
She was Debbie Harry and he was Joey Ramone!
So Slaves get lost on the way home from a gig and can't find their mate's car. That's pretty much the entire song (until it all goes a bit Blair Witch)... but we've all been there, and that's what makes this a tiny blast of turbo-charged genius.
Does Courtney consider herself a Debbie Downer? She shouldn't. She always cheers me up...
Tell me when you're getting bored and I'll leave
I'm not the one who put the chain around your feet
I'm sorry for all of my insecurities, but they're just a part of me
"Envy is thin because it bites but never eats"
That's what a nice old Spanish lady once told me
"Hey Debbie-Downer turn that frown upside down and just be happy!"
Yes, if anyone was going to rhyme Debra with Zebra, it would have to be Mark Bolan: King of Naff Rhymes. (The critics say "he made nursery rhymes sound profound"... I think he was either off his mitts or taking the bliss.)
Deborah was Bolan's first ever Top 40 "hit", from back in 1968 when his band was still called Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was reissued in 1972 when T-Rex were much a bigger thing and then it made the Top Ten. Lyrically it was utter tosh, but Bolan was a proper pop star, so we could forgive him anything.
1. Pulp - Disco 2000
Based on a true story about a girl called Debbie that young Jarvis was infatuated with... the only bit he made up was the "woodchip on <her> walls".
Watching Mark Radcliffe's recent BBC4 documentary series on the history of indie (Music For Misfits), a good argument was put forward by the assembled talking heads (chiefly The Grauniad's music critic Alex Petri-dish) that Pulp should not be classed as Britpop as they had so little in common with Blur, Oasis and the New Lad / New Labour pop culture of the mid-90s. I'll always have a soft spot for Britpop as those were my gig-going years and I had many a fine evening watching the likes of Shed Seven, The Bluetones and The Verve... but yes, Pulp were more than just a cut above: they were in a league all their own.
Disco 2000 is Pulp at the height of their chart-conquering success. But just as the name Deborah never suited the girl in the song, being pop stars never really suited Jarvis and co. They hated fame so much they were soon keen to press the self-destruct on Top of the Pops success and go back to being a proper indie band.
They even banned the record from being used in any TV or radio trailers in the run up to the Millennium. Which would have made them a pretty penny... but I guess they were never in it for the money.
Which Debbie does your Dallas? And which is your Debbie Downer?
Some time ago (well, 2+ years... my, how time flies) when I unveiled My Top Ten Carpentry Songs I fully intended to follow it up with songs devoted to other popular trades. Finally, I decided to have a go at electricians - but I wanted to avoid all the obvious Electric songs (Dreams / Friends / Avenue / Ladyland / Spanking of War Babies etc.) because they'll fit into their own post one day. So here, instead, are ten songs specifically about electricians... or about the things they deal with on a daily basis.
Special mention to Cliff Richard - Wired For Sound which is as close to a guilty pleasure as I get (considering how broad and cheesy these lists do sometimes go). I tried to find room for Sir Cliff here, but in the end I had to admit that it's a song more about speakers (tall ones and small ones - Cliff has no time for midi). The rollerskating video is always worth a look though...
Further special mentions to Elvis and George Harrison, both of whom (according to t'internet) started out as apprentice electricians before more successful careers beckoned...
Perhaps I should have gone with Gary Numan's original version, but I was always a huge fan of Bob Palmer's voice and I consider it a tragedy that he died as young as he did because I bet he could have gone on and on... as Numan himself has done.
Anyway, I Dream Of Wires is one of the few songs I know that actually mentions an electrician in its lyrics, though it actually tells of a completely "wireless" future wherein the "last electrician alive" looks back fondly on a world that was a little less alien...
We opened doors by thinking We went to sleep by dialing 'o' We drove to work by proxy I plugged my wife in, just for show
New ways, new ways I dream of wires
So I press 'c' for comfort I dream of wires, the old days
Other songs to mention electricians directly include Better Things by Massive Attack & Tracy Thorn (You say the magic's gone / Well, I'm not a magician / You say the spark's gone / Well get an electrician), Demystification by Zounds (My electronic shaver won't plug into the wall /
Now I can't go to the party, the electrician didn't call) and Nick Cave's amazing Babe, I'm On Fire. Oh, and this...
An artist whose solo work I only discovered quite recently, though he's been knocking around for years, working with the likes of PJ Harvey, Eels and Sparklehorse. KCE sounds like classic American alt-rock, so I was surprised to find out that Parish is actually from the UK (Yeovil), though I guess his lyrical slang ("nowt", "that bloke") should have given him away. A great song: made me go out and buy the album.
I have a curious relationship with Muse. I liked their early material very much and even went to see them playing live when they were just starting out (at The Leadmill, I think). Matt Bellamy spent most of the show with his back to the audience... and I never really recovered from that. (Believe it or not, I much preferred the support act. They were called Cold something. Cold...play? No idea what happened to them.)
A very emotive song, more so when you know that it's about the premature birth of lead Athlete Joel Pott's daughter and the life support system that kept her going.
I haven't made up my mind yet, but Slaves are definite contenders for the best new band of 2015. They've got the snotty punk appeal of early Supergrass, but a little more to say for themselves lyrically. They're just two lads from Kent (Laurie Vincent on guitar / bass and Isaac Holman on drums: they both sing) but they make a hell of a satisfying racket.
On first listen, the Sockets they sing about here appear to be the ones in your head rather than the ones an electrician would fix. The video suggests otherwise...
The Barenaked Ladies are a clever band - sometimes a little too clever - but this is the closest they ever got to capturing my heart as well as tickling my funny bone. Here, a whole town is infected with electricity thanks to a nearby Hydrofield (what the Canadians call a bunch of pylons, basically), making every resident into an amateur electrician.
I can put a spare bulb in my hand And light up my yard...
1. Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman
Longtime readers of my ramblings may have seen this one coming: but I'll be honest with you, when I started planning this post I hadn't even considered that a lineman was an electrician. Once I'd made the connection, it had to be Number One, for the sheer fact that it is the greatest song ever written (Jimmy Webb Is God) and, though there are many fine versions in existence, no one will ever top Glen's haunting and heartbreaking delivery. I could go on and on about what makes it so special (the way that the melody and the lyrics merge together to create a seamless jewel; the yearning romanticism and evocative imagery; "And I need you more than want you / And I want your for all time") but I've probably said it all elsewhere. Simply put, there is no finer recording and if I could make it Number One every week, I would.
Which one would you get to wire your house (for sound)?
