However, getting a good pun into a song title is much trickier than hiding one in the lyrics of your song. Rock music is full of dreadful puns - much as I might try to defend the reputation of REO Speedwagon, there's no excuse for their 1978 album title, You Can Tune A Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish.
Although it does contain one of their better songs...
Meanwhile, I've seen it suggested online that the song Bruise Pristine by Placebo is a pun on Bruce Springsteen. Not a very good pun, if that's actually true.
No, I'm talking about this forgotten classic from Johnny Cash's former backing group, The Statler Brothers. The great thing about this song is that when you hear the title - You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith, Too - you figure there's no way the song is ever going to live up to it. And then it does, with a hilariously touching tale of two-timing and jealousy and the mildest curses you'll ever hear, considering what this guy is putting up with. If I were him, I'd be using words a lot stronger than "you rascal, you!".
French metal band 6:33 welcome us all to #33 in our Hot 100 countdown. I understand their cover of Silver Lady by David Soul is especially worth seeking out.
33 (and a third) is the number of revolutions per minute made by a long-player / vinyl album. Young people will probably need to consult iffypedia about this, unless they're a hipster, in which case they probably know more about it than I do.
Since I think it's fair to say that hipsters do not read this blog, what do all you old non-hipsters recommend?
The Swede kicked us off this week with a veritable plethora. (Well, a "ple4a", anyway.)
C popped up next with an offering that Charity Chic swiftly declared "the winner!" If only he was compiling these posts. (He's welcome to take over now that he's finished the already much-missed Double Letter Saturday feature. Save me the extra work as we get nearer to #1. Hint hint.)
How about when Grace Jones sounds a lot like Dusty Springfield in I've Done It Again from Nightclubbing?
I was there when Jenny Lind first sang First to feel the cold Alaskan white man First to take a trip on LSD First to vote for Roosevelt back in '33
Next up was Rigid Digit with three solid suggestions...
At the age of 33 and a third, the time that Christ spent on earth, I decided to cut all ties with showbiz. As the awards piled up in the bath, well I started to laugh At all those who died in the name of light entertainment.
That came very close to winning this week, for obvious reasons.
Then came Deano, who explained this week's selection thus...
Before he became outlaw country music's
resident eccentric that would do anything for a publicity stunt, his
debut album was actually some really good blues material, including this
song about a fragile prisoner that has just received some bad news.
Finally came Douglas, who decided to try playing the Canadian card again this week.
For
starters, I wish there were recordings available of any of Gordon
Lightfoot's renditions of "The 33rd of August" which he apparently
undertook in studio in 1969 as an attempt to put together a final
contractually obligated album of covers for UA, which sadly was aborted
and the decision was made to deliver with a live album instead. The
recordings are out there somewhere... anyway, for the record I prefer
the original Mickey Newbury version of this song to others out there.
(See above.)
But
for Canadian content, I am left suggesting Stars' song Personal, which
is a very sad short story of a song told back and forth through
his-and-hers personal columns responses which ends with the heartache of
being stood up. It starts thus:
28 and bored, grieving over loss, sorry to be heavy
But heavy is the cost, heavy is the cost...
Now that might not have won this week, but only because it's not yet in my collection and the winner must always exist in my own library. That said, it's a bloody good tune, so thanks for introducing it to me, Douglas... and it will come in very well on the Top Ten Lonely Hearts Column Songs I've been trying to compile for months now. (Note to everybody: I need another three good ones.)
Speaking of songs from my own library, here's what it threw up this week (along with many of the ones above)...
All of which brings us to this week's winner, which was a real toss-up with Luke Haines, but in the end Frank edged it with an equally biting open line that sums up the state of the world at the moment... and offers good advice for anyone who ever thinks of interviewing He Who Has Fallen From Grace again...
"Stop asking musicians what they think" He said softly as he poured himself a second drink And outside, the world slipped over the brink
We all thought we had nothing to lose That we could trust in crossed fingers and horseshoes That everything would work out, no matter what we choose
The first time it was a tragedy The second time is a farce Outside it's 1933 so I'm hitting the bar
Don't go mistaking your house burning down for the dawn!
"They hypnotized the summer, nineteen seventy nine"
Meanwhile, Alyson offered Elton John: Are You Ready For Love ('79 Version)… except, according to my research, Alyson, this would be '76 Version. If you're aware of a '79 version, I can't seem to find it. But feel free to bring it back 3 weeks hence.
Martin has known me longest though, so wins the 1979 award this week with his suggestion: Veruca Salt - Spider-Man '79. Clue - if there's a song with Spider-Man in it, there's a good chance I'll like it. However... that still wasn't my choice for this week.
The Swede offered the only non-year suggestion this week. And let's face it, if you can't have years, then streets are always a good second best... Humble Pie - 79th Street Blues. Let's be careful out there!
Onto this week's winners then, and from my record collection... still avoiding years wherever possible... it was a toss-up between two songs. The runner-up was this...
Here, the 79 appears to be a room number in a hotel where The Cat had an assignation with a somewhat disreputable young lady.
This week's winner, though, was this, from the eponymous debut album - never bettered - by Vampire Weekend. M79 is a bus route in Manhattan...
78 next week, and a couple of obvious non-year suggestions spring to my mind... one of which I suspect will be very popular with some of the usual suspects... but the other might well be my pick.
It begins with Olivia as a sexy business woman (taking off her glasses) before it goes all Hammer horror with sword fights and children dressed as ninjas and then cut-price sci-fi as Olivia tries on her old Wilma Deering costume. Hence: it is genius.
I am proud to come from the generation who grew up knowing her as Olivia Neutron Bomb.
Stevie Nicks wrote this after an argument with Lindsey Buckingham. See also just about every other Fleetwood Mac song: whoever wrote them, they were generally about the various band members hating each other... or shagging each other... or hating each other again.
You've no idea how close Wendy came to being Number One. Probably my favourite Transvision Vamp song, even if it does rip off the theme tune to Red Dwarf at one point. (Or maybe Red Dwarf ripped this off... I can't be bothered to check which came first.)
I'll play this for my old mate Nota Bene who always gets very excited whenever I throw any TV into these lists... though not because he's a fan of their music. I expect he'll be watching this video with the sound down again, especially since Wendy James appears to have forgotten to wear the back of her dress.
1. Manic Street Preachers - Life Becoming A Landslide
Yep, I'd forgotten how good this was too.
My idea of love comes from
A childhood glimpse of pornography
Though there is no true love
Just a finely tuned jealousy
