Actually, wait, seriously... here's a song that was only released last week. You don't get more modern than that, do you?
Bleachers are from New Jersey. They're the brainchild of guitarist and producer Jack Antanoff, who used to be in Fun. They have featured here before, but this is their latest single, and it's pretty damned good for a modern pop song... even though it does harken back to the 70s and 80s, like most of their stuff.
Some would say George Lazenby is the worst actor to ever
play James Bond. And yet, he appears in the best James Bond
movie: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The only James Bond movie where Bond’s
character is allowed to develop, and then have the rug pulled out from him at
the end with a genuine tragedy. (Some might argue they tried to do something
similar with the Daniel Craig films, but as I’ve mentioned before, much as I
like Craig as an actor, I didn’t like his films at all…
to the point where I feel I’m over Bond now. Which is probably for the best.)
I generally write these posts a week in advance now, and
last weekend I had my covid booster, which knocked me for six. Therefore, I
tried to pick someone who wouldn’t feature in too many songs, and for once I was
right.
Let’s start with Nigel Blackwell: always a welcome addition
to these pages. He doesn’t mention George by name, BUT…
And there’s the person who collects all things Pierrot
And loves Siamese cats
And thinks they’re sophisticated because they eat Fry’s Chocolate Cream
And they’d do anything to spend the night with that fella off the Turkish
Delight advert
Who’s full of Eastern Monosodium glutamate…
Over at Charity Chic’s place, I found myself in the
uncomfortable position of having to vote against The Blogmaster General (JC) in
CC’s ongoing Townes Covered feature. To make up for that, and to prove I do
like Tindersticks, I’m offering some chocolate…
Probably best not to bump into Luke Haines at an airport. Not if he's got his terrorist mates with him...
I met a man, he was a trader And he did a cargo at 10,000 Over Jordan It's not for Gods love It's not for cocaine When you've decided - Meet me at the airport
Something about him breaking into an airport on his bike and getting caught on the runway in the lights of an oncoming plane... don't ask me. It's got a nice beat and you could dad-dance to it.
Gordon gets stuck on the runway awaiting take-off. Now there's a metaphor for you!
This old airport's got me down It's no earthly good to me And I'm stuck here on the ground As cold and drunk as I can be You can't jump a jet plane Like you can a freight train So I best be on my way In the early mornin' rain
As I've said many times before: if you're going to write a one-hit wonder... make it a belter!
And it would / should have been Number One... if not for this...
1. John Denver - Leaving On A Jet Plane
Of course, the tragic irony of this song is unbearable... but if you can get past John Denver's untimely demise, this is surely one of the greatest sad pop songs ever written. A hit for Peter, Paul & Mary... though their version sounds really odd if you're more familiar with Denver's (as I am).
This week, ten songs that'll get you home in a hurry.
Special mentions to the band Death Cab For Cutie (named after a Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band song) and Rick Springfield & Randy Crawford's Taxi Dancing, which was another contender for my Bickering Couples Top Ten.
Sorry, Joe le Taxi fans, I was 15 in 1987... and even then, I was too old for 14 year old Vanessa Paradis.
The theme from Taxi: simple as that. Jazzy but cool. If you're of a certain age... even if you didn't watch the sitcom that gave us Danny DeVito, Andy Kaufman and Christopher Lloyd (not to mention Judd Hirsch, Marilu Henner and Tony 'Who's The Boss?' Danza)... this will likely bring back warm and fuzzy memories. I was ever-so slightly too young for it myself - Cheers was more my era - but it still makes me feel good.
Sweden's answer to the Magnetic Fields (via Jonathan Richman) isn't too fussy who he picks up in his cab...
They might be psycho-killers, But tonight, I really don't care...
Still in Scandinavia, check out Jens' Norwegian equivalent Sondre Lerche, with his Airport Taxi Reception. Taxi songs are big in Europe. You're still not getting Vanessa Paradis.
Like a lot of struggling songwriters, Tim Buckley moonlighted as a taxi driver, which was probably the inspiration for this song about picking up a crazy Viet Nam vet on a scary night in L.A.
The final track on Zevon's penultimate album, many saw it as him preparing to shake hands with the reaper following his diagnosis with terminal cancer. By all accounts, the song was written well before that though... which makes the whole taxi-death metaphor eerily prescient.
I was staying at the Marriott With Jesus and John Wayne I was waiting for a chariot They were waiting for a train The sky was full of carrion "I'll take the mazuma" Said Jesus to Marion "That's the 3:10 to Yuma My ride's here..."
6. Prince - Lady Cab Driver
8 minutes of funky jam from the 1999 album; here, Prince gets taken for a ride by the eponymous lady and then she joins him in the back seat. You can guess the rest... but who the hell's driving the cab?
5. Bruce Springsteen - City Of Night
Another one you won't find on youtube, this is an outtake from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town sessions, finally released a few years back on The Promise collection. It begins with Bruce hailing a cab but then heads downtown into a deeper meditation on how we survive the darkness...
Another epic story song from the Raymond Carver of popular music. Here Harry is a taxi driver who picks up an old flame on a rainy night. After she initially pretends not to recognise him, they eventually get to talking about old times and the space in between.
You see, she was gonna be an actress, And I was gonna learn to fly. She took off to find the footlights, And I took off to find the sky.
When the ride's over, the guilty woman overtips her former lover and he pockets the change without further comment. But as with many Harry Chapin songs, this one has a sting in its tail. It seems both of them achieved their ambitions in life... metaphorically, at least.
It starts and ends as a conversation in a taxi cab, and sandwiched in between is some of Paul Simon's finest witty wordplay. Although it's ultimately a song about very little (the Seinfeld of pop songs), Gumboots has always been one of my favourite tracks from Graceland.
I was walking down the street When I thought I heard this voice say "Say, ain't we walking down the same street Together on the very same day?" I said, "hey senorita That's astute," I said "Why don't we get together and call ourselves an institute now?"
Of course, the words are pure Paul Simon, but the tune is based largely around a melody by South African musicians Lulu Masilela and Jonhjon Mkhalali. It appeared on an unlabelled cassette compilation called Accordion Jive Vol. III which somebody gave Simon in the early 80s. It took him a while to hunt down the music's origins, but when he did, Graceland was born. Of course, there's controversy over how much credit (or money) those original artists received, but popular music as a medium has been ripping off its own roots for decades: Paul Simon didn't invent that practice. Elvis, Lennon & McCartney, the Stones, Led Zep... it's been going on for years. (And still is, as Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith can attest.)
Graceland is 30 years old this year. Just to make you feel ancient again.
I've liked a lot of what the Arctic Monkeys did next, but that debut album is close to perfection. It was written by a bunch of chancers who had no idea how big they'd become... and as soon as they became that big, they'd never write anything like it again.
Red Light... is Alex Turner's stream-of-consciousness ramble about trying to get a taxi home with his mates on a Saturday night in Sheffield. It's full of the kind of everyday lyrical minutiae only people who aren't pop stars can write, while also managing to reference both the Stones and Springsteen during a drunken altercation at the taxi stand. Brilliant.
1. Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi
"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot..." has to be one of the greatest opening lines ever (I must try to remember it when I do Volume 2 of My Top Ten Opening Lines). Alliteration doesn't always work in lyrics, but here it provides Joni's pop opus with the prerequisite punch.
This ecological protest song was written after Joni visited Hawaii and opened her hotel curtains to see acres of parking lots, but what's most interesting is that the eponymous taxi may not even be a taxi at all... it might be slang for the big yellow police cars in her native Toronto. Which gives us a slightly different way of interpreting what might be happening when said taxi takes away her old man...
The song's been covered by a number of people, including Bob Dylan, Amy Grant and the Counting Crows... who annoyingly destroy the big yellow taxi line by changing the lyrics to say "took my girl away" which neither rhymes nor scans like the original and annoys me every time I hear it. Janet Jackson also used the hook for her hit 'Got 'Til It's Gone'.
Big Yellow Taxi is also the second best song in the history of pop to feature a slamming screen door. But I'll hold onto that for my Top Ten Screen Door Songs...
