Four more songs from the 80th in-car CD I produced to contribute towards my son's musical education...
Track 5: The Pogues - Sally MacLennane
This one has become a firm favourite with both Sam and his Mum... and why not? It's an out-and-out classic. Iffypedia tells us, "the song is based on a bar [Shane's] uncle owned which served Irish Ford workers in Dagenham," and that furthermore, "Sally MacLennane is also a type of stout".
What makes Sally MacLennane such a success is the shouting echo in the chorus "In the rain!", "On the train!", but as much as it's a drunken singalong, it also manages to be a wistful ode to "times long gone", and a bar where, presumably, everybody knows your name.
Track 6:Maurice William & The Zodiacs - Stay
From 1960, the original version of a song that's been covered by The Hollies, The Four Seasons, Jackson Browne... I'm pretty sure Barry Manilow had a go at it too? Original is still best though, especially for those of us who first came across it on the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing. Nobody puts baby in the corner...
Maurice Williams wrote this after a bad date when he was just 15. He couldn't persuade his young lady friend to stay out any later, so he went home and poured his frustrations into this little ditty. At one minute 36 seconds, it's one of the shortest tunes to ever hit the top of the US charts.
Track 7: The Damned - Eloise
Is the original always best though? Many might prefer Barry Ryan's 1968 original of Eloise, and it's a fine record in its own right, but for me, The Damned nailed it with their "throw everything at it, including the kitchen sink" Steinman-goes-Goth cover of 1986. Chartwise, Ryan got one position higher (which seems only fair) to Number 2, but this is still the Damned's biggest hit, and their only Top Ten single.
Of course, I'm sure there will be loads of old punks who shudder at what The Damned became. The band who released the UK's first punk single, and spearheaded the British punk explosion, becoming a bunch of big-hairsprayed, white-bloused, Top of the Pops Goth tossers? How dare they? And let's not even start on Captain Sensible going off to sing show tunes. But I like The Damned at every stage of their career, and Eloise was a song I bought very early on, along with their subsequent Love cover, Alone Again, Or. Both were on a CD single, so I'm guessing they were a re-issue from a few years later.
Track 8: The Dandy Warhols - Every Day Should Be A Holiday
Finally today, some chugging stoner-indie from 1998. This was the band's debut hit before they broke the big time by selling one of their songs to a Vodafone advert. Lead singer and songwriter Courtney Taylor-Taylor made a cool $1.5 million from that deal, and used the money to buy a quarter-of-a-city block in his hometown of Portland, Oregon, turning it into a complex for recording, film editing, and web design.
I was a huge fan of the Dandy Warhols back in the day. Saw them live a few times and they always put on a great show, even if they were clearly stoned most of the time.
Just as it came time to fire up the Celebrity Jukebox again, the news of Tom Verlaine's passing was announced. I didn't build this jukebox purely as a memorial machine, but it seems to increasingly be used that way. Ashes to Ashes...
Being quite an influential figure in the world of rock 'n' roll, Tom Verlaine pops up in quite a few songs. Here are a strong selection...
If you can't bear the suspense any longer... here are yesterday's bear-faced answers...
10. This drives one crazy!
"Drives one" is an anagram. The artist in question was also famous for his truck-driver-themed hits. Of which this, his only UK chart entry, is surely his worst. I mean, I like a mawkish talky CB-flavoured country tune as much as anyone, but even I have to draw the line somewhere.
#4 in 1981 though... those of you who were old enough to be buying records in that year, I blame you. I was only 9, so nobody can blame me.
D12 (which stands for Dirty Dozen) was the rap band Eminem was in before he became famous. He got the old gang back together a few years later, notably for the song below...
Those of you with better memories than me (or The Swede) may remember that that song won #35 on the Hot 100 Countdown, and at the time I remarked: "don't expect it to show up again at number 12. I can easily think of a dozen songs that would come before it." Which may have been an exaggeration on my part, but I have to stick to my word.
That was obviously a popular suggestion with Alyson, who says: it was one of my first singles. I also had a Donny pillowcase and a Donny Cap (not a euphemism for a form of contraception as I was only aged 12 - apt).
Well, I suppose that's less embarrassing than Respect Yourself by Bruce Willis. Sadly, the only version I own of that song comes from this fellow...
Speaking of welcome returns, after my plea last week, Douglas McLaren returned to explain where he's been recently... and it seems as though life is pretty unpleasant for teachers in Canada... as I can attest it is in the UK. His explanation below sounds very familiar to these ears...
...our entire school system has moved during these times to an online platform, as we figure out how to get teenagers to do work from home while they are stressed and concerned about what is going on in the world beyond their doors. And that has meant trying g to figure out how to upload video lectures, hold virtual office hours online, screencasting, web-textbooks, and a whole lot of other insanely time consuming nonsense for an old dinosaur of the classroom like me to learn.
You have my sympathy, Douglas, as all this has nearly broken me over the past few weeks, not to mention the fact that Louise is also supposed to be working from home and we've got to home-school Sam while we're doing it. If I read one more article about "how to spend your free time" or "what to watch on Netflix now we're all at home, taking it east", I'm going to scream.
Anyway, here's Douglas to tell us about his suggestion for this week...
Great Big Sea are from Newfoundland on Canada's east coast, with their lyrical and folksy "Come And I Will Sing You (The Twelve Apostles)", which I think is worth the listen.
This week's winner though. Alyson got it, but first to name it was Martin who normally spreads his bets over a whole load of tracks but this week was so certain of a win, he piled all his chips onto one bet. And guess what? It paid off...
Makes you wonder why they weren't huge... although I guess a band that size had to sell a heck of a lot of records to break even...
Next week, eleven. After that, things get really tricky. I might need to come up with some new rules...
Roky Erickson's 13th Floor Elevators were an obvious choice to illustrate this week's edition of the Hot 100, though I could have also gone with short-lived indie also-rans Thirteen Senses.
(And for completeness' sake, the albums 13 by Teenage Fanclub & 13 by Blur were also suggested.)
Before we dive into the unluckiest edition of this feature to date... which is worrying, because none of us need any more bad luck at the moment... I just wanted to put a call out to our old pal Douglas McLaren in Canada. Not heard from you in a few weeks, Douglas, so I do hope you're OK. I'm presuming you're not still on the picket line given what's going on in the world right now, but I hope you're staying safe and well.
The same sentiment goes out to all regular readers and contributors of this feature. Let's hope we all make it through to Number One, and that things are starting to get back to normal by the time we get there...
Let's kick off with C this week, who treats us to some excellent '60s fuzz beat in the form of Swedish band The Renegades' song 'Thirteen Women'. If you check out the youtube video of the band larking about in a factory full of women it's nicely daft, and the length of the singer's hair at the time must have been outrageous! The Renegades - Thirteen Women
The weird thing is, I'd never heard of that song until C suggested it. But then, a couple of nights later, I heard this on the radio, from a few years earlier...
The same song, with a gender swap. Further research was required, and Lynchie pointed us back to both the Ann Margret version and the year 1954 when the tune was originally recorded by...
"This is a bizarre song which attempts to make light of the spectre of nuclear destruction. It appears to have been written in the wake of the explosion of the first hydrogen bomb, at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954, less than 10 years after the twin horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Beat that, everyone!
Y'know, that could very well have been the winner, were I actually in my record collection (it will be soon) and were there not one other suggestion that trumps it this week. But we'll get to that shortly.
Lynchie had one other suggestion this week, and it was a fine one too...
All of which brings us to this week's leftovers from my own collection, starting with the gentleman who won last week. Imagine if Chuck Berry came from Essex...
Hey Ya! If you've been Outkast for not knowing the answers to Saturday Snapshots, don't be Unhappy. Yesterday was a 3-all tie for the Early Bird prize between Lynchie & Alyson, but I'm going to award the actual prize to C who spotted those that turned out to be the hardest this week, #5, #1 (with a lot of help from Chris) and especially #10.
It's time to shake it like a Polaroid picture...
10. Bowie's tenant says goodbye.
Most obscure band ever featured here?
David Bowie had an album called Lodger.
"Lodger was formed in 1997 by Supergrass drummer Danny Goffey and his girlfriend Pearl Lowe, the former vocalist with Powder. The line-up was completed by co-vocalist Neil Carlill and guitarist Will Foster, both of Delicatessen."
(Up until putting this post together, I honestly thought this was Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics. Turns out he was actually the keyboardist in a number of prog bands: Uriel, Egg, Khan, Hatfield and the North, National Health, and Bruford. Gaskin was in some of those bands too.)
4. Fairytale brothers tell cruel stories about cursed beavers.
The Brothers Grimm tell fiendish stories about damned dams?
One of the reasons I do this blog is because it forces me to listen to songs that exist in my record collection that I've never listened to before. This was ripped from one of those free magazine CDs a few years back... and it's pretty cool.
Because we don't get enough Bee Gees round these parts.
7. Spearmint - Alone In A Town
According to google, this song does not exist. Which is a crying shame because it's a tragic story of Shirley Lee's loneliest student Christmas. Track it down and share his misery.
Do not watch the video. Remember this song without sullying your eyeballs with the worst excesses of 80s pop nonsense. No wonder Paul King ended up working for MTV.
First Gilbert gets dumped at the altar, then his mum and dad pop their clogs. No wonder he wants to top himself...
In a little while from now,
If I'm not feeling any less sour
I promised myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower,
And climbing to the top,
Will throw myself off
In an effort to make it clear to who
Ever what it's like when your shattered
Left standing in the lurch, at a church
where people 're saying,
"My God that's tough, she stood him up!
No point in us remaining.
We may as well go home."
As I did on my own,
Alone again, naturally
Pure suicide anthem joy. No wonder Morrissey was a fan. 1. Love - Alone Again, Or
One of the greatest songs of the sixties, just mesmerising. Love that Spanish guitar.
