Following on from this weekend's Snapshots, featuring songs named after famous actors, I had something of an overspill... so here are some of the runners up.
Watching the sky for a sign The FBI is on my mind I'm waiting for the day When my lucky stars align In the form of... David Duchovny floating above me In the alien light of the spaceship of love
I want seven screaming virgins on a sacrificial altar Hell and God, screeching doors, zombies, aaaaah! It feels so good to be afraid Vincent Price is back again
Oh, the great sequin cowboy who sings of the plains
Of roundups and rustlers and home on the range
Turn on the TV, shut out the lights
Roy Rogers is riding tonight
And my personal favourite...
I want to be your hero,
Kurt Russell, Eastwood and me
There's no doubt plenty more where they came from, but that's enough actors for today. Drop me a comment if I've missed one of your favourites and I might do a follow up post... but remember, we're leaving the ladies for another day.
Another curse of growing older is nostalgia for things long past. Wondering whatever happened to the good old days. (Clue: they may not have been as good as we remember, but that's nostalgia for you.) Here's ten songs focussing on that age old question, Whatever Happened To...
Van The Man wonders where all his old contemporaries went... although we all know what happened to the guy in line 2. Obviously Van didn't see that one coming when he wrote this back in 2002...
Whatever happened to PJ Proby? Wonder can you fix it Jim Where the hell do you think is Scott Walker? My memory's getting so dim
Don't have no frame of reference no more Not even Screaming Lord Sutch Without him now there's no Raving Loony Party Nowadays I guess there's not much
At least he changed the lyric slightly when he re-recorded the song as a duet with PJ Proby himself in 2015.
While the Buzzcocks might be wondering whatever happened to TV sex (erm: there's more of it?), The Statler Brothers are sick of all the smut they see on their cinema screens...
Everybody knows when you go to the show You can't take the kids along You've gotta read the paper and know the code Of G, PG and are and X You gotta know what the movie's about Before you even go Tex Ritter's gone and Disney's dead The screen is filled with sex.
Whatever happened to Randolph Scott? Ridin' the range alone Whatever happened to Gene and Tex And Roy and Rex, the Durango Kid? Whatever happened to Randolph Scott? His horse, plain as can be Whatever happened to Randolph Scott? Has happened to the best of me.
Something all true music lovers have no doubt asked themselves at one time or another...
I fell in love with the sweet sensation I gave my heart to a simple chord I gave my soul to a new religion Whatever happened to you? Whatever happened to our rock 'n roll?
Loudon Wainwright writing a song about love gone rotten? You don't say...
We used to be in love but now we are in hate You used to say I came too early But it was you who came too late Boy meets girl and they give it a whirl And the very next thing you know She thinks he's nuts and he hates her guts Then the bad blood starts to flow
Pete and Carl wonder where it all went wrong for their band... adapting the title of the British sitcom Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? along the way.
Ironically, the Libertines best song is their most self-referential.
Hired to dance behind Bob Dylan at the 1998 Grammy Awards, performance artist Michael Portnoy hijacked the show by ripping off his shirt and revealing the "two word poem" Soy Bomb while dancing alongside a bemused Dylan. (Was Dylan bemused or was he pissed off? Hard to tell, because he has a pissed off expression on his face most of the time. Seriously: when was the last time you saw Bob Dylan smile?)
When asked to explain himself, Portnoy later said: "Soy... represents dense nutritional life. Bomb is, obviously, an explosive destructive force. So, soy bomb is what I think art should be: dense, transformational, explosive life". He went on to explain that the incident was a "spontaneous explosion of the self to re-invigorate the current music scene".
Tosser.
Still, he inspired E to write a nice song, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
Ah, Huey, that is the million dollar question, isn't it?
Hey, I know it's a modern world And everybody's living for today But you and I were gonna be the exception Remember what you said, "let 'em all drop dead!" Now all your friends are telling you that they Have all been through this many times beforeI don't want to sound like an old love song I only want to know: where did our love go?
When former childstar Corey Haim heard this 2004 hit by Irish indie band The Thrills, he responded: "For eight and a half years, I was just watching movies, and just staying in bed and just eating food and just, you know, being just miserable," but now, he insisted, "I'm clean, sober, humble and happy". Sadly, he died of pneumonia just six years later, aged only 38.
1. The Stranglers - No More Heroes
What else was going to be Number One?
Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky? He got an ice pick That made his ears burn
Whatever happened to Dear old Lenin? The great Elmyra And Sancho Panza?
Whatever happened to the heroes? Whatever happened to the heroes?
Whatever happened to All of the heroes? All the Shakespearoes? They watched their Rome burn!
Being of Irish-Catholic descent gives Leary a pass from getting lynched for this hilarious folk song mickey take. I think.
They come over here and they take all our land They chop of our heads and they boil them in oil Our children are leaving and we have no heads We drink and we sing and we drink and we die
Well, he's half-Irish, half Salford... as he likes to keep reminding us. One of his most visceral and exciting rock songs... even if, in the end, it's more about England than Ireland. Still...
A song written by Ewan MacColl (Kirsty's dad), made famous by the Dubliners (see below), but it's Shane's version that does it for me... if anything, he sounds even dirtier than the town he's serenading.
I wouldn't normally include two songs by the same artist in one Top Ten, but this is the very best version...
There was Barney McGee
From the banks of the Lee
There was Hogan from County Tyrone
There was Johnny McGurk
Who was scared stiff of work
And a man from Westmeath called Malone
There was Slugger O'Toole
Who was drunk as a rule
And Fighting Bill Tracy from Dover
And your man, Mick McCann
From the banks of the Bann
Was the skipper of the Irish Rover
There's been a fair few songs written about "The Troubles" (spare me Sunday, Bloody Sunday) but this has to be the most breathtakingly beautiful.
Best use of a minor chord in a pop song ever?
1. Thin Lizzy - Whiskey In The Jar
A traditional Irish folk song, recorded by everyone from the Dubliners to the Grateful Dead, Metallica to Pulp. But there can surely be no greater version than this. That guitar is just electrifying.
Musha ring dum a do dum a daiii. Wack for my daddy-o.
Those were my favourite songs about the Emerald Isle. Which is your sham-rocker?
