Snapshots #275: Top Ten Songs With A Hole In Them

This is Courtney Love. Her band is called Hole.

Yesterday, I gave you a picture of Bernard Cribbins who sang Hole In The Ground. I figured that would be too easy as one of the songs, even though it is the greatest song ever recorded with a hole in it.

Here are ten more holes...

10. Moby's ways.

Moby sang about Extreme Ways.

Extreme - Hole Hearted

9. Abaaaaartment.

That would be where the baaaa lambs live.

Sheephouse - Hole In The Sky

8. How Bob Lind signs his name, in a Backstreets, on his way to the next whiskey bar.

Bob Lind (of Elusive Butterfly fame) would sign his name B.Lind. Add to that the Backstreet Boys and a line from Alabama Song and you get...

The Blind Boys of Alabama - Way Down In The Hole

7. Big Red Dog gets a Ruby.

Clifford is the Big Red Dog. A Ruby Murray is a Curry.

Clifford Curry - She Shot A Hole In My Soul

6. Rose Variety + Where Prince Met Robbers + Scottish January.

Stone Roses + Thieves In The Temple + Scottish band Pilot, who sang January.

Stone Temple Pilots - Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart

5. Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation.

That's a line from Television (The Drug of the Nation) by The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy.

Television - Foxhole

4. Orange vision.

Tangerine Dream - The Burning Hole

3. Oxford detective from the block.

Lewis was the Oxford Detective, Jenny came from the block.

Jenny Lewis - Rabbit Hole

2. The trouble with nice source and strange Fitzgerald.

The Trouble With Harry. "Nice Source" is a literal translation of Bella Fonte. Strange Fitzgerald = Odd Etta. Except... as Ernie points out, that clue didn't work because I had somehow confused Ella Fitzgerald with Etta James. D'oh. Apologies, all.

Harry Belafonte & Odetta - A Hole in the Bucket

1. Often served with Jam.

That would be a Traffic Jam.

Let's not forget Neil's version of this!

There'll be a Hole load more Snapshots to solve next Saturday...

My Top Ten Shoe Songs

I could easily have gone a Top Twenty Shoe Songs... but the rules only allow ten, so I had to throw out the rest. Here are the sole survivors...


10. Arctic Monkeys - Dancing Shoes

The only reason that I came.

9. Traffic - Hole In My Shoe

Look, kids, just say no.

Of course, you may be of the generation that prefers Neil's version. Even John Peel seems to like it.

Oh no, what a really heavy bummer.

8. Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris - The New Soft Shoe

Somehow, I've managed almost a hundred Top Tens on this blog so far without any GP. Had to put that right.

See also Lambchop - The Old Gold Shoe. Because it's ace.

7. Shed Seven - Devil in Your Shoes

A forgotten classic. So good, it also made My Top Ten Devil Songs.

6. Paul Simon - Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes

And she said honey take me dancing
But they ended up by sleeping
In a doorway
By the bodegas and the lights on
Upper Broadway
Wearing diamonds on the soles of their shoes

One thing's for certain: that's no way to cure these walking blues.

5. Kirsty MacColl - In These Shoes?

Reasons we miss Kirsty, #704.

"In these shoes? I don't think so."

4. Elvis Presley - Blue Suede Shoes

Don't feel too bad for Carl Perkins who wrote and recorded this song originally. I'm sure he never went without them on his feet after Elvis took it to the top.

3. Elvis Costello - (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes

So many songs about red shoes, I could almost have given them their own Top Ten. The best came from...

Kate Bush (not sure what's more disturbing in this video, Miranda Richardson's eyebrows or the divine Ms. B's acting)

Tom Waits

and Loretta Lynn...

...but Elvis's red shoes even beat the other Elvis's blue shoes in my humble opinion. From his debut album, and his debut appearance on Top of the Pops too.

(OK, that was a cheat, but I had to shoehorn those songs in somehow.)

My grandma had a saying about women who wore red shoes... 

2. Adam Ant - Goody Two Shoes

You don't drink, don't smoke... what do you do?

Write comics and Top Tens, mostly.

1. Johnny Boy - You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve

Probably a surprising choice (given the undeniable classics below), but Johnny Boy's greatest "hit" wins out for its Phil Spector swagger and for achieving the impossible: a song that sounds even better than its title.





Which are your dancing shoes?