Snapshots #454: Settlement Songs

Welcome to a list of 15 songs about places we might choose to make a home in...

15. Mourning turtles and dodos.

Doves - Kingdom Of Rust

14. Mimosa.

Those of you who enjoy a nice cocktail will know that a Mimosa is another name for...

Bucks Fizz - The Land Of Make Believe

13. Strictly - new meets half of old.

Those of you who like watching celebrities dance on TV may well be horrified to have learned that the new Strictly host is Josh Widdecombe. Not a patch on the former host, old Wink' (Claudia Winkelman).

Josh Wink - Higher State Of Consciousness 

12. Novel prize and contemporary currents, tripled.

Booker Prize. New berries. (Yes, currants are berries. I googled it.)

Booker Newbury III - Love Town

11. What's Ben's tomato worth, under the current exchange rate?

"Ben's tomato worth" was an anagram.

The Boomtown Rats - Banana Republic

10. Glaswegian Manga.

Urusei Yatsura - Strategic Hamlets

9. Stewart, Dean and Joyce.

James - Hymn From A Village

8. Hymn to making her doubt her own sanity.

Gaslighting is not big and not clever.

The Gaslight Anthem - Biloxi Parish

7. Not an imaginary hatchback.

No, it's a Real Estate!

Real Estate - Municipality

6. The first search engine found rhymes for campanologists.

The first search engine was (apparently) called Archie. 

Archie Bell & The Drells - Soul City Walk

5. Deliver them from email.

The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight 

...or you could have had...

The Postal Service - Brand New Colony

4. Swollen Cindy needs to unwind.

"Swollen Cindy" was an anagram.

Edwyn Collins - Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation

3. From Sunnydale to Martinique.

Buffy came from Sunnydale. Sainte Marie is in Martinique.

Buffy Sainte Marie - I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again

2. Oddities.

Space - Neighbourhood

1. Fancy pants in Ginger.

Kenny sang about Fancy Pants, with Ginger Rogers.

Kenny Rogers - Coward of the County

Come back to the Snapshots settlement next Saturday.

Snapshots #331: A Top Ten Tiger Songs

Ten tiger-tastic tunes to make your Sunday roar-some!

10. Half a city in Hawaii.

That city would be Honolulu.

Lulu - I'm A Tiger

If you only watch one video this week, make it that one. The way that tiger's pacing, I'm convinced it's going to eat Lulu by the end of the song.

9. Those obnoxious aliens.

That's their name, translated from Japanese - the band were named after a famous manga comic.

Urusei Yatsura - Hello Tiger

8. Befuddled by Dundee Day.

Dundee Day was an anagram.

Duane Eddy - Tiger Love and Turnip Greens

7. They came, they saw, they conquered.

The Caesars - Paper Tigers

6. Travelling saint demands his coffee white.

St. Christopher needs his milk.

Apparently these guys were one of David Bowie's favourite bands back in the day...

Christopher Milk - Tiger

5. Feels good inside.

Feels good inside.

Eels - Tiger In My Tank

4. Greasy ladies knock on wood.

The Pink Ladies were in Grease. Eddie Floyd knocked on wood.

Pink Floyd - When The Tigers Broke Free

3. Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

Bermuda Triangle.

Mud - Tiger Feet

2. Events spiral, out of control.

"Events spiral" is an anagram.

April Stevens - Teach Me, Tiger

Parental advisory suggested.

1. Stoic leftovers.

Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger

I'll be rising up, back on the street with more of this nonsense next Saturday.

Celebrity Jukebox #63: Stanley Kubrick

A lot of film fans rate Stanley Kubrick as the pre-eminent auteur director of the 20th Century. Some of those same cinephiles don't rate The Shining as highly as his other movies. Stephen King famously hated Kubrick's adaptation of his novel. 

I can take or leave most Kubrick movies, especially 2001, which I just never got. Yet despite the fact that Stephen King is my favourite author, I love Kubrick's The Shining. It must have watched it more than just any movie apart from The Big Lebowski, Back To The Future and Die Hard. And following on from Shelley Duvall, Stanley Kubrick was an obvious contender for the Celebrity Jukebox.

Turns out he's an incredibly well-referenced fellow, particularly in the rap world where auteurs and visionaries are clearly admired. Frank Ocean drops his name more than once. Jay Z, Lupe Fiasco, A$AP Rocky... they all dig Stan. And who better to follow those cutting edge sophisticates than... Jimmy Buffet?

Jimmy Buffett - Fruitcakes

The future, captain's log, stardate two thousand and something

We're seven years from the millenium

That's a science fiction fact

Stanley Kubrick and his buddy Hal

Now don't look that abstract

I guess Jimmy wrote that 30 years ago. 1993, in case you need a kick where it hurts this morning.

Here's another fun song from contemporary hit-makers Bastille. (OK, maybe not that contemporary. They've been around since 2010.)

Bastille - Bad Decisions

I'm here feeling lower than the sterling

How'd you look so good?

Groundhog evening, dancing on the ceiling

Kubrick's Hollywood

You've no idea how many songs I found that mentioned Stanley Kubrick. Some of them referencing 2001, others A Clockwork Orange or Full Metal Jacket, a surprising amount his final movie, Eyes Wide Shut. Some even seem to believe that old conspiracy theory that NASA hired Kubrick to fake the 1969 moon landing. Take Mansun, for example...

Mansun - Fall Out

Your philosophy's so cool

With your tranquillizers, valium and gin

You talk of euthanasia

And your breakdown was so cool

Did Stanley Kubrick fake it with the moon?

It was incredible how many of those references were from modern artists, proving how much of an influence his movies still have among the young people. It got to the point where I was just an old man wandering through a virtual record store and every shelf was filled with artists I'd never heard of and couldn't even begin to connect with. Although there were a few discoveries that matched my own oddball sensibilities. Here's a few titular mentions as brief evidence of how I spent my Christmas holiday...

Mogwai - Stanley Kubrick

UNKLE - Kubrick

Say Anything - Kall Me Kubrick

Lemon Demon - Kubrick & The Beast

Urusei Yatsura - Kubrick In Town

Phil France - Kubrick

In the end though, I had to admit defeat. There were literally thousands of musical references to Stanley Kubrick, and like a clockwork orange about to explode, the jukebox was on the verge of overload. 

Then one song came to my rescue. It's by Scatman Crothers, an actor and singer who began his musical career in the 30s... and went on to be immortalised as The Overlook Hotel's head chef, Dick Hallorann. He's the man with "The Shining". And he knew Stanley Kubrick quite well. He even wrote a song about him, from first-hand experience...

There's a man living in London town, makes movies, he's world renown

Yes, he's really got the fame Stanley Kubrick is his name

Yes he does it all, I'm telling you all, Stanley does it all

He might work you days and days, you'll find out it really pays

He's a perfectionist you know, he's got to be right before you go

He does it all, he does it all, Stanley does it all