Mike Scott is on something of a late-career renaissance at the moment. Following on from his superb tribute to Denis Hopper last year, The Waterboys have just dropped this instant sing-along classic... although this one's about someone else, and it's a lot less complimentary.
Who assembled this enterprise
To deny the evidence of our eyes?
Who presided over this offense
Against decency and common sense ?
Whose dedication, whose labour
Turned neighbour against neighbour?
Who indeed should we blame?
I don't even have to say his name*
Who put the dogwhistle back in style?
Who makes every white supremacist smile?
Who put violence in peoples' heads?
The spider at the heart of the web
Who granted Ice immunity
To murder with impunity?
Who indeed should we blame?
I don't even have to say his name*
Two trains are rolling across America tonight
I can hear their wheels, I can see their lights
Well I don't know, but maybe you hear them too
One leads to Auschwitz, one leads to the new
Who took democracy and its sacred vote
And wrapped a noose around its throat?
Which insurrectionist and bogus King
Buried the White House under bling?
Who threatens like other people breathe?
Insults women every day on TV?
Who turned this country we hold dear
Into a land of fear?
Who indeed should we blame?
I don't even have to
I don't even have to say
I don't even have to say his name*
(*That line has a couple of extra words added when Mike sings it.)
This is the actor Max Frewer, better known for playing the supposedly computer-generated TV presenter, Max Headroom. What a wonderful world it was when computer generated characters were actually played by real human beings... rather than the other way round. Sigh. Old man needs a lie down.
Here are some songs about different parts of the head and face...
I hope you all had a nice Christmas. No rest for the wicked here at Top Ten Towers, as I continue to count down my favourite records of the year. What number did we get to? 8? So this post will therefore feature 6 & 7?
You'll only get that if you know any young people. And even then, you won't get it.
For mor information, google "What is 6 7?" - but don't blame me if it makes your screen go funny.
8. The Waterboys – Life, Death & Dennis Hopper
For truly, it is the year of the concept album – but this one’s definitely the easiest to comprehend, because it does exactly what it says on the tin. Following on from the stand-out track on the last Waterboys album, Good Luck Seeker, which was a tribute to the actor Dennis Hopper… here’s a whole album dedicated to his insane story. And somehow, Mike Scott resists the urge to revisit that original tune… he’s got more than enough ideas to fill this record with as it is.
This is a story of sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll – plus plenty of movies too, from Easy Rider to Blue Velvet and beyond – with a host of special guest Dennis Hopper fans invited along for the ride, including Steve Earle, Fiona Apple, Taylor Goldsmith and some guy called Springsteen, who’s not allowed to sing… just deliver a spoken word monologue in those reassuring, gravelly tones… a master-stroke of restraint on Mike Scott’s part.
All this and a song celebrating Hopper’s finest hour – playing this hideously terrifying Frank in Blue Velvet. If you know the film, you'll understand why I'm not sharing the title here. Much of this record isn’t about Hopper as an actor though, it’s about his place in history (particularly the 60s), as a counterculture icon, and as an observer at some of the wildest moments of the 20th Century. So maybe you'll dig it even if you're not a Hopper-head. Or maybe not...
Clearly not a man who believes in sleep, the artist formerly known as one half of Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine this year released two new albums on the same day. Just like Guns n Roses did with Use Your Illusion, and Bruce did with those early 90s albums that weren't as good as Use Your Illusion. Jim Bob promoted this twin-release with his usual verve and vigour...
Well, I bought them both, of course. And they're exactly what you want from a pair of Jim Bob records - lots of angry, maudlin songs about how shit the world is, and quite a few that make you realise he's not actually as misanthrope despite all that, because he writes with such empathy for ordinary folk that at times it just breaks your heart.
I've broken a promise that I made to myself
I'd never write another one of these songs
I'd turn my attention to something else
I've tried but the pull is too strong
God knows real life is hard enough
Without the need to fictionalise
But it grinds my gears and it breaks my heart
To think of all the wasted young lives
Two albums deserves two videos...
...and you might wonder whether those two albums are both 6 and 7?
No. Gen Alpha, I'm sorry... because I'm stopping there today. Just so that 6 is on a separate post to 7. (And also, that leaves me three albums x two more posts. Which seems neater.)
Join me next week for my Top 6 albums of 2025... if you can be bothered.
Start placing your bets now for what's still to come...
When Ben messaged me about the death of Sly Stone earlier this week, I misread his text as Sly Stallone. I need to wear my glasses when looking at my phone.
Others will no doubt write far better eulogies for Sly of the Family Stone than I can. (Swiss Adam and Khayem already have.) I have to confess to not knowing much about him beyond the headlines, but I did enjoy his music. Plus, without Sly Stone, I don't reckon we'd have had Prince... at least not in the way we remember Prince. And that would have been a tragedy.
This year, they're going one step further with an entire album dedicated to the actor known for his roles in Easy Rider, Blue Velvet, True Romance and Apocalypse Now. Waterboys frontman Mike Scott says, "It's the story of Dennis Hopper's life in songs - and the story of his and our times." Even better, Scott's invited some very special guests to help him wax lyrical about Hopper... including Steve Earle, Fiona Apple, Dawes singer Taylor Goldsmith... and one Bruce "I'll guest on anybody's record these days, saves me having to record anything new myself" Springsteen.
I'm looking forward to it... especially after hearing the first single...
I've been breathing easy lately as the Grim Reaper appeared to have taken a bit of a holiday. Sadly, he's back, and in the space of 24 hours he took two big names from the world of music, and far too soon.
It was Khayem who alerted me yesterday morning to the sudden death of World Party's Karl Wallinger. What a shock. Like K, I got rather aggravated by various lazy headlines highlighting The Whole Of The Moon in his obituary... great song, obviously, but Wallinger neither wrote nor sang it, although he did play keyboards and sing backing vocals, and may have come up with the synth line, at Mike Scott's request to play something that sounded like Prince. My point is, Wallinger wrote far more songs on his own (including the Robbie Williams hit She's The One), but none of them are as universally recognised as The Whole Of The Moon, so didn't quite provide the story hook the headline writers were looking for. Still, I was surprised by how many of my non-muso friends posted tributes to Wallinger on the Book of Faces... he was obviously better known than the lazy journalists realise.
Mike Scott called Wallinger "one of the finest musicians I've ever known", and our own John Medd called him "a songwriter's songwriter." 'Nuff said.
While I expected an outpouring of love for Karl Wallinger, I wasn't surprised to see Eric Carmen's death go unnoticed by the blogosphere at large... though for me, it's just as big a loss.
Carmen will primarily be remembered for his huge 80s power ballad All By Myself, later converted into a nice little earner for his retirement years by Canadian Megalodonna Celine Dion. I'm sure it's a song you all have an opinion on, and I doubt it's a favourable one in most cases, but I have to admit... long before it was adopted by Bridget Jones and Joey & Chandler in Friends as a symbol of sad-sack loneliness, this is a song I used to sit and have a quiet, self-indulgent cry to in my teenage years. Please don't judge me.
(Classical musos might me like to point out that the verse from All By Yourself is based on the second movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, while the chorus... well, we'll get to that.)
Those of us who grew up in the 80s will also remember Carmen for his contribution to one of the biggest soundtracks of the era. Dirty Dancing might not be Citizen Kane, but if you were a teenager in 1987 (I was 15), it probably made quite an impression. Nobody puts Baby in the corner!
However, neither of those tunes represents Eric Carmen's greatest achievement in popular music. That came many years earlier, when he was the lead singer of seminal* 70s power pop band, The Raspberries.
(*With apologies to those of you who don't appreciate the over-use of this word in contemporary music criticism... but if you ask me, it's valid here.)
Of the Raspberries distinctive sound, Carmen once said, "Pete Townshend coined the phrase [power pop] to define what the Who did. For some reason, it didn't stick to the Who, but it did stick to these groups that came out in the '70s that played kind of melodic songs with crunchy guitars and some wild drumming. It just kind of stuck to us like glue, and that was OK with us because the Who were among our highest role models. We absolutely loved the Who."
The Raspberries went on to influence the next generation of American hitmakers, including Springsteen, Tom Petty, Guns 'n Roses and Kiss... plus many of their own power pop successors, like The Posies, Fountains of Wayne, Weezer and Silver Sun. A bunch of my favourite artists right there... and they all owe a debt to Eric Carmen. Rest in peace, fella.
Oh, and the chorus to All By Myself? It was a reworking of this old Raspberries tune, written back in the glorious year of 1972.
Our annual boy's getaway took us north this year, including a day in Edinburgh, a place I've long wanted to visit but never had the chance. We drove up from Carlisle in the morning, and my first impression of Scotland was that the roads are amazing. Amazing in that I hardly saw another driver as we took the scenic route through the Borders, and even the motorways were a delight to drive on. The occasional lorry on the inside lane which you pulled out to pass, but none of the horrors you get round these parts. It's telling that on our return journey down the M6, within 30 seconds of passing the border back into England, the motorway was closed down to one lane and everybody started queueing again. Welcome home!
The highlight of Edinburgh for Sam was the Dungeon, where they put on a great educational show with quite a few scares. I was singled out as having the plague and almost ended up as lunch for the local cannibals, so not that different from a night out in Barnsley. After that, we explored the city and worked our way up to the castle, which has a spectacular view and amazing history, but is rather spoilt by the utter touristification of the place (Sam preferred the far less grand environs of Carlisle Castle, because it felt more real). Sadly, we didn't have time to climb up Arthur's Seat, though we did get down to the rather incongruous parliament building... which was taped off by police barricades as someone had thrown paint all over its weird 70s sci-fi film entrance. We also didn't have time to venture into the underground... but I guess that's something for next time. We'll definitely be back.
One curious observation about our time in the city... every charity shop we passed was closed. Some just for the day, or just for the afternoon. It was almost as though they'd heard we were coming and were saving their wares for someone else. I can't imagine who.
Here's a great tune about Edinburgh Castle by a native son...
Edinburgh Castle hugging the sky
Cold grey stone, humourless and dry
Sitting like a cork on top of the town
One of these days I'm gonna blow you down
And here's some lads from up the road in Auchtermuchty...
Montgomery Clift is another of those names I recognise more from song lyrics than actual movies, though his name is mentioned in the same breath as Marlon Brando and James Dean as a pioneer of method acting. Red River, From Here To Eternity and The Misfits are among his most famous roles, though he turned downing iconic roles in High Noon, Sunset Boulevard and Shane. A car crash in 1956 left him dependent on alcohol and drugs for pain relief, ultimately leading to his untimely death ten years later.
Montgomery's filmography is pretty strong... but his Celebrity Jukebox contains some real heavy hitters, starting with The Clash...
Say, where did I see this guy?
In "Red River"?
Or a "Place In The Sun"?
Maybe "The Misfits"?
Or "From Here To Eternity"?
And everybody say, "Is he all right?"
And everybody say, "What's he like?"
And everybody say, "He sure looks funny"
That's Montgomery Clift, honey!
From there, let's visit my favourite Tom Waits album, Nighthawks At The Diner...
And it's a skid mark tattoo on the asphalt blue
Was that a Malibu?
Vroooooom, vroooooom
Yeah, it's Liz Taylor and Montgomery Clift
Coming on to the broads with the same old riff, yeah
And, just to take a break from the heavy hitters, I take you to back to 1979 for an encounter with Italian Prog Rock band New Trolls who namedrop Montgomery along with Gregory Peck and Deborah Kerr in this joyous little ditty...
This lot, on the other hand, hail from the early years of the current century... but count among their influences The Birthday Party, Suicide & The Gun Club...
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...
This week's Snapshots brought together ten male Hollywood stars... I'm saving the female actors (or actresses, as we used to call them in the old days) for another time. But not next week. It'll be when you least expect it.
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