Hot 100 #25

Blackpool's Section 25 give us our image this week, a post-punk band who have been in the go since the late 70s and are still going... having recently been sampled by Kanye West, of all people. Here's Looking From A Hilltop.

Before we begin with your suggestions for Number 25, a quick reminder of Ezekiel 25:17, for anyone who doesn't know their Bible verse (as rewritten by Quentin Tarantino).

Oh, and let's get the Christmas songs out of the way too, shall we?

Everything But The Girl - 25th of December

Roberta Flack - 25th of Last December

Desmond Reed - 25th of December

OK, what did you have for me this week? Lots to get through, and as is often the case, Martin starts the ball rolling...

The Dukes Of Stratosphear - 25 O'Clock

Zager & Evans - In The Year 2525 (double whammy!)

And Night Ranger - The Secret Of My Success (from the movie of the same name) has the lyric

The secret of my success is I'm living 25 hours a day

And, surely a contender, Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes (or Bowie, if you like) starts:

Well, Billy rapped all night about his suicide,

How he'd kick it in the head when he was 25.

Speed jive, don't want to stay alive

When you're 25

They were all contenders, actually, Martin. Always happy when someone cuts down my own list.

Next up was George, who's obviously got some spare time on his hands now that his American road trip is over.

Is Mungo Jerry's In The Summertime allowed? It does have a 25 in it, but its part of " a ton and 25" in your daddy's car.

That's always allowed, George. How could I disqualify those sideburns and the ultimate drinking & driving pop song? Although google informs me that the lyrics go like this...

If her daddy's rich take her out for a meal

If her daddy's poor just do what you feel

Speed along the lane

Do a turn or return the twenty-five

When the sun goes down

You can make it, make it good in the lay-by

Ann Peebles - 99 lbs 

25 lbs. of pure cane sugar

25 lbs. of tenderness in each and every touch

25 lbs. of understanding my man

24 lbs of something else that I can't even name

And it all adds up to 99 lbs

All put together in a fine white frame

I hope my boss is watching how George and I are embedding Maths into this post.

Chicago - 25 or 6 To 4

I'm so glad George suggested that one. I mean, that wasn't on my list at all. No, sir.

Those last two choices were both seconded by Lynchie who also added...

Johnny Cash - 25 Minutes To Go

I'm presuming you meant the Live at Folsom State Prison version, Lynchie.

But George wasn't done yet...

"And I think there's a Clash song too with a 25 in it..." he added.

Rigid Digit was straight on the case...

The Clash - Julie's Been Working For The Drug Squad

10 years for you, 19 for you

And you can get out in 25

That is if you’re still alive

The Swede was up next... and he's really been digging through the crates...

A few prog-ish bits and bobs scattered through my suggestions this week, some of which might meet with George's approval.

(No chance any of them winning then.)

Xhol - Love Potion 25

Faust - 25 Yellow Doors

The Dream Syndicate - 50 In A 25 Zone

(That one was actually on my list.)

Les 5 Gentlemen - LSD 25 Ou Les Metamorphoses De Margaret Steinway

If - Song for Elsa, Three Days Before Her 25th Birthday

Moving Gelatine Plates - X-25

Those three weren't. Although who can resist a band called Moving Gelatine Plates? (Me, apparently.)

The Swede did redeem himself in the end though...

Elvis Costello - Twenty-Five To Twelve

And I couldn't find that anywhere online, so I had to upload it myself!

The Swede concludes...

Lyrically, New Pleasure by Richard Hell & the Voidoids comes to mind, containing as it does the lyric...

You're in too deep 

You can't survive 

Or can't be you past twenty-five

Thanks, Swede. Over to Dubai next, where Jim has only two offerings this week...

The only tunes in my collection are:

Own Up If You're Over 25 by John Dummer and Helen April

Did you stand up for Otis Redding?

Did you cry at Elvis's wedding?

Own up if you're over 25

(You'd have to own up to considerably more years than 25 to answer those question in the affirmative these days!)

25 Years by The Catch

Couple of early 80's tunes.

They'll do for me, Jim. Though I'd never heard either of them before.

Oh, wait... Rigid Digit's back...

Saw Doctors - £25

And I know you're an admirer of the work of Simple Minds.

Do you mean "the Scottish U2"?

Simple Minds - Mandela Day

It was 25 years they take that man away

Now the freedom moves in closer every day

Wipe the tears down from your saddened eyes

They say Mandela's free so step outside

A fine sentiment, if only it wasn't done so blandly

I'm glad you said that, RD. Saved me the job.

B52s - Wig

Wigs on fire 

Wigs on fire 

Wigs on fire

It's 2525 and we've got the most wigs alive!

Now that's more like it!

Blimey. Are we not done yet? No, here comes Lynchie again...

I forgot to mention 3 Dimes Down by Drive-By Truckers which has the line:

Three dimes down and 25 cents shy 

Of a slice of the Double-mint twins

Come back baby

Rock and Roll never forgets

Always got time for the DBTs, Lynchie. Channelling the Stones on that one, I think.

Now here's C to bring all us old farts into the 21st Century...

I must put in a good word for young Liverpool lad Louis Berry and his cracking song 25 Reasons. It's only a couple of years old but has that 60's R'n'B thing going on, with a pinch of Dr Feelgood too. Go for it!

Louis Berry - 25 Reasons

Blimey. He bears further investigation. Didn't think the young uns made 'em like that anymore. Cheers, C.

Hang on, we're not done yet, here's The Swede with this week's Dylan suggestion...

Bob Dylan - Sitting On A Barbed Wire Fence

Yes, this woman I've got, 

She's killing me alive, 

She's makin' me into an old man and man, 

I'm not even twenty-five...

Imagine that. A time when the Bobster wasn't even 25! That has featured here before. So I'm sure I must have done the "If he's sitting on a barbed wire fence, that'll explain why his voice sounds like it does" gag. If not, you can have it for free.

One more from The Swede... even though I'm starting to feel like Jez must have done in the most ridiculous excesses of The Chain (coming back soon, apparently).

Robyn Hitchcock - Happy The Golden Prince 

Twenty-five hours of love in the life of 

Happy the Golden Prince Rides Again!

That is bizarre. Good though.

Surely we must be done by now?

Oh no, here's Douglas...

Dang! I blame the time zone difference here in Canada, but when I awoke at 6:00 a.m. to get an early bid in for Dukes of Stratosphear's 25 O'Clock and Zager and Evans' In The Year 2525, I found I was a few hours behind Martin. No problem, I think to myself, I'll give it some more thought, and get the rest of my bids in during my lunch hour. Would't you know it, when I go to check at lunch there are fifteen comments now, and Rigid Digit has taken another of my sure-fire guesses in Mandela Day.

So I'll start instead with a couple clever covers. How about They Might Be Giants' cover of The Dukes of Stratosphear's 25 O'Clock? I know TMBGs get a lot of love around here, so let's go with that, for the steal...

They Might Be Giants - 25 O'Clock

Or if that is not a winner, how about Visage's cover of In The Year 2525? Kind of gives an appropriately "futuristic" take on the original...

Visage - In The Year 2525

One of three covers of that song in my collection, Douglas. For completeness' sake, here's the other two...

The Feeling - In The Year 2525

Ian Brown - In The Year 2525

That Ian Brown cover is my favourite. But back to Douglas...

Strangely (?), I could find no one who took on a cover of Simple Mind's Mandela Day, let alone offering any kind of hope for "improvement" on the original.

You can't improve on perfection, Douglas. Apparently.

So that leaves me with one original, and not for the first time, I find myself offering from among the oeuvre of one Paul Heaton that deal with his take on aging. How about "Prettiest Eyes" by the Beautiful South, which contain the following seasonally appropriate reference to Christmas:

Let's take a look at these crows feet, just look

Sitting on the prettiest eyes

Sixty 25th of Decembers

Fifty-nine 4th of Julys

Not through the age or the failure, children

Not through the hate or despise

Take a good look at these crows feet

Sitting on the prettiest eyes

Luckily, I have a few more years before I have to worry about any of that myself.

The Beautiful South - Prettiest Eyes

That is one of my favourites from Mr. Heaton, Douglas, so you did come close again this week.

Right, what's left in the bottom of my own hard-drive?

Kris Kristofferson - The Year 2000 Minus 25

(Some time prior to Zager & Evans.)

The Black Crowes - P.25 London

Eminem - 25 To Life

Same title, very different song...

The Stray Birds - 25 To Life

The Big Dish - 25 Years

John Mellencamp - Another Sunny Day 12/25

Patti Smith - 25th Floor

Tom Williams & The Boat - 25

Jefferson Airplane - D.C.B.A. 25

Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello - 25 Fingers

Bomb The Music Industry - 25!

Johnny Marr - 25 Hours

(Surprised Martin missed that one.)

The Earlies - 25 Easy Pieces

Edwin Starr - 25 Miles

Oh, and let's not forget Buck Rogers In The 25th Century... which leads us to this old favourite...

Feeder - Buck Rogers

And finally...

ZZ Top - I Gotsta Get Paid

Lots of 25s in that one!

In the end, while it could have been Zager & Evans... or Chicago... Johnny, Mott or The Beautiful South... this week's winner's trophy actually goes to George.

Yes, George.

Who's have thought it?

But his final suggestion trumped all other contenders...

Tramp by Otis Redding and Carla Thomas. Just before the things with the Cadillacs there's a 25 cent lyric...

That's right, you haven't even got a fat bankroll in your pocket...

You probably haven't even got twenty-five cents

Greatest duet ever recorded? Could be.

I can buy you minks, rats, frogs, squirrels, rabbits, anything you want, woman!

Thank you all for your help. But if you think 25 was a big post... wait till we get to next week! Try not to get too carried away. I might just go with the really obvious one. (Or the really obvious one to me.)

Oh, one final thing. Unless they're amazing suggestions, I'm going to stop allowing lyrical 24s (and so on) as we get nearer number one. Let's face it, there are way too many. So you'll have to be really persuasive if you want to sell me on a lyrical reference from now on. Sorry.

Hot 100 #55

Aussie retro-rockers Ol' 55 welcome back out Hot 100 Countdown. If you're new to the feature, it's simple. Every week I choose a song to represent one number, counting down, from 100 to 1. Most weeks it's in the song's title, but occasionally we'll go for a lyrical '55 if it's a belter. I am helped along the way by you guys. Which brings us to your pre-Christmas suggestions...

C started the ball rolling by suggesting Precious by the Pretenders ("such a good song", she assures us):

"East 55th and Euclid Avenue was real precious..."

Brian seconded C's suggestion too.

Martin, meanwhile, is desperate to get some Zager & Evans into this countdown... but if you ask me, he's 5500 integers too high for this week...

In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you

(As he points out though, those lyrics seems pretty apt for 2019, never mind 5555.)

Martin also realises that the way to my heart will always be via Huey Lewis & The News... Who Cares?

Dimwits on the freeway stay alive at 55
Politicians speeding, just trying to survive

Lynchie then suggested an absolute classic... "Surely the main contender HAS to be the 1956 chart-topping hit by The Auctioneer by Leroy Van Dyke?"

45 dollar 50 now 50 dollar 50 dollar
50 dollar 50 dollar give me a hollar 50 dollar
Who will bid it at a 50 dollar bill?
50 dollar 55 55 make it 55 and a 55 make it 55 and
Sold that horse for a 50 dollar bill!

Works for me, Lynchie - particularly as my dad used to be an auctioneer when I was growing up.

And then came Rigid Digit. And he came to ROCK!

Sammy Hagar - I Can't Drive 55

It's worth sharing the album cover of that beauty too...

If only all problems at The White House could be solved by Sammy Hagar parachuting in with a red guitar.

Meanwhile, we can always rely on The Swede to parachute in with some totally out-there suggestions... and this week, he doesn't disappoint.

"German jazz-infused prog anyone? I give you 'Huchen 55, A', 'Huchen 55, B', 'Huchen 55, C' & 'Huchen 55, D' by German band Out of Focus, from their 1972 LP 'Four Letter Monday Afternoon'."

Couldn't find a link to that particular track... but here's the full album if anyone has a spare 95 minutes,...

The Swede also returned to trusty old Mr. Zimmerman, with a suggestion that might spark deja vu for some readers...

"Also for your consideration, 'Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence' by Bob Dylan, which includes the lyric '...I paid one thousand, two hundred twenty-seven dollars and fifty-five cents to see my bulldog bite a rabbit and my hound dog's just sittin' on a barbed-wire fence..."

Finally there was Alyson, with a hallowed offering from The Man In Black...

Johnny Cash - I Corinthians, 15:55

But in the end, this week's winner (as correctly identified by Martin) should have been obvious. We could have had the Eagles version, but apparently the original artist was never particularly enamoured with their cover, and who I am to argue with Mr. Waits?


54 next week. Your suggestions, as always, will be gratefully received...

Hot 100 #65

What I like about this feature is that on a good week, you do all my work for me. Charity Chic even suggested this week's artist-related image - and a fine suggestion it is too. If you've never heard any Buck 65, I suggest you start with this.

There weren't many titular 65s out there... although I did discover a hitherto-unknown collaboration between Kurt Wagner & Josh Rouse called simply 65... which would have been a great fit if I'd discovered it in my own record collection, but I didn't. So I'm going to have to hunt that down now.

And then there was Dottie West - Route 65 to Nashville, which would have made a nice sequel to last week's post... had I owned it.

I was very tempted by Brian's suggestion of 65 Love Affair by Paul Davis... but sadly I don't even own a copy of that. I'll have to borrow Brian's limited edition gold vinyl copy sometime.

And finally - STOP THE PRESS! - a late entry from Deano in Australia (it takes a while for the pigeon to deliver his comments, and the poor bird has very tired wings)...

Louis Jordan - 65 Bars

Sadly I can't listen to that as I'm editing this on a computer with no sounds just moments before the post goes live... but it's Louis Jordan, so I'm sure it's ace, even though Dean tells us it's "quite different to the jump blues he was normally known for. Towards the latter end of his career he quite of genre hopped trying to latch onto the latest trends." I'll give it a spin when I get home tonight, I promise.

All of which left me only lyrical 65s to choose from this week. Luckily, you offered some fine examples...

Martin gave us one of the latter millennia listed in the lyrics of In The Year 2525 by Zager & Evans...

In the year 6565
Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife.
You'll pick your sons, pick your daughters too
From the bottom of a long glass tube.

 

That could well happen long before 6565... some might argue we're already there.

Oh, and if you have a spare week, I highly recommend you go and have a go at Martin's pop crossword. But not until you've left a 64 suggestion for next week.

Martin also offered Metal Man by The Breeders...

I don't know how old I was
But it was a '65 pickup

The Swede then dug out his old Richard Hell & The Voidoids records and suggested... Liars Beware.

You were sixty-five when you wiggled out,

Your mind all twisted and your mom all shout, all shout, all shout

If you're 65 and your mum is still shouting at you, you need to ask yourself some serious questions.

Lynchie then came very close to winning this week's prize with two damned fine suggestions. Firstly, The Boston Rag by Steely Dan...

Back in nineteen sixty-five
I was singing this song
When Lonnie came alive

(I was rather tempted to buy a ticket to that new Steely Dan tour... even though it's only really Donald Fagen now... until I realised I'd have to take out a second mortgage to do so.)

And then Burning Down The House by Talking Heads...

Three hun-dred SIXTY FIVE de-grees
Burning down the house!

Finally, C resorted to the excellent tactic of "if all else fails, try Bowie" with 1984...

I'm looking for the treason that I knew in '65...

All great suggestions, but I have to give this week's prize to Rigid Digit for choosing my favourite song by (possibly - it's looking increasingly likely) my artist of the decade, someone who persuaded me (despite serious lack of funds) to buy my first gig ticket of the year last week...

So go ahead and love me while it's still a crime
And don't forget you could be laughing
65% more of the time
You could be laughing
63% more of the time
You could be laughing
25% more of the time

RD says, "I love the fact he goes into exponential regression at the end. Plus it gives me two more lyrical entries for future submissions."

And believe me, I love this song so much... it could well crop up again.

Next week: the $64,000 question will be... do I have to go Ringo? Or can I dodge that aging bullet? You may be able to help...

Saturday Snapshots #2: The Answers

Answers, please!

I think I beat you on a couple of these this week: at least identifying the song, anyway. Which is good, because I don't like them to be too easy. That said, the clues in question were particularly obscure. And on one, I didn't give you enough info...


10. This reluctant replacement is more suited to a crown than a flat cap...

Prince - I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man

9. MK, darling, you'll find Sidekick Psycho hard to accept when he takes a stroll with The Bangles.

Batman's Sidekick = Robin... or Robyn.

Psycho = Hitchcock.

The Bangles walked like an Egyptian.

MK = Ultra (CIA mind-control programme from the 50s: look it up.)

"hard to accept" - Unbelievable

darling = love.

Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians - Ultra Unbelievable Love

Phew. I told you that one was was torture.

8. Message received: he sweeps up for 2 hours just to purchase a poky place.

Message received = Roger.

Two hours of pushing broom buys and 8x12 4 bit room...

Roger Miller - King of the Road

7. Don't pay the ferryman: being seen coming out of one of their gigs takes the biscuit.

Damn it: I edited the original clue down and dropped the bit that referred to the actual song so both clues only refer to the band. In which case, you all get 10 bonus points for my stupidity.

The clue originally began: Please believe that it's true...

(Second mistake in two weeks. Must try harder in future.)

Yes, Charon was Ferryman of the river Styx into Hades. A coin was placed in your dead mouth to pay him.

Styx - Babe

The second half of the clue depends upon you being familiar with this. If you're not, you should be.

Sorry, Alyson, the Chris DeBurgh bit was a deliberate red herring. Hope you're feeling better.

6. Look on the bright side and thiscrowd will always let you down.

Yes, that is Sophie Ellis-Bextor. The Swede had no problem spotting her.

Theaudience - A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed

5. If you're still around in another 500 years, zese two will be waiting for you.

Zese two = Z(ager) & E(vans)

Zager & Evans - In The Year 2525

Well done, George.

4. Superman's mum knows: the Duke & Big Lips never did it this good.

Superman = Christopher Reeves.

Superman's mum = Martha Kent.

Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Dancing In The Street

The Duke & Big Lips? These two clowns. (I don't care what you say: that video still cracks me up.)

3. They have an answer for the Old King... but it may be an illusion.

Camera Obscura - Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken

Old King Cole? This song was Camera Obscura's answer to this.

2. Bananarama had been listening to her, like $100 Benjamin.

Banarama sang I Heard A Rumour.

Benjamin Franklin is on the $100 note. Congrats to CC, taking a break from his holiday to grab the points for that one.

Rumer - Aretha

1. In pop's parallel universe...they were desperately seeking a home.

Mark 'E' Everett's dad, Hugh Everett II, was the American physicist who came up with the notion of parallel universes, the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics.

Desperately Seeking Susan, of course.

A combined effort from C & The Swede: teamwork pays off.




More image-based insanity next Saturday.