Radio Songs #34: What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? Part II

By the end of my first year as a full time (rather than weekends only) employee at the radio station - latterly a paid one! - I reached something of a turning point in my "career". For one thing, I think I was starting to realise that a full-time jocking role might well be out of my reach... or might not be as desirable as it had first seemed... much as I still enjoyed co-presenting the Saturday morning show.

That show was going pretty well, actually - there was talk of paying me for that too! I was also picking up a fair bit of weekend work as a T.O. / tech-op / technical operator. Sometimes even working on the Saturday afternoon Sport show... even though I had no interest in football. There was even talk of me claiming a few hours wages for my work in the record library... although I'd happily have carried on doing that for the free CDs. All in all, I was earning a fairly decent income for a 19 year old. But like all 19 year olds, I wanted more. Not necessarily more money though... just more future.

Added to this, there was still the dream. Working in radio was a dream job... but not THE dream job. That had always been to become a writer. To tell stories for a living. And I probably wasn't going to get to do that if I stayed in radio all my life. No, it was becoming increasingly clear that if I wanted to make a serious go of it as a writer, I had to take my education a bit further. Writers were smart and erudite types. For a start, they knew what erudite meant... and I didn't have a clue. I'd gradually come round to the idea that maybe I had to go to uni after all.

But... how could I do that and keep working in radio at the same time?

Did I have to go back to working only weekends?

And what would that mean for my glorious new expendable income?

This was a good few years before the nonsense that is tuition fees, when it was still perfectly possible to join a full-time university course for FREE, as long as you had the necessary grades... and if you did so in your home town, you could keep living at home and not rack up any student debt at all.

But still... could I live (and buy more records, comics, books, videos, cinema tickets: all those youthful necessities) just from a few hours of radio work at the weekend? Could I really go back to being skint most of the time and sponging off my parents?

And then...

And then an opportunity came up which saved me... and doomed me... all at the same time.

34. Marvin Gaye & Mary Wells - The Late Show

The internet says the album Marvin recorded with Mary in 1964 wasn't promoted well at the time. Mary was the bigger star (following her Number One with My Guy), but she left Motown soon afterwards (bad advice from her husband!), leaving Marvin to hook up with Kim Weston for his next, more successful collaboration. Marvin's star continued to rise, Mary slipped into obscurity.

They sound pretty good damned together though...

My Top Ten Horse Racing Songs

Apparently there was a big horse race last weekend. I wouldn't know. I'm not a fan of horse races. But I do like the odd horse race song. Here's ten runners and riders... who'll be the winner?

(There's no Bob Seger in this countdown. I just like that album cover.)

Special mentions to Grand National and Race Horses.

Oh, and this old song from Racing Cars... which explains why I won't ever go for a day at the races.


10. James -  Sometimes (Lester Piggott)

One of my favourite James songs, though I've no idea why they stuck the famous tax-dodging jockey's name in brackets after the title. Various suggestions I've read online include that the beat of the song sounds like racing hooves (erm... not really) or that this was a phrase the roadie used to call out during soundcheck. We may never know, and any connection to horse racing seems tenuous at best (which is why I've placed it at Number 10)... but it's a cracking tune.

9. Dan Fogelberg - Run for the Roses

Look, if Sting wrote this, I'd be taking the piss out of him for writing a song from the second person perspective of a race horse... but I'll cut Dan Fogelberg a bit more slack because he doesn't have a stripy jumper. Make sure you've got your cheese-board ready for this one...

Born in the valley 
And raised in the trees 
Of western Kentucky
On wobbly knees
With mama beside you 
To help you along 
You'll soon be growing up strong
All the long, lazy mornings 
In pastures of green 
The sun on your withers 
The wind in your mane 
Could never prepare you
For what lies ahead

8. The Pogues - Bottle of Smoke

Let's face it, if you went down the racetrack and found Shane MacGowan there... well, you'd hardly be surprised, would you? You might be surprised if he won though...

Twenty fucking five to one
Me gambling days are done
I bet on a horse called the Bottle of Smoke
And my horse won

7. Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys - Molly And Tenbrooks

The real deal - from 1957, and a bluegrass CD I picked up for 50p in a charity shop.

Tenbrooks was a big bay horse 

He wore that shaggy mane

He run all around Memphis 

He beat the Memphis train

6. Richard Thompson - The Angels Took My Racehorse Away

You see, this is the problem I have with horse racing. What happens to those poor horses?

There's a racecourse in the sky
And that's where all the racing horses must go by and by
And I believe every steward, lord and groom
I believe that they're calling her home

5. Carly Simon - You're So Vain

Well, I hear you went to Saratoga
And your horse, naturally, won

Naturally. Mick, Warren, David... whoever this song was about, he was just a git. Full stop.

4. The Band - Up On Cripple Creek

Good luck had just stung me
To the race track I did go
She bet on one horse to win
And I bet on another to show

Odds were in my favor
I had him five to one
When that nag to win came around the track
Sure enough he had won

Apparently, "Up on Cripple Creek is notable as it is one of the first instances of a Hohner clavinet being played with a wah-wah pedal". Which, I'm sure you'll all agree, is... erm... something.

3. Elbow & Richard Hawley - The Fix

You see, this is why you shouldn't waste your money on gambling - it's all fixed anyway.

The fix is in

There's a nag gonna dance home at Epsom

The fix is in

Can't wait to see how it upsets 'em

(That's one great rhyme there, Guy.)

2. George Jones - The Race Is On

Only George Jones could turn use a racing commentary to chronicle heartbreak...

1. The Hold Steady - Chips Ahoy!

An outsider romps home! But it's one of my favourite Hold Steady tunes. (Great video too.)

She put $900 on the fifth horse in the sixth race
I think its name was "Chips ahoy!"
It came in six lengths ahead,

We spent the whole next week getting high

Chips Ahoy! would be a cool name for a racehorse.



Which is your Shergar?

Grumpy Old Men Songs #2: Things The Grandchildren Should Know

Mark 'E' Everett is only 9 years older than me, so not especially an old man... but grumpy, he's been doing an excellent job at for years. He's got plenty of good reasons for that, as revealed in his autobiography 'Things The Grandchildren Should Know', which I wrote about almost ten years ago on a blog long since shut down. I still have the keys though, so here's my review of that book from ten years past...

Things The Grandchildren Should Know is the most honest and touching and human rockstar autobiography I've ever read. But then I didn't really expect anything else from Mark 'E' Everett of the Eels (curiously, after many years avoiding the definite article when naming this band, I find Everett himself has no such qualms), a songwriter who's made a career out of refusing to compromise or play the record company game.

Beyond his maverick career, Everett's life is fascinating for a number of reasons. As chronicled in a recent BBC documentary, his father, Hugh Everett III, was the scientist who developed the many worlds theory of quantum physics... he's basically the chap who came up with parallel realities. Unfortunately, Everett Senior's theories were largely discounted in his own lifetime and have only been taken seriously in the years since his death. 

Then there's the tragedy. E's life is full of it. From finding his father dead and seeing a plane crash in the street outside his house... to his sister's suicide on the verge of the Eels first world tour... to his mother's subsequent death from cancer... to the death of his cousin and her husband, flight attendants on one of the planes that hit the Pentagon on 9/11. 

Despite all this, the tone of Things The Grandchildren... is resolutely positive. Yes, E shares with us the darkest moments of his life, and the bitterness and anger he feels over the way he's often been mistreated by the music industry machine, but this doesn't ever come across as whiney or self-pitying. He's completely aware that despite all the negative moments in his life, he's also been lucky enough to make a living doing something he loves - writing and performing music. 

There's a recurring theme to the Eels' music that I've mentioned before on this blog. It's about finding the positive in even life's darkest moments, and it crops up again and again in songs like 'Mr. E's Beautiful Blues', 'Hey Man, Now You're Really Living' and 'Rotten World Blues'. After reading Mark Oliver Everett's story, I think it's fair to say this sentiment - like everything else in E's art - comes straight from the heart. 

I reckon all this makes E the sweetest Grumpy Old Man you could ever hope to meet, and that's perfectly encapsulated in this song, the "theme tune" to his life story...

2. Eels - Things The Grandchildren Should Know

I'm turning out just like my father

Though I swore I never would

Now I can say that I have love for him

I never really understood

What it must have been like for him

Living inside his head

I feel like he's here with me now

Even though he's dead

Eels have a new album out this week which I'm enjoying very much and I'll no doubt write about in more detail soon. Here's the single in case you haven't heard it.

Hot 100 Countdown #88

I set quite a challenge with my Number 88 choice, offering ten points for a correct guess, figuring that nobody would stand a chance.

Nobody did.

However, a couple of you came VERY close... so close in fact that you revealed to me something I didn't even know about the song I'd chosen. It's not an original. It's a parody! More on that in a moment...

First, the runners-up...

The Swede suggested Rocket 88, one of the forerunners of rock 'n' roll, originally recorded by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats... with a little help from Ike Turner (Brenston was Ike's saxophonist). It's been covered since by all manner of rock 'n' roll greats, but its place in the history of rock 'n' roll would surely guarantee it a place in this countdown... if it wasn't for a certain other song we'll get to shortly.

Other possibilities included...

ELO - Latitude 88 North

OMD - 88 Seconds In Greensboro (Rigid Digit's second choice)

Cher - 88 Degrees

Sum 41 - 88 (thanks to C)

And lyrically...

Placebo - Hang On To Your  ("Two fat ladies on my back and now it's 88")

Paul Weller - Two Fat Ladies (imagine sitting between Weller and Brian Molko at the bingo)

Bruce Springsteen - Spirits In The Night (in which Bruce takes us up to Greasy Lake via Route 88)


All of which brings us to my choice, an irresistible hymn to all the geeky girls the singer had dated in the past. It's a track I stumbled across when it went viral a few years back and being a bit of a geek myself, I loved all the lyrical references...

Colleen was from a comic book 

Her spandex bursting at the seams 

Belinda dressed up all in brass 

Fulfilled my Princess Leia dreams 

Connie turned me on to Sandman 

Death had never looked so fine 

Gretchen was a vampire slay'r 

Showed me her stake, I showed her mine 

Adam Fromm - 88 Lines About 44 Fangirls

Of course, I really should do my research. Because up until last week, I had no idea that this was actually a parody of a much older song by an American band from the 70s and 80s called The Nails. I do not claim to know everything, so I'll happily tip my hat (and award points to) Alyson, Rigid Digit and Swiss Adam for directing me towards the original... which I also now love... though not quite as much as the Adam Fromm version. You never get over your first love.

Eighty-seven? No definites, it's a pretty open field. Any ideas?

Mid-Life Crisis Songs #23: Cat's Eyes

Driving into work last week, I was rather disturbed to see the following sign at the roadside. Apparently these signs have caused upset around the country to children and motorists from other countries who don't know that the cat's eyes in question are these...

...the small reflecting lights placed down the white line in the centre of roads, designed to keep motorists on the right side at night time.

My own upset though wasn't caused by the idea that some crazed loon from the council or the Highways Agency was going round the local area blinding felines... it was over the fact that these wonderful inventions were being removed, seemingly never to be replaced.

I realise as I type these words that I'm sounding more and more like the kind of Grumpy Old Man who writes to the local paper (if, indeed, there still is a local paper) and begins his letter with the phrase "Why, oh why, oh why...?" but my dismay goes beyond the usual "it's another budget cut which will end up costing lives!" whinge (though it probably will) and even the kind of good old Yorkshire patriotism that would fuel the average "Dear Sir..." scribbler (Cat's Eyes, in case you didn't know, were invented by Halifax-born Percy Shaw). No, my real cause for consternation is over the loss of yet another icon of my childhood. Many's the happy hour myself and a mate would spend sitting in the middle of the road with a pen-knife, trying desperately to extract the jewels from a cat's eye. Well, perhaps not that many. But we did it once or twice before we got bored. It was a rite of passage round these parts - in honour of good old Percy - though if the local bobby caught you, you'd be for it.

Being a parent, of course, turns all that on its head. I'd be horrified to discover Sam was doing anything similar when he gets a bit older - if not because of the wanton vandalism, then certainly for the threat of getting mown down by a speeding motorist. I doubt my own parents gave it much thought, if they even knew such stuff was going on - after all, those were the days when we'd go  out in the morning and come back for tea and nobody worried where we were or what we were up to in between. If they had found out, they'd probably have just said, "boys will be boys"... and then given us a good thrashing with the slipper. (That last bit's a joke, my parents never thrashed me with a slipper. It was a studded belt. No, it wasn't even that. But if I'm going to turn into a Whinging Old Git, I might as well go the whole hog!)

But isn't this supposed to be a music blog, you scream? Well, of course, dear...


I suppose I could have featured Cat's Eyes by Cat's Eyes today, except... no, I'd never heard of it either. So instead, here is a stark indictment of the consequences of removing cat's eyes from our local highways...


23. Dave Edmunds - Crawling From The Wreckage


I've heard a rumour this was written by Graham Parker, though he didn't get around to recording his version for another 25 years. Dave's version came from his fourth album, Repeat When Necessary, released in 1979. Although it only made #59 in the UK singles chart, the next two singles from the album (Costello's Girls' Talk and Hank DeVito's Queen of Hearts) were both big hits. Much as I love both of those, Crawling From The Wreckage still stands up for me as Dave Edmunds' finest moment...

Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Bits of me are scattered in the trees and in the hedges
Crawling from the wreckage, crawling from the wreckage
Into a brand, new car