Ring The Bells, because Saturday Snapshots is back, so Sit Down and Say Something about the ten clues below. Can you identify the artist and song for each? Of course you can...
10. Admiral Johnson goes out for another drive.
9. Easy to solve even if you don't know the answer... Lady Liberty.
8. A Drama II: Take your clothes off and she might fancy you.
7. Charlie's band makes a killing with their sex-change.
6. Bumbling coach refuses to release Bob's farmer.
5. Mend your jeans with Cooper and a bow tie.
4. Old Nick is scared of four Italians stealing his car, so adds extra security.
3. The do of the century, from fabulous dawn to brilliant dusk.
2. Rings like a legendary marksman, but suffers an amnesiac heart.
1. I am called Chocolate Peanuts.
How Was It For You? Don't get Born of Frustration. The answers will be here... well, Tomorrow, obviously!
You join us today at the mouth of the river Ness in the Highlands of Scotland, birthplace of Karen Gilan from Doctor Who & Guardians of the Galaxy; one of my favourite contemporary writers, Ali Smith; Runrig guitarist Malcolm Jones; and the Loch Ness Monster.
We're steering clear of Nessie today though and sticking to the city itself, which you'll find mentioned in Mike Scott's Long Way To The Light...
I spent the night in Glasgow
Flew to Inverness
I found the Place and at the first
I was not impressed
Nobody said hello
The faces left me cold
Back then how was I to know
All that would unfold?
Tough crowd there, Mike?
You'll also find Inverness mentioned in the sequel to Hank Snow's I've Been Everywhere... gloriously titled I Ain't Been Anywhere...
I ain't been anywhere Joe, ain't been anywhere Joe
I didn't want to go so I guess I'll never know Joe
An old stick in the mud Bud
I ain't been anywhere.
Kumquat, Limerick, Inverness, Loch Ness
Swansea, Cuanda, Colombia, Gold Coast
Edinburgh, Singapore, Galveston, Okinawa
Blarney, Killarney, Karachi, Pyongyang
Warsaw, Tarancon, Down, Libya
Goose Bay, Labrador, Outer Space, no place.
However, surely the greatest lyrical mention of Inverness comes in another song that gets about a bit... even visiting the small Norfolk village where I went on holiday last year. (And now I'm kicking myself for using this track for Inverness... what chance do I have of ever finding another song about Cley-next-the-Sea?)
Land's End at dusk
A day of churches
Her getting her hair cut
A windswept walk to Dunnet Head
Boarding a north-bound train at Inverness
A rainy Cley-next-the-Sea
Her swinging on a tyre
Me taking her picture
A station frozen in time
March stars in a Norfolk sky
407 miles down the country next week, back to my home county, but a little bit further south... it ain't New York City, that's for sure!
Time has gotten away from me again this week, so here's another ten short songs as a follow up to My Top Ten < 30 Second Songs... this time, all of them lasting somewhere between 30 and 40 seconds in duration.
Not the first time Creation oddity The Legend! has featured here, but this seems like a pretty good definition of boredom... Dave Lee Travis is involved!
A complete indie anthem in 40 seconds. Take that Noel!
1. Half Man Half Biscuit - Vatican Broadside
Suggested by Jim in Dubai last time we did this, and the only reason I didn't include it last time is that according to my music player, it clocks in at 31 seconds.
Ever wondered what happened when the singer out of Slipknot went to Rome to meet the Pope? The answer lies within...
Your suggestions of songs between 30 and 40 seconds in length will be gratefully received. Usual rules apply.
I had one of those moments yesterday. One of the moments when you realise something about your life.
Yesterday, when I was young
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame
The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
I always built to last on weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of the day
And only now I see how the years ran away
I have been a part of the working world now for 30 years. I started my first job (as detailed here in my early Radio Song posts) when I was 16. I've been working for 30 years, and I've probably got another 20 to go.
Yesterday, when I was young
So many happy songs were waiting to be sung
So many wild pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall
Concerned itself with me and nothing else at all
This all coincided with hearing a song on the radio that I hadn't heard in years. The song has been recorded by many people, and has kept cropping up in my record collection over the years. Here are just a few of the versions out there...
It was, of course, originally written by Charles Aznavour, under the French title Hier Encore (Yesterday Again). The lyrics were translated into English by Herbert Kretzmer (the man who wrote the lyrics to Les Miserables) and the song was re-recorded by Aznavour... who also apparently recorded versions in Italian, Danish, Spanish, Japanese and Finnish. Or so says iffypedia, and who am I to doubt? The reason I heard it played on the radio was obviously as a tribute to the man Terry Wogan always used to affectionately call "Charles Az-no-voice", but hearing it again yesterday, I might as well have been hearing it for the first time.
Yesterday the moon was blue
And every crazy day brought something new to do
I used my magic age as if it were a wand
And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died
The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play
30 years in the world of work, another 20 to go. The thing is, I'm terrified of the prospect of another 20 years as a teacher. I've only been in the job seven or eight years, but it gets harder and more pressured every year. I'm aware that in another 20 years I'll look back and wish I was 46 again rather than 66... just as I wish I was 26 again, knowing what I know now. And 46 may well actually be the best years of my life, because I'm getting to watch Sam grow up and nothing else in my life has even come close to that. I'm trying to cling onto that, to appreciate every moment of it, because I know how fast it will go and the loneliness that will follow... I just wish everything else was easier so I could appreciate it more.
There are so many songs in me that won't be sung
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue
The time has come for me to pay for
Yesterday, when I was young
Still, we'll always have Charles. RIP, sir. Thanks for the song...
Except that's not really a song, just a snip of JFK's famous moon speech set to music... a lengthy intro to this song, which is rather timely since the new Neil Armstrong movie starring Ryan Gosling appears to have left the American flag back home, much to the chagrin of a certain Mr. Trump. Still, I never really took Brad's song as jingoistic, far more hopeful... plus I'm a sucker for songs featuring 5 year olds talking to their dads.
(Actually, what I find most interesting about listening to that JFK speech is how much he sounds like the great Pete Postlethwaite in Brassed Off. Without the swearing. Just me?)
Rigid Digit, meanwhile, came to kick out the jams...
You're all thinking this week's winner will be this, as originally suggested by The Swede and then seconded by Martin and Brian...
Sir leads the troops Jealous of youth Same old suit since nineteen sixty two
And certainly, it is one of my favourites from the early days of The Smiths. However, I'm going to throw a curveball this week and go with Jim from Dubai's suggestion... some classic 90s powerpop all the way from Sweden. A big favourite of mine back in the day...
