There's always some debate whenever I mention my love for Huey Lewis & The News. Sometimes I think I'll start Huey Fridays and devote one day a week to extolling the virtues (non-ironically) of this most fun and life-affirming band. But I suspect I'd be pissing in the wind, and it'd just give Martin another excuse to drag out that American Psycho clip... to which I can at least respond with this these days, because it always gives me a chuckle.
But that's not why I'm here today. No.
I haven't even had time to write about the latest Sun Kil Moon album yet, when here comes another delicious offering from the too, too prolific Mark Kozelek, another artist who polarises opinion, just like Huey... though for quite different reasons.
This time Kozzer's teamed up with singer/violinist/female Bobby McFerrin impersonator Petra Haden. Perhaps her sweet-yet-slightly-oddball musicality has rubbed off on old grumpy guts as he's actually remembered to sing a couple of times on this record (as well as more of the usual mumbled diatribes... one 19 minute track on this album is called 1983 Era MTV Music is The Soundtrack To Outcasts Being Bullied By Jocks... which will keep me happy for a while, anyway).
This... this is beautiful though. One of the best songs of the 80s (shut up, you're wrong) given an entirely new spin by a misanthrope and an angel. Listen without prejudice...
If you want more Petra Haden, I recommend her versions of...
31 Scars are the band I found to illustrate #31 in the Hot 100. What can I tell you about them? They like The Cranberries.
"Welcome back the songs with numbers thing!" said Lynchie.
To celebrate, I'd like to offer up Sin City written by Gram Parsons and performed by The Flying Burrito Brothers on the fab album "The Gilded Palace Of Sin". The chorus is:
This old earthquake's gonna leave me in the poor house
It seems like this whole town's insane
On the 31st floor a gold plated door
Won't keep out the Lord's burning rain
A fine tune, and one that featured on Saturday Snapshots a few weeks back, if I remember correctly. But not this week's winner.
"Good to see the return of the Hot 100, yes!" said C.
"Welcome back to the 100 - time for some more spurious suggestions. Thanks for giving back the opportunity for a dose of musical tourettes," said Rigid Digit.
"I too offer my welcome back and give my heartfelt thanks for bringing this series back to life," said Douglas. "I have, after all, been waiting months with baited breath to see if my Leroy Brown suggestion might finally have meant a first place finish! Missed by that much, once again."
Yeah, sorry about that, Douglas. Keep dreaming the dream.
A few great suggestions above that I would have made, and I am guessing Universal Soldier makes a strong finish. I would also have suggested Sin City, but in the spirit of offering something new and in keeping with the spirit of the musicians that seem to bring a winning touch round these parts, I will suggest the version by Billy Bragg, on the Talking With The Taxman About Poetry album.
I'd forgotten all about that.
As for unique and new suggestions, how about The Cure - So What?, from Three Imaginary Boys. It is a strange song, wherein Robert Smith, in the midst of a heartache breakup song, seems to be trying to sell us a cake decorating set. Not sure if that is a metaphor for something that eludes me, but in any case, the offer seems to be time-sensitive:
Order now
Allow twenty one days
For delivery
This offer closes
31st December 1979
I can't remember why, but that has featured on this blog before. It is gloriously mad.
Seems I missed my chance to get me one of them sets by close to 40 years.
You and me both.
And if that is too festive for you, perhaps a dead dog offered up by Mr Bruce Springsteen is more your fancy, in Reason To Believe off the delightful Nebraska album:
Seen a man standin' over a dead dog lyin' by the highway in a ditch
He's lookin' down kinda puzzled pokin' that dog with a stick
Got his car door flung open he's standin' out on Highway 31
Like if he stood there long enough that dog'd get up and run
Struck me kinda funny seem kinda funny sir to me
Yes, very funny indeed.
Another very good call, Douglas. Any other week... sadly I had another song in mind from the start this week. What was it? Well, it wasn't any of these...
However, first out of the gate this week was Charity Chic with a very fine suggestion from an artist I've long dallied with, every since I found her first album lounging in the chuck-out box at my former workplace. (What fools!)
So my mission to introduce Sam to as much of my musical back catalogue as I can (before his own musical tastes kick in and he starts hating everything his dad loves) continues, mostly in the car with my hand-curated CDs. We're now up to Sam CD 90 (we do also revisit the earlier ones) and he's often keen to hear the next.
"Have you made Sam 91 yet, Daddy? Will you make it this weekend?"
However, I'm not sure whether that's because he likes my musical choices... or because he's obsessed with numbers and is desperate for us to get to 100. I think more of the latter, though he has developed many favourite tunes along the way as well.
Friday night though, on the way back from swimming, was a bit of a milestone.
"Yay! My favourite band!"
In this life we will all have many favourite bands, and who am I to judge Sam's first self-proclaimed favourites... when mine may well have been Bucks Fizz?
(What can I say? I was 9 years old. That dance routine represented an inexpicable sexual awakening.)
Still, I have to confess, for just a moment, I was a little chagrined by Sam's choice.
I mean, the friggin' Beatles!? How bleeding obvious!
This passed very quickly, when I realised the selection said much more about the Beatles than it did about my son. Indeed, it reinforced why the Beatles were as big as they were and why they still maintain that untouchable ubiquity, even though proper musos (which I will OBVIOUSLY never be) know there have been far better bands in the history of pop. Like The Four Tops, The Housemartins and Huey Lewis & The News, to name but three. (You're not quite sure if I'm serious, I know. And I LIKE that.)
As mentioned before, despite going through an obligatory Beatles phase in my late teens, I've been down on the band for many years since. But choose a random song - particularly an early one - and judge it on its own pop merits, and the mass appeal becomes obvious. There's a simplicity and a clean, no-nonsense aesthetic to recordings such as this one which make it universal. There's no hemi-powered drones screaming down the boulevard in the lyrics, for a start, or punctured bicyles on hillsides desolate.
Baby's good to me, you know She's happy as can be, you know She said so I'm in love with her and I feel fine
Of course you're gonna like a band that sings simple, catchy songs like this if you're a 6 year old. Or someone older who doesn't want anything more complex than a nice r 'n' b rhythm and clear, uncomplicated words to sing along to in a traffic jam.
And I Feel Fine is a great song for Sam to declare his allegiance to as well, because beyond the simplicity, it's got that Lennon edge, kicking off with the feedback, and the raw quality to his vocal that he softened in later years. Good video too - it finally made me see the point of Ringo.
Don't wander round all weekend trying to get snapshots of aliens or gorillas in the mist. Stay home instead of being a working girl, and play this game. Identify ten tunes and their tunesmiths... go!
Thanks to all of you who left comments last week to say you were playing along at home. Good to know there are so many of you out there puzzling over this nonsense every Saturday.
10. Repetitive male title can't get Minogue right.
9. Double Tutu for holy people.
8. Sounds like a pink loft... or what happens to Neil Diamond after he stops talking and starts getting emotional.
7. Wedlock between two fellas creates powerful medicine woman.
6. Unlikely weather forecast threatens us all with death.
5. Dustin Hoffman meets girl with axe, by muddled, rackety aunt.
4. Bumbled horses cross the line every time.
3. Sovereign & subject together promise a brighter future.
2. Most babies are: it's the amniotic fluid. The hell, you say!
1. Flawless relation found beneath pitch.
Answers tomorrow morning. Until then, this is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.
