My Top Ten "I Don't Wanna..." Songs

Pop stars, eh? A bunch of petulant teenagers, the lot of them. Here's 10 things they just do NOT want to do...

10. Sham 69 - I Don't Wanna

Sham 69 pretty much don't wanna do much of anything. Punks.

9. Eddie Grant - I Don't Wanna Dance

Can't say I blame him. I never was much of a dancer.

8. Harry Chapin - I Don't Want To Be President

Left over from last week's American President Top 10...

Time is a march where the powerful are drummers
Big business, big labour, big oil
And soon I was meeting with the men who ran the country
The men who owned the sky and the soil

7. The Airborne Toxic Event - I Don't Want To Be On TV

If you've ever met anyone who works in television, this song will make perfect sense to you.

6. Rod Stewart - I Don't Want To Talk About It

Or, should you prefer it, the Everything But The Girl version.

5. The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Want To Get Over You

From the album 69 Love Songs, Stephin Merritt's finest hour.

I could listen to my therapist
Pretend you don't exist
And not have to dream of what I dream of
I could listen to all my friends and go out again 
And pretend it's enough
Or I could make a career of being blue
I could dress in black and read Camus 
Smoke clove cigarettes and drink Vermouth 
Like I was 17, that would be a scream 
But I don't want to get over you.

4. Elton John - I Don't Want To Go On With You Like That

He doesn't want to be just a feather in your cap.

3. The Ramones - I Don't Wanna Grow Up

...And they never did.

The Ramones could have filled an entire album with songs about things they didn't want to do. See also... I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You, I Don't Wanna Live This Life (Anymore) and, of course, I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement.

2. Belle & Sebastian - I Don't Want To Play Football

Could well have been my theme song in school PE lessons...

I don't want to play football
I don't understand the rules of the game
I don't want to play football
I don't understand the thrill of running, catching, throwing
Taking orders from a moron
Grabbing for the sweaty crotches
Getting hit by people I don't know
Sugar, I'd rather play a different sort of game
Sugar, the girls are just as good as boys at playing

1. Elvis Costello - (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea

Despite being devoted to this song for nigh on 25 years, I still have no idea what it's about. Unless Elvis just really doesn't want to go to Chelsea...

They call her Natasha
When she looks like Elsie
I don't want to go to Chelsea...

Go on, tell me your favourite... unless you don't wanna.

My Top Ten Diary Songs

I never kept a diary. The closest I ever came was writing a blog. Sadly, I can find only one record about blogging. Scribbling down your life in a diary though... there's plenty to go at.



10. Bread - Diary

David Gates. Hugely unappreciated 70s songwriter. We should have more of him round these parts.

9. Pink - Dear Diary

Yes, Pink again, two Top Tens running. Have we not got over my Pink addiction yet? Really.

8.  The Ataris - In This Diary

Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up:
These are the best days of our lives.

Discuss.

7. Eels - Jeannie's Diary

I don't have a chance at writing the book
I just wanna be a page
In Jeannie's diary
One single page
In Jeannie's diary

New Eels album coming in February - yay!

6. The Kinks - My Diary

Sorry, Ray Davies's diary is too full to squeeze you in today.

5. The Real Tuesday Weld - The Day Before You Came

Written by Abba, a hit for Blancmange, but it's the Real Tuesday Weld version I can't get enough of. No actual diary in this song - but if the writer had kept one, his memory of the day in question might be a little better.

4. Yazoo - Nobody's Diary

Only in the 80s could a pop band have looked like Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke. One more reason I'm glad I grew up in this wonderful decade.

3. The Beautiful South - My Book

One of my favourite Beautiful South singles, yet one of their least successful. Heaton's on top lyrical form here... what a pity Soul II Soul felt the need to sue him for it for his "Back to bed, back to reality" refrain.

This is my life and this is how it reads
A documentary that nobody believes
Albert Steptoe in 'Gone with the Breeze'
Mother played by Peter Beardsley, father by John Cleese

2. The Bluetones - Solomon Bites The Worm

The Bluetones adapt the diary of one Solomon Grundy, esquire, for one of their greatest songs. It's a cracker. As Kevin Bacon says, doing his best Frank Carson impression on that advert. Now there's something I never thought I'd see...

1. ELO - The Diary of Horace Wimp

I found the story of Horace Wimp heartbreaking as a younger man. I could certainly empathize with his hopeless quest to find a significant other...

Wednesday. Horace met the girl. She was small and she was very pretty. 
He thought he was in love, he was afraid - uh oh. 
Thursday. Asked her for a date, the cafe down the street, tomorrow evening. 
His head was reeling, when she said yes, OK.

Those were the best entries in my diary. Which one do you keep padlocked under your pillow so your mum won't read it?

My Top Ten American President Songs

Well, they had me worried for a few minutes there. Still sanity appears to have preveiled in the USA and so, to celebrate Obama's rightful return to the White House... and a world without the horror of President Mitt... here's eight songs about American presidents... and two about former top members of White House staff.


10. Pink - Dear Mr. President

Written for George, could just as easily have applied to Mitt...

9. Mercury Rev - Lincoln's Eyes

Haunting.

8. Steve Earle - Condi, Condi

OK, so Condoleezza Rice was never actually president... but she couldn't have done a worse job than her boss.

7. Ry Cooder - J. Edgar

Ry Cooder has a pig named after the former FBI Chief.

6. Bright Eyes - When The President Talks To God

When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?

5. Action Spectacular - Bill Clinton

Well, I hope it was the best sex of all time
Because tomorrow, Mr. Clinton, we're all gonna die!

See, it's not only Republican presidents who get bad press from songwriters.

4. Billy Bragg - Bush War Blues

It is mostly Republicans though. Here Billy updates Leadbelly with his reaction to the US "liberation" of Iraq...

If you’re worried about Iraq
I’ll tell you this one thing I’m certain
This war is gonna make
The whole world safe for Haliburton

And it's not just Dubya who gets a kicking...

Cute little smile
Curly hair
It’s George Bush’s poodle
Goddamn Tony Blair

3. Manic Street Preachers - The Love Of Richard Nixon

What if Watergate never happened?

2. Okkervil River - The President's Dead

A song that's hugely evocative of November 22nd, 1963, even though none of the band in question were alive back then. 

1. The Wedding Present - Kennedy

So good, Kippers named his blog after it.

Have you lost your love of life?




Those get my vote... but which one leaves you with a hanging chad?

My Top Ten Bonfire Night Songs

Remember, remember, the 5th of November... with 10 songs about bonfire night.

10. My Life Story - November 5th

Jake Shillingford: should have been bigger than the Gallaghers. Was always far more interesting.

9. Ryan Adams - Firecracker

Well, everybody wants to go on forever
I just wanna burn up hard and bright

8. Jonny Cola & The A Grades - Fireworks / Gunshots

Every now and then, I find myself rejoicing in the fact that myspace still exists. Couldn't find this one on youtube... but good old myspace - it's not just there for people trapped perpetually in 2005. 

I think they’re fireworks, but they might be gunshots
They look like fireworks, but ring out like gunshots
I hope they’re fireworks, but they burn like gunshots
So bring on the fireworks
And let loose the gunshots

Download this excellent song for just fifty of your English pennies from Bandcamp. You know it makes sense.

7. Tom Robinson - Looking For A Bonfire

Nowadays he's a 6Music DJ playing great records. Back then, he just mad them.

6. Picture Centre - Fireworks October 1990

OK, so strictly speaking Bonfire Night isn't in October. But if it was, this would be the perfect theme.

I always remember as a teenager finding November 5th a tremendously lonely night. One of those nights where all the cool lads with girlfriends hugged them in the light of the bonfire... and I just stepped closer and closer to the flames to keep warm. In 1990, I would be have been 18, so this record is pretty much bang on.

5. John Mellencamp - Cherry Bomb 

 In which JCM models his haircut on JBJ. It must be 1987.

See also same title / different song by Ash or The Runaways (with Joan Jett). Both fine records, but JCM just about edges it for me.

4. Skint & Demoralised - Fireworks

How can you not love a band called Skint & Demoralised? Especially when they make records as wonderful as this. Go press play now.

3. Nick Lowe - Indoor Fireworks

Look, I would post the Elvis Costello original, but I can't find a decent (non-live) version of it on youtube. Still, Nick Lowe also does a good job of Costello songs... and vice-versa.

You were the spice of life
The gin in my vermouth
And though the sparks would fly
I thought our love was fireproof
Sometimes we'd fight in public darling
With very little cause
But different kinds of sparks would fly
When we got on our own behind closed doors

2. Embrace - Fireworks

Look, if you don't think Embrace are the very definition of the last three letters in their name, this song will prove you wrong. Why argue?

1.Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine - Born On The 5th of November

Carter write a love song - shock! And it's really quite beautiful... but that's what fireworks are for.

There was November in your eyes
There'd be no pennies for the guys
There were fireworks over London
But you weren't among them anymore...




Those are the songs I'll be hearing as the fireworks erupt over Top Ten Towers tonight... but which one is your sparkler?

My Top Ten Famous Artist Songs

Inspired by a recent blogpost by Kellogsville, here's my Top Ten songs about people who were good with a paintbrush...


10. Dar Williams - Mark Rothko Song

Dar Williams wanders around a gallery with a friend, admires the Renoirs and muses on the sad death of Mark Rothko. Some folks were born with a foot in the grave...

9. Counting Crows - When I Dream Of Michelangelo

And I dream of Michelangelo when I'm lying in my bed
I see god upon the ceiling I see angels overhead
And he seems so close as he reaches out his hand
But we are never quite as close as we are led to understand

8. Manic Street Preachers - Interiors (Song for Willem de Kooning)

From the album that made them household names... and yet, still they wrote songs like this.

7. Teenage Fanclub - Escher

And I don't know if I'm
going up or down, with you
Don't know if I'm coming
going up or down with you
But I don't mind

6. David Bowie - Andy Warhol 

Apparently, Warhol didn't approve. Which is kinda fitting.

See also Andy Warhol's Dead by Transvision Vamp.

5. Brian & Michael - Matchstalk Men & Matchstalk Cats & Dogs

Manchester's most beloved artist, L S Lowry, gave local lads Brian & Michael (aka Michael Coleman and... erm... Kevin Parrott) an unexpected Number One at the height of punk in 1978. The charts used to be SO much more unpredictably interesting than they are now.

4. Jimmy Webb - Paul Gaugin In The South Seas

I make no secret of the fact that I consider Jimmy Webb one of the greatest songwriters to ever walk the earth, although his songs are usually more famous when performed by others. This one's all Jimmy though. Lovely.

3. Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - Pablo Picasso 

In which Mr. Richman finds a truly wonderful rhyme for the name of one of the art world's most famous sons...

Well some people try to pick up girls
And get called assholes
This never happened to Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare and
So Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole

Jonathan Richman also wrote a song about Van Gogh. But someone else beat him to that...

2. Don McLean - Vincent

How you suffered for your sanity...

1. Paul Simon - Rene & Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War

I always thought that was a funny name for a dog.

A beautifully evocative tribute to not only the Belgian surrealist painter, his missus and their dog... but also a host of 50s doo-wop bands Simon imagines might populate the Magritte's record collection.




I also found songs about Dali, Hopper and Toulouse Lautrec... but which one is hanging on your wall?