And so we move from the sublime... to the ridiculous.
8. The Humdrum Express - The Day My Career Died
I know what your immediate reaction to this post will be: "Rol: you're seriously telling me this record is better than Bowie?"
No, of course I'm not, and I'm sure Ian Passey, the man behind The Humdrum Express doesn't think he's better than Bowie either. The point is, my Top Tens are never about artistic merit, as subjective as that may be. My Top Tens are just about what I like, and a lot of the time, I like silly, trivial, funny records as much as, if not more than, serious, arty ones. That's why I irk the musos, because musos rarely believe humour has a place in the pantheon of serious rock 'n' roll.
I owe this one to Charity Chic, who introduced me to this band less than a couple of months back. As soon as I heard the track Leopard Print Onesie, I downloaded the full album from emusic. In a year with very little to laugh about, with doom and gloom making a big impact on even my year end list, and in lieu of a new Half Man Half Biscuit album to warm my cockles... The Day My Career Died was the record I needed more than any other.
The HMHB comparison is unavoidable, particularly on the title track and the one Charity Chic highlighted, but there's more to Ian's bag of tricks than pin-sharp observational minutiae. Although he is bloody good at that...
The local kids' swimming club Packs shopping at a cost I leave the supermarket With bread and crisps all squashed They should be briefed: Put tins underneath!
Elsewhere on the album, there's a hilarious rap based on crap advertising slogans (End of Part One), and a note perfect Morrissey parody (Catch A Fallen Star) that if you closed your eyes could be the long-awaited sequel to Little Man, What Now?
Look, if we're all in agreement about anything, it's that it's been a truly awful year all round. With that in mind, The Day My Career Died could well be the most welcome album on this list. We need something to make us smile...
I can't help but feel ungrateful For gestures from the smug Who take pity on my plight By sending me a cyber-hug They all should fear... My cyber-clip round the ear
Next, at Number #7... it sounds like Jim Morrison's band, but it doesn't sound anything like Jim Morrison's band.
David Bowie's final album came out on his 69th birthday. Two days later, he was dead. I wasn't one of those mega-fans who'd already bought the record by that point and judged it on its own merits. It was on my wants list, as Bowie albums usually are, but there was no big rush. Despite one of his best singles in 30 years (Where Are We Now?), I hadn't been as bowled over by his previous release (The Next Day) as everybody else. Yes, it was good to have him back, and there were more gems to be found on that album than just the surprise hit, but it hadn't stayed with me the way his earlier work had. Which might explain why I hadn't been in a rush to hear Blackstar, particularly with all the "Bowie-Goes-Jazz" reviews I'd read.
And then he was gone: as much a shock, an original, an enigma as he'd ever been. And the stars looked very different that day...
I knew, then, that it would be impossible to judge Blackstar on its own merits. Had it been just another Bowie album, I know I wouldn't have listened to it as much, or as deeply, as I did. Certainly the lyrics wouldn't have meant half as much... and Bowie's lyrics had often been an equal source of wonder and frustration to me. It was all very cool, that mad poet method of cutting out interesting words from newspapers and gluing them together to make a song... and many times, they did actually mean something to me... but I'm first and foremost a fan of songs that tell stories rather than hint at a million different interpretations... and it was a long time since Space Oddity.
His death gave the lyrics of Blackstar context though: sometimes too much context. Many critics poured over them for a final message about his own mortality. Even the artwork held hidden messages, they claimed. So I wasn't the only one unable to judge the record on its own merits. But I listened to it a lot, and it deserves a place in this Top Ten if only because of Bowie's stature and importance in the ongoing musical narrative that means so much to us aging pop kids.
It's been a year of seismic losses in that particular world, however, and Bowie was not the one that hit me hardest. I listened to Prince's back catalogue almost constantly throughout May, and although ironically I still haven't checked out his final record, his death shook me even more than Bowie's. And there's another final album yet to come in my year end countdown, one that I connected with much more than Blackstar.
But watching this video again now, I still can't believe he's gone. When the grim reapers came knocking, he was supposed to beat them... forever and ever... so we could all be heroes, just for one day.
Next, at Number #8... a "comedy" record to cheer us all up in these dark times. Although I suppose some of you might find it quite... humdrum.
The job of picking my albums of the year gets harder every December. I swear I've been fretting over this since March: first, worrying I wouldn't have enough for #10, then scared I wouldn't have time to properly listen to all the late releases to judge them properly. I don't know why I let this bother me; I mean, it's not as though anyone gives two hoots what my favourite records were... plus I can pretty much guarantee that by March 2017, I'll already have heard at least five better 2016 albums than the ones I've plumped for here... and I'll be wishing I'd heard them earlier, in time to write about them now.
Such are the First World Problems of the middle-aged music blogger. They seem even more pathetic considering all the really serious things I could be worrying about this December... like whether we'll even live to see next December with the way the world's going... but sometimes, you've just got to sweat the small stuff. It's like Mick said: "Whatever gets you through the night..."
So let's try to get through this as painlessly as possible, shall we?
10. Drive-By Truckers - American Band
I've been a fan of Drive-By Truckers for a good few years now, although their last couple of records did seem to be treading water. American Band is a blistering return to form though, due largely to two significant factors:
1) The band's reaction to the current political scene... with a view to communicating in particularly, though not exclusively, that even though they're from the south, Donald Trump does not speak for them. Sadly, it wasn't enough to convince southern voters to dump Trump, but at least they gave it a shot.
2) The recent success of former member Jason Isbell, whose last album, Something More Than Free, blew the doors off 2015. (And would have been in my Top Ten of 2015... if I'd heard it in time.)
American Band is a bloody great (Southern) American Rock Record, sounding not unlike mid-period R.E.M. in places, although it does lack the humour of many early Drive-By Truckers albums... I guess they don't feel there's been much to laugh about this year. Maybe they get a little bit too earnest in places, but frontman Patterson Hood will never be Bono, and more often than not they manage the heartfelt integrity of Wrecking Ball or American Skin-era Springsteen. It's an angry record, to be sure, and one that reflects what's happening out there more than anything else I've heard this year, particularly on the savage and excoriating What It Means...
He was running down the street When they shot him in his tracks About the only thing agreed upon Is he ain't coming back There won't be any trial So the air it won't be cleared There's just two sides calling names Out of anger out of fear If you say it wasn't racial When they shot him in his tracks Well I guess that means that you ain't black It means that you ain't black I mean Barack Obama won And you can choose where to eat But you don't see too many white kids lying Bleeding on the street
But after all that sterling political pop, it's the final track, Baggage, which tips this album into my Top Ten of 2016. Written on the night Robin Williams' death was announced, it deals with Patterson Hood's response to how the media deals with the subject of depression (something he knows more than a little about) and it's one of the most raw and honest songs I've heard all year (and that's saying something, considering some of the other records we'll be discussing here shortly). It'll stay with me long after Trump has been impeached and forgotten.
Only a live video on youtube, so you can listen to the album version here...
Almost as soon as I posted Volume 1, my old friend Sally started protesting on Facebook. I'm sure she won't mind if I share her rant with you all now...
"Rol.
Rol. Rol, Rol, Rol, Rol, Rol, Rol, Rol, Rol... Where are all the
tear-streaked, self-hating women you introduced me to? What of Not
Pretty Enough? Footsteps Fall? Bloody Mother-Fucking Asshole? Maybe
that's not strictly self pity, but it sure felt like it to me. If you do
this again it should feature the mascara-streaked, the unnoticed
despite hours of prep, the gin-soaked, the Laydeez"
Well, who am I to refuse such a heartfelt plea? And yes, Sally was right: I was remiss in making Volume 1 all about miserable fellas. (Although I had forgotten just how much I used to share the misery with anyone and everyone way back when Sally and I worked in the same office.) And so, to redress the balance...
The thing about mining a rich seam like self-pity is that way down at Number Nine you'll find songs which would have been Number One on any other Top Ten. There's a brutal simplicity to Lucinda Williams' lyrics here, each line repeated over and over to hammer home the point...
Heavy blankets Heavy blankets Heavy blankets Cover lonely girls
But the kicker comes at the end when Lucinda reveals: she knows of what she writes.
Whenever I listen to the Carpenters, I'm reminded of John Cusack's opening monologue to High Fidelity... what came first: the music or the misery? Makes you wonder about poor, tragic Karen...
I'll say goodbye to love No one ever cared if I should live or die Time and time again the chance for love has passed me by And all I know of love Is how to live without it I just can't seem to find it
So I've made my mind up I must live my life alone And though it's not the easy way I guess I've always known I'd say goodbye to love...
I'll admit, when Sally suggested this one, I wasn't sure it fit the criteria. The titular "hero" is Loudon Wainwright III, and on the surface this is just Martha's semi-tongue-in-cheek attack on her father's longstanding habit of writing extremely autobiographical (if highly amusing) songs about his family... though frankly, Martha got off light compared to Rufus. But when you delve a bit deeper, it is gloriously miserable in its own way, and despite being one of her earliest songs, it might be Martha's finest hour.
And you have no idea
No idea how it feels to be on your own In your own home With the fucking phone And the mother of gloom In your bedroom Standing over your head With her hand in your head With her hand in your head
I will not pretend I will not put on a smile I will not say I'm all right for you When all I wanted was to be good To do everything in truth To do everything in truth
Now here's someone who really has a reason to feel self-pity. The sequel to the equally spectacular Love Child, here we find Ross's self-hating heroine moving away from home to escape the shame of being born in poverty to a "slum mum"... only to drown in guilt when that deserted and disowned mother dies lonely and heartbroken while her daughter parades around university pretending to come from a wealthy family.
Got a telegram
Mama passed away while making home made jam
before she died she cried to see me by her side
She always did her best
Ah cooked and cleaned and always in the same old dress
Working hard, down on her knees
Always trying to please
Mama, mama, mama can you hear me?
Mama, mama, mama can you hear me?
I'm living in shame
Mama, I miss you
I know you've done your best
Mama, I miss you
This song utterly destroys me. In a very good way.
I was going to disqualify this on the basis that it's written by two blokes (John Moore and Luke Haines), but then I realised it's not the only song like that in this list. Besides, it's the performance that matters, and Sarah Nixey makes this her own.
There is no creature in the known universe more well-versed in the fine art of self-pity than your average teenager, and our Top Three today demonstrates that perfectly with three slightly-older ladies turning to their teenage selves for devastating inspiration. Here Kasey Chambers turns romantic desperation into an artform, and then wonders...
Why do you see right through me?
That said, she's a novice when compared to the all-time champion of channeling teenage angst into a pop song...
At Seventeen may well have been written about the horrors of being a teenage girl... but sadly, most of the lyrics recall my own teenage woe with clinical precision...
To those of us who knew the pain Of valentines that never came And those whose names were never called When choosing sides for basketball It was long ago and far away The world was younger than today When dreams were all they gave for free To ugly duckling girls like me
1. The Shangri-Las - Past, Present And Future
Melodrama on a supremely epic scale was the Shangri-Las' stock in trade, and they certainly turned it up to 11 on this 1966 ode to joylessness. Set to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, it sticks a dagger into teenage heartbreak unlike any other record you'll ever hear. Sublime.
No surprise to find both Morrissey & Marr were fans...
That's Volume 2 out of the way. I hope you realise this series could run and run. Especially if you keep encouraging me. Misery does love company...
Things are still pretty hectic at the moment and I'm swamped with trying to decide what my Top Ten Albums of 2016 will be... and writing the posts to accompany them. However, rather than go a week without a Top Ten, I thought I'd plunge into the archives and re-run an old favourite. My Top Ten Self Pity Songs (Volume 1... if I'm still stuck, I'll run Volume 2 next week) originally appeared six years ago in my old blog, Sunset Over Slawit. That was more than just a music blog, but I lost interest in writing about all the other aspects of my life and packed it in just before starting this one. I made the old blog private although many of the posts had by then been stolen and re-posted by a clickbait website on the other side of the world so they may still exist on the internet somewhere (despite reporting the thief to the google police, nothing was ever done about it).
I've edited this re-post slightly because I'm not the same person I was five years ago...
Ironically, it's the complete opposite to the post I would have written this week if I'd had time. I'd planned to follow Swiss Adam's lead and post ten happy, upbeat songs to counteract the tsunami of bad news we've had to face in recent weeks. Turned out I couldn't even manage five...
Isn't self-pity great? I hereby declare it the most ace emotion ever! If
I'm having a bad day, there's nothing guaranteed to cheer me up more than a good long bout of feeling sorry for myself.
You'd think that with all the money and groupies and cocaine and stuff,
your average rock star wouldn't have much time for self-pity, yet they
seem to get off on it almost as much as I do. Although to be fair, most
of the anthems to self-loathing listed below come from early in the
respective artist's career - by singing about how shit they felt, they
made oodles of money and hence stopped feeling so shit about
themselves... and then went on to stop writing such good songs, since
happiness is rarely conducive to artistic greatness.
This is Volume 1 simply because there are so many great self-pity songs,
I really couldn't narrow it down to just ten. I'll throw some more onto
the fire the next time I'm feeling crappy. Do feel free to add your own
suggestions in the comments box...
I really should do a list of suicide anthems. And this really should be
on it. But as it's possibly the best song Richard Thompson Jr.'s ever
written, it deserves its place here too.
If your name was Duff, you might expect your life to follow suit. So,
cheesed off that fate had robbed him by leaving that all-important 'y'
off the end of his name - otherwise he might have been The Man From
Atlantis or Bobby Ewing - Patrick Duff formed Strangelove and channeled
all his negativity into this...
I walk the plastic streets Just like a monkey Just like a geek My scraping knuckles bleed I hear my Mummy crying out He's a freak I live a life alone And all my friends are gone It kind of turns me on I hate them one by one by one I'm a freak
Coming home from the school today Crying all along the way Ain't no way for a boy to be Begging ma to shave me please You little punks think you own this town Well someday someone's gonna bring you down Life ain't pretty for a dog faced boy
E from the Eels has built a career on feeling sorry for himself, understandably so when you consider some of the things that have happened
to him. That said, he's always aware that things could be worse. He
could always have a face like a shaggy mongrel.
Ma won't shave me Jesus can't save me Dog-faced boy!
I don't care, I love this song. It encapsulates how shit it is to be a
teenager, listening to Iron Maiden, unable to get the girl you want
because she's dating a dick. The video features perpetual loser Jason
Biggs trying to cop off with Mena Suvari (from Amy Heckerling's
underrated teen-com Loser). The band followed this supreme ode to
woe with an Erasure cover. But as one-hit wonders go... wow.
When Eric Carmen was young, he never needed anyone. Making love? Making
love was just for fun! Sadly, those days are gone. Now he's living
alone, thinking of all the friends he's known... but when he dials the
telephone... nobody's home.
I've built walls, A fortress deep and mighty, That none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain. It's laughter and it's loving I disdain. I am a rock, I am an island.
See the genius of Paul Simon here is that, bad as he's feeling, he's
actually convinced himself he's better off that way. There was a time in
my life I lived by the following lines...
I have my books And my poetry to protect me; I am shielded in my armor, Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me.
Listening to this song reminds me how much better off I am now.
For many years, I thought that Beck sang "So - open up the door - I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?"
Only when it comes to writing this post do my investigations reveal he's
actually singing "Soy un perdedor", which, according to the internet...
is Spanish for "I'm a loser".
Of course, I could have compiled an entire Self-Pity Top Ten just from
Smiths songs. And I could have made a Top Hundred just from sticking
pins at random in Morrissey's solo catalogue. But none of them would
have been quite as majestically miserable as this. It begins with
Morrissey climbing into an empty bed he equates with a grave... and goes
rapidly downhill from there. He then imagines a relationship with a
potential partner who turns round and says to him these immortal
words...
"If you're so funny Then why are you on your own tonight ? And if you're so clever Then why are you on your own tonight ? If you're so very entertaining Then why are you on your own tonight ? If you're so very good-looking Why do you sleep alone tonight ? I know ... 'Cause tonight is just like any other night That's why you're on your own tonight With your triumphs and your charms While they're in each other's arms..."
Then again, if you've never sat alone late at night and asked yourself these questions... count yourself very, very lucky.
There - that was so much better than a Top Ten Feelgood Songs, wasn't it?
