My Top Ten Lust Songs (Seven Deadly Sins #1)

Here's a Top Ten theme I originally came up with about seven years ago (for the old blog) but never got round to posting it. I'm not going to run them consecutively as that'd get boring, but I'll drop one in every now and then over the next few weeks.


The first deadly sin is lust. Turns out there's enough songs with lust in the title that I don't have to cast my net any further. That won't be the case with the rest of the sins...


10. The Raveonettes - Lust

From the album Lust Lust Lust.

Points deducted for trying too hard.

9. Sportsday Megaphone - Young Lust

Never lend the house to lovers, they leave stains... one for the Top Ten Opening Lines chart too.

8. Frank Turner - Wanderlust

Darling, he's leaving.

See also Wanderlust by Delays, Wanderlust by REM and Wanderluster by Band of Skulls.

7. Neon Neon featuring Cate Le Bon - I Lust U

No relation to Simon, you'll be pleased to hear.

This song probably has more than a passing resemblance to People Are People by our Number Three band today. Still.

And while we're with Gruff Rhys, have Atomik Lust be the Super Furries. No extra charge.

6. Skint & Demoralised - Only Lust Ignores Violence Involving Ambulances

Wakefield's finest contemporary beat poet stumbles across a girl he fancies in the local pub... then gets beaten up by her boyfriend for his sins.

It's the kind of look that shits you up
In so many different ways
It's the size of his eyes and he won't give up
Transfixed with a piercing gaze
I can get the gist
This guy's pissed
And if I don't move, he'll use his fists
See that the violence stops

5. The The - Dogs Of Lust

Featuring Johnny Marr, on guitar. 'Nuff said.

4. Juliana Hatfield - Just Lust

It doesn't mean she loves you. It doesn't even mean she likes you very much.

See also Just Lust by Joan Jett and Just Lust by The Buzzcocks. 

3. Depeche Mode - A Question Of Lust

Dave Gahan sits one out and lets Martin Gore (with his pink mushroom cloud hair) sing this one. Their follow up single was A Question Of Time. The third in the trilogy, a proposed duet with David Coleman, Emlyn Hughes and Bill Beaumont, sadly never made it to the studio*.

(*Showing my age there,  know.)

2. The Long Blondes - Lust In The Movies

I know all about fear and desire
I know all about lust et cetera

I know all about missing The Long Blondes.

1. Iggy Pop - Lust For Life

Iggy, Bowie and the Supremes combine for a song that's worth a million in prizes. Of course you've had it in your ear before...





Choose life!

But feel free to choose another lust song if you prefer... 

My Top Ten Carpentry Songs

My dad is a joiner by trade, and though he didn't pass any of those woodworking skills on to me, I think he's proud that at least one of his grandsons did follow him into the trade. A joiner is a carpenter, in case you were wondering, though arguably more skilled... I'll let you google the arguments on that one. 

Special mentions to The Carpenters (of course), Mary Chapin Carpenter, Cold Chisel, Woodkid, Harrison Ford, Jesus and Ron Swanson...

(Ron Swanson ROCKS.)


10. Paul Weller - Woodcutter's Son

I guess this could be about me...

You better give me the chance
I'll cut you down with a glance
Yeh, with my small axe - so help me,
And tho' I'm only one
And tho' weak, I'm strong
And if it comes to the crunch
Then I'm the woodcutter's son
And I'm cutting down the wood for the good of everyone!

Erm... perhaps not.

9. Bob Dylan - The House Carpenter

A traditional folk song ghost story, recorded by Bob and a bunch of other people. Nice guitar work on this one, Robert.

8. Robert Plant - Big Log

OK, I admit it, this one's a stretch even for me. But it's a great song just looking for a bandsaw to cut it into planks...

7. John Prine - Grandpa Was A Carpenter

He built houses, stores and banks
Chain-smoked Camel cigarettes
And hammered nails in planks

Nice work if you can get it.

6. Idlewild - These Wooden Ideas

All good carpentry projects have to start somewhere...

Don't be real - be post-modern!

5. The Avett Brothers - The Once & Future Carpenter

Once I was a carpenter, man my hands were calloused
I could swing a metal mallet sure and straight
But I took to the highway, a poet young and hungry
And I left the timbers rotting where they lay

Lovely stuff from the new Avett Brothers record.

4. Eddie Floyd - Knock On Wood

What else do carpenters do? (If you believe this song is a euphemism for something else entirely... shame on you.)

See also the excellent versions by David Bowie, Amii Stewart and Emma 'Gwen Stacy' Stone... among others. The original's still the best though.

3. Aberfeldy - If I Were A Joiner

Joiners are better than plain old carpenters. According to my dad, anyway.

If I were a joiner
You know what I'd do?
Put up a shelf
All about you.

2. The Four Tops - If I Were A Carpenter

Written by Tim Hardin, recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash and Bob Seger to Robert Plant and Leonard Nimoy... but it was the Four Tops version that originally chiselled its way into my heart.

I know... you thought this was going to be Number One, didn't you? So did I, until I remembered...

1. Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon - Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartbreak

He's a carpenter of love and affection!

I could have chosen the equally smashing (if slightly less legible) cover by Dexys Midnight Runners... but that didn't have Pan's People dancing like this...





Which one gives you wood?

(Sorry.)

My Top Ten Martial Arts Songs

A man may listen to many records, grasshopper. But only these songs will karate chop his soul.


10. Shitdisco - I Know Kung Fu

Of course, you're always going to get extra marks for calling your band Shitdisco...

9. Zoey Van Goey - You Told The Drunks I Knew Karate

...probably more marks than you get for calling your band Zoey Van Goey. Still, that's not to say you can't earn those marks back by writing cracking songs. Great video too.

I do the dumbest things for you
Why do I do the dumbest things for you?
I almost broke my collar bone
I didn't care; you were the most exciting thing I'd every known.

8. Tenacious D - Karate

Well, it made me laugh. Could also have made it into my Top Ten MF Songs.

7. Fight Like Apes - Do You Karate?

No one uses profanity in their lyrics better than FLA. Well, apart from John Grant. Take THAT!

6. Soulwax - Overweight Karate Kid

Soulwax were a great band who decided they preferred being DJs. Shame.

Like an overweight Karate Kid 

You could moonwalk over my heart

5. Curtis Mayfield - Kung Fu

Johnny Cash's dad named him Sue. Curtis's mum called him Kung Fu.

4. Brad Paisley - Karate

Why did nobody tell me Brad Paisley had a new record out? Do I always have to find these things out myself?

Wheelhouse could be his best album yet...

3. Ash - Kung Fu

This record is 2 minutes 10 seconds long (plus 7 seconds of karate kicks at the beginning). Which is a hell of a lot shorter than the songs in my last post.Yet it's better than all of them (with the possible exception of the Gershwin).

Ah, 1996... how I miss you.

2. John Grant - Black Belt

It may only be June, but I'll be hella-surprised if Pale Green Ghosts isn't my Best Album of 2013 come December. The bar has been set pretty high by John Grant, can anyone top it? 

What you got is a black belt in B-S
But you can't hawk your pretty wares up in here anymore
Hit your head on the playground at recess
Etch-a-sketch your way out of this one, reject

1. Carl Douglas - Kung Fu Fighting

Had to be, didn't it? For a novelty record, this still sounds fresh. Or perhaps I've just been hit in the head a few times too many. And if this isn't cool enough for you, check out Robyn Hitchcock's cover...





Hiiiiii-ya! Which one makes you want to walk the earth like Caine?

My Top Ten Longest Songs

As today is the longest day of the year, I thought I'd try something different. Rather than my favourite songs on any particular subject, these are simply the longest tracks in my music player. I've discounted any that were lengthy due to a huge block of silence before a "hidden" track at the end of an album. Each of these really are as long as they say they are...


10. The Hours - See The Light

14 minutes, 17 seconds.

Title track from the second (and last?) Hours album, the full LP version clocks in at just under quarter of an hour. A much shorter version was released as a single, remixed by Calvin Harris (i.e. not as good) and featuring Sienna Miller going bonkers in the video.

9. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Babe, I'm On Fire

14 minutes, 46 seconds.

Everyone says it, from the horse and the pig to the judge in his wig, the blind referee and unlucky amputee to the giant killer bee landing on my knee... and so on and so on and so on...

See also the majestic O'Malley's Bar which clocks in at a mighty 14 minutes 28 seconds and remains one of my all-time favourite Nick Cave recordings.

8. Spiritualized - Cop Shoot Cop...

16 minutes, 12 seconds.

From an album that originally came sealed in a huge, CD-shaped blister pack that you had to pop open / tear the foil before you could play the record. The track is listed as being 17 minutes 13 seconds long but it actually ends at 16' 12" before a minute's silence. Which is nice.

7. Joni Mitchell - Paprika Plains

16 minutes, 19 seconds.

Side 2 of the album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Mitchell apparently improvised the piano on the initial recording of this epic before adding orchestral flourishes to the finished mix. It's the sort of record you have to turn the lights down and listen to from start to finish... the sort of record our attention-span deficit way of listening to music these days means we'll rarely see the like of again.

6. George Gershwin - An American In Paris / Rhapsody In Blue

16 minutes, 34 seconds.

I left out the classical music from this countdown (yes, there is some in my collection!) as it would have unfairly dominated. I couldn't exclude Gershwin however, that wonderful bridge between classical and pop. There are various versions of An American In Paris (many full orchestra versions are over 18 minutes) but I stuck with the Gershwin Plays Gershwin version I own, though the one on youtube isn't quite up to mine.

Even better is Rhapsody In Blue at 14 minutes, 24 seconds... sheer bliss!

5. Neil Young - Ordinary People 

18 minutes, 12 seconds.

From the album Chrome Dreams II, which also features the 14 minute, 33 second No Hidden Path, which would have squeezed its way onto this chart had I not restricted myself to one long song per artist.

4. Love - Revelation

19 minutes, 4 seconds.

The whole of Side 2 of Love's second album is this one track. Originally named John Lee Hooker, it's pretty much Arthur Lee and mates jamming in the studio till the tape runs out, though the title suggests it has something in common with our Number One song too.

3. Sonic Youth - The Diamond Sea

19 minutes, 36 seconds.

From the album Washing Machine. A five and a half minute single edit was released also (along with a 26 minute "alternative ending" version that would have put this at Number One, except I don't own that version). A pretty cool song, though the last ten minutes is largely piano and feedback, so all in all I'll stick with the single.

2. Paddy McAloon - I Trawl The Megahertz

22 minutes, 6 seconds.

I'm a huge Prefab Sprout fan, so when I first heard Paddy's solo album, I was slightly disappointed. It's very different from the Sprout, but I guess that's the point. Paddy only actually sings on one song and the title track features a story poem narrated by Yvonne Connors. It's a haunting listen, made all the more poignant when you realise it reflects McAloon's worsening eye condition and the lonely nights he spent with only voices on the radio for company.

1. Genesis - Supper's Ready 

22 minutes, 54 seconds.

Originally from the album Foxtrot, though my copy comes from the 3-disc Platinum Collection. To be honest, I've only listened to this all the way through a couple of times. It's interesting in places, but perhaps a little bit too prog even for me. Gabriel described it as, "a personal journey that ends up walking through [The Book of Revelation]". Amusingly though, it all begins with him walking across his sitting room and turning off the telly...



Of course, it's not the length that matters, it's what you do with it.

What's your longest song?

My Top Ten Superman Songs

There's a new Superman movie out and I'm reserving judgment till I've see it. Much as I'm a huge comic book fan, I always had problems with Superman as a character... yet there's no disputing his impact on popular culture. The Superman Homepage has compiled a list of 566 (and counting) pop songs that reference the Man of Steel... and, no, I didn't listen to all of them in preparation for this countdown. Just the ten (ahem) or so I found in my own record collection... 

Special mentions to The Superman Revenge Squad (who pop up here quite often anyway), Klark Kent, and Black Lace. (Go on, hitch a ride to the 80s wedding disco. You had to be there. Macho man!)



10. Laurie Anderson - O Superman

As annoying as Black Lace were... be honest now, is the full 8 1/2 minutes of Laurie Anderson's biggest hit any less so?

(You also had to be there.)

See also Sueperman's Big Sister by Ian Dury, which was apparently spelled that way to "avoid copyright issues". Like that bothered anyone else on this chart. 

9. Straw - Weird Superman

Lost indie classic you've never heard of alert!

See also Superman's Song by the Crash Test Dummies, which is TWENTY TWO YEARS OLD. F@#k me. Oh, and Jimmy Olsen's Blues by The Spin Doctors from a similar era.

8. Robyn Hitchcock - Superman

In which Robyn finds a crunchy little Superman in his cornflake box. Don't ask me, I just play them.

7. REM - Superman

Not an original REM song, this was originally recorded by The Clique back in 1969. Their version's pretty groovy too.

6. Cinerama - Superman

David Gedge has written songs about Superman, Spider-Man, The Hulk... even Dan Dare. And (going back to Superman), he even named one of his albums Bizarro. Good lad!

5. Frank Black - Man of Steel

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Super-Pixie!

From the soundtrack to... erm, the X-Files TV show.

See also Man of Steel by Meat Loaf, which is pretty cool too, considering it wasn't written by Jim Steinman.

See also The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts by Sufjan Stevens. Cheating much to squeeze all these in, Rol?   

4. The Kinks - (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman

The Kinks go disco... well, it was 1979.

Woke up this morning, started to sneeze
I had a cigarette and a cup of tea
I looked in the mirror what did I see
A nine stone weakling with knobbly knees
I did my knees bend press ups touch my toes
I had another sneeze and I blew my nose
I looked in the mirror at my pigeon chest
I had to put on my clothes because it made me depressed
Surely there must be a way
For me to change the shape I'm in
Dissatisfied is what I am
I want to be a better man

3. Gil Scott Heron - Ain't No Such Thing As Superman

Way cooler than any song about Superman ever deserves to be.

And if you think that's groovy: check out Superman Lover by Johnny Guitar Watson. Ain't that a bitch!

2. Donovan - Sunshine Superman

Might have been Number One, but lost points for also mentioning Green Lantern.

However rubbish you might think Superman is, Green Lantern is ten times rubbisher.

See also Superlungs, My Supergirl. Only in the 60s.

(And, if we're mentioning Kara Zor-El, we should spare a moment for You're Really Super, Supergirl by XTC. And if we're mentioning XTC, we should spare a moment for Braniac's Daughter by The Dukes of Stratosphere. Phew.)

1. The Flaming Lips - Waitin' For A Superman

The Flaming Lips' Superman song is actually better than their Spider-Man song which, frankly, is just perverse.

Tell everybody waiting for Superman
That they should try to hold on best they can
He hasn't dropped them, forgot them, or anything
It's just too heavy for Superman to lift

OK, so a certain amount of rule-breaking went into the compilation of this particular Top Twenty-some... but there's no denying, there were some super tunes.

Which one makes you want to leap tall buildings in a single bound?