My Top Ten Walkman Songs

The humble Walkman. How it revolutionised our world. Kids today don't know how lucky they have it when they can stream or download any song they want to hear immediately to their phone, tablet or domestic pet. This device let us take our music with us wherever we wanted... and made it even easier to ignore conversations on the bus than ever before.

Ten songs then that pay tribute to the Walkman... with special mention, of course, to The Walkmen.

10. Frank Black - I Heard Ramona Sing

It's not the Pixies, but it's unmistakably Frank Black...

I had so many problems

And then I got me a walkman

I really liked it a lot, and

They walked right in and they solved them

They walked right in and they solved them

9. American Music Club - Chanel No. 5

Walkmans, Chanel #5... Mark Eitzel has extremely sensory memories of the 80s.

She's got her Walkman on

She's got Chanel Number Five

Look at her walk

She's holding her head upright

Wants to show she's got some pride

To the headlights

8. Iggy Pop - Run Like A Villain

Utter nonsense, but Iggy makes utter nonsense addictive. From the album Zombie Birdhouse. What else do you need to know?

Tracy got an afghan, pedigreed,

Prescription shades and designer jeans

A Sony Walkman on her head

All she wants is to be fed

7. Veruca Salt - With David Bowie

Many a teenage infatuation began this way...

My heart skips around 

when I hear the sound.

I'm never alone cause 

you're following me home.

I'm falling in love, 

my walkman and me, 

with David Bowie.

6. Pavement - Range Life

Stephen Malkmus grew up with a skateboard and a walkman... just like Marty McFly and most other kids from 80s Americana.

Out on my skateboard

The night is just hummin'

And the gum smacks are the pulse

I'll follow if my walkman fades

But I've got absolutely no one,

No one but myself to blame

5. Robyn Hitchcock - Statue With A Walkman On

The only song I could find with Walkman in the title, but it's a belter.

4. Dr. Dre & Eminem - Forgot About Dre

My misspent twenties. Not my usual bag, I'm sure you'll admit, but this was back when all Eminem had to do was open his mouth and I bought it. And as Eminem never actually shut his mouth, I bought a lot...

One day I was walking by

With a Walkman on

When I caught a guy

Give me an awkward eye

And I strangled him up in the parking lot

With his Karl Kani

Plus, Dr. Dre is cool, whichever way you cut it. Even if you're an uncool kid like me you can see that.

3. Jenny Lewis - Late Bloomer

Fantastic storytelling. Like a novel in a song! Gotta love Jenny Lewis...

Nancy came from Boston, she got in trouble very often

Cause her parents had forgotten her, she escaped over the pond

She was searching for the writer of a song that made her shiver

She listened over and over on her Walkman cassette

And she said "Come with me late bloomer, for a little while

I wanna see that fire burning, in you little child."

2. Ben Folds - Late

Ben's tribute to his old friend Elliot Smith starts thus...

Under some dirty words on a dirty wall

Eating takeout by myself

I play the shows

Got back in the van and put the Walkman on

And you were playing

And the rest of the song's a heartbreaker.

Elliott, man, you played a fine guitar

And some dirty basketball

The songs you wrote

Got me through a lot

Just wanna tell you that

But it's too late

1. The Smiths - Bigmouth Strikes Again

Apparently, Joan of Arc had both a hearing aid and a walkman...

What's side 1 track 1 on your Best Walkman Songs cassette?

2017 Latecomers: The Opera Comic

So here I am, a victim of The Matrix. Of the algorithms that govern social media, that analyse my likes and my comments and throw out advertising that's designed specifically for me. It's not the first time I've bought a song on the back of a facebook ad, it probably won't be the last. I don't really mind too much, anything that introduces me to cool new music is to be celebrated... although my bank account may beg to differ.

Enter The Opera Comic and their single Fantasise!, released late last year, and very promising it is too if you like literate, orchestral indie pop. Kind of like the Divine Comedy meets The Who, I reckon. You may approve if you wish...




Have you ever bought music on the back of a facebook ad?

Songs I Thought I Owned But I Didn't: #1 Reet Petite

The other day I went searching through my digital library for a song I was certain was in there... but it turned out it wasn't. (It is now, thanks to emusic.) This happens on a semi-occasional basis, so I thought I'd make another as-and-when series about it.

1. Jackie Wilson - Reet Petite

Originally released in 1957, shortly after Jackie Wilson left The Dominoes, this was his first solo hit. Written by Berry Gordy, Gwen Fuqua (no comment) and Jackie's cousin Roquel "Billy" Davis (that's some nickname, Roquel), its title came from a Louis Jordan numberReet, Petite and Gone. Despite what I claimed on a recent Saturday Snapshots, it appears to have nothing to do with small French Geordies. But it did have a big impact on Gordy. Apparently, he made so much money from this song, he was able to launch Motown. And the rest is history...

Of course, my first exposure to Reet Petite was in the latter part of 1986 when it was re-issued accompanied by the above claymation video... featuring questionable racial caricaturing that looks quite insensitive today. At risk of sounding right-on, I never really liked the video, but I did love the song. It was the Christmas Number One in 1986, and if it wasn't for Don't You Want Me? by the Human League (and... possibly... the Pet Shop Boys' cover of Always On My Mind), I'd argue it was the best Christmas Number One of the 80s. I bought it on 7".... but my 45s are long gone. Still, I was sure I had this digitally in my collection somewhere.

Turns out though, that it's not on the 18 track Jackie Wilson Best Of (Higher & Higher: 18 Soul Sensations), nor does it crop up on any other soul or Northern soul comp I own. Well, I've got it now. Clearly I need to expand my Jackie Wilson collection some more...



Ever come across any songs you were CERTAIN you owned... but then were horrified to find you didn't?

The Hot 100 Countdown #97

Rather surprised that nobody guessed my Number 97 song, though there were a couple of fine suggestions.

Martin went for '97 Bonnie & Clyde by Eminem, which has featured here before, five years ago in My Top Ten Bad Dad Songs. It's classic Psycho Marshall, in which Em' takes on Will Smith's version of Just The Two Of Us... and wins.

Then Chris suggested The Wreck Of The Old '97, a vintage country track (written back in 1924!) based on a terrible train crash in 1903. It's been covered by everyone since (I hear Kylie's done a version of her new "country" album, and I'm sure Justin Timberlake must be considering it now he's gone country) but Johnny Cash is Johnny Cash.

There's also a pretty cool American alt-rock band (pictured above) led by Rhett Miller who took their name from this song. Here they are getting drunk and getting it on.

Alyson plumbed for George Michael's Star People '97, which is OK... but a bit TOO '97 for me. I far refer the original. On that note though, I can confidently tell you there will NEVER be a year-remix song in this series... even if it means I have to skip a number. Just saying.

Nobody though, nobody at all, remembered this... very, very early Pulp - from 1986! Yes, Pulp were around in 1986 (believe it or not, they originally formed in 1978!). This was the b-side to the also-excellent single Dogs Are Everywhere, and it was later included on the Masters Of The Universe collection. If you've never heard it... close your eyes and meet a much younger Jarvis than we're used to... but just as sleazy as ever.

I know a woman

With a picture of Roger Moore

In a short towel and dressing-gown

Pinned to her bedroom wall

She married a man

Who works on a building site

Now they make love beneath Roger

Every Friday night

Which brings us to 96. The song should be obvious... but which version???

Radio Songs #26: Commercial Breakdown

Much concern has been voiced in the comments section that I'm now a quarter of a century (in terms of posts) into my radio career, and yet I still haven't been paid. So here it comes, my first paying job... I'll warn you though, it's probably pretty dull.


The truth is, the money in commercial radio comes from the commercials. Those bloody things that make most people want to turn off the radio or tune to another station. Ten to twelve minutes an hour of the things - if you're lucky, some stations pack in even more. I do think that in the UK we've been rather spoiled, many of us having been brought up on ad-free BBC radio stations. I'm sure that probably strengthens our antipathy for commercials - whereas in other countries, they're probably far more accepted. Still annoying as hell, but a necessary evil. (The ultimate irony of my Bill Hicks-style hatred of adverts is that I ended up writing the bloody things, which was in its own ways both the best and the worst job I ever had. But we'll get to that in due time.)

Anyway, most commercial radio stations in the UK focus on one big city and its surrounding areas. So the Manchester stations advertise businesses in Manchester and the Leeds stations advertise businesses in Leeds and the Dundee stations advertise business in Dundee. But it wasn't that easy for the station I worked at, which broadcast to one minor city (a city with a chip on its shoulder as it was seen as a second class cousin to a much bigger city a few miles down the road) and two pretty major towns. The problem was, a lot of people in the minor city went and did their shopping in the bigger city next door (which we didn't broadcast to)... and a lot of the people in the two major towns were quite happy doing their shopping locally... but wouldn't be seen dead in the minor city our station broadcast from. Various efforts had been made throughout the station's existence to convince listeners - and businesses - in the two towns that the station wasn't just focussed on the minor city, and my first paying job revolved around one such effort.

The station also had two transmitters and two frequencies. A smaller transmitter which broadcast to the minor city and a huge transmitter that broadcast (on a different frequency) to everywhere else. And this was where some Smart Alec in the sales department had a brainwave: what if they split the output to those transmitters during ad breaks!? So one set of ads would be broadcast to the city and another set of ads would be broadcast everywhere else.

At the time, adverts were played out on air (as were all jingles, sound effects, and even some songs) via the medium of cartridge... a close relative of the old 8 track cartridges that were big for about 6 minutes in the 70s. Some people even had them in their cars! Just like the one pictured above...

(The crappy, half-peeling label was a must.)

There was one stack of these wonderous machines to the left of the on air desk... and another stack to the right. Every ad break, the DJ would select four or five carts from the cart-wall that took up one whole side of the studio and play them out in the order specified on a many-folded sheet torn from a dot matrix printer and bulldog clipped to slab of chipboard. The ad log. But with split ads - basically, twice the number of adverts to find and put in order and make sure they were put in the right piles on the right side of the desk (left for transmitter A; right for transmitter B), concern was voiced that such an arduous and mentally-taxing task would prove too much for the average jock who also had to talk, play records and tie their own shoelaces... so that's where I came in.

For six to eight hours a day then (depending on how many ads the sales team sold that week), I would sit in the corner of the studio and help the presenter get their commercial breaks in order. Not half as much fun as cataloguing records, but I did get paid! £5.10 an hour! Oh, happy day! I had money at last!

I went straight out and bought a CD player... and, well, you can guess where the majority of my wages went after that...

26: The Sunshine Underground - Commercial Breakdown