29. 10 Songs about the Crash

Leader of the Pack - The Shangri-Las
Lucky - Radiohead
Crash - The Primitives
Plane Crash in C - Rilo Kiley
In My Hour of Darkness - Gram Parsons
Packing for the Crash - Tom McRae
M.I.A - Emmy the Great
I Want My Baby Back - Jimmy Cross
A Day in the Life - The Beatles
Always Crashing in the Same Car - David Bowie

Goodness, it's been a fair while since I've posted anything, not just because I've been busy with beer and weddings and work and illness, and not even because I'm running low on ideas, believe it or not - that time is yet to come, though come it will. It's more because on looking over my posts, I found them uncomfortably eager to search for poignancy, or whatever you call it, and I felt particularly chastened by an excellent interview with the genius Gruff Rhys in The Independent, where he talks about hating earnest songs. All this shit is maybe a bit too earnest, a bit too gloomy.
So, this one's about car and plane crashes ....
But, in my defence, you should listen to I Want My Baby Back by Jimmy Cross, and tell me that's not a funny song. We used to listen to it when we were kids and i've recently rediscovered it.
So, people obviously have a fascination with crashes and collisions and disasters, I remember we used to be shown old Pathe clips of things like the Hindenburg and Sir Donald Campbell when we were at school and i don't think there was any reason but for entertainment. Some people, as in one of the recent films named 'Crash', take that fascination to disturbing extremes.
To be honest, I find both 'Crash' films very unsatisfactory for differing reasons, I thought the Paul Haggis Oscar-winner was lots of great scenes which amounted to total nothing.
Nowadays, each crash will be more and more likely to be recorded for posterity from every angle and they'll be the most watched clips on youtube, for sure.
What I write below was about that car that blocked the East Coast mainline a few years ago because the driver fell asleep at the wheel, resulting in a terrible train crash. It put me in mind of the book The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (Party Liaison), which I remember my friend Wieland directing me towards many many years ago, suggesting it said a lot to him about the way God works in the world - mysterious ways and all that. It's about a friar seeing a bridge collapsing and then enquiring into the lives of all the people who died in search of cosmic significance. It's a fine book, and explains why I, rather grandiloquently, called this

If God Guides, He Guides Like This

Any other minute
of any other day
Any other driver
of any other car
Any other bridge
like San Luis Rey
Any other fireball
on some other star