Gavin and Stacey, mainstream TV

I tried to make a list of the greatest British TV shows a while back, with some motivation to doing what most such lists fail to do - covering and giving credit to the full range of genres and formats, not just scripted drama and comedy. 

But I gave up, as even my large ego had to accept that, in the scheme of things, I don't know anything about TV. In truth, I hardly watch any TV.

Well, I watch a lot of sport. That's what I mainly watch. Since I got Sky Sports in 2007, I've mainly watched sport, to the exclusion of most else. It didn't happen immediately, but sport, having a child, and deciding in 2018 i really needed to read books again, has meant that my watching of mainstream TV is spare at best. I certainly hardly ever just browse TV (unless it's sport). I still make time for a few series a year. This year, I can remember watching Mr Bates vs the Post Office, One Day, Sherwood, Colin from Accounts, Rings of Power, Wolf Hall,  Boybands Forever, The Bear, Inside Number 9, and maybe there were a handful of others, certainly a few sports and music documentaries, but it's not much, really. Oh yes, and old Top of the Pops on a Friday night. Lots of that.

But I'm usually not watching what everyone's watching. What people tweet about and talk about - Doctor Who, Strictly, Line of Duty, The Chase, The Traitors, Ludwig, I'm a Celebrity, Slow Horses, Baby Reindeer, The 1% Club, University Challenge. I don't even watch hit show Only Connect.

I'm not snobby about TV - I used to watch any old shit - all the soaps, all the reality shows, all the talent shows, all the dodgy sitcoms, all the daytime quizzes. But now, I'm mainly out of the loop. Whereas, because I, in some sense, "work in TV", most of the people I encounter professionally know a lot, care a lot, think a lot about TV, and I, perhaps to my professional detriment, do not. 

In actual fact, working on OC has been a factor in that. After a few series, I realised it was far healthier for me to shut it out completely, as far as possible, when i wasn't working in it, in terms of online and real-world responses. I do still like to know the ratings, but that's all ...

And I also think it has meant I don't watch other TV within the same - rough - genre (daytime/quiz/game etc). I don't want to think about formats of TV shows, and whether these are good quiz questions etc, if I don't have to ...

Anyway, all this is to say, I don't see myself as a TV guy, and when folk online are tweeting about this and that, I tend to think "why aren't you watching Everton-Wolves?" "why aren't you watching Sri Lanka-West Indies?", "why aren't you watching Baltimore Ravens-Houston Texans?" ... which is what I intended to watch a bit of on Christmas Day evening, to relax with a little bit of magical Lamar Jackson and his Baltimore Ravens. But then it wasn't on Sky Sports NFL and I wasn't sharp enough to remember it was the first venture into NFL by Netflix, and I was a bit bereft.

And Juliette said, "Do you want to watch Gavin and Stacey?" And I said ok, remembering that actually I'd watched all the other episodes of Gavin and Stacey, and this used to be the kind of thing I watched .... and I'm glad I did, because I really enjoyed it, which in a way is hardly the point, but in a way is. Perhaps I had become a TV snob and thought I was too good for Gavin and Stacey and should only watch certain anointed shows and not heartwarming Christmas specials, but Gavin and Stacey was actually always a good show, and it is a weird little blip that a small BBC3 sitcom from 2007 became the biggest show on TV in 2024, and they can't change the characters' surnames, even though they're West, Shipman and Sutcliffe.

I guess the point is it's nice to watch what everyone else is watching every now and then, and ... what else ... people should stop hating James Corden. It's a bit weird.

2024

In 2023, I produced a list of my favourite 100 albums of the year, which was clearly a very normal and worthwhile thing to do. Although I have listened to as much new music this year, I have less desire to process and qualify what I listened to this time around.

So, perhaps my 73rd favourite album of the year was Grace Cummings' album 'Ramona', but that's the only such fascinating tidbit you'll get. 

All I'm going to do is give you a playlist of 40 songs. Because of the way Apple Music (or Spotify) works, I know exactly what I listened to the most this year. So these songs are drawn from the 100 songs I've listened to the most. They're not even all from 2024 (I'll star the ones that aren't). Anyway, over the course of it, you'll find out, no doubt, what my favourite things were.

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/2024-final/pl.u-11aPBHBM0JV

Good Luck Babe - Chappell Roan

I guess this was my favourite song. I first heard it while sitting in the passenger seat at the roundabout of Junction 10A of the M20, a place I hear and recoil from many of the modern pop hits. I heard it and exclaimed "What the hell? This is a great song", and so it is. I'd heard about Chappell Roan by that point, but wasn't sure, from online descriptions of her oeuvre, if she was for me. Turns out, she's for everyone. Let's call this the best megahit since 'Umbrella', or something like that. Bit of Cyndi Lauper, bit of Kate Bush, unforgettable hook both melodically and lyrically. Her album is good, too, though a bit more "not for me", after all.

Right Back to It - Waxahatchee ft MJ Lenderman

This is the song I've listened to the most. I've listened to it a lot of times. It's not even that it makes my heart race with excitement, it's just such a pleasant, fine song to listen to. I sing along with MJ as he does his wobbly Gram Parsons thing on the chorus without even noticing I'm doing it. This replaces the song I listened to the most in 2020, 21, 22 and 23, which was Can't Do Much by someone called Waxahatchee. I didn't actually love Tiger's Blood as much as Saint Cloud, but how could I?

Although it's Katie Crutchfield's most high-profile song, I might have expected it would be an even bigger crossover hit.

All in Good Time - Iron & Wine and Fiona Apple

The Iron & Wine album Light Verse was a favourite of the year. I really wasn't expecting a good Iron & Wine album - my favourite since 'Shepherd's Dog'. This is another country-tinged duet, which might have grabbed more attention, considering it's a rare public appearance by Fiona Apple, whose voice just comes in like a knife (through iron, through wine ...), and prompted me to listen to a lot of Fiona Apple again. [Incidentally, Pitchfork judged her Fetch the Bolt Cutters the best album of the 2020s so far. I may come back to that list.]

Head Rolls Off - Frightened Rabbit *

The Wild Kindness - Silver Jews *

Two songs now which I've listened to a huge amount, which aren't from this year. They're beautiful songs. Inspiring in their way -  sung by two mordant, dark, funny, twisty lyricists, Scott Hutchison and David Berman, yet their legacy lyrics are two simple lines of determination and humanity;  "While I'm alive, I'll make tiny changes to earth" and "I'm going to shine out in the wild kindness and hold the world to its word". Everything you ever need.

Song of the Lake - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Talking of lyrics, it says everything about Nick Cave's understanding with his listeners and his position within his own songs that the line "And all the king's horses and all the king's ... oh never mind, never mind" can be so moving. I liked this Cave album, 'Wild God', a lot. I thought it was a really good reconciliation of his old and new writing styles. There was a hint of classic Bad Seeds, but it was unmistakeably Warren Ellis-era. I loved the Dave Fridmann Soft Bulletin swirl at the start of Song of the Lake, which begins the album. I also loved O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is).

The World's Biggest Paving Slab - English Teacher

The definitive Mercury-Prize-winning/7.4-from-Pitchfork album (don't worry, this is a joke for me and me alone who reads too much music press and has gradually built up 18th century levels of anti-American resentment.) Good on English Teacher - a real nice debut album.

Cards on the Table - Nia Archives

The definitive Mercury-Prize-nominated/7.3-from-Pitchfork album ... fuck dose guys, capisch? Anyway, this jungle-revival pop album was a surprising hit with me. Loved her voice, loved the sound. This was my favourite song on the album.

Bad Friend - Gruff Rhys

One of my favourite Gruff solo songs - a gentle, strangely moving rumination on a perennial problem of middle age - being a bad friend. Also, perhaps, a subtle apology to his fellow Furries for not getting the band back together? 

Love Story - Taylor Swift *

There was a lot of Swift in this house this year, particularly the Eras Tour Film. Love Story is still my favourite, followed by Betty and Shake It Off, with You Belong with Me not far beyond. Nothing from this year's torture, though, which is a bad album. I remember once writing, in relation to 'evermore', of the value of always listening to an album all the way through more than once, as you'll always hear different sides. But, you know, with this one, forget that. I did listen to it twice, but life was too short. A bloated, boring, piece of work.

I thought the same about Cowboy Carter. These were two textbook "bad albums by great artists". Much better, for me, were the albums by Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa, and of course, Charli XCX. I listend to Brat quite a lot, and almost thought it was as great as everyone else did, but, I guess, if comparing it to Melodrama by Lorde, the most obvious point of comparison, i didn't feel, as i did with that, that lots of the songs would be great broken down to any era, era genre, were just classic songwriting. Doesn't really matter, but that was just what i felt.

All I Ever Asked - Rachel Chinouriri

Rather like a minor version of the Good Luck Babe experience, this landed in my ears and brought a satisfying "Aah yes, they don't make them like that anymore". A lovely, well put-together indie-pop song with a hook and a chorus and a lyric. I think the song originally came out in 2022, but the album What a Devastating Turn of Events, which is also excellent, came out this year. 7.5 on Pitchfork, of course.

Something Like Happiness - The Maccabees *

Just love this song - pleased the Maccabees are getting back together, though I can't see them at All Points East, annoyingly. For me, the best British indie band of that era - missed the boat of having hit singles by two or three years. By the time they were known, indie bands didn't really have hit singles anymore. This should have been a hit single. This is what I wanted Coldplay to sound like. Richer sound, better singer.

I Got Heaven - Mannequin Pussy

Really, though? Are you sure? How about the Mannequins? It's not too late to change your minds ... Anyway, this is a great album. Rage and tunes.

Looking Back - Laura Marling

This song from Laura Marling's family-focused 'Patterns in Repeat' was written by her father many decades ago, and apparently he didn't hear her version of it until the record was released, which is a nice story. It's a very nice song, too.

Where Are You Tonight? (Journey through Dark Heat) - Bob Dylan *

I really thought my most-listened-to artist this year wouldn't be, for the first time in 28 years, Bob Dylan, but it was. There we go. My most listened to Bob Dylan song was Mississippi, but I'll include this one, because it was something of a new discovery. I got really into Street-Legal, and was really surprised how great this song is.

Luther - Kendrick Lamar (ft SZA)

This was the first Kendrick Lamar album I've really liked since TPAB. It was sharp and precise and full of hits. I found the feud with Drake quite the most unedifying thing, though. And i loathe Drake, but really ...

Mahashmashana - Father John Misty

This, funnily enough, is the most I've enjoyed a Father John Misty album. For some reason, he's never quite landed with me before. But I love this epic title track.

Surf - Roddy Frame *

I wrote a little about this beautiful song recently. Magic. Would love a new Roddy Frame album. Only eight (inc Aztec Camera) in 40-odd years. Time for another ...

Burial Ground - The Decemberists ft James Mercer

This was a nice comeback single by The Decemberists, and their album has a few other good moments, though is a bit long. But most of all, Decemberists ft James Mercer of The Shins is the most "my-taste-in-music-in-2006" combination that could possibly exist.

History Lesson Pt 2 - Minutemen *

This seems to be an absolute seminal song of US alt-rock but i only got into it this year. I like it a lot.

We Don't Need Them - Bill Ryder-Jones

Beautiful album this - Iechyd Da. Toured with Gruff. Fragile, ambitious.

We Make Hits - Yard Act

The last line of which is "and if it's not a hit, we were being ironic". It was not a hit. Though i did see it on a US talk show. Quite good with words, Yard Act. Quite fun.

The Purple Rain - Pernice Brothers

Have talked about this one before, too -  a tribute to David Berman and others. Beautifully done.

All Now - The Staves

The Staves have made reliably beautiful music for some time.

Don't Forget Me - Maggie Rogers

I loved this album - probably one of my Top 5 of the year. Apparently Maggie Rogers got famous through TV though i hadn't known that. She has a voice that would sound wrenching singing anything.

Houdini - Dua Lipa

Listening to Dua Lipa as a political act. There are three things about Dua Lipa 1. she's a genuine outspoken leftie. Commits to causes and says things other pop stars don't say. 2. the American music press designated her 2024 album Radical Optimism as a flop. The narrative went elsewhere. But her Glastonbury headline was a triumph where SZA's was a flop. And, the most obvious, important thing, 3. she's got about 15 songs which literally anyone in the UK with even a casual acquaintance with pop music will sing along to. I enjoyed her album more than plenty of others this year.

Impossible Germany - Wilco *

Different versions of Impossible Germany on youtube. Always the same set-up. The bunch of six dads - different kinds of snazzy dad hair. Stocky grumpy feller in the middle, noodles away, sings the gentle song with the odd lyric "Impossible Germany, unlikely Japan". The tall, skinny, even older fellow with quite extravagant 14-year-old boy hair screen left, taking the baton after two or three minutes, winds it up, increasingly thrilling - after some amount of time, while the rest of the bands have been ignoring him and noodling away, they reconnect, they find a riff they play together, and then he's off again, even more extreme, another couple of minutes. I'm not a guitar heroics rock music fan, not usually. But Impossible Germany, all the different live performances where Nels Cline has his moment (he could have his moment on any song, but the fact it's just Impossible Germany where it happens like this makes it all the more), I will never watch/listen to it enough.

Triumph - Wu-Tang Clan *

Wu-Tang forever! This, the first single from their second album, is the one Wu-Tang track that contains every member. All time fun.

Distant Sun - Crowded House *

Sometimes one just wants to listen to a bit of the old Crowded House.

The Place Where He Inserted the Blade - Black Country New Road *

I'd listened to the BCNR albums, but got really into them this year for some reason. Somehow works ...

Iceblink Luck - Cocteau Twins *

I liked watching Netflix's One Day a lot, and I loved the music in it, both in terms how closely it matched up sometimes with my own taste, and a few songs I didn't know. This Cocteau Twins song is fantastic. 

Something on My Mind - Karen Dalton *

As is this Karen Dalton song. I tried to get into Karen Dalton years ago, as Dylan raves about her in Chronicles, but this recording is so eery and timeless.

She Still Leads Me On - Suede *

Have discussed this before. A great vocal, a great chorus.

She's Leaving You - MJ Lenderman

I think, if i had to name one, i'd go for MJ's Manning Fireworks as my album of the year, as it took me by surprise. I thought his songwriting would be goofy, like Mac De Marco or something, and it's not, it's sharp and poignant. This is one of several great songs on the album. Nice bit of guitar. MJ had quite a year - I even saw him on stage doing his day job, as guitarist for Wednesday.

Look to the East, Look to the West - Camera Obscura

For a while, this was my favourite. Such a great band, and I think this is one of their best sets of songs.

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll - Aoife O'Donovan

A really well judged cover of Dylan's greatest, or second greatest, song.

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service *

Weird to have been at the Death Cab/Postal Service fandango at Victoria Park considering i was never a huge fan of either, but really enjoyed it, particularly the latter. Ended up listening to this album a lot. Struck again by the weird status of Jenny Lewis. The most famous non-famous person in the world, or the least famous famous person. When people saw her on stage, half the crowd was like "wow, Jenny Lewis is here", the other half was "who's that?" ... anyway, apparently there'll be some Rilo Kiley in 2025. Marvellous.

Tell Me Who You Are Today - Beth Gibbons

Great. Just a great singer.

Rise Up Singing - Paul Weller

And a really enjoyable Weller album. Probably my 5th favourite of his solo albums.

Starburster - Fontaines DC

Do you know, without going all Jordan Petersony, in Pitchforks's Best 100 Albums/Songs of the 2020s so far, there's barely anything by bands of blokes - just one each by The 1975 and Vampire Weekend in the lower reaches. It all used to be bands of blokes, didn't it? Not that that was a good thing, but, i do slightly feel that something that is lost in the world of critically acclaimed music now is the weird alchemy of a bunch of not particularly charismatic or handsome or officially special young men getting together when they're kids cos there's nothing better to do, and, from an absence of beauty, creating some beauty. Like The Coral, you know? Or The Jam .. or countless others ... maybe that was actually a good thing for young men to do. Anyway, having said all that, Fontaines DC is Number 2 in the year's aggregated list, so someone still loves a bunch of blokes. Nowhere to be seen on Pitchfork's Best albums, list, though ...

Ha, i'm a little obsessed. Anywhere, there we go.

Song 103: She Still Leads Me On

This is a song that, strange as it may sound, changed my whole opinion on Suede, or more specifically, Brett Anderson.

I've been, to some extent, a Suede fan since the beginning. My one cool friend at that miserable stage of school, the soon-to-be-expelled Snazzy Kesner, tried to get me into them, and I remember seeing Animal Nitrate on TOTP and, at a certain point, really hearing the chorus, and thinking "yes, i like that".

I wasn't really buying albums then, but I liked the singles from Dog Man Star, particularly The Wild Ones - still, arguably their greatest song. I read about the tension between Butler and Anderson, and took Butler's side. Anderson just seemed a bit the worst of both worlds - both pretty dark and seedy, but also a real dweeb. I didn't like that combo. I didn't like him clearly being on drugs on 'The O Zone' - we're kids watching here, for god's sake - or his self-important, try-hard pronouncements.

My certainty that the real genius was Butler was confirmed by what came next - Yes by McAlmont and Butler, the greatest single of the 90s, and the averageness of post-Butler Suede. I thought Trash and Beautiful Ones were pretty good, but nothing else after that, and the band seemed shorn of its extremes. For a man who vituperatively condemned his Britpop peers, their songs post-95 were the most archetypally Britpop going.

I was quite interested in The Tears - the reunited Butler and Anderson in 2005 - but after a decent first single, the rest was not good at all. In fact, the spectacle of them headlining the first night of Benicassim to growing dissatisfaction and disinterest and multiple shouts of "Play some fucking Suede!", was pretty miserable. 

I, almost certainly wrongly, assigned more blame to Anderson for the fiasco. I long held the view that his fatal flaw was overinvesting in the idea of himself as rock star. I felt he thought he possessed more of the base material than he did, and that imbalance was, for me, hard to watch.

Still, when Suede returned, there was a lot of enthusiasm for it. I saw them at Latitude in 2011 and liked, almost loved it, but still didn't quite buy into Anderson. I thought their new material decent. I went with Mikey to see them in 2016 playing all of their new album, Night Thoughts. To be honest, I don't remember that much, I got pretty drunk. Maybe the last time (pre-baby as it was), I've been that drunk. I remember returning home and aping Anderson's preposterous stage moves, though, so I assume I basically maintained the same view.

Anyway, on to 2022, the release of their well-reviewed new album 'Autofiction'. In the meantime, Brett Anderson had published two well-reviewed volumes of autobiography. I was still only a bit interested.

But my youtube algorithm brought me the band's performance of 'She Still Leads Me On', performed on Jools Holland. I've long since given up on Jools' show, it's a pretty hopeless, arid, environment, for rock bands, but Anderson and the band's performance blew me away.

For starters, it was loud. Louder than bands usually sound on TV. And his performance was fierce and magnificent. It helps that this is a great song. It's unmannered, it's personal, it's deeply moving, it's got a monster chorus. But, for the first time, silly as it sounds, I thought, jesus, he's a good singer. Like, in the all the years talking about Brett Anderson and his demi-monde lifestyle, his sexual ambiguity, his hatred of Damon Albarn, his feuds, his lyrical preoccupations with nuclear motorways, I really don't think I had read enough "Brett has a great pair of lungs on him". Or maybe it had been written, and I hadn't seen it.

And somehow, that's unlocked everything. I know that's ridiculous. But just realising that his main thing, above and beyond all else, is that he's a great singer ... music is so funny, isn't it ...

Song 102: She's Your Lover Now

A Bob Dylan song!

Of all things ...

Bob Dylan recorded 'She's Your Lover Now' on 21st January 1966. There were 16 takes and he was not satisfied. It was not released until the first Bootleg Series CD in 1991.

That was the 15th take, which is the most renowned, albeit he did not reach the end of the song on that take. He did get to the end on the 16th (substantially musically different) take, and that take emerged in the 2010s, on a later Bootleg.

'She's Your Lover Now' is sometimes my favourite Bob Dylan song.

It is the work of someone at the peak of their evil powers.

But he didn't finish it, and he didn't release it. Did he not rate it?

I think he did rate it. He knew it was a great song. It was one of the first songs he attempted to record for Blonde on Blonde and he gave a whole day to it.

The most famous recording, Take 15, ends with the song breaking down midway through the last of four mammoth verses and a slightly irritated "What?" from Bob.

It turned out that, although they had backed him to famous effect on tour, although they would make the Basement Tapes together, record and tour together again, at that point in early '66, he was dissatisfied with the Hawks/Band in the recording studio (he told as much to his friend Robert Shelton a few weeks later). This aborted attempt to record 'She's Your Lover Now' probably brought an end to Blonde on Blonde being recorded in New York with those musicians. He moved on to Nashville, taking Robbie Robertson but not the rest of the Band, and that is where most of Blonde on Blonde was recorded.

So 'She's Your Lover Now' was a pretty significant failure.

And yet ... the most glorious failure.

The premise of the song - it's a three-hander. The singer, his former partner and her current partner. I've always assumed the former partner is Joan Baez, maybe I read that somewhere, but who knows.

It's a mean song. Maybe his meanest. And that's saying something for Dylan.

I have also heard it said that he left this song behind because he moved on to One of Us Most Know (Sooner of Later), which is similar structurally. Sooner or Later is also a great song, though I prefer this one. Sooner of Later is significantly kinder and more conciliatory. Maybe that's why he went with it.

She's Your Lover Now certainly has the more memorable lines. I won't list them all, but "And you, you just sit around and ask for ashtrays, can't you reach?" (one of the "asides" where he turns with an "And you" to the unfortunate new boyfriend) never fails to amuse.

And, in my opinion, some of Dylan's greatest singing. The reality is that through 65 and 66, Dylan was taking more and more drugs, getting less and less sleep, living closer and closer to the edge. July 29th 1966 was the famous motorcycle accident. It is widely thought the lifestyle break it necessitated was a lifesaver.

That lifestyle is reflected in his singing. 64 and 65 Dylan has a big, strong voice. '66 Dylan is that thin, stoned whine. Truthfully, his voice is more and shot through the course of '66. But 'She's Your Lover Now', from January, still has the power in the lungs of something like Positively Fourth Street or Like a Rolling Stone.

The vocal performance he gives her really does make it even more perplexing that he just discarded the song. It is one of his most passionate, furious performances, In the last verse, just second before the recording stumbles to a finish sings "It's just like a dead man's - last - pistol shot - babyyyyyy" and it's one of the greatest, most intense bits of singing he ever did.

Anyway, there it is - in my opinion, one of the all-time great Dylan lost tracks. I doubt it'll be in Chalamet film ...

Song 101: Danny Callahan

This is one of my favourite songs, has been for over 15 years, but I'm writing a little about it because I suddenly remembered an odd evening I associate it with.

'Danny Callahan' is from Conor Oberst's 2008 solo album 'Conor Oberst'. I've mentioned it before briefly, I think. Of all the songs in the whole world, it is the one that, however many new times I listen to it, never fails to catch me unawares and kick me in the guts.

It manifests as a jaunty tune, and it's not entirely clear, over the first couple of verses, what it's about, with some vaguely philosophical lyrics. Then, after a brief solo, the lyrics focus on what the song is really about, which is about a boy, a real boy Conor Oberst knew, called Danny Callahan, who died of cancer.

The lyrics go

"What gauge measures miracles? And whose heart beats electrical? 

We feign sickness with our modern joy,

but even western medicine, it couldn't save Danny Callahan - 

bad bone marrow, a bald little boy.

But the love you feel he carries inside can be passed.

He lay still, his mother kissed him goodbye said, "Come back!

Where are you going to alone? Where are you going all alone?""

and, I swear, there is really nothing else, over the last 16 years, that has so often brought me back in touch with the tragedy and beauty of life.

Particularly as Conor Oberst, with Bright Eyes, and solo, is often known for vocal and lyrical histrionics, whereas here, he underplays it. It's a beautiful vocal performance, and I think his greatest song, which, considering I played 'First Day of My Life' to the three of us in a momentarily empty and still maternity ward on the day Rosa was born, is not a light compliment.

Well, anyway, there's the song ... I love it. But I remembered one of the first times I heard it, certainly out of the context of my discman, in October 2008, a month or so after the album was released.

I was in Chicago. I went to Chicago with three other people, one of whom was a friend of mine, the other two who were friends of my friend, to run the Chicago Marathon. We ran the marathon. For me, it went pretty badly, nowhere near as well as I hoped. It was very hot, my body didn't work properly. I made it to the finish without stopping, because if I'd stopped, I'd have been in the middle of Chicago, cramped and parched, without a map or the strength to get myself started again.

So I was proud to finish my first marathon (4hr3, perfectly fine, really, but on a good, cold, wet, day with an injury-free preparation, I had a 3h20 in me, I'm sure of it) but in a slightly weird, slf-recriminatory and sulky mood. We still had a week in Chicago, and after weeks, if not months, of taking care with food and drink, I was now not.

One of my friend's friends was a really nice guy and also his brother lived in Chicago, and so he knew, and was able to arrange, some really good restaurants to eat in.

One of them was, I'm pretty certain - this place https://www.alinearestaurant.com/, fairly recently opened at that point, and already Michelin-starred, and within a few years judged the best restaurant in the world.

I say I'm pretty certain ... I'm 99% certain that was the place, but that week is one of those weeks where my memories are a bit surreal.

I remember the atmosphere was low-key, chilled, the food was stunning, the wine was flowing, and on the stereo came Conor Oberst's solo album in its entirety - a soundtrack I was absolutely delighted with. Sounds like an ideal evening, right?

But I haven't mentioned my friend's other friend, yet, have I? 

Look, I'm not one for being mean about someone in public, but I haven't seen this person since, in fact haven't seen any of them for many years, I'll use no names, there is not a cat in hell's chance anyone associated will ever read this. I feel ok about it.

There had already been signs. This person did not agree with tipping. Well, perhaps, on the grand scale, this is fair enough. American service staff are made to rely too much on tips and not paid enough. But that, I don't think, was this person's point. It was just that they got too much. Well, each to their own, except, when we had all got a taxi, and I had provided the tip at whatever the generous American rate I had researched was, the person literally grabbed some of the money out of the driver's hand as I was giving it to him, snarling "Too much!".

So it was in the restaurant, the relaxed, hospitable, not overly pricy considering it was on the cusp of global acclaim, restaurant, as the evening went on, the person became increasingly, loudly contemptuous of the decor, the food, the service staff.

I remember at one point just sitting back and realising with dread that the rest of the restaurant had fallen silent and our dining companion was the only voice that could be heard, against the background of Conor Oberst's poignant tunes. Ah, Brits are great, I'm sure they were all thinking. 

Often, particularly in recent years as I've become almost entirely re-un-socialised, I tell myself I'm super-weird, have always been weird, have no graces, am uncomfortable to be around, and that's my problem. But when I remember evenings like this, I really can tell myself that, no, it was always, and is always, other people that are weird and bad, not me, and if I have, in the end, reacted to that by giving up on trying, so be it.

Busy guy, small world

I'd like to briefly sing the praises of two small albums I love, which are quite similar.

One is 

Surf - Roddy Frame, from 2002

The other is

Busy Guy - Stephen Fretwell, from 2021

The superficial links are interesting - both Frame and Fretwell with their alliterative, guitary surnames.

Both had a song uses as theme for a gentle BBC comedy - Frame's 'Small World', from this very album, was the theme to 'Early Doors' (early McAvoy...)

while Fretwell's 'Run' from 2004's 'Magpie' was used as theme to a little BBC3 comedy called 'Gavin and Stacey'. Fretwell has said that, though he was ambivalent about the song being used, it has been invaluable to his finances, akin to having a part-time job.

For Fretwell has not "done well". 'Busy Guy' is not the album of a guy that has done well. Nor did it do well.

Nor, particularly, did 'Surf'. Has Roddy Frame done well? Not sure, relatively speaking. I expect 'Somewhere in My Heart' has kept him in shirts, but considering his faultless voice, his guitar expertise, the fact he wrote 'Oblivious' when he was, like, 18. and that's one of the greatest songs ever written, you might have expected him to be as famous as George Michael, or at least Marti Pellow. Which he's not.

But he is one of the great British songwriters, and 'Surf' is his masterpiece.

'Surf' is a break-up, or post-relationship, album, which is pretty much entirely just Frame and his guitar, set in London. I love that about it. It's got a real sense of place, of Soho and Notting Hill and such like.

The same is true of 'Busy Guy' - it's a post-relationship album, set in London. The songs are exquisite - they have titls like 'Oval' and 'Embankment'.

It feels like there used to be, or ought to be, thousands of these kinds of albums, but there are perishingly few now. Albums by people who are good enough at the basic, all-inclusive art of writing and singing songs that they can hold your attention and your heart for 40 minutes on their own.

The title track on 'Surf' is, in particular, a wonder. I've been listening to it a lot this year. It feels like one of the songs that invented songs. The melody and the lyric just curl around, then soar, then sink, and reach their natural stopping point and break your heart.

Anyway, that's all. Real deal albums, like 'Blue', these are. Get them, if you like sad guys.

What's the interesting bit?

You may have seen this recent Radio 2 countdown of the Greatest British Groups ...

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2024/radio-2-ultimate-british-group-result

... which is all pretty predictable.

About 10 years ago, I made my own such list. Although it has a fair bit more indie, it's hardly significantly more interesting and diverse, I regret to say. 

https://101songs.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-great-british-band-its-official.html

The Radio 2 list has no black artists (apart from Mel B in the Spice Girls), only two primarily female groups (though also Fleetwood Mac and The Beautiful South), and only one, the Manics at 30, from anywhere but England.

No doubt if it had been compiled by something other than Radio 2 listeners, the list would have been a little more varied, but one can hardly complain. It all makes solid sense. They're all - nearly all -  very successful groups with long and varied discographies.

Anyway, that's all by the by. If I was in a different mood, maybe I'd analyse why the mainstream history of British music remains, primarily, the story of suburban middle-class boys, but, that being so, I started thinking about the Rolling Stones, who were second on my list and third, behind Queen, on this list, and I thought, well, the Rolling Stones are one of the least British of the great British bands (Fleetwood Mac, who are 5th, being barely British at all), and that is probably a factor in their vast and lasting success. Only for a brief period was their something strongly British/Londony in their music.

And then, I thought, they were at their best when they were quite British ... and I started thinking about their best ... and then, the question became .... what's the interesting bit?

What's the interesting bit about the Stones, or, if you will, the bit that is hard to explain?  If you had to say just one thing ... i think the interesting bit is just how good their songs were for a short while... which sounds completely stupid. i know. But people talk about them starting out as blues copyists, they talk about the sexual magnetism of Jagger (the weird dichotomy of Jagger is the second most interesting bit), the drugs, the danger, the deaths, the survival, the comradeship, the arena tours, all that, but the interesting bit, the bit that makes less sense than anything else, is just how good those songs were for a while ... Gimme Shelter, Street Fighting Man, She's a Rainbow, Sympathy for the Devil, Tumbling Dice, You Can't Always Get What You Want ... i mean, those are just incredible songs which burst with range, depth, imagination, beauty, darkness. And i guess it's stupid to say "how did the band who sang 'Get Off My Cloud' sing 'Gimme Shelter'? because they're both great songs, and just as silly to say "and then how did they end up singing 'Start Me Up', because that's a good song too, but there's a direct line from 'Get Off My Cloud' to 'Start Me Up', and 'Gimme Shelter' is something else ...

Maybe it's just me, I wasn't that impressed by the Stones when i was young, the footage of them on Sounds of the Sixties, the stuff they played on the radio, i thought they were ok, but didn't really get it. I think my favourite was 'Get Off My Cloud', actually .... And then i heard 'Gimme Shelter' and 'Street Fighting Man', and I finally got it, the extra level the band had ... maybe it was Mick Taylor ...

... anyway, I could go on about the Stones, but i think ...

what's the interesting bit? ...

is a good question about any band. Imagine someone who is not into rock'n'roll but fancies themselves as smart is trying to get to grips with all the big acts, without actually listening to them, and they asked you, tell me, in one sentence, what's the interesting bit ...

Now i'm torn as to whether to go through all those bands and say what i think the interesting bit ... i'd imagine it's different from what other people think the interesting bit is sometimes, and sometimes it's just the same...

no, I won't do that. I'll just do a playlist of one song from each band ... i mean, that's ok, isn't it?

Penny Lane - The Beatles

Don't Stop Me Now - Queen

Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd (a band about whom there is no interesting bit ...)

Songbird - Fleetwood Mac

Kashmir - Led Zeppelin 

Patience - Take That

Slide Away - Oasis

Yellow - Coldplay

Can't Get it Out of My Head - ELO

Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who

Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode

Down in the Tube Station at Midnight - The Jam

True Love Waits - Radiohead

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore - The Smiths

Turn it On Again - Genesis (i mean i don't know, even tho Best of Genesis was one of the first tapes i ever bought ...)

Suburbia - Pet Shop Boys

In Between Days - The Cure

The Deal - Stephen Duffy (for Duran Duran ... sorry, i just can't)

My Girl - Madness

The Promise - Girls Aloud

Ol' Red Eyes is Back - The Beautiful South

Days - The Kinks

You Win Again - The Bee Gees

Edge of Heaven - Wham!

Death or Glory - The Clash

Badhead - Blur

Stop - Spice Girls

So Lonely - The Police

Prologue to History - Manic Street Preachers

The test for whether it is a good list they have created is that this is not a fun, interesting, playlist, is it? Ah well ...

Acting in LOTR - extra bit

There was something I meant to add to the last bit I wrote about the mistake with this Rings of Powers series, and all bad big budget fantasy, in not having recognisable actors with gravitas. I thought about the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings films, why they were such a big deal at the time, why they worked.

I thought about the actors - McKellen, Mortensen, Serkis, Bean, Blanchett, Holm etc etc they knew what they were doing with casting. But. I really thought, you know, Elijah Wood didn't/doesn't get enough praise for that.

He never won or was nominated for any major acting awards, and the whole thing hangs on him. As the Rings of Power show with these Harfoots, you can go really wrong. The other Hobbit actors - Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd - they're all basically light relief. Elijah Wood needs to play a real film hero who audiences massively invest it in from the start, for adults, for kids, for diehard Tolkien fans.

The whole thing could have fallen at the first hurdle, for all the stunning visuals and grandeur, if they'd miscast Frodo. He's really really good in it. In a nine hour film, most of the way through. Has to display a lot more complicated emotions than anybody else in the films.

Anyway, that's all. It got me thinking about other great undersung performances of our time. Jack Black in School of Rock. Should have won all the Oscars. Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand in Burn After Reading. Steve Coogan in Philomena. Bob Hoskins in TLGFriday (not sure that's so undersung or "of our time", but still, one of the greatest acting perforances of all time ...

Selling the fantasy

I have recently finished 'Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Season 2, which I by and large enjoyed and thought a good step up from the pretty dire first series. Having said that, I read this pretty scathing takedown and can't say I factually disagree with much of it -  I was just a bit more able to put a positive spin on the flaws this time around.

I think I just was determined to enjoy this series, since I'd put the time in. 

Not everyone has put the time in, clearly, It has been much less of a success, both critically and commercially, than hoped. Though several seasons were planned, it is not certain they will get that far. All in all, unless something drastic happens, it looks like going down as a major flop.

There are lots of reasons for that, but I'm just going to consider one of them.

Which, ironically, begins with Game of Thrones, the show that made Lord of the Rings and all Lord of the Rings-related screen content seem a bit green. 

I wasn't as down on the last series of Game of Thrones as most people. I thought most of the angry, self-important, everyone-thinks-they're-an-expert-on-character-arc criticism was nonsense, and also ignored the fact that not every episode in the first few series was a work of genius, far from it. But one simple comment I read that did hold true, and I can't remember if it was from someone like Conleth Hill himself, or a veteran TV critic, was that, naturally enough, as the story had come to a point, it had focused more and more on the "central" characters, the heroes, and most of the significant support characters had already been either killed off or sidelined. Makes sense, but the problem was that those were the great actors. 

The reason Game of Thrones worked, seemed like a TV masterpiece for a long time, was that these lines were being sold to you by Charles Dance, Diana Rigg, Julian Glover, Liam Cunningham, Stephen Dillane, Ciaran Hinds, David Bradley, Jonathan Pryce, Conleth Hill, Aidan Gillen, and on and on ... gravitas. Most of the young actors on Games of Thrones were decent, but looked much better by association, and it's not a surprise that none of them have really, really become a massive star afterwards. 

They couldn't quite carry the last series.

And what of the Star Wars spin-offs, Again, no accident that the one that people think is superb is the one where they spent money hiring Fiona Shaw, Stellan Skarsgaard, Andy Serkis, Anton Lesser, Denise Gough, Ebon Moss-Bachrach etc. make these lines work for adults, you need actors who can carry it off ...

So that's the obvious massive mistake they made with Rings of Power. They spent all that money, but didn't go big on the serious, reassuring, stage presences. Notwithstanding there was, in the first series, some quite bad acting, and there is arguably some seriously off casting in major roles, there were just not enough of, you know, David Morrissey, Alun Armstrong, Joanna Scanlan, David Harewood, Geraldine James, etc in the supporting roles.

They had Peter Mullan, and, you know, those bits were good. They've upped it a bit in the second series - Ciaran Hinds, Kinnear, but, it's too late really. That sense that you could and should take this show seriously is long gone.

Novel, sport, sport

This will start in one place and end in a totally different one, and the two things won't be connected apart from by my train of thought. Sorry. This is just an attempt to replicate a reverie from a few evenings ago which I thought was interesting in a self-indulgent way - nothing else.

I recently read the novel 'The Netanyahus', by Joshua Cohen. which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize. I enjoyed it very much. It's a fictionalised account of a real incident in which Benzion Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu's father, went to a US university to be "interviewed" for a job, taking his family with him.

It's a short, clever, funny, book - reminding reviewers of the likes of Roth's 'The Ghost Writer' and Nabokov's 'Pale Fire'. It's a lot easier to follow than 'Pale Fire', though. That's the aspect I want to write about, or rather lead on from.

I whistled through it. I have not been whistling through books at all, lately, I've found reading something of a struggle. Now - strong caveat - my eyesight has deteriorated in the last couple of years and it's only recently that I'm fully committing to the new reality of reading glasses - I think 'The Netanyahus' was one of the first books that I read entirely with glasses, so that will certainly have helped my sense of clarity.

But also, as I read it, I felt that it was very precisely "my thing". Long sentences, long words, academia, history, ideas, assumed erudition, allusion, absurd humour, sarcasm. It was clever but not complex, nor deep within the human psyche - it was brisk, smart and clear. Far from trivial, full of big ideas, but something you could react quickly to and run with.

And what it reminded me of, funnily enough, was the realisation pretty late in the days that I played competitive cricket, as a fully grown young man, that, as a batter, I was best against fast bowling. As fast as you'd get in amateur league cricket. 75/80mph ish. It was clear what was coming, I didn't have to think about it, I didn't have to hit it hard to make the ball go a long way. I could use my wrists to guide the ball at will through the infield of the off side.  The comparison to the book is that what might have been to some people the intimidating, tricky stuff was, in my experience (though it took me a long time to realise it), the simple, enjoyable stuff.

... so anyway, I'm not going to talk about books anymore, I'm going to talk about sport, sorry ... and, even worse, I'll talk at length about myself playing sport, although, I will, I think, happen to end up with a fairly interesting universal insight into football which I hadn't pinned down before, so hold on to the end if you can.

So, anyway, I was thinking about my last season of playing competitive cricket regularly, how I found I was really good against quick bowling, and I played several good, enjoyable innings, both on the counter-attack and to save games. Remembering this, I asked myself, why, then, did I give up playing the sport I'd loved more than anything else as a child, just when I'd really found my grown-up batting groove?

I'd grown up able to both bat and bowl fairly well, but been pushed more to be a bowler. I remember some youthful disgruntlement at not batting as high up some orders as I thought I deserved, but, also, as I moved my way through my teens, was very happy to bat 7 or 8, as that seemed a place where there was not too much pressure but you could still have a massive impact, and you might well be better than people thought you were going to be. And if I failed, or didn't get a bat, bowling was more of a guarantee. 

I remember speaking to (Rev) Robert Stanier when we were both young adults playing league cricket, and he'd just been opening the batting and out cheaply, and him saying "you know, if you're just a batsman, it's a bit miserable. You've got a job, you work all week, you give up your whole Saturday to play cricket, and if you're out second ball, that's it, that's your day".  Whereas as a bowler, I'd get minimum 3 or 4 overs (if I bowled terribly) but usually 10+ overs. It was worth the subs, worth the day.

I loved bowling, and I was good at it. Some days I'd bowl 20+ overs.  I was reliable, and tireless. A quarter of the day's play belonged to me.

And I loved fielding, particularly boundary fielding. I loved chasing the ball, throwing myself around. Above all, I loved throwing the ball. I could throw a cricket ball like a demon.

My brother was even better. Years later, I saw someone we used to both play with, who asked after my brother, and said, "Jesus, your brother had an arm on him". So did I. But I lost my arm.

My own fault. In winter nets, in a cold sports hall, 23, I think, still had not suffered any serious injuries. Practising bowling spin in winter nets was a bit boring and pointless because it was very hard to extract spin from the mats, and I didn't have any new tricks to teach myself or a groove to get into so long before the actual season started, I was just there to serve the batters. So I'd roll up and bowl medium pace. I remember Tom, the captain, saying, "you should still be practising spin" but it just felt a bit thankless in February. Anyway, I turned up, didn't warm up, bowled seam, tore my bicep. Didn't know that's what it was, it just hurt a lot  In fact, I still don't know that's what it was, because, like the fkn idiot I was, I did nothing about it, just assumed it would sort itself out in a couple of weeks. But it never did.

Within a couple of months, I could, kind of, bowl again. Kind of. It was better on warm days. It was painful, and I couldn't do it consistently for 10, let alone, 20 overs anymore, or confidently apply the subtle variations that are the essence of an orthodox spinner's craft. And I could never throw a cricket ball again. Still can't. If ever I've played since, I've either sent the ball in with a bowling action, a pitiful underarm, or an even more pitiful wobbly overarm born of fear and weakness which i could hardly get more than 15 metres.

Silly as it sounds, hurling a cricket ball was part of my identity. Possessing that knack for explosively whipping/ripping the ball into the ether with some unidentified combination of muscles. 

I remember Tom, the season after I'd injured myself and I sent a wobbly underarm in, muttering sadly to the opposition batsman "it's such a shame, he used to have the best arm in the club" ... and thinking, dammit, i did. What's become of me ... 24 and finished...

So that's why I stopped playing cricket, I remembered, because I knew the hit-or-miss experience of being a specialist batter would not be enough. I wasn't going to be able to bowl 20 good overs a day anymore, and now I hated fielding. My ground fielding had deteriorated, and I couldn't throw anymore. If everything else went badly in a day's cricket, there had always been throwing the ball! Now I shuddered when the ball came to me.

There had been the pleasure of it in and of itself, and then there was the showing off part. My experience is that there are few more guaranteed ways to impress a group of fellow males than throwing a ball a long way. Playing cricket, or rounders, or podex, just hurling it, and hearing the gasps. It sounds ridiculous, but it did happen. Finchy from The Office was on to something. 

The ability to surprise people.

Right, I'm switching tack again. I did say it was a meandering train of thought. I realised that surprising people was the part of playing sport that I enjoyed the most. And that's not always the best thing.

Most sports are a combination of consistently doing what's expected over and over again and, at just the right moment, doing the unexpectedly. That's the key to success, whether that's Shane Warne, Roger Federer, Pep Guardiola, Keely Hodgkinson. Playing to your strengths, wearing the opposition down, then, at just the right point, taking them by surprise (even if that surprise is not, from a distance, a surprise).

The problem with me when I played football was that the surprise became everything. I always wanted to do the unexpected. Practically speaking, that meant looking for an unlikely, high-percentage pass, rather than a safe pass, and it meant dribbling. Dribbling was my strength and my weakness. The genius of the great dribblers, like Messi, is that although he's done the same thing 10,000 times and a defender,  theoretically, knows what he's going to do, in that millisecond that he does it, his bodily movements surprise yours. He makes the defender put their body and their balance in a place where he can move away from it. I was no Messi, but I understood, instinctively, that dribbling was about balance and timing, and some unexpected combination of the two. And, much to the frustration of all team mates on all the pitches through all the years, that was the feeling that I played football for. To wait, wait, wait, slow, slow, slow, feint one direction, dart the other. Feel the surprise. Slow down play, jog, make a defender come to me in order to get away from him. Great when it worked.

But that is how you dribble, at least. In as much as that was the aspect of football i was good at, i had the right fundamentals. The problem is, I applied the same principles to the other parts of the game.

And that's the part that is, I think, interesting to me now, that I've only just truly pinpointed as "why I was not good at football when i should have been".

I understood that effective attacking play was about the element of surprise, but, overwhelmingly, the element of surprise for goal scoring is the opposite of what it is for dribbling. To beat a man, you wait until the last moment, you lure them as close as you can, you slow time down. Not always, but mainly. 

The best way, the most reliable way, to score goals, on the other hamd is to shoot before the goalkeeper has his feet set. Shearer, Kane, Owen, Lewandowski - the pure strikers, it's see ball, get ball, hit ball. If the keeper's not set, the shot doesn't have to be perfectly placed, it just has to be hard and true. Sure, you might occasionally get a beautiful finish where a striker outwaits a keeper, til they've committed and gone off their feet, then sends it the other way or over them, but that's not the percentage way to score goals. But that's what I tried to do pretty much every time. Send the keeper the wrong way. But I wasn't good enough to do that reliably, and so the result might be a miss, or a tackle, or a save, or outthinking myself. A couple of times, a school coach would say to me, "you need to shoot earller", and I would, and for a few weeks it would work, and then I'd forget, and be lured back to waiting that extra second, and wouldn't score again for months ...

It strikes me there are very few footballers that are true dribblers and true finishers. Henry, Messi, Salah, potentially Saka. Brazilian Ronaldo. Even Cristiano Ronaldo, I think, put aside his dribbling instincts, the older and more ruthless he got, and had more of a finishers' mindset. 

The instinct to know when to wait or when to strike early. Something I, and most people that try to play football, never get close to mastering.

Now, back to Pulitzer Prize-winning novels ....

Bob Dylan's 40 Albums (updated)

It's a whole 4 years since I last checked in on what my favourite Bob Dylan albums are. A lot's changed in 4 years (well, not a lot, but a bit). So, here's the old list, https://101songs.blogspot.com/2020/04/bob-dylans-albums.html here's the new list. 

Basically, I'm looking at which ones have given me the most pleasure in the last four years.

1. Blood on the Tracks

No change there.

2. The Times They are a Changin'

No change there.

3. Time Out of Mind

There's an alternative version released in the last few years which is more Dylan's own idea of what he wanted it to sound like. Can't say I have a preference, i just love the album either way.

4. Street-Legal

The big climber. Just a wild album, underappreciated when it came out. Dylan's last pre-Christian album, his last album, imo, of full, roaring, voice. Quite seedy. Quite thrilling.

5. The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

6. Oh Mercy

Have come to really love this one. One of the most albumy Dylan albums. Daniel Lanois' production really gives it a mood. The songs are, in their essence, pretty simple, woebegone and lost.

7. Blonde on Blonde

Could have been the Greatest Album of All, without the handful of slightly rubbish songs.

8. Modern Times

9. Rough and Rowdy Ways

This gave me a lot of pleasure four years ago, and still does.

10. New Morning

Another big climber. Just a whole different mood from any other Bob Dylan album. This easy-going guy.

11. Desire

The thing about Desire is the live versions are nearly always better. And Joey is terrible. But sometimes I think the Desire sound is the absolute best Dylan sound.

12. Bringing It All Back Home

13. Shadow Kingdom

The "live" album from a couple of years ago, which is such a lovely thing.

14. Another Side of Bob Dylan

Used to be one of my favourites.

15."Love and Theft"

Has two of my all-time favourites, in 'Mississippi' and 'Po'Boy'.

16. Highway 61 Revisited

According to Apple Music, the 14th Greatest Album of All Time, but also the only one of his in the Top 100 Albums of All Time. I mean, honestly, these people ...

17. Infidels

Turns out to be great. Wish it had Blind Willie McTell on it though.

18. John Wesley Harding

Again, used to be an all-time favourite, but others have overtaken it.

19. Planet Waves

A subtly dark, unhinged album. You can really see the direct line between New Morning and Blood on the Tracks with this one.

20. Shadows in the Night

21. The Basement Tapes.

I've truthfully, always ben more interested in the Basement Tapes than actually enjoyed listening to them.

22. Tempest

23. Nashville Skyline

24. Slow Train Coming

25. Shot of Love

I saw Dylan say for a few years after this came out that he thought it was one of his best albums. But it's not. 

26. Bob Dylan

27. Christmas in the Heart

28. Together through Life

29. Empire Burlesque

Genuinely have started to really enjoy parts of this one. 

30. Saved

Has Solid Rock, which is one of the most rocking for Jesus songs of all time.

31. Under the Red Sky

This is almost the only Dylan album where you feel he's really trying to still be Bob Dylan,  but just has forgotten how to wrote good lyrics. Still, there are some decent songs.

32. Fallen Angels

33. Down in the Groove

34. World Gone Wrong

35. Knocked Out Loaded

Rumour has it it has this title because he knocked it out when he was loaded.

36. Dylan

37. Self Portrait

38. Pat Garret and Billy the Kid

39. Good as I Been to You

My favourite thing about this album is the title. It's a great title

40. Triplicate. 

Just have never really listened it it all the way through, and don't intend to.

Song 100: The Purple Rain

I keep on giving myself the opportunity to say that I prefer other things to Prince. 

This song, called 'The Purple Rain', is neither by Prince or about Prince. It's got nothing to do with Prince.

It's from this year, 2024, it's by my old favourites The Pernice Brothers, and it's a tribute to singer-songwriter David Berman. In fact, Joe Pernice says it's a tribute both to Berman and two other friends of Pernice who have died, but because of the title and the lyrics, and because Berman is a renowned figure, Berman is the figure who dominates it.

Berman and Pernice were friends - I hadn't known that. It slightly took me aback, as, although they were the same age, I got into their music a long time apart and hadn't associated them with the same kind of thing... though they were both literate, mournful country-tinged Americana writers.

Berman, especially since his death in 2019, has become a significant cult figure, perhaps the most revered of that generation of songwriters, whereas Joe Pernice is, has always been, very marginal. I may be among Joe Pernice's biggest 100 fans in the world! He keeps on keeping on. Little else he's done have I loved as much as the album 'The World Won't End' from 2001, but there'll always be well-crafted, poignant songs on an album Joe Pernice is involved with.

I do really love this song, 'The Purple Rain', though. I love that it does something very obvious, and stately, on the chorus. A slow refrain to remember. Too obvious, perhaps, for a pop classicist to usually employ. 

"Purple mountains in the purple rain" ... ah right, I remember when I heard it, without knowing the background, I thought, of course, this must be about David Berman. David Berman who, as Purple Mountains, released the album 'Purple Mountains' in the summer of 2019 and took his life weeks later.

Berman's lyrics are so good it blows your mind. Both in Purple Mountains and in his previous band, Silver Jews. His voice was limited and he was a rudimentary musician - not a fan of playing live, apparently. Joe Pernice is much more of an all-round songwriter than a musical poet. He started out alt-country but was capable of Beatles-esque, and Smiths-esque pop.

They became friends in the 90s, apparently, taking a writer's course at the University of Massachusetts, and also teaching there. Pernice's band of the time, the Scud Mountain Boys, were involved in recordings for a Silver Jews album, though those recordings weren't used.

Anyway, that's all the trivia. This is a lovely song, about someone you know is living close to the edge. Here's a compilation of the combined works of Berman and Pernice:

Dave and Joe

• Random Rules - Silver Jews
• Overcome by Happiness - Pernice Brothers
• All My Happiness is Gone - Purple Mountains
• Prince Valium - Joe Pernice
• Punks in the Beerlight - Silver Jews
• Grudge F*** - Pernice Brothers
• She's Making Friends, I'm Turning Stranger - Purple Mountains
• She Heightened Everything - Pernice Brothers
• Trains Across the Sea - Silver Jews
• Judy - Pernice Brothers
• Bum Leg - Pernice Brothers
• Margaritas at the Mall - Purple Mountains
• Somerville - Pernice Brothers
• Suffering Jukebox - Silver Jews
• 7.30 - Pernice Brothers
• I Loved Being My Mother's Son - Purple Mountains
• Massachusetts - Scud Mountain Boys
• Nights That Won't Happen - Purple Mountains
• The Purple Rain - Pernice Brothers
• The Wild Kindness - Silver Jews

Song 99: Head Home

I still listen to Midlake's 'The Trials of Van Occupanther' often. It's one of my favourite albums, and a very underrated one, I think.

It was acclaimed in specific circles on its release, in 2006, but it's not something you often see in retrospective lists. It was, I think, more of a "hit" in the UK than the US, and it is fair to say it is, at most, a minor cult album.

'Head Home' is the third of eleven tracks. I wouldn't say, though I do love it, it's one of my absolute favourite songs on the album - those would be 'Roscoe', 'Van Occupanther', 'Branches' and 'Chasing After Deer'. Still, 'Head Home', as I'll explain, is the one I want to write about.

What were, and are, Midlake? They began as a band of jazz students, at their most there have been seven of them, the main singer/songwriter until 2012 was called Tim Smith, they make American folk-rock with strong British influences.

They're still going, and have made a couple of pretty good albums since Tim Smith left. He released his first album as Harp in 2023.

Not too much is known about Smith - he seems a pretty reticent frontman. Nevertheless, '...Van Occupanther' is marked out by its singular character. It is, conceptually, one man's vision.

If I'm to give a pat summary of the three albums he made with Midlake - their debut, 'Bamnan and Slivercork' is in the sky, 'The Courage of Others', from 2010, is deep underground, and '... van Occupanther' is on the surface of the earth.

As much as people commented on the brilliant musicianship, the folk and prog influences, the historical and ecological bent, it grabbed me because it made a connection. It was sad, soulful and touching.

There's a fellow on twitter called Scott Innes who traffics in general witty good vibes, often via the medium of photographs of football managers, and I noted his favourite album is '...Van Occupanther'. He wrote once about the appeal of lines like "Let me not be too consumed with this world, Sometimes I want to go home and stay out of sight for a long time".

The album is full of lines like that, slightly off-kilter but weirdly moving.

"Whenever I was a child I wondered what if my name had changed into something more productive like Roscoe, been born in 1891, waiting with my Aunt Roseline"

"We won't get married, cos she won't have me, she wakes up awfully early these days"

"Did you ever want to run around with bandits to see many places and hide in ditches. It's not always easy, it's not always easy"

"They told me I wouldn't but I found an answer, I'm Van Occupanther, I'm Van Occupanther"

"there's someone I'd like to see. She never mentions a word to me, she reads Leviathan"

and

"I think I'll head home".

'Head Home' turned out to be the crowd-pleaser. More even than the band's most talked- about song and lead single 'Roscoe', it was 'Head Home' that really had the crowd going on the handful of occasions I watched Midlake at the festivals.

It borders on the anthemic and also allowed for an extended guitar twiddle towards the end. This was Midlake's few minutes as rock gods.

I remember watching them, second on the bill on the main stage at End of the Road in 2011, rocking out with their lank hair and studious beards, thinking "wow, this is really something. Maybe these guys could be big after all."

It wasn't to be. Tim Smith left the band not long afterwards, midway through recording an album that was scrapped - they held together pretty well, with another member, Eric Pulido, on lead vocals, and, to be honest, that was a slightly false moment of grandeur. A certain amount of interest from a mid-sized crowd, second on the bill, Sunday at End of the Road, is not being the centre of the musical world on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.

Still, that was, I suppose, the precise centre of my musical world. I've looked at the bill for End of the Road that year (a festival which started out in the mid-2000s taking about 5000 people, went up to  around 15000 and is still going strong) - Midlake, James Yorkston, The Walkmen, Laura Marling, Joanna Newsom, Gruff Rhys, not to mention The Fall, Mogwai, Beirut, The Staves, Emmy the Great, The Unthanks, Joan as Police Woman, Lykke Li, Tinariwen, Best Coast, Willy Mason, Micah P Hinson, Brakes and The Leisure Society. I doubt that there are many people other than me that think about half the great songs of the 21st century  emerged from that underperforming bunch.

So, Midlake, then, with what, as I reach the end of this piece, I feel a bit more confident to say is a better album than 'Pet Sounds', Rumours' and 'After the Goldrush' -  'The Trials of Van Occupanther'. With 'Head Home' which I always think of whenever I want to head home, which is often.

Incidentally, in the past couple of days, I listened, for the first time in ages, to the follow-up to 'Occupanther', 'The Courage of Others', which was generally deemed a disappointment, including by me. It was heavier, more impenetrable, and just didn't quite have the human magic. I did listen to it a lot, though, for a couple of weeks, and I remember it came out in the week I moved into my studio flat in Tooting in 2010, and was, for a short period of time, without Sky TV, without internet (no smartphone then) and a few other of the general trappings of modern life. Pathetically, that's as close as I've come to a Midlake-like existence in the past decade and a half. Anyway, listening back to 'The Courage of Others', it has plenty to like. Perhaps Midlake's time is still to come.

Midpoint on the Oasis

So people still like Oasis, then.

I, myself, would not pay several hundred pounds to see them now. In fact, I don't think I would go if you covered my travel expenses and gave me a t-shirt. I saw them once, at a festival, in 2005, and that was enough. They were ok. My friends didn't stick around, they went to see LCD Soundsystem, the right choice. I did. It was fine. They played some of their good songs, some of their less good songs. There was no drama, no glory.

At the same time, I can't say, though I might like to, I belong to very vocal the "I never liked them anyway, they were entirely boorish and meritless, they caused Brexit" camp.

I did like Oasis, and, in fact, I still like the Oasis songs I like. The Oasis songs I like are the ones which are romantic and vulnerable, which have a hint of desperation and/or innocence. They are also, nearly always, ones that Liam Gallagher, a very distinct and memorable rock singer at his best, sings, rather than Noel Gallagher, who has unquestionably the least pleasant voice ever to grace two Number 1 hits (though, in fact, I realised, it's not even that Noel's voice is horrible in and of itself. When he sings gently, as on Half the World Away, or Talk Tonight, it's really not so bad, it's his loud voice which is the genuine horror)..

So, five Oasis songs I like are ...

Slide Away, the best Oasis song. 

Wonderwall. I'm afraid so. Wonderwall remains a massively popular song. It has over 2 billion Spotify streams. That's really top range - top 100 songs ever, worldwide. And that's only going to go up again now. And, with all that, I still have an affection for it when I hear it like the first time i heard it in the autumn of 95 in Greece and St Andrews.

I'm Outta Time (this is a late single, written by Liam, and genuinely rather lovely, the closest he ever got to a good John Lennon impression).

Round Are Way - just joyful and silly.

and, the one that has always been most interesting and particular to me,

Stay Young. The b-side to one of the worst singles by anyone ever, D'You Know What I Mean, the song that killed a decade. Noel Gallagher didn't/doesn't like Stay Young, so it stayed a b-side. It's better than everything on Be Here Now,

But the reason it's a little interesting to me now is that, when people see no merit in Oasis, they do overlook the merit of shared experience. of how powerful it is to feel something and feel there is meaning in a song, with other people. That didn't really happen much with me for Oasis. Certainly not when I saw them live. There was the communal feeling on Wonderwall being everywhere, of everyone on every street liking it.

Apart from that, the Oasis songs that have ever made me feel something are, I guess, Live Forever, and, oddly, Hey Now, one of the least notable tracks on What's the Story ... which I remember listening to on my Walkman in the snow when i went for a walk near a relative's house in southern Scotland, just after I'd been given What's the Story and Pet Sounds for Christmas in 95, secretly preferring the Oasis to the Beach Boys (though that didn't last for long)

And Stay Young, which, banal as it sounds now, I remember listening to in a car with my friends after we'd lost our first football match of the team we'd started in the second year of university, feeling really down about it because wer'd hoped we'd be good, all of us singing along to this and cheering up to the words "My faith's unshakeable" and then that football team didn't lose again all season, won nearly every game we played for three years, and was probably my favourite, most joyful sporting experience, just to be playing football well with my actual friends, rather than all the others i had to play with the rest of the time.

So that's Stay Young. It means something to me, man. Like I imagine a lot of Oasis songs mean a lot to other people. Clearly.

So I'm sympathetic to that. 

Saying all that, and for balance, I hate a lot of Oasis songs.

D'You Know What I Mean, the worst single ever

Roll With It, perhaps the 4th worst single ever.

Little By Little - bottom 10 of all time.

Shakermaker - abysmal. (indeed Shakermaker was the first Oasis song I heard, when all the hype was beginning, and I was entirely nonplussed, and didn't get into them for another 18 months or so).

All Around the World. A disgrace.

Who Feels Love. Yuk,

And I've no time for the big anthemic "aren't we great, we're having a great time" ones (i think Stay Yoing is different than that, i think it's insecurity and hope).

Champagne Supernova

Some Might Say

The Masterplan

even Rock'n'Roll Star.

Don't like What's the Story. 

Don't like Sunday Morning Call and most of the other ones sung by Noel Gallagher.

Also, Noel Gallagher has become awful. Just says lot of horrible, depressing, kids today don't know they were born. what's this woke all about, things (whereas Liam is, mostly, a little more of a good-natured, live and let live, ray of light in middle age than might have been expected).

So, no, I won't be seeing Oasis. But I don't hate them quite as much as I'd like to.

Song 98: The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

I was travelling back from the Waxahatchee show last month when The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll shuffled on to my headphones, and in a musical reverie fuelled by elegant Americana and a couple of beers, I resolved to write a little about it. So I'll try.

In the canon of early Dylan -  the Dylan that is still most people's idea of what Dylan is, the voice of a generation with the acoustic guitar -  there may be more famous songs than Hattie Carroll - Blowin' in the Wind, Times They are a Changin', Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, Masters of War, Don't Think Twice, but The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll is, I think, the greatest song. Truly one of the most striking, specific, powerful songs ever written by anyone ever. But how and why?

Apart from the odd one-off like Hurricane in the mid-70s, this was one of the last straight-up finger-pointing from-the-papers topical protest songs Dylan wrote. He wrote it straight after performing at the March on Washington, the height of his genuine in-person involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. 

Joan Baez wryly tells the story that for decades and to this day she'd be asked at protest event after protest event she attended "Is Bob coming?" ... "When are you going to understand?" she sighs "he never comes" .... but he went to that one. The biggest one.

Actual Dylan fans don't tend to think of Dylan as a steadfast and truthful protest singer - we think of him as the joker, always hiding, always on the run, always obfuscating, always giving you something other than what you think you want. He was a glib, selfish kid.

But he wrote The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.

And it is fair to suppose that in the moment of writing this song, he cared deeply and found this single injustice representing a million injustices disgraceful.

Not everyone loves the album The Times They Are a Changin', as it is Dylan's most grey, humourless, self-righteous album (until the Christian ones), but I really love that about it. It is mournful, fierce, heavy. Maybe in some places it is phony. Maybe Dylan wasn't actually this guy and maybe he knew it and he decided to pay the Civil Rights Movement the respect of not pretending to be that guy any longer after this.

It is interesting, perhaps, that this album (like Another Side ...) and nothing else, was made in the studio by only Dylan himself, and his black producer, Tom Wilson. It seems unlikely, and not something anyone else has ever suggested, as far as i know, but was there a part of Dylan trying to impress/speak to Wilson?

Two criticisms of ...Hattie Carroll are that a) it's a borrowed tune and b) it's not accurate. I'm not sure either of those things are fair. It's based on an old folk tune called Mary Hamilton, but it's not a copy. You wouldn't know unless you knew - it is definitely a Dylan composition, in terms of top line and structure. Either way, it's one of the most powerful, moving melodies he ever sang.

And it's true enough, you know. William Zantzinger did whack old Hattie Carroll with a cane, that did contribute pretty powerfully to her death, he did only receive 6 months, in a grave, racist, miscarriage of justice. The song doesn't say he deliberately beat her to death. He hit her hard with a cane on the shoulder and head and she died of a brain haemorrhage hours afterwards. The song is honest.

It is a subtle but brave song. It is a bold, controversial thing to imply that, in the scheme of things, the ongoing impunity of the wealthy white men for their crimes is a greater disgrace than the original act of violence.

The song has various memorable details which may be down to luck or genius, but that's rather the point.

The balancing of the names - William Zan(t)zinger and Hattie Carroll, the balancing of the ages, HC's 10 children, WZ's rich wealthy parents, the half-rhyme of level and gavel, of level and table, the repetition of table, slain by a cane, spoke through his cloak ,the way he puts "and she never done nothing to William Zantzinger" at the end of the verse, almost as an afterthought, but which is just devastating.

The songs lives on in history more than most other songs - it's there in the stories of Trayvon Martin, Kyle Rittenhouse, George Floyd, in all of them. Dylan has played it quite a lot - almost 300, not 1000s, but enough to know he still respects and loves this most time-stamped of songs.

He's a strange old being, Bob, but it would be a shame if his capacity for fearsome righteous empathy was written out of his story for all the trickery and wit. If I were to define the greatest songwriter of all by five songs, this would always be one of them. This was the best he, or anyone else, could do at this type of song.

Graham Thorpe, who I didn't think I loved

Graham Thorpe was, statistically and in reality, the best England batsman of my teenage years and early adulthood. I shared a birthday with him, he was a tough, adaptable left-handed batter, as I aspired to be, and he had nuance and depth. He should have been the exact sportsman I loved. But I didn't. Or didn't think I did.

His main sin was not being David Gower. David Gower, the preternaturally gifted, elegant left-hander (which I could never aspire to me) was my favourite cricketer. Gower was, in his last few years, done dirty by the England hierarchy, robbed of his twilight in the side. He should always have been in the XI between 89 and 93. Then Thorpe came along, and there was no reason to bring Gower back. Thorpe, as good a batsman as Gower, 12 years younger, and, at that stage, much less trouble. 

I watched Thorpe's 100 on debut vs Australia and felt ... mixed. I watched most of Thorpe's career on terrestrial TV. He was nearly always England's best player, but it was not plain sailing. He may well have been the first sportsperson I heard associated with the word "depression". He took breaks. He was in the tabloids. I remember him once being humiliated by a slower ball from New Zealand's Chris Cairns and the look of despair on his face.

England had talented batters that decade, nearly all of whose stats are brought down a long way by the grind and struggle of it - Stewart 39, Atherton 38. Hussain 37, Butcher 34, Hick 31, Ramprakash 27. All of those, you feel, if they'd played in the hospitable mid-2000s, would have averaged above 40. 

Thorpe averaged almost 45, amidst all that failure. More than Gower and Gooch, more than Robin Smith, more than Vaughan and Ian Bell (who I'll get to). Adjusted for inflation and deflation, that's worth almost 50. I reckon.

He played great, match-winning innings, and you knew he would. I remember dancing around my student bedroom listening to the radio when he made 113* and 32* to win England a game vs Sri Lanka in 2001 when no one else could scratch a run. I was at Lord's in 2004 for Nasser Hussain's last test, when Nasser batted like a drain most of the day, looking like he might cost England the win, until Thorpe came in, made batting look easy, and that seemed to free Hussain up, It was Nasser that finished with a four to reach 100 to win the game for England, then retire. It wouldn't have happened without Thorpe. 

Yet one year later he was out of the side. Dropped for England's greatest triumph, the 2005 Ashes, even though he'd done nothing wrong. He was 35 but still a test-class batter. He was dropped for Kevin Pietersen, which turned out to be the right decision. So Thorpe, was, mainly, the forgotten man. Though he was also dropped for the young Ian Bell, and there were certainly grumbles about that. Bell had a poor series, looked a bit of a rabbit in the headlights. Now, Bell, who went on to a storied (though arguably, considering his talent, slightly underachieving) career, is my second-favourite England batter ever. Perhaps, entirely unjustifiably, I resented Thorpe even in retirement for hanging over Bell's early career.

So, it's strange, really. Despite all the joy he brought me, Thorpe had somehow been pushed into the category of cricketers I didn't love. I heard he'd voted UKIP. Maybe he had the wrong kind of nuance for me.

There was something strange and sour about his departure from the England coaching set-up in 2022, swiftly overshadowed by the news of his falling ill. It's been clear in the last couple of years that the current players love him. The lack of news about him his been a shadow over England cricket for a couple of years. One hoped he was quietly improving. Now this. 

Such tributes, such admiration. And love. Love from people who had the same memories of Thorpe as me, of him rising above the mess so often in the 1990s, of his proper old-school batting skill, all wrists and patience. He was never my cricketer, but he was a great cricketer.

Six of one

Last week, I went to see a double-header featuring two bands of a similar vintage and of similar status, the Manic Street Preachers and Suede. A canny idea for these two doyens of British rock, putatively co-headlining, both playing 75 minute sets, swapping who gets to go last as they tour the country to big crowds.

I've generally been a lot more of a Manics fan than Suede. but this was very much Suede's night. The Manics were decent. Their sound was a bit muffled. I guess, even though they were supposed co-headliners, the later band got to use more of the "sound budget". Obviously, on top of that, people are generally more chatty earlier in the evening as they meet their friends and the sun's still up. 

Still, they were good - very nice to hear Little Baby Nothing, No Surface All Feeling, From Despair to Where etc . But Suede were really great. Brett Anderson is in his prime. He looks and acts like a 56 year old man who runs 50 miles a week. Not an inch of fat, but not in a wasted drug-fiend way. They were magnificent -  I've seen them twice before, and did not find them to be so. They released a truly excellent album in 2022 - I guess that helps.

Not that the Manics are a nostalgia act either. I'd contend there are six major British guitar acts of the 90s, and of the six, the Manics have been by far the busiest - the only ones to never split up, never even go on hiatus, despite the most trying circumstances.

They've released 14 albums, of which I think at least half are really good, including a handful from this century. Admirable in every way. 

Who are the other five bands? There may be a case for a couple of others, but I'd say it's Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Radiohead and the aforementioned Suede.

Why them? I guess, on a basic level, the criteria are ... long career, big sales, big cultural impact, could fill an arena of a certain size at the time and also now.

Of those six, Oasis were, domestically and worldwide, the biggest, and probably the only ones whose reputation is thoroughly degraded. I know lots of people would still go and see an Oasis reunion, but it feels to me that amongst most music lovers, their good will drained away a long time ago. They left a trail of mediocre records, some bad interpersonal vibes, and Noel Gallagher's increasingly awful personality.

Pulp have actually only done seven albums, and none since 2001. They are a very popular live act but have opted against going back into the studio. I myself was never a big Pulp fan, and I tend to find the worst people on twitter and in real life are those that reply? "Pulp" to the Question: Blur or Oasis. Them and people who say Bob Dylan couldn't sing ....

Suede obviously had pre- and post-Butler eras and until their comeback, one would have felt that Butler leaving was very much the downturn in the band's claim to greatness. Not so sure, now. I reckon Autofiction is in their top 3 albums. They are, I think, for most people, the least "big" of the six, albeit they arguably kicked off the whole Britpop fandango. They've released nine albums.

Radiohead are on another level really, in terms of transatlantic acclaim set against big record sales. I don't particularly feel they have a kinship with any of the other bands. They've done nine albums.

And Blur? Well, I love the Blur, and i've written the most about them. They've done nine albums. It strikes me that one of the keys to their success is that they're the truly most versatile (i guess apart, arguably, from Radiohead, but even then, Radiohead are always Radioheady). You really don't know what a Blur album or song is going to sound like. That is exciting and means they have a lot of different types of fans. 

Those are the Big Six, I think. Supergrass are not far off Suede in numbers, but I think Supergrass were always part of something not the start of something. The Verve were massive for a moment, but don't really have any kind of longstanding catalogue.

I made a list of other bands, and put them into different categories to convince myself why they're different from the Top 6, but now can't quite remember exactly what those categories were ... but here they are anyway ...

 - Stone Roses, Supergrass, The Verve, Elastica, Primal Scream, James

 - Ash, Sleeper, Shed Seven, Cast, OCS,  Bluetones, Boo Radleys, Charlatans, Mondays, Kula Shaker, Dodgy, Lush, Echobelly

- B and S, Teenage Fanclub, SFA, Beta Band, Spiritualized, Divine Comedy, Gene

- Cornershop, Catatonia, Travis, Stereophonics, Embrace, Mansun, Longpigs

- Garbage, Placebo, Jamiroquai, Prodigy, Underworld, Chemical Brothers, Terrorvision, Lightning Seeds, Reef

Anyway, a bit of a pointless bit of writing all in, but i wonder how many of these bands could boost their live sales with a solid double-bill. 

Kinnock

It is very moving that we no longer have a Conservative government. It has blighted my middle adulthood, cast a dark shadow over how I view my fellow citizens, and made the country we live in immeasurably worse in every single way. Hopefully we never have one again.

It was a strange feeling staying up to watch on Thurs/Fri, though, because it was, statistically, of course, just a little disappointing. I told myself beforehand to just be happy if Labour won and, in particular, just be happy if Labour got over 400, but, still, we were all secretly hoping that Farage got put back in his box and that the Tories be reduced to 50 or 60. Was never going to happen of course, but I only mean to say it was not, as experienced, an unambiguously joyful night. 

Only once did I allow it to really sink in, did I really feel a brief moment of enormous joy that the national nightmare was over. That was when Neil Kinnock was talking. Still going strong, old Kinnock, grieving, rueful and proud, talking more rich and romantic common sense than almost anyone else.

Somewhere in my childhood I became left-wing. I guess I wasn't left-wing in 1987, when I was 8, and I was told that Kinnock's Labour might shut down my public school. That seemed a bit much. 

But I think I was by 1992, just about. I liked Kinnock, for one thing. He lived near me, and I saw him occasionally. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up once (though I stuck my tongue out). His house had a nice red door. But, trivialities aside, by the age of 13, I was moving towards myself. 

People really thought Labour were going to win that year. I remember watching what I think was the National TV Awards a month or so before the election, and a writer called Alan Plater, who won a lifetime achievement award, gave a speech about the hope of a Labour government and the damage done to the North and the arts and communities by the Tories, and I think that was the first time i caught the bug, little public school boy sitting in front of his telly in Ealing. Me with my Brassed Off/Our Friends in the North politics.

This is the real shit, I thought. This is going to be great. 

It wasn't to be. To be fair, Major's much-mocked 92-97 is probably the least vile Tory government of my lifetime, and I didn't spend my teenage years as a rampant lefty, as religion took over, but mine was always a pretty socialist Christianity, and by the time the God disappeared, the politics were solidly entrenched.

So I cried a little when Neil Kinnock was talking on Thursday night, because he reminded me that it's hard, whatever the circumstances, for Labour to get in. Very fucking hard. Because the other lot lie and cheat and load the dice and people fall for it, and people hold Labour to a far higher standard, of course, and too many people don't realise that it really is important to be "not as shit". "Not as shit" in every way, every day, for 14 years, would have been an awful lot less shit, even when it seemed like it was a bit shit.

Anyway, there's no time to fuck around now. The Corbynite left, which i'd broadly thought I belonged to, from a distance, without the bad stuff, has really disgraced itself by its inability to not respond like spoilt babies. I hate the phrase "the adults are back in charge" but, ok, we'll see.

100 Favourite Songs of the Century (2000-2024)

Here's another list, not too far from the last one, but more closely attached to personal taste.

This will be my favourite 100 songs of the century so far, with the restriction that there have to be 4 from each year, and that there can only be two per artist - in fact one per artist in nearly all cases - definitely only one per album. 

There's nothing too original about this. I've made other lists that have included nearly all these songs before, but, you know me, I love making a list, and I don't mind repeating myself. I think what I like about this one is the fact of bringing it right up to the modern day, and tying that together with the start of the era. There are some changes in my taste, some distinct phases, but a lot that remains the same.

I am trying very hard to go on what I like the most now of what I liked the most then. So there are a few songs (an example would be Float On by Modest Mouse) which I loved a huge amount, but wouldn't seek out now, though I've nothing against it.

Obviously, some years are harder to pick for than others. At the bottom I've added 50 or so other songs I considered including.

I want to put it in an order other than chronological, but also not just do a list from 100 to 1, but also show roughly what's what, so I've kind of started and ended with my favourites, then moved to the middle, and tried not to put any from the same year next to each other. Got it?

The playlist

• Family Affair - Mary J Blige         2000
• Pa'lante - Hurray for the Riff-Raff           2017 - Protest song
• Song for Our Daughter - Laura Marling 2020 - This and Can't Do Much by Waxahatchee came out in the unseasonably warm first few weeks of the pandemic, and they're both among my very favourite songs in the world, and maybe there's no coincidence. Also, I have a moment of rare miracle and wonder attached to it. Even though the song is actually rather dark in subject matter, it is a sentimental favourite.
• In California - Joanna Newsom 2010
• Mississippi - Bob Dylan              2001 - The trajectory of a hardcore Dylan fan, which I am, is a wonderful thing. Every one seems to have a point where we realise we don't just admire and accept the 21st century stuff, we seek it out. We prefer it. Mississippi is the greatest late Dylan song - stately, funny, conciliatory and aching.
• Losing You - Solange    2012 - This is the best song by a Knowles apart from Nick Knowles' cover of 'Make You Feel Me Love'.
• Witness (1 Hope) - Roots Manuva         2001
• My Girls - Animal Collective     2009
• Ignore Tenderness - Julia Jacklin            2022
• alyosha - Susanne Sundfor       2023
• The Modern Leper - Frightened Rabbit 2008 - I could definitely have chosen about 3 different songs from this album. Heads Roll Off. Etc. But I choose this because I also love the Julien Baker version.
• Mid-Air - Paul Buchanan            2012
• Girl in Amber - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds   2016
• The Trapeze Swinger - Iron and Wine    2005
• A Better Son/Daughter - Rilo Kiley             2002 - Several Jenny Lewis songs I'd consider - one of the greats.
• Branches - Midlake       2006
• Trellick Tower - Emmy the Great             2011
• The Life You Chose - Jason Isbell           2015 - I listen to this song a lot and always imagine this is the kind of song they teach in songwriting school.
• Green Light - Lorde       2017
• Bryte Side - Pernice Brothers    2001
• If There's Any Justice - Lemar   2004 - He had a decent crack at it, Lemar, but, still, deserved better. His voice wasn't just great but also had some idiosyncrasies. 
• Biology - Girls Aloud     2005
• Something Like Happiness - Maccabees           2015
• All My Happiness is Gone - Purple Mountains  2019 - There are a few cases where it's hard to choose one song from an album, but I think this is, just about, my favourite from Purple Mountains, and probably the most cheery! Yay!
• The Narcissist - Blur      2023
• Time for Heroes - The Libertines            2002 - Rather like Oasis with, say, Slide Away, this is the prime piece of evidence against the revisionism that the band of the zeitgeist were entirely bad and symptomatic of an ill age. This song is everything the Libertines claimed to be.
• She's Got You High - Mumm-ra 2007 Thindie
• LES Artistes - Santigold              2008
• Nobody's Empire - Belle and Sebastian             2014 - This was the single from the slightly disappointing B and S album Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance - it's really the only one of their songs since Dear Catastrophe Waitress which is up with their very best. The last time I went "yes, that's the band i love".
• How Far I'll Go -  Auliʻi Cravalho             2016 - Obviously, I have listened to a lot of child-orientated music in the last 8 years. I have listened to Let it Go 878 times, the Sofia the First theme 628 times, Reese Witherspoon singing Shake It Off 742 times, I Just Can't Wait to Be King 596 times. And that's all fine. But How Far I'll Go is the one, I think, that any version of me would have loved, that is just a magical, moving song.
• Unfollow the Rules - Rufus Wainwright              2020 - See what i said about B and S above
• Not Strong Enough - boygenius 2023
• No Children - Mountain Goats 2002
• With Every Heartbeat - Robyn ft Kleerup  2007
• A Whole Lot Better - Brendan Benson  2009 - Always a place in my heart for Brendan Benson and Josh Rouse.
• Emmylou -First Aid Kit  2012
• Pink Rabbits - The National       2013 - In quite a few places, I realise, I've chosen the last song I loved by a band I once revered but no longer. Can't believe this was over 10 years ago. It is the graceful that I wish the National weren't always trying to be now.
• Happy Birthday Johnny - St Vincent      2017
• Duckworth - Kendrick Lamar    2018
• Expert in a Dying Field - The Beths         2022 - I am the expert in the dying field that is the kind of music I like.
• Slow Life - Super Furry Animals             2003 - This comes from Phantom Power, my favourite SFA album, though it was nowhere near my favourite track on the album when it came out. It became their show opener, and that is where my love for it came. It reminds me of the giddy joy the Furries brought their fans - how this song, as a live experience, sums up everything brilliant about this band. It is, as you may know, one of my pet theories that the UK's failure, when offered with the choice, at the start of this century, to adopt the Super Furry Animals as a truly big band was one of the most precise pointers to what a binfire the last two decades has been for this country. We didn't want the actual good things.
• Paper Planes - MIA        2008
• 212 - Azaelia Banks       2011
• Where Are We Now? - David Bowie       2013
• Only God Knows - Young Fathers           2017
• Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) - Arcade Fire  2010 - The guy turned out to be something of a megacreep and that rather ruins this band (as much as most of their output for the last 15 years wasn't already pretty mediocre), but he doesn't sing this one, so, though I could have Dancing on My Own, for this year, I do still love this. Lovely little building instrumental touches.
• Nutmeg - Ghostface Killah ft RZA       2000
• Lost Changes - Beth Gibbons      2024 Not sure, this is the last one added, the album only came out this week, and it's a late replacement for Jessica Pratt's Life Is. Obviously, we're less than halfway through 2024 -who knows how this year's going to iron out. But I really like this. It's obviously not one of my favourite 100 songs of the century, it's just a song I just heard that I like. But, hey, that's the fun,
• Two Weeks - FKA Twigs 2014
• Chewing Gum - Annie  2004
• Steady Pace - Matthew E White             2013
• Round and Round - Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti            2010 - This just snuck in, as 2010 was more an albums year for me than songs, and also I thought it important to include at least one far-right insurrectionist.
• Complicated - Avril Lavigne      2002
• Chandelier - Sia             2014
• Nearly Midnight, Honolulu - Neko Case             2012
• Kiss Me More - Doja Cat ft SZA 2021
• Sign of the Times - Jamie T         2016 - Something about this hungover lament for the landfill indie era I find rather moving.
• Pauper's Dough - King Creosote            2014
• 1+1 - Beyonce  2011 - The business of Beyonce is, has become, exhausting. The excessiveness pricks all my feelings of reluctant antagonism. Still, I've been a fan for half my life, and she, more than anyone else, changed my attitude to pop (vs rock) music, that's the simple truth. 1+1 may be far from the best Beyonce song, but it's one where her singing touched a raw nerve, where you recognise someone singing with their whole body, where it's easy to just go "yes, indeed, that's a talented person".
• All in Good Time - Iron and Wine and Fiona Apple         2024 - On Twitter at the moment, people say "We're so back". When I heard this, that's what I thought.
• Hummingbird - Wilco   2004
• Betty - Taylor Swift        2020 - Taylor Swift's a fine writer, but a lot of her songs are mega-annoying in their arch solipsism, so my favourite two (apart from Shake it Off) are Love Story and this, which are both similar, structurally I guess. Neat narratives of first teenage love which trot along, and then have a euphoric romcom moment end. Irresistible. If she stuck to this kind of stuff, i think she might be quite successful.
• Sugar Almond - Camera Obscura          2024
• Juice - Lizzo       2019
• Rise to Me - The Decemberists 2011
• The Gypsy Faerie Queen - Marianne Faithfull   2018 - So odd and beautiful.
• Overcome - Laura Mvula            2016 One of the two great and underrated Laura M's of British 21st century music.
• Seventeen - Sharon van Etten  2019
• Chicago - Sufjan Stevens          2005
• Takeover - Jay-Z              2001 - Yes! Gym! Being mean!
• Introvert - Little Simz    2021
• Danny Nedelko - Idles  2018
• The First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes     2005 - I hear Conor Oberst's slightly annoying nasal voice pop up here and there as guest artist on various tracks these days and I have the most enormous affection for it.
• Angela Surf City - The Walkmen             2010
• Django Jane - Janelle Monae    2018
• Lithuania - Dan Bern     2003
• Right Back to It - Waxahatchee ft MJ Lenderman           2024
• Umbrella - Rihanna ft Jay-Z      2007
• Like I Used To - Sharon van Etten and Angel Olsen        2021
• Back to the Radio - Porridge Radio        2022
• Danny Callahan - Conor Oberst             2008 - Such sad songs.
• Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love - Kara Jackson      2023 - Such sad songs.
• Sunday - Let's Eat Grandma     2022 - Such sad songs.
• Hey Lover - Dawes        2013 - The dumbest fucking song, honestly. I just like harmonious soft rock.
• Black - Dave     2019
• The Long Water - Stephen Fretwell        2021
• Zorbing - Stornoway      2009 - This is what hit singles should sound like. Entirely immune to cool. These kids, they don't know they're born.
• Impossible Germany - Wilco    2007
• Round Eye Blues - Marah           2000
• The Rat - The Walkmen 2004 - I had a bit of an impasse in my new music listening between roughly 2009 and 2013. There are a few reasons, one of them being I had made a handful of playlists which I played over and over, particularly when I was running. Tied in with that is that I listened to the Walkmen ... a lot ... all the time ... all the Walkmen ... all the time.
• A Matter of Time - The Leisure Society 2009
• Emily - Joanna Newsom            2006
• Amsterdam - UNPOC   2003 - I picked up the Fence Sampler #3 from CD Outlet on South Street, St Andrews, in 2000. This was on it, along with Lone Pigeom. Yorkston, King Creosote and others. How odd, I thought, I've a funny feeling that's one of the greatest songs ever recorded. UNPOC's only album came out in 2003, so I assign it to that year. The most magical thing, this.
• 4th of July - Sufjan Stevens       2015 - I am hard pressed as to who is the most complete singer-songwriter of this century - I sometimes think Newsom, sometimes Cave, sometimes Tweedy, sometimes accept it maybe Beyonce or Taylor Swift, but, right now, I think I think it's Sufjan Stevens. 
• Rise - Josh Rouse          2003 - They don't write loving pastiches like this anymore. 
• He's Simple He's Dumb He's the Pilot - Grandaddy      2000 - Really, truly, I still feel that the moment one minute into this song when it comes up for air, or takes off, or whatever, is the most beautiful thing in all of pop music.
• When the Haar Rolls In - James Yorkston           2006 - Wow, 2006 had All My Friends, Emily, Branches and When the Haar Rolls In. That's my taste in music right there.
• My Baby Don't Understand Me - Natalie Prass 2015 - The arrangement.
• Can't Do Much - Waxahatchee 2020 - This is the song I have listened to by far the most in the last 4 years. Can't do much about it now
• All My Friends - LCD Soundsystem       2006 - Still my favourite, I suppose.

And here are some other great songs I almost included (along with 100s of others)

You Masculine You - Lambchop             2000

Darker with the Day - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds     2000

Winterlight - Clearlake 2000

To be Young i(s to be Sad is to be High) - Ryan Adams  2000

The Cedar Room - Doves           2000

I See a Darkness - Johnny Cash             2000

Scottish Pop - Spearmint           2001

The Dark is Rising - Mercury Rev            2001

Blue - Lucinda Williams             2001

She Fell into My Arms - Ed Harcourt     2001

Mysteries - Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man         2002

Such Great Heights - The Postal Service            2002

Slaveship - Josh Rouse 2003

Kathleen - Josh Ritter    2003

Crazy in Love - Beyonce ft Jay-Z             2003

I'm a Cuckoo - Belle and Sebastian      2003

Kissing the Lipless - The Shins 2003

Danko/Manuel - Drive-By Truckers        2004

Take Me Anywhere - Tegan and Sara     2004

Coming in from the Cold - Delgados     2004

Don't You (Forget About Me) - Micah P Hinson 2004

Float On - Modest Mouse          2004

So Here We Are - Bloc Party      2005

Mr November - The National     2005

Running the World - Jarvis Cocker         2006

Trains to Brazil - Guillemots      2006

Funeral - Band of Horses           2006

Anyone - Joan as Policewoman              2006

Sons and Daughters - The Decemberists          2006

Is There a Ghost - Band of Horses         2007

Losing You - Randy Newman    2008

Everybody I Know is Listening to Crunk - Lightspeed Champion              2008

Dancing on My Own - Robyn     2010

Palaces of Montezuma - Grinderman   2011

Under the Westway - Blur          2012

Heaven - The Walkmen              2012

How - Regina Spektor   2012

Tilted - Christine and the Queens          2014

American Interior - Gruff Rhys  2014

Broken Wave - James Yorkston 2014

Severed Crossed Fingers - St Vincent   2014

Time as a Symptom - Joanna Newsom 2015

Hey Darling - Sleater-Kinney     2015

London - Benjamin Clemetine 2015

King Kunta - Kenrdick Lamar     2015

Dollar Days - David Bowie         2016

No One Know Me Like the Piano ... - Sampha   2017

Space Cowboy - Kacey Musgraves        2018

My Mouth Ain't No Bible - James Yorkston         2019

I Contain Multitudes - Bob Dylan           2020

Bad Decisions - The Strokes     2020

Namesake - noname    2023