This is a good one. John actually sent me such a compilation though it was specifically for the winter months in Scotland, but this is along those lines ...
January - Pilot
Blue Valentines - Tom Waits
Easter Parade - Emmy the Great
April Fools - Rufus Wainwright
May Day - Elvis Perkins
June Evenings - Air France
4th July, Asbury Park - Bruce Springsteen
August - Rilo Kiley
September Gurls - Big Star
Halloweenhead - Ryan Adams
Mr November - The National
Everyday is Christmas - The Webb Brothers
While writing the list, of course, fresh ideas kept on presenting themselves, so here, you lucky people, is a bonus tape, since it's been long since I last posted something
New Year's Day - U2
Ash Wednesday - Elvis Perkins
Good Friday - Elvis Perkins
April Skies - Jesus & Mary Chain
Bank Holiday - Blur
June Gloom - The Like
July, July - The Decemberists
A Summer Wasting - Belle and Sebastian
September - Ryan Adams & the Cardinals
Moondance - Van Morrison
Gone 'til November - Wyclef Jean
The Last Good Day of the Year - Cousteau
Really, I only included a second one because I couldn't face leaving off either Mr November or Gone 'til November (which manages to include the names of most of the other months in its lyric).
Mr November is a tremendous song, one of my favourites. Mr November is a term used in America to describe someone who really comes good when the heat is on, as the World Series would traditionally take place in November. It has even been co-opted in politics, with the presidential election taking place in November, and, in fact, The National offered this song to Obama to be used, and, I think, had their own t-shirts made up with Obama's face on them - something like that, anyway ...
Found it slightly tricky to come up with anything about the passing of the months of the year without resorting to cliche, I think it would be easier to focus on a specific month. When I used to write lists on my facebook page, I used to revel in their banality (eg 10 Favourite London Tube Lines) so perhaps I can be gleefully inane now and put the months of the year in order of preference. (from worst to best)
February
October
January
November
March
September
August
December
April
July
May
June
My experience of facebook statuses is that, while Wildean wit and noteworthy recollection goes unremarked upon, the above is the kind of level of expression which will get a stream of comments, so I will, to save you the trouble, provide my own facebook-esque response to this:
Bobby McGee: HaHa
Jimbob McGinty: I hate February
Taggart: Spot on, mate. Love June!!!?!!
Errol Waldhammer: You're a dick
Ernest Santangelo: I agree with you about April, but not about December
Bobby McGee: How about a list of favourite weeks of the year? That would be AWESOME!!
Vance Johnson III: Who do you think you are? Only God can judge the months of the year...
That kind of thing ...
So, anyway, in terms of the year and it's start and placing our own narrative structure upon it, I thought this
On a tube train, faking a hangover,
head in clean hands ducking fierce friendliness
we start the year as we mean to go on -
the memory of other people's mixtapes
fading not quite quickly enough to stop
ourselves (dosed up on irony or not)
from breaking it down, glibly listing it up:
How did that month go? What will this year have,
season for fresh season, that may just save
next New Year's Day from quiet desperation?
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Saturday, 23 May 2009
34. 10 Songs by the Super Furry Animals ...
... which I have, at some point, considered the greatest, most uplifting song in the world
Northern Lites
She's Got Spies
Calimero
Ice Hockey Hair
Juxtaposed with U
The Man Don't Give a Fuck
Fire in My Heart
Turning Tide
Helium Hearts
Juxtaposed with U
These wouldn't necessarily be my favourite Furries songs at this point - there are so many contenders - but these are the ones which have, at some point, been out and ahead, with the biggest chorus, the best tune, the most thrill.
My current favourite is Ice Hockey Hair - I've had a long journey with Ice Hockey Hair. It's about 10 years since it came out, and I always liked it, but it's taken me till the last couple of years to appreciate its full grandeur. I daren't even describe the whys and hows of my love for it, but those that are unfamiliar with the point 4 minutes and 10 seconds in where they first sing "Now that you're here, tell me you're a non-believer" are, for me, lucky that they still have one of life's greatest moments still ahead of them.
I read a very good review of the Furries' latest album recently, in The Word I think, where the writer really got to grips with the Furries and why they weren't the biggest band in Britain and why, though he loved so many of their songs, they weren't his favourite band. A point he concluded with was that, unlike the truly great bands, none of these songs really "meant" anything. This is where the two of us deviated. It's the same kind of point I've heard when someone says the Coen Brothers' films don't "mean" anything. To me, these works mean as much as anything can possibly mean, and if you're looking for greater meaning and think you've found it elsewhere, you've found something untrue, a feeling, a "depth" that will pass, a remedy that will be exposed as placebo (cue joke about Placebo). The Furries and the Coens, they work on the surface, they disavow earnestness, they make jokes, allusions to others and themselves, they dazzle, they can be accused of putting virtuosity for its own sake to the forefront, but for me, listening and watching, if the question is asked "Is this all there is?" the answer is Yes - humour, warmth, brilliance, hard work, humanity, eclecticism, self-awareness. This is all there is.
They are, I think, the best British band ever. I'd be hard-pressed to explain why they're better than the Beatles, I admit, and it would be even more pseudish than I'm already being to try.
Here we go for further grand statements and wanton connections. The great cultural triumvirate of modern Britain are three Welshmen of the left. Hoho, not Neil Kinnock, Nye Bevin, Rhodri Morgan. Hoho.
Gruff Rhys, Ryan Giggs, Joe Calzaghe (I think if you did a study of this blog you would find the most used word would be Giggs - how could it be any other way, really?).
These have obviously all been favourites of mine for a long time, but the similarites and links really are striking. All, like I say, left-sided (Gruff plays guitar left-handed, Giggs obviously, and Calzaghe's a southpaw), all between 35 and 40, all started their careers in the early/mid 90s and have produced consistent, undefeated quality since, with very little of the tales of darkness and trauma which usually go hand in hand with legendary status in their respective fields.
Consequently, it has become customary to write them all off as in some way lightweight, possessed of excellence but not the nebulous quality that is "greatness". Nebulous as Greatness is, in my head I have repositioned it (or given it its rightful position) exactly in accordance with this three's achievements. For me, Giggs IS the greatest footballer of the last 20 years, Calzaghe IS the greatest P4P fighter of his age, and as I said earlier, the Furries are the greatest British band of all, in as much as more obvious contenders for each post, say Zidane/Matthaus, Mayweather/Jones Jr, Beatles/Stones let themselves down by not being more like Giggs, Calzaghe, Rhys. Well, having said that, I guess even by the standards of Giggs, maybe Paolo Maldini outGiggses Giggs. Maybe ...
They have all been accused of having slumps, going out of form, not living up to early form, though what they were producing would stil have been deemed high class if produced by others. Calzaghe never lost as a pro, began as a thrilling youngster, became a World Champion with a superb win over Chris Eubank, then continued to win, year after year. However, some of these wins were underwhelming, not against the highest level of opposition, and, like Giggs, he was castigated for not seeking out fresh challenges overseas, for not performing at the highest level. (by the way, I'll mainly talk about Giggs and Calzaghe now, just cos it's easier to draw direct comparisons across sports, but similar lines can be drawn in how the Furries have performed/been viewed) Both, in these down times, were hampered by persistent injuries to their greatest asset which no one gave much sympathy or consideration for, Calzaghe repeatedly breaking bones in his left hand, Giggs suffering persistent hamstrings strains which mean he thinks he has not run absolutely flat-out since his early 20s. But they were still producing the goods, Calzaghe churning out the wins, often with excellent underrated performances (Richie Woodhall, Omar Sheika, Byron Mitchell), Giggsy still helping Man U to title after title.
Then, for both, late on in their career, vindication and the kind of universal acclaim they had deserved all along, Calzaghe with his wins over Lacy, Kessler, Hopkins, Jones, Giggs with his breaking of Charlton's record, goal on the last day of the 2008 season, and PFA Player of the Year award for 2009.
When Giggs collected that award, who was there to present it to him but a happily drunken Calzaghe - a great moment. They went for the cliche of soundtracking it with a Welsh Male Voice Choir singing Land of my Fathers. How tremendous it would have been if they'd got in the Furries to play, I don't know, The Undefeated, or Rings Around the World (changing it to Running rings around the world - see what I've done there).
So, Giggs and Calzaghe have had their Rocky moment, their grand vindication, and you mark my word it will happen for the Furries too, whether it be the Mercury Prize, a crossover Number 1 single, whatever. As I once wrote and will happily have as my epitaph as it says everything I want to justify my existence on this planet
I was right about Ryan Giggs
it's no surprise to me.
Northern Lites
She's Got Spies
Calimero
Ice Hockey Hair
Juxtaposed with U
The Man Don't Give a Fuck
Fire in My Heart
Turning Tide
Helium Hearts
Juxtaposed with U
These wouldn't necessarily be my favourite Furries songs at this point - there are so many contenders - but these are the ones which have, at some point, been out and ahead, with the biggest chorus, the best tune, the most thrill.
My current favourite is Ice Hockey Hair - I've had a long journey with Ice Hockey Hair. It's about 10 years since it came out, and I always liked it, but it's taken me till the last couple of years to appreciate its full grandeur. I daren't even describe the whys and hows of my love for it, but those that are unfamiliar with the point 4 minutes and 10 seconds in where they first sing "Now that you're here, tell me you're a non-believer" are, for me, lucky that they still have one of life's greatest moments still ahead of them.
I read a very good review of the Furries' latest album recently, in The Word I think, where the writer really got to grips with the Furries and why they weren't the biggest band in Britain and why, though he loved so many of their songs, they weren't his favourite band. A point he concluded with was that, unlike the truly great bands, none of these songs really "meant" anything. This is where the two of us deviated. It's the same kind of point I've heard when someone says the Coen Brothers' films don't "mean" anything. To me, these works mean as much as anything can possibly mean, and if you're looking for greater meaning and think you've found it elsewhere, you've found something untrue, a feeling, a "depth" that will pass, a remedy that will be exposed as placebo (cue joke about Placebo). The Furries and the Coens, they work on the surface, they disavow earnestness, they make jokes, allusions to others and themselves, they dazzle, they can be accused of putting virtuosity for its own sake to the forefront, but for me, listening and watching, if the question is asked "Is this all there is?" the answer is Yes - humour, warmth, brilliance, hard work, humanity, eclecticism, self-awareness. This is all there is.
They are, I think, the best British band ever. I'd be hard-pressed to explain why they're better than the Beatles, I admit, and it would be even more pseudish than I'm already being to try.
Here we go for further grand statements and wanton connections. The great cultural triumvirate of modern Britain are three Welshmen of the left. Hoho, not Neil Kinnock, Nye Bevin, Rhodri Morgan. Hoho.
Gruff Rhys, Ryan Giggs, Joe Calzaghe (I think if you did a study of this blog you would find the most used word would be Giggs - how could it be any other way, really?).
These have obviously all been favourites of mine for a long time, but the similarites and links really are striking. All, like I say, left-sided (Gruff plays guitar left-handed, Giggs obviously, and Calzaghe's a southpaw), all between 35 and 40, all started their careers in the early/mid 90s and have produced consistent, undefeated quality since, with very little of the tales of darkness and trauma which usually go hand in hand with legendary status in their respective fields.
Consequently, it has become customary to write them all off as in some way lightweight, possessed of excellence but not the nebulous quality that is "greatness". Nebulous as Greatness is, in my head I have repositioned it (or given it its rightful position) exactly in accordance with this three's achievements. For me, Giggs IS the greatest footballer of the last 20 years, Calzaghe IS the greatest P4P fighter of his age, and as I said earlier, the Furries are the greatest British band of all, in as much as more obvious contenders for each post, say Zidane/Matthaus, Mayweather/Jones Jr, Beatles/Stones let themselves down by not being more like Giggs, Calzaghe, Rhys. Well, having said that, I guess even by the standards of Giggs, maybe Paolo Maldini outGiggses Giggs. Maybe ...
They have all been accused of having slumps, going out of form, not living up to early form, though what they were producing would stil have been deemed high class if produced by others. Calzaghe never lost as a pro, began as a thrilling youngster, became a World Champion with a superb win over Chris Eubank, then continued to win, year after year. However, some of these wins were underwhelming, not against the highest level of opposition, and, like Giggs, he was castigated for not seeking out fresh challenges overseas, for not performing at the highest level. (by the way, I'll mainly talk about Giggs and Calzaghe now, just cos it's easier to draw direct comparisons across sports, but similar lines can be drawn in how the Furries have performed/been viewed) Both, in these down times, were hampered by persistent injuries to their greatest asset which no one gave much sympathy or consideration for, Calzaghe repeatedly breaking bones in his left hand, Giggs suffering persistent hamstrings strains which mean he thinks he has not run absolutely flat-out since his early 20s. But they were still producing the goods, Calzaghe churning out the wins, often with excellent underrated performances (Richie Woodhall, Omar Sheika, Byron Mitchell), Giggsy still helping Man U to title after title.
Then, for both, late on in their career, vindication and the kind of universal acclaim they had deserved all along, Calzaghe with his wins over Lacy, Kessler, Hopkins, Jones, Giggs with his breaking of Charlton's record, goal on the last day of the 2008 season, and PFA Player of the Year award for 2009.
When Giggs collected that award, who was there to present it to him but a happily drunken Calzaghe - a great moment. They went for the cliche of soundtracking it with a Welsh Male Voice Choir singing Land of my Fathers. How tremendous it would have been if they'd got in the Furries to play, I don't know, The Undefeated, or Rings Around the World (changing it to Running rings around the world - see what I've done there).
So, Giggs and Calzaghe have had their Rocky moment, their grand vindication, and you mark my word it will happen for the Furries too, whether it be the Mercury Prize, a crossover Number 1 single, whatever. As I once wrote and will happily have as my epitaph as it says everything I want to justify my existence on this planet
I was right about Ryan Giggs
it's no surprise to me.
Friday, 22 May 2009
33. 10 Songs about Festivals/Camping/Outdoor Gigs
Woodstock - Joni Mitchell
Chillout Tent - The Hold Steady
It Ended on an Oily Stage - British Sea Power
Coma Girl - Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros
Sorted for Es and Whizz - Pulp
Camping Next to Water - Badly Drawn Boy
All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground
Glastonbury Song - The Waterboys
Festival - Sigur Ros
Memories of a Free Festival - David Bowie
Well, I must say, it has taken an extraordinary effort to muster these ten, and I should be heavily commended for it. It would not have been acceptable to just go for "festival favourites" or songs associated with festival performances, like, say, Jimi Hendrix doing The Star-Spangled Banner. Obviously the Badly Drawn Boy is just about camping, so that's not the best, and the Velvet Underground one inspired a future festival, but I allowed myself that. There was also a song I found on iTunes called Glastonbury by Scouting for Girls. It won't surprise those familiar with that band's work that, from the 30 second listen I gave it, it was simply the worst song ever. Quite impressively, Scouting for Girls have released 6 of the worst 10 songs ever. They are the worst band ever. Ever.
I've had the most tremendous fun at festivals. I don't think there's anything terribly insightful I have to say about them beyond that. The worst thing that happened to me at a festival was when I was very drunk at Benicassim watching Oasis, getting to the end of my 5th litre of Heineken - yes, I know, everything about this screams class, Brit abroad watching Oasis drinking Heineken by the litre -and my chums had decided to go watch something cooler - even Oasis John - but I was sticking it out because, you know, it's Oasis, they're going to play Live Forever and things, but this 5th litre container was just all unpleasantness by the end, so I thought I'd pour out the dregs at the bottom. So i bent down and as gently as i could poured them on the ground. Benicassim isn't, like most festivals, on soft receptive grass, but on hard Spanish tarmac, so bouncing and splashing there was. "Eurgh, what's that? Are you taking a piss?" said the angry English woman beside me. "This guy's pissing on the ground" "Are you pissing on the ground, mate? That's disgusting" "I suppose these are the kinds of animals you get watching Oasis" etc I was the Benicassim One, accused of a crime i didn't commit. I didn't at the time have the oratorial skills to depend myself beyond "I didn't. No, I really didn't" so it is sad for these people that they will go to their grave with one memory and one memory alone of me. I bet you're wondering now if I'm protesting too much and I actually did what I was accused of, and no I didn't. I'm no Gregor Wallace.
Anyhoo, magnificent memories outnumber this 100 to 1, come rain, come extreme heat, obscene hangover, kids keeping you up all night playing their own songs, booming Spanish techno till 10 in the morning, Geoff Hoon - you've got to love all that stuff.
I guess this covers the aftermath of festivals in various ways
Thanks given all round for being so candid
Tents were zipped up and the fire snuffed out
leaving the throng safe with just enough doubt
that they were wise to've been so open-handed
The sun's coming on from the hilltop beyond
and we will learn to believe again.
Hip dim wits hypnotised by fake Irish folk
songs delivered with the bare cheek of a charmer
slipping his slick darts through cheap, weak armour
of campfire counsellors in on all but the joke
but the sun's coming over the hilltop beyond
and you will learn to think again.
If I could even come near to a natural high
I wouldn't look so down on your docile wanders
into sweet hereafters and mild blue yonders
that constant conscious has forced me pass by
But the sun's coming over the hilltop beyond
and you will learn to breathe again.
Ropes tripped kick in fresh paranoid tricks
of numbers and figures not for the fitting,
of truths about freedom too bleak for admitting
broken hopes, shattered schemes little can fix
but the sun's coming over the hilltop beyond
and I will learn to compute again.
Shit, it always seem so gloomy when you read it back, don't it? Not intended that way. It's really all about having a hangover. Perhaps I'll call it 'The Hangover'
Chillout Tent - The Hold Steady
It Ended on an Oily Stage - British Sea Power
Coma Girl - Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros
Sorted for Es and Whizz - Pulp
Camping Next to Water - Badly Drawn Boy
All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground
Glastonbury Song - The Waterboys
Festival - Sigur Ros
Memories of a Free Festival - David Bowie
Well, I must say, it has taken an extraordinary effort to muster these ten, and I should be heavily commended for it. It would not have been acceptable to just go for "festival favourites" or songs associated with festival performances, like, say, Jimi Hendrix doing The Star-Spangled Banner. Obviously the Badly Drawn Boy is just about camping, so that's not the best, and the Velvet Underground one inspired a future festival, but I allowed myself that. There was also a song I found on iTunes called Glastonbury by Scouting for Girls. It won't surprise those familiar with that band's work that, from the 30 second listen I gave it, it was simply the worst song ever. Quite impressively, Scouting for Girls have released 6 of the worst 10 songs ever. They are the worst band ever. Ever.
I've had the most tremendous fun at festivals. I don't think there's anything terribly insightful I have to say about them beyond that. The worst thing that happened to me at a festival was when I was very drunk at Benicassim watching Oasis, getting to the end of my 5th litre of Heineken - yes, I know, everything about this screams class, Brit abroad watching Oasis drinking Heineken by the litre -and my chums had decided to go watch something cooler - even Oasis John - but I was sticking it out because, you know, it's Oasis, they're going to play Live Forever and things, but this 5th litre container was just all unpleasantness by the end, so I thought I'd pour out the dregs at the bottom. So i bent down and as gently as i could poured them on the ground. Benicassim isn't, like most festivals, on soft receptive grass, but on hard Spanish tarmac, so bouncing and splashing there was. "Eurgh, what's that? Are you taking a piss?" said the angry English woman beside me. "This guy's pissing on the ground" "Are you pissing on the ground, mate? That's disgusting" "I suppose these are the kinds of animals you get watching Oasis" etc I was the Benicassim One, accused of a crime i didn't commit. I didn't at the time have the oratorial skills to depend myself beyond "I didn't. No, I really didn't" so it is sad for these people that they will go to their grave with one memory and one memory alone of me. I bet you're wondering now if I'm protesting too much and I actually did what I was accused of, and no I didn't. I'm no Gregor Wallace.
Anyhoo, magnificent memories outnumber this 100 to 1, come rain, come extreme heat, obscene hangover, kids keeping you up all night playing their own songs, booming Spanish techno till 10 in the morning, Geoff Hoon - you've got to love all that stuff.
I guess this covers the aftermath of festivals in various ways
Thanks given all round for being so candid
Tents were zipped up and the fire snuffed out
leaving the throng safe with just enough doubt
that they were wise to've been so open-handed
The sun's coming on from the hilltop beyond
and we will learn to believe again.
Hip dim wits hypnotised by fake Irish folk
songs delivered with the bare cheek of a charmer
slipping his slick darts through cheap, weak armour
of campfire counsellors in on all but the joke
but the sun's coming over the hilltop beyond
and you will learn to think again.
If I could even come near to a natural high
I wouldn't look so down on your docile wanders
into sweet hereafters and mild blue yonders
that constant conscious has forced me pass by
But the sun's coming over the hilltop beyond
and you will learn to breathe again.
Ropes tripped kick in fresh paranoid tricks
of numbers and figures not for the fitting,
of truths about freedom too bleak for admitting
broken hopes, shattered schemes little can fix
but the sun's coming over the hilltop beyond
and I will learn to compute again.
Shit, it always seem so gloomy when you read it back, don't it? Not intended that way. It's really all about having a hangover. Perhaps I'll call it 'The Hangover'
Thursday, 21 May 2009
32. 10 Dancing Songs
Before I put the list, a quick definition of these dancing songs. It goes without saying that most songs ever are in some way dancing songs, and that huge numbers of them are specifically dancing songs, songs written with the hope that people would dance to. And an awful lot of those will contain the word 'dance' in its title or lyrics. So this wouldn't be a difficult list to put together ...
So, slightly Irishly, I limited it to dancing songs which are really not intended to be danced to, not exhortations to dance, but songs ABOUT dancing. I suspect one or two of them will have been danced to occasionally, but there's no accounting for some people ...
Good Dancers - The Sleepy Jackson
What A Lovely Dance - Hal
Dance Away - Roxy Music
Cosmic Dancer - T. Rex
I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance - Black Kids
Tiny Dancer - Elton John
I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys
Dance Until Tomorrow - Lavender Diamond
Dancefloors - My Morning Jacket
Touch Me When We're Dancing - The Carpenters
I would have included Dancing in the Dark, but as this extraordinary video proves
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAmDmdMKB7g&feature=PlayList&p=C0671D4018B487E8&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2
that is a song which is very much intended to be danced to.
Clearly the Boss was going for a different kind of market in the 80s.
That's the first link I've put on this dense blog, but the plan is to stay dense and light/variation free. Don't take the easy way out!
So, dancing, some people are good dancers, most of us are pretty rubbish, and it takes various amounts of time to chill out and not care. I am still self-conscious enough to only occasionally throw my post-rock/physical comedy/Paul Gascoigne-high elbows-in-the-face shapes on any but the friendliest of floors, but I feel like I'm growing into my dancing prime. When you are an embarrassing uncle, I assume you're applauded for dancing like one.
So, this is about chilling about, not taking oneself so seriously, and not hating dancing. It's actually an extract from something longer. I wrote it ages ago, i'd like to think I've moved even further down the line to not hating everything since then.
Get a grip on the past you dirtied
with limp platitudes on ethical exploits.
All the vain things you clueslessly asserted
are no less or more useful than the next boy's
forays into a simple search for solace;
gaucheness leads where polish follows.
I found a freshness where my former
self would have seen just reckless squalor.
Grand notions and strategies now just bore me;
soul-searching wholeness seems so hollow
I just want to dance and then capture it smartly,
just want to be the sharp heart of the party.
I've spent my time deriding then chasing
CDs and e-mails, iPods and mobiles
and I went for the tune and missed out on the bassline
but it isn't too late to pass over the slow miles
and go miles in seconds with a simpler rhythm -
it's life and it's fast and it's only for living.
I heard you want to get the world dancing
to one of Bob Dylan's livelier numbers.
So find a nice box to put the past in,
then burn it and waltz round the embers.
I thought about rewriting it, cos it's a bit clunky, but i think it's ok.
So, slightly Irishly, I limited it to dancing songs which are really not intended to be danced to, not exhortations to dance, but songs ABOUT dancing. I suspect one or two of them will have been danced to occasionally, but there's no accounting for some people ...
Good Dancers - The Sleepy Jackson
What A Lovely Dance - Hal
Dance Away - Roxy Music
Cosmic Dancer - T. Rex
I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance - Black Kids
Tiny Dancer - Elton John
I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys
Dance Until Tomorrow - Lavender Diamond
Dancefloors - My Morning Jacket
Touch Me When We're Dancing - The Carpenters
I would have included Dancing in the Dark, but as this extraordinary video proves
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAmDmdMKB7g&feature=PlayList&p=C0671D4018B487E8&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2
that is a song which is very much intended to be danced to.
Clearly the Boss was going for a different kind of market in the 80s.
That's the first link I've put on this dense blog, but the plan is to stay dense and light/variation free. Don't take the easy way out!
So, dancing, some people are good dancers, most of us are pretty rubbish, and it takes various amounts of time to chill out and not care. I am still self-conscious enough to only occasionally throw my post-rock/physical comedy/Paul Gascoigne-high elbows-in-the-face shapes on any but the friendliest of floors, but I feel like I'm growing into my dancing prime. When you are an embarrassing uncle, I assume you're applauded for dancing like one.
So, this is about chilling about, not taking oneself so seriously, and not hating dancing. It's actually an extract from something longer. I wrote it ages ago, i'd like to think I've moved even further down the line to not hating everything since then.
Get a grip on the past you dirtied
with limp platitudes on ethical exploits.
All the vain things you clueslessly asserted
are no less or more useful than the next boy's
forays into a simple search for solace;
gaucheness leads where polish follows.
I found a freshness where my former
self would have seen just reckless squalor.
Grand notions and strategies now just bore me;
soul-searching wholeness seems so hollow
I just want to dance and then capture it smartly,
just want to be the sharp heart of the party.
I've spent my time deriding then chasing
CDs and e-mails, iPods and mobiles
and I went for the tune and missed out on the bassline
but it isn't too late to pass over the slow miles
and go miles in seconds with a simpler rhythm -
it's life and it's fast and it's only for living.
I heard you want to get the world dancing
to one of Bob Dylan's livelier numbers.
So find a nice box to put the past in,
then burn it and waltz round the embers.
I thought about rewriting it, cos it's a bit clunky, but i think it's ok.
Monday, 18 May 2009
31. 10 Greek Songs
Mykonos - Fleet Foxes
Girls and Boys - Blur
California - Joni Mitchell
Temporarily like Achilles - Bob Dylan
Lesbia - Lucky Jim
Oedipus - Regina Spektor
Common People - Pulp
Greek Song - Rufus Wainwright
Olympian - Gene
Helen and Cassandra - Al Stewart
Yes, there are some extremely tenuous ones in here, but, you know, she came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge etc. and I could have put in the theme from Zorba the Greek or Chariots of Fire if I was that desperate to make up the numbers
I don't know too much about Greece, really, though I guess I used to know a fair bit about what Greece used to be like.
There are lots of good stories from back then I remember well, lots of literary terms I half-remember. Daphnis and Chloe, by Longus, I particularly recall. It was Hitler's favourite book, worryingly enough. I still have an essay on it and in the first paragraph I use the words milieu, oeuvre, terpnon, ophelimon, leitmotif and ekphrasis. I think I know what three of those mean, if pushed.
Also, I remember the tragedies and myths pretty well, and certain characters from tragedies, like Cassandra, who always seemed very interesting. I looked up the Al Stewart song above and gave it a bit of a listen -it's really terrible and the height of po-faced singer-songwriter naffness. Sometimes the 1970s seem even further back than the Trojan War.
Also, we went on a school trip to Greece which was fun - I smoked my first cigarette there and there were some naughty but comparatively tame deeds. The teacher who took us, he was a good teacher, but on the trip, he got the balance wrong of trying to be your mate and your teacher and ended up displaying a bit of indiscretion and hypocrisy.
So we could talk him without worrying that he might pick up his name in the murmuring, we referred to him as Reg, and cos we were pretentious cocks, we spent a lot of time coming up with limericks, one of them by Wieland I vaguely remember went
There once was a fellow called Reg
who liked to live life on the edge
but like good old Janus
he really did pain us -
one day he'll be pushed off a ledge
or something like that. Not bad, albeit totally cockish.
But, I remember a few weeks later when we were watching the tape back of the trip that Ed Rubin made on his camcorder, and by this stage we'd got over our dislike of said Reg, we saw this limerick being read out, and the teacher asked us jovially "Who is this Reg?" and our embarrassed/guilty/half-arsed response was a pretty painful moment of realisation on all sides.
What a thrilling story. Really glad I told that.
My favourite place in Greece was Delphi, the city at the centre of the Ancient World, home of the Omphalos Stone, in the spectacular shadow of Mt Parnassus, really beautiful, I got drunk and rude there, then we had a race in the ancient stadium, which I won, before puking my guts up. The balance of the sacred and the profane makes fools and heroes of us all.
Most famously, Delphi is home of the Pythian Oracle, the mouthpiece of Apollo. Apollo it was who cursed Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy, to prophesy truth but never be believed, to know how her city would be destroyed but to not be able to do anything about it.
Her fate was to be taken back to Mycenae as a concubine of Agamemnon, who would then be murdered by his wife Clytemnestra in revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia - Clytemnestra would then be murdered by their son Orestes, who was pursued by the Erinyes/Furies, before finally being given pardon - thus the cycle of violence came to an end - though the Welsh poet RS Thomas wrote a poem called 'No Truce With The Furies', alluded to and then quoted by The Manics in You Stole the Sun From My Heart. Phew.
Anyway, Cassandra, bearing all that in mind, is a great and fascinating literary character, too much for me to get to grips with, though I dug this out from when I was studying 'Troiades'
I can hear the drums of victory
sounding out their tale of sorrow
from the shoreline to the city
glory leads them hence tomorrow
and I sing my song of vengeance
though of course no one will listen
cursed to win only indifference -
this curse, for once, is blessing,
As I stand outside my madness
on a platform called compulsion.
Now my triumph is my failure
I can revel in revulsion.
I like the one about the poohsticks better.
Girls and Boys - Blur
California - Joni Mitchell
Temporarily like Achilles - Bob Dylan
Lesbia - Lucky Jim
Oedipus - Regina Spektor
Common People - Pulp
Greek Song - Rufus Wainwright
Olympian - Gene
Helen and Cassandra - Al Stewart
Yes, there are some extremely tenuous ones in here, but, you know, she came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge etc. and I could have put in the theme from Zorba the Greek or Chariots of Fire if I was that desperate to make up the numbers
I don't know too much about Greece, really, though I guess I used to know a fair bit about what Greece used to be like.
There are lots of good stories from back then I remember well, lots of literary terms I half-remember. Daphnis and Chloe, by Longus, I particularly recall. It was Hitler's favourite book, worryingly enough. I still have an essay on it and in the first paragraph I use the words milieu, oeuvre, terpnon, ophelimon, leitmotif and ekphrasis. I think I know what three of those mean, if pushed.
Also, I remember the tragedies and myths pretty well, and certain characters from tragedies, like Cassandra, who always seemed very interesting. I looked up the Al Stewart song above and gave it a bit of a listen -it's really terrible and the height of po-faced singer-songwriter naffness. Sometimes the 1970s seem even further back than the Trojan War.
Also, we went on a school trip to Greece which was fun - I smoked my first cigarette there and there were some naughty but comparatively tame deeds. The teacher who took us, he was a good teacher, but on the trip, he got the balance wrong of trying to be your mate and your teacher and ended up displaying a bit of indiscretion and hypocrisy.
So we could talk him without worrying that he might pick up his name in the murmuring, we referred to him as Reg, and cos we were pretentious cocks, we spent a lot of time coming up with limericks, one of them by Wieland I vaguely remember went
There once was a fellow called Reg
who liked to live life on the edge
but like good old Janus
he really did pain us -
one day he'll be pushed off a ledge
or something like that. Not bad, albeit totally cockish.
But, I remember a few weeks later when we were watching the tape back of the trip that Ed Rubin made on his camcorder, and by this stage we'd got over our dislike of said Reg, we saw this limerick being read out, and the teacher asked us jovially "Who is this Reg?" and our embarrassed/guilty/half-arsed response was a pretty painful moment of realisation on all sides.
What a thrilling story. Really glad I told that.
My favourite place in Greece was Delphi, the city at the centre of the Ancient World, home of the Omphalos Stone, in the spectacular shadow of Mt Parnassus, really beautiful, I got drunk and rude there, then we had a race in the ancient stadium, which I won, before puking my guts up. The balance of the sacred and the profane makes fools and heroes of us all.
Most famously, Delphi is home of the Pythian Oracle, the mouthpiece of Apollo. Apollo it was who cursed Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy, to prophesy truth but never be believed, to know how her city would be destroyed but to not be able to do anything about it.
Her fate was to be taken back to Mycenae as a concubine of Agamemnon, who would then be murdered by his wife Clytemnestra in revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia - Clytemnestra would then be murdered by their son Orestes, who was pursued by the Erinyes/Furies, before finally being given pardon - thus the cycle of violence came to an end - though the Welsh poet RS Thomas wrote a poem called 'No Truce With The Furies', alluded to and then quoted by The Manics in You Stole the Sun From My Heart. Phew.
Anyway, Cassandra, bearing all that in mind, is a great and fascinating literary character, too much for me to get to grips with, though I dug this out from when I was studying 'Troiades'
I can hear the drums of victory
sounding out their tale of sorrow
from the shoreline to the city
glory leads them hence tomorrow
and I sing my song of vengeance
though of course no one will listen
cursed to win only indifference -
this curse, for once, is blessing,
As I stand outside my madness
on a platform called compulsion.
Now my triumph is my failure
I can revel in revulsion.
I like the one about the poohsticks better.
Sunday, 17 May 2009
30. 10 Songs by the River
River Man - Nick Drake
Find the River - REM
River - Joni Mitchell
Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks
Tales of the Riverbank - The Jam
River of Dreams - Billy Joel
Moon River - Audrey Hepburn
Many Rivers to Cross - Jimmy Cliff
River - Dennis Wilson
Ole Man River - Paul Robeson
Again, this is an excellent collection of songs, though certain people may take issue with the Billy Joel song. Moon River is an all-time classic, as is Ole Man River in its way. It's good to have this Jam song and this Nick Drake song, as 'River Man' is, apparently, Paul Weller's favourite Nick Drake song. Tales from the Riverbank is an unusual and strong Jam song, though I remember being mildly disappointed when I first heard it, as I'd read it was a real classic - i don't think the chorus or the lyric are strong enough for that, but it's definitely one of Paul Weller's prettiest songs, and preempts some of the best pastoral stuff of his solo career.
River Man is seen by many as the definitive Nick Drake song, though I would personally put a couple of others above it. It has a beautiful string arrangement and is well known for it's 5/4 time signature.
A lot of consideration has been put in to what The River is that Nick Drake is referring to, whether it's as banal as the River Cam from his university days, and just looking forward to idyllic summer days once exams were over, or whether the River Man is the guardian of the Underworld, and the song is about suicide/death. I don't think that's the case.
Pretty complex theories have been put forward about The River bring the rush of modern life forever moving forward and 'Lilac Time' is a place and time of escape, of freedom from conventions etc. Lilac Time has come to be one of the main phrases associated with Drake and his type of music - indeed Stephen Duffy (who also founded Duran Duran and co-wrote for Robbie Williams, for his sins) had a critically acclaimed band in the 1980s called The Lilac Time.
Anyway, enough of such conjecture. I'm going to be true to my word and avoid getting too heavy. I could write about my own version of a river idyll growing up, as my school was right by the Thames and I crossed Hammersmith Bridge every morning to get there, and though it's hardly the most beautiful place in the world, I did spend some happy minutes gazing on the river at school and even happier days in The Rutland, The Blue Anchor, The Dove, The Old City Arms on the other side of the river learning slowly how to drink.
The pints I had at the Blue Anchor after A-Level results a particularly fine memory - I say pints, I'm being nagged by my conscience to admit that I think I actually had four Hooches. O good lord ...
But, instead of that, my piece of whimsy refers to one of our most popular river sports. Everything about this speaks of a more innocent time, but I confess, I considered filling this verse with all manner of cuss-words, just for a giggle ...
It's called
THE WPA CHAMPIONSHIPS
There's a breathless rush of adrenaline
up and down the banks tonight,
they've come from east, they've come from west,
they've come in joy, they've come in spite.
The games they are afoot, my friend,
the fight is on its merry way,
they're taking bets along the towpath -
it's time to pick up sticks and play.
Here come the men, all shapes and sizes,
and round by round, they vie and fall
till we're down to the final two
Old Bobby McGee and Young Billy McCall
The battle's fierce, the words are bitter -
"Old man, it's time for your final bow
For you were once the King of Poohsticks
But I am the King of Poohsticks now!"
The old man's heard it all before, though,
he smiles at every taunt and pop
"Maybe you're right, son, now, let's see" -
he kisses his stick then lets it drop.
The boisterous crowd falls suddenly silent -
two sticks, one bridge, one invisible line.
The old man's held the cup for decades
but who'll be WPA Champ this time?
They needn't doubt, nor worry a second.
The famous twig sprints to a win
and with one voice they rise once more
to hail the All-time Poohsticks King.
Magnificently, since writing this, I've checked to discover that this event actually does take place near Dorchester-on-Thames in Oxfordshire and does gather large crowds of Poohsticks pilgrims.
Also, You'll no doubt remember from my very first list of songs that a band called The Pooh Sticks released a none-more-indie single called 'I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well'. Excellent.
Find the River - REM
River - Joni Mitchell
Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks
Tales of the Riverbank - The Jam
River of Dreams - Billy Joel
Moon River - Audrey Hepburn
Many Rivers to Cross - Jimmy Cliff
River - Dennis Wilson
Ole Man River - Paul Robeson
Again, this is an excellent collection of songs, though certain people may take issue with the Billy Joel song. Moon River is an all-time classic, as is Ole Man River in its way. It's good to have this Jam song and this Nick Drake song, as 'River Man' is, apparently, Paul Weller's favourite Nick Drake song. Tales from the Riverbank is an unusual and strong Jam song, though I remember being mildly disappointed when I first heard it, as I'd read it was a real classic - i don't think the chorus or the lyric are strong enough for that, but it's definitely one of Paul Weller's prettiest songs, and preempts some of the best pastoral stuff of his solo career.
River Man is seen by many as the definitive Nick Drake song, though I would personally put a couple of others above it. It has a beautiful string arrangement and is well known for it's 5/4 time signature.
A lot of consideration has been put in to what The River is that Nick Drake is referring to, whether it's as banal as the River Cam from his university days, and just looking forward to idyllic summer days once exams were over, or whether the River Man is the guardian of the Underworld, and the song is about suicide/death. I don't think that's the case.
Pretty complex theories have been put forward about The River bring the rush of modern life forever moving forward and 'Lilac Time' is a place and time of escape, of freedom from conventions etc. Lilac Time has come to be one of the main phrases associated with Drake and his type of music - indeed Stephen Duffy (who also founded Duran Duran and co-wrote for Robbie Williams, for his sins) had a critically acclaimed band in the 1980s called The Lilac Time.
Anyway, enough of such conjecture. I'm going to be true to my word and avoid getting too heavy. I could write about my own version of a river idyll growing up, as my school was right by the Thames and I crossed Hammersmith Bridge every morning to get there, and though it's hardly the most beautiful place in the world, I did spend some happy minutes gazing on the river at school and even happier days in The Rutland, The Blue Anchor, The Dove, The Old City Arms on the other side of the river learning slowly how to drink.
The pints I had at the Blue Anchor after A-Level results a particularly fine memory - I say pints, I'm being nagged by my conscience to admit that I think I actually had four Hooches. O good lord ...
But, instead of that, my piece of whimsy refers to one of our most popular river sports. Everything about this speaks of a more innocent time, but I confess, I considered filling this verse with all manner of cuss-words, just for a giggle ...
It's called
THE WPA CHAMPIONSHIPS
There's a breathless rush of adrenaline
up and down the banks tonight,
they've come from east, they've come from west,
they've come in joy, they've come in spite.
The games they are afoot, my friend,
the fight is on its merry way,
they're taking bets along the towpath -
it's time to pick up sticks and play.
Here come the men, all shapes and sizes,
and round by round, they vie and fall
till we're down to the final two
Old Bobby McGee and Young Billy McCall
The battle's fierce, the words are bitter -
"Old man, it's time for your final bow
For you were once the King of Poohsticks
But I am the King of Poohsticks now!"
The old man's heard it all before, though,
he smiles at every taunt and pop
"Maybe you're right, son, now, let's see" -
he kisses his stick then lets it drop.
The boisterous crowd falls suddenly silent -
two sticks, one bridge, one invisible line.
The old man's held the cup for decades
but who'll be WPA Champ this time?
They needn't doubt, nor worry a second.
The famous twig sprints to a win
and with one voice they rise once more
to hail the All-time Poohsticks King.
Magnificently, since writing this, I've checked to discover that this event actually does take place near Dorchester-on-Thames in Oxfordshire and does gather large crowds of Poohsticks pilgrims.
Also, You'll no doubt remember from my very first list of songs that a band called The Pooh Sticks released a none-more-indie single called 'I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well'. Excellent.
Friday, 15 May 2009
29. 10 Songs about the Crash
Leader of the Pack - The Shangri-Las
Lucky - Radiohead
Crash - The Primitives
Plane Crash in C - Rilo Kiley
In My Hour of Darkness - Gram Parsons
Packing for the Crash - Tom McRae
M.I.A - Emmy the Great
I Want My Baby Back - Jimmy Cross
A Day in the Life - The Beatles
Always Crashing in the Same Car - David Bowie
Goodness, it's been a fair while since I've posted anything, not just because I've been busy with beer and weddings and work and illness, and not even because I'm running low on ideas, believe it or not - that time is yet to come, though come it will. It's more because on looking over my posts, I found them uncomfortably eager to search for poignancy, or whatever you call it, and I felt particularly chastened by an excellent interview with the genius Gruff Rhys in The Independent, where he talks about hating earnest songs. All this shit is maybe a bit too earnest, a bit too gloomy.
So, this one's about car and plane crashes ....
But, in my defence, you should listen to I Want My Baby Back by Jimmy Cross, and tell me that's not a funny song. We used to listen to it when we were kids and i've recently rediscovered it.
So, people obviously have a fascination with crashes and collisions and disasters, I remember we used to be shown old Pathe clips of things like the Hindenburg and Sir Donald Campbell when we were at school and i don't think there was any reason but for entertainment. Some people, as in one of the recent films named 'Crash', take that fascination to disturbing extremes.
To be honest, I find both 'Crash' films very unsatisfactory for differing reasons, I thought the Paul Haggis Oscar-winner was lots of great scenes which amounted to total nothing.
Nowadays, each crash will be more and more likely to be recorded for posterity from every angle and they'll be the most watched clips on youtube, for sure.
What I write below was about that car that blocked the East Coast mainline a few years ago because the driver fell asleep at the wheel, resulting in a terrible train crash. It put me in mind of the book The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (Party Liaison), which I remember my friend Wieland directing me towards many many years ago, suggesting it said a lot to him about the way God works in the world - mysterious ways and all that. It's about a friar seeing a bridge collapsing and then enquiring into the lives of all the people who died in search of cosmic significance. It's a fine book, and explains why I, rather grandiloquently, called this
If God Guides, He Guides Like This
Any other minute
of any other day
Any other driver
of any other car
Any other bridge
like San Luis Rey
Any other fireball
on some other star
Lucky - Radiohead
Crash - The Primitives
Plane Crash in C - Rilo Kiley
In My Hour of Darkness - Gram Parsons
Packing for the Crash - Tom McRae
M.I.A - Emmy the Great
I Want My Baby Back - Jimmy Cross
A Day in the Life - The Beatles
Always Crashing in the Same Car - David Bowie
Goodness, it's been a fair while since I've posted anything, not just because I've been busy with beer and weddings and work and illness, and not even because I'm running low on ideas, believe it or not - that time is yet to come, though come it will. It's more because on looking over my posts, I found them uncomfortably eager to search for poignancy, or whatever you call it, and I felt particularly chastened by an excellent interview with the genius Gruff Rhys in The Independent, where he talks about hating earnest songs. All this shit is maybe a bit too earnest, a bit too gloomy.
So, this one's about car and plane crashes ....
But, in my defence, you should listen to I Want My Baby Back by Jimmy Cross, and tell me that's not a funny song. We used to listen to it when we were kids and i've recently rediscovered it.
So, people obviously have a fascination with crashes and collisions and disasters, I remember we used to be shown old Pathe clips of things like the Hindenburg and Sir Donald Campbell when we were at school and i don't think there was any reason but for entertainment. Some people, as in one of the recent films named 'Crash', take that fascination to disturbing extremes.
To be honest, I find both 'Crash' films very unsatisfactory for differing reasons, I thought the Paul Haggis Oscar-winner was lots of great scenes which amounted to total nothing.
Nowadays, each crash will be more and more likely to be recorded for posterity from every angle and they'll be the most watched clips on youtube, for sure.
What I write below was about that car that blocked the East Coast mainline a few years ago because the driver fell asleep at the wheel, resulting in a terrible train crash. It put me in mind of the book The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (Party Liaison), which I remember my friend Wieland directing me towards many many years ago, suggesting it said a lot to him about the way God works in the world - mysterious ways and all that. It's about a friar seeing a bridge collapsing and then enquiring into the lives of all the people who died in search of cosmic significance. It's a fine book, and explains why I, rather grandiloquently, called this
If God Guides, He Guides Like This
Any other minute
of any other day
Any other driver
of any other car
Any other bridge
like San Luis Rey
Any other fireball
on some other star
Sunday, 3 May 2009
28. 10 Songs about somewhere , sometime, something, someday over the rainbow
Something Changed - Pulp
Speak to me Someone - Gene
Somewhere - Tom Waits
Someday - The Strokes
Some Jingle Jangle Morning (When I'm Straight) - Mary Lou Lord
Over the Rainbow - Judy Garland
I Must Belong Somewhere - Bright Eyes
Someday Soon - Wilco
Something Good - Bic Runga
Somehow, Someday - Ryan Adams
This is a thought that has come to me fairly recently, which all these songs touch on in some way. It's about some moment in the past or in the future, memory and hope, how much is enough to live for, that kind of thing.
These songs are about a moment/person/place which is ineffable, which gives hope and meaning when there oughtn't be any.
I guess, bookwise, I had on my mind The Road by Cormac McCarthy (again) and Straw Dogs by John Gray, which both paint a powerfully bleak picture of mankind's future (one fiction, one philosophy) but end with some kind of light, which, when summed up, isn't that much different from how Gone with the Wind ends i.e. you've just got to keep on keeping on. I do a gross injustice to all works with that summary.
I also had on my mind, as mentioned below, The Great Gatsby and the film American Beauty, not that I'm suggesting they hold comparable places in American culture, but they both end with the protagonist having their brains blown out, and yet, and yet, we are meant to see some beauty, some meaning, something about what these protagonists saw and experienced towards the end or at the every end of their lives which made everything worthwhile.
I've explained all this wretchedly, I'm sorry. In truth, I'm dizzy like Ricky from a pretty paltry portion of white wine, and am also trying to concentrate on MOTD2. Tough times
(I'm tempted to put this into really small type, cos I wrote it in really tiny letters, but I fear that would set a crazy-fonted precedent which no one wants)
You didn't believe me when I told you
there were choirs of angels at my command
or at least some London soul-pop scene
You wouldn't believe me if it was just one kid
playing old folk songs on an old recorder
I don't know what I can do to persuade you
that a moment happened, somewhere, sometime -
pens stopped scribbling and ears stopped burning
There was no depression and no Nashville country
this moment is somewhere in someone's memory
and it makes everything that will happen ok
It's a kiss, or a song, or a smile, or something
It's a family offering a coke can to a stranger
while an old jukebox plays a young Van Morrison.
You know, we joked about coins behind cushions -
but it matters now, every ten pence upwards
Cos' they're coming to just rip that shit up
and burn it down in the same sad instant
You don't believe anything I tell you
You don't believe me when I tell you my tombstone
should read 'I was right about Ryan Giggs
All of this is no surprise to me' but
if i can just persuade you to believe that something,
that something's there inside of someone
A winter sun on a hospital ward or a
calendar ticking over and freezing in time -
this is just me stiffening my resolve
cos that look in your eyes makes me doubt myself
but you've read books - The Great Gatsby, whatever,
you've seen films, say, American Beauty.
Fat lot of use we both are to anyone.
Do I have to tear myself open to see
streams of gold, or some weak CGI?
If I have to, I'll tear myself open to you
for you to just have the start of a feeling
that something once happened worth carrying on for.
Pretty much as explained, wasn't it? Not much more to say on the matter ...
Speak to me Someone - Gene
Somewhere - Tom Waits
Someday - The Strokes
Some Jingle Jangle Morning (When I'm Straight) - Mary Lou Lord
Over the Rainbow - Judy Garland
I Must Belong Somewhere - Bright Eyes
Someday Soon - Wilco
Something Good - Bic Runga
Somehow, Someday - Ryan Adams
This is a thought that has come to me fairly recently, which all these songs touch on in some way. It's about some moment in the past or in the future, memory and hope, how much is enough to live for, that kind of thing.
These songs are about a moment/person/place which is ineffable, which gives hope and meaning when there oughtn't be any.
I guess, bookwise, I had on my mind The Road by Cormac McCarthy (again) and Straw Dogs by John Gray, which both paint a powerfully bleak picture of mankind's future (one fiction, one philosophy) but end with some kind of light, which, when summed up, isn't that much different from how Gone with the Wind ends i.e. you've just got to keep on keeping on. I do a gross injustice to all works with that summary.
I also had on my mind, as mentioned below, The Great Gatsby and the film American Beauty, not that I'm suggesting they hold comparable places in American culture, but they both end with the protagonist having their brains blown out, and yet, and yet, we are meant to see some beauty, some meaning, something about what these protagonists saw and experienced towards the end or at the every end of their lives which made everything worthwhile.
I've explained all this wretchedly, I'm sorry. In truth, I'm dizzy like Ricky from a pretty paltry portion of white wine, and am also trying to concentrate on MOTD2. Tough times
(I'm tempted to put this into really small type, cos I wrote it in really tiny letters, but I fear that would set a crazy-fonted precedent which no one wants)
You didn't believe me when I told you
there were choirs of angels at my command
or at least some London soul-pop scene
You wouldn't believe me if it was just one kid
playing old folk songs on an old recorder
I don't know what I can do to persuade you
that a moment happened, somewhere, sometime -
pens stopped scribbling and ears stopped burning
There was no depression and no Nashville country
this moment is somewhere in someone's memory
and it makes everything that will happen ok
It's a kiss, or a song, or a smile, or something
It's a family offering a coke can to a stranger
while an old jukebox plays a young Van Morrison.
You know, we joked about coins behind cushions -
but it matters now, every ten pence upwards
Cos' they're coming to just rip that shit up
and burn it down in the same sad instant
You don't believe anything I tell you
You don't believe me when I tell you my tombstone
should read 'I was right about Ryan Giggs
All of this is no surprise to me' but
if i can just persuade you to believe that something,
that something's there inside of someone
A winter sun on a hospital ward or a
calendar ticking over and freezing in time -
this is just me stiffening my resolve
cos that look in your eyes makes me doubt myself
but you've read books - The Great Gatsby, whatever,
you've seen films, say, American Beauty.
Fat lot of use we both are to anyone.
Do I have to tear myself open to see
streams of gold, or some weak CGI?
If I have to, I'll tear myself open to you
for you to just have the start of a feeling
that something once happened worth carrying on for.
Pretty much as explained, wasn't it? Not much more to say on the matter ...
Friday, 1 May 2009
27. 10 Ship Songs
Slaveship - Josh Rouse
Ship Song - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Boots of Spanish Leather - Bob Dylan
Paper Ships - The Young Republic
Shipbuilding - Elvis Costello
Sloop John B - Beach Boys
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
The Mariner's Revenge Song - The Decemberists
Proud Mary - Ike & Tina Turner
Boat Song - Jeremy Warmsley ft Emmy the Great
Again, this is a topic which is pretty widely covered - I've left off one of Bob Dylan's greatest songs When the Ship Comes In, and a range of Liverpool songs, from The Coral's Spanish Main, through Shack's HMS Fable, The La's and the Beatles even, to Ferry Cross the Mersey. Then there's Randy Newman, David Gray, Crosby, Stills & Nash, all kinds of stuff. These rock'n'roll folk like their boats.
These are all pretty great songs, though I used to think Sloop John B was out of place on Pet Sounds. I remember hearing the Nick Cave song on Home & Away once - a beautiful moment for a lover of both these jewels of Australian culture.
Something tells me we haven't seen the last of water as a topic, but these ones do pretty much stick to naval travel, so I think I'll be able to find a new idea within that.
Obviously, sailing used to be more than a leisure activity, and all those folk who set off down the centuries not knowing what on earth they would find, if anything, is pretty intense. Even now, there are some pretty unknowable things that can happen at sea - you should look up the story of Donald Crowhurst, who took part in a round the world race at the end of the 60s - one of the weirdest and saddest things you'll ever hear.
Anyway, thinking back to all those conquistadors
I've got a feeling I've been here before, you know,
wherever I am, squinting whichever way I look,
drawing breath - for wonders I may never find,
new lines on maps, old lines in new books.
I miss my home, I think, though I can't recall it
but I've pain in my guts for something I've lost
and the nameless victims of ageless kingdoms
are just marks on the map of the lines I've crossed.
I must be wearing a new skin by now
but maybe I'm closer to where I started.
Soon I must choose to fly or to freeze,
to embrace or dismiss the spaces I've charted.
I must be forgotten now where I'm from -
I can barely recall myself these days.
I've got a little something to soothe this headache -
I'll save my decisions for a sombre haze.
New territories are for the taking, I'm sure
and new glories are mine, my right to claim
and my name and its versions will cover this map,
if I can but be sure I remember my name.
Logic dictates there'll be land before long
was the last thing I wrote three weeks ago
but that wave is mine, and this thought is mine,
this mind, this form, this little I know.
Ship Song - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Boots of Spanish Leather - Bob Dylan
Paper Ships - The Young Republic
Shipbuilding - Elvis Costello
Sloop John B - Beach Boys
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
The Mariner's Revenge Song - The Decemberists
Proud Mary - Ike & Tina Turner
Boat Song - Jeremy Warmsley ft Emmy the Great
Again, this is a topic which is pretty widely covered - I've left off one of Bob Dylan's greatest songs When the Ship Comes In, and a range of Liverpool songs, from The Coral's Spanish Main, through Shack's HMS Fable, The La's and the Beatles even, to Ferry Cross the Mersey. Then there's Randy Newman, David Gray, Crosby, Stills & Nash, all kinds of stuff. These rock'n'roll folk like their boats.
These are all pretty great songs, though I used to think Sloop John B was out of place on Pet Sounds. I remember hearing the Nick Cave song on Home & Away once - a beautiful moment for a lover of both these jewels of Australian culture.
Something tells me we haven't seen the last of water as a topic, but these ones do pretty much stick to naval travel, so I think I'll be able to find a new idea within that.
Obviously, sailing used to be more than a leisure activity, and all those folk who set off down the centuries not knowing what on earth they would find, if anything, is pretty intense. Even now, there are some pretty unknowable things that can happen at sea - you should look up the story of Donald Crowhurst, who took part in a round the world race at the end of the 60s - one of the weirdest and saddest things you'll ever hear.
Anyway, thinking back to all those conquistadors
I've got a feeling I've been here before, you know,
wherever I am, squinting whichever way I look,
drawing breath - for wonders I may never find,
new lines on maps, old lines in new books.
I miss my home, I think, though I can't recall it
but I've pain in my guts for something I've lost
and the nameless victims of ageless kingdoms
are just marks on the map of the lines I've crossed.
I must be wearing a new skin by now
but maybe I'm closer to where I started.
Soon I must choose to fly or to freeze,
to embrace or dismiss the spaces I've charted.
I must be forgotten now where I'm from -
I can barely recall myself these days.
I've got a little something to soothe this headache -
I'll save my decisions for a sombre haze.
New territories are for the taking, I'm sure
and new glories are mine, my right to claim
and my name and its versions will cover this map,
if I can but be sure I remember my name.
Logic dictates there'll be land before long
was the last thing I wrote three weeks ago
but that wave is mine, and this thought is mine,
this mind, this form, this little I know.
Thursday, 30 April 2009
26. 10 Songs for or about Small Children
Forever Young - Bob Dylan
Sarah - Thin Lizzy
Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby - Gillian Welch, Allison Krauss and Emmylou Harris
Rufus is a Tit man- Loudon Wainwright III
Beautiful Boy - John Lennon
We Almost Had a Baby - Emmy the Great
Baby Learns to Crawl - Paul Westerberg
Dear Prudence - The Beatles
Just the Two of Us - Will Smith
Kids (Rise from the Ashes) - Ed Harcourt
Everyone's having kids these days. I got my fourth nephew/niece this week so this is an apposite topic.
I was speaking recently to someone a generation or so up from me who described it as 'brave' of people to have children in this day of age of the world we live in. I said that I'm not sure bravery comes in to it and then we agreed that this wasn't necessarily a uniquely bleak time for humanity, as she and her generation had been born into a world of war, and previous generations had been born into times of plague, poverty and horror.
But still, bearing in mind the forecasts, one does hope for the best for those born now, that they have plenty of time to chill out and mess about and not have to do deal with too many cataclysms. 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy is a novel which deals with what the life of a child might be in the not-too-distant future.
I've begun to note that a lot of my verses have a some what apocalyptic feel to them, this one included. I suspect this is a sign of limited imagination. Funnily enough, it doesn't really preoccupy my thoughts. Mainly I think about the deeds of left-sided sportspeople and the end of the world doesn't really come into it. Maybe, in any case, the great left-sided sportspeople will save us all.
May the days of your life stretch the world's span
beyond the dire theories and predictions
of wise men and fools, their number growing,
who hold no hope for your generation.
May the hairs on your head keep on curling
and the smile on your face keep on widening
till you laugh at the fear and destruction
bound to disfigure the web of your days.
Let the notes that you take be of service
to you and all other folk around you.
Waste no thought on idle superstitions;
time is short - the mistakes made already.
Let your heart be open to adventure,
Grab the gifts that come your way with relish.
Stand in fear of man nor woman neither -
make your own place high on the ladder.
May each day of your life be a treasure
to the world that yet gives you its welcome.
As leaves fall, as lives pass, keep yourself strong
in the safety of love you were born to.
I think the 3rd line of the fourth verse is ungrammatical but i couldn't think of another way to do it as well.
I hope this generation gets their own Adam Gilchrists and Jimmy Whites and Rafael Nadals and David Gowers and Jonny Wilkinsons and Ryan Giggses and John McEnroes and Paolo Maldinis and Joe Calzaghes and Brian Laras.
I feel I should point out these are all left-sided sportspeople.
Sarah - Thin Lizzy
Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby - Gillian Welch, Allison Krauss and Emmylou Harris
Rufus is a Tit man- Loudon Wainwright III
Beautiful Boy - John Lennon
We Almost Had a Baby - Emmy the Great
Baby Learns to Crawl - Paul Westerberg
Dear Prudence - The Beatles
Just the Two of Us - Will Smith
Kids (Rise from the Ashes) - Ed Harcourt
Everyone's having kids these days. I got my fourth nephew/niece this week so this is an apposite topic.
I was speaking recently to someone a generation or so up from me who described it as 'brave' of people to have children in this day of age of the world we live in. I said that I'm not sure bravery comes in to it and then we agreed that this wasn't necessarily a uniquely bleak time for humanity, as she and her generation had been born into a world of war, and previous generations had been born into times of plague, poverty and horror.
But still, bearing in mind the forecasts, one does hope for the best for those born now, that they have plenty of time to chill out and mess about and not have to do deal with too many cataclysms. 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy is a novel which deals with what the life of a child might be in the not-too-distant future.
I've begun to note that a lot of my verses have a some what apocalyptic feel to them, this one included. I suspect this is a sign of limited imagination. Funnily enough, it doesn't really preoccupy my thoughts. Mainly I think about the deeds of left-sided sportspeople and the end of the world doesn't really come into it. Maybe, in any case, the great left-sided sportspeople will save us all.
May the days of your life stretch the world's span
beyond the dire theories and predictions
of wise men and fools, their number growing,
who hold no hope for your generation.
May the hairs on your head keep on curling
and the smile on your face keep on widening
till you laugh at the fear and destruction
bound to disfigure the web of your days.
Let the notes that you take be of service
to you and all other folk around you.
Waste no thought on idle superstitions;
time is short - the mistakes made already.
Let your heart be open to adventure,
Grab the gifts that come your way with relish.
Stand in fear of man nor woman neither -
make your own place high on the ladder.
May each day of your life be a treasure
to the world that yet gives you its welcome.
As leaves fall, as lives pass, keep yourself strong
in the safety of love you were born to.
I think the 3rd line of the fourth verse is ungrammatical but i couldn't think of another way to do it as well.
I hope this generation gets their own Adam Gilchrists and Jimmy Whites and Rafael Nadals and David Gowers and Jonny Wilkinsons and Ryan Giggses and John McEnroes and Paolo Maldinis and Joe Calzaghes and Brian Laras.
I feel I should point out these are all left-sided sportspeople.
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
25. 10 Songs about Heavenly Creatures and Celestial Bodies by Ash
Shining Light - Ash
Angel Interceptor - Ash
There's a Star - Ash
Starcrossed - Ash
Jesus Says - Ash
Jack Names the Planets - Ash
Aphrodite - Ash
Polaris -Ash
Girl frm Mars - Ash
Orpheus - Ash
And that's not to mention the b-sides.
It doesn't take too much familiarity with their work to notice that Ash have certain lyrical preoccupations - stars, planets, angels, deities, that kind of thing.
Ash aren't everyone's cup of tea, I know, and they even attract contempt in some circles, but I really think they're hugely underrated, and some of the things people slate them for are actually strengths. People talk about Tim Wheeler's thin voice and their immature song subjects, but for me their greatest moments lie in the expression of, and nostalgia for, a perennial adolescence, some attempt to articulate and recapture a golden moment in one's youth, and the voice is a part of that. Believe me, it sounds strong enough when you see them live.
I've seen them twice, and one of those, outside at Somerset House on the hottest day of the summer of 2003, was really one of the beautiful gigs of all time, a succession of sun-drenched hits, from Burn Baby Burn to Oh Yeah, Wild Surf (the sun, summer, beaches and surfing being Ash's other great lyrical preoccupation - Walking Barefoot, Orpheus, On a Wave, Oh Yeah, Pacific Palisades etc), Envy, A Life Less Ordinary, Kung Fu, every one a stunner.
A way to sum up Ash's milieu is a combination of Star Wars and The Beach Boys - now I'm not saying these are things to live your life by, (in fact you might suggest that they are linked by breathtaking technical accomplishment being allied to a determinedly childish world view) but it's a pretty great combination if you're in the mood.
They've gone off the boil a couple of times, I accept, and one wonders, as they enter their thirties, if they'll still be able to work credibly within their limited oeuvre, but 1977 and in particular Free All Angels are near-perfect albums. The latter, I think, tops everything else by any of the Britpop generation bands - to some, not a great claim, I accept.
Stargazing's a rare thing for us city folk, and I'd be lying if I said I missed it particularly - the universe is big but once you decide that most of that bigness doesn't apply to you at all, there are plenty of things to keep you occupied on ground level.
However, it is a pretty picture when it's the right night and you're far enough out of town - it never ceases to amaze how many more little dots you can pick out the more and more your eyes adjust to the blackness.
I blinked; they say a shooting star
flashed 'cross the autumn sky.
Time was I saw nine a night -
wouldn't it be nice?
Say it's a satellite,
you see them all the time
but I'm blinking all the time
hiding from the light.
Say it would be nice
and it would be great
a sheet of stars for blackest night
and creeping through the meanest streets
and stumbling through the baddest lands
all these dark nights of the soul
never figured in my plans.
I think I saw a shooting star
tumbling 'cross the awesome sky.
I could be wrong, I'm usually wrong
but wouldn't it be time?
Angel Interceptor - Ash
There's a Star - Ash
Starcrossed - Ash
Jesus Says - Ash
Jack Names the Planets - Ash
Aphrodite - Ash
Polaris -Ash
Girl frm Mars - Ash
Orpheus - Ash
And that's not to mention the b-sides.
It doesn't take too much familiarity with their work to notice that Ash have certain lyrical preoccupations - stars, planets, angels, deities, that kind of thing.
Ash aren't everyone's cup of tea, I know, and they even attract contempt in some circles, but I really think they're hugely underrated, and some of the things people slate them for are actually strengths. People talk about Tim Wheeler's thin voice and their immature song subjects, but for me their greatest moments lie in the expression of, and nostalgia for, a perennial adolescence, some attempt to articulate and recapture a golden moment in one's youth, and the voice is a part of that. Believe me, it sounds strong enough when you see them live.
I've seen them twice, and one of those, outside at Somerset House on the hottest day of the summer of 2003, was really one of the beautiful gigs of all time, a succession of sun-drenched hits, from Burn Baby Burn to Oh Yeah, Wild Surf (the sun, summer, beaches and surfing being Ash's other great lyrical preoccupation - Walking Barefoot, Orpheus, On a Wave, Oh Yeah, Pacific Palisades etc), Envy, A Life Less Ordinary, Kung Fu, every one a stunner.
A way to sum up Ash's milieu is a combination of Star Wars and The Beach Boys - now I'm not saying these are things to live your life by, (in fact you might suggest that they are linked by breathtaking technical accomplishment being allied to a determinedly childish world view) but it's a pretty great combination if you're in the mood.
They've gone off the boil a couple of times, I accept, and one wonders, as they enter their thirties, if they'll still be able to work credibly within their limited oeuvre, but 1977 and in particular Free All Angels are near-perfect albums. The latter, I think, tops everything else by any of the Britpop generation bands - to some, not a great claim, I accept.
Stargazing's a rare thing for us city folk, and I'd be lying if I said I missed it particularly - the universe is big but once you decide that most of that bigness doesn't apply to you at all, there are plenty of things to keep you occupied on ground level.
However, it is a pretty picture when it's the right night and you're far enough out of town - it never ceases to amaze how many more little dots you can pick out the more and more your eyes adjust to the blackness.
I blinked; they say a shooting star
flashed 'cross the autumn sky.
Time was I saw nine a night -
wouldn't it be nice?
Say it's a satellite,
you see them all the time
but I'm blinking all the time
hiding from the light.
Say it would be nice
and it would be great
a sheet of stars for blackest night
and creeping through the meanest streets
and stumbling through the baddest lands
all these dark nights of the soul
never figured in my plans.
I think I saw a shooting star
tumbling 'cross the awesome sky.
I could be wrong, I'm usually wrong
but wouldn't it be time?
Sunday, 26 April 2009
23. 10 Songs about New York and 24. 10 Songs for the Celtic Diaspora
I've put these two together, because, as you will see, they are linked together fairly closely in how I've approached them
10 Songs about New York
Myriad Harbour - New Pornographers
New York City Cops - The Strokes
Waiting for the Man - Velvet Underground
Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters - Elton John
NYC - Interpol
Across 110th Street - Bobby Womack
Spanish Harlem Incident - Bob Dylan
The Only Living Boy in New York - Simon and Garfunkel
Chelsea Hotel No 2 - Leonard Cohen
Rapture - Blondie
So these are the ten songs I've chosen about New York, though there are, of course, literally 100s and 100s to choose from, and some of them the finest songs in all popular music. I've tried to go for a fairly varied selection, which give a feel of the city and bring to mind specific places.
Not that I really know. I only went there once, and spent a frenetic fortnight trying to see every inch of the city I possibly could.
Not only do you get two lists for the price of one here, but within this first list you get two verses for the price of one (hurray) both brief, one about one of New York's finest, who is on the list above, one about the city itself.
Here's the first.
Deborah Harry: embarrassing granny
or the coolest fucker in the world?
I choose the latter - 63 year-old rapper.
There's still no topping the Sunday Girl.
Quite some life Debbie Harry has led. You don't meet many people who don't like Blondie at least a bit but I know one or two, and that did lead me to pause for thought before embracing the spectacle of seeing them doing Rapture in London and at Latitude a couple of years ago. Cool? Ridiculous?
Here's the second - you could call it Netherland if you were being a bit too clever
This isn't what I expected - first thing that I saw
from the back of a yellow cab, driving through Brooklyn
was cricket. And have I missed something or is
everywhere uptown these days? I'm not complaining
like I'm not complaining that my seaside town hunch
will have no use. This sure ain't Bob Dylan's New York
Oh so neatly, mention of Bob Dylan leads into my next post
10 Songs for the Celtic Diaspora
Letter from America - The Proclaimers
My National Pride - Dexys Midnight Runners
Sally MacLennane - The Pogues
Madame George - Van Morrison
Irish Blood, English Heart - Morrissey
The Parting Glass - The Clancy Brothers
Let's Get out of this Country - Camera Obscura
Shipping up to Boston - Dropkick Murphys
Fairytale of New York - The Pogues
Apple of my Eye- Damien Dempsey
The Celtic Diaspora, of course, encompasses a pretty large chunk of the population of the Western world, from Sydney to Ealing to Boston to New York. Letter from America is a particularly awesome song for the Scottish overseas, and I love the way it's what Declan sings drunk at a wedding at the start of 'The Commitments' which Jimmy says is 'something approximating music' - The Commitments, of course, is a film about soul music, and they sing and play American soul music, rather than the more limited genre of Celtic Soul, which has a line from Van Morrison to Dexys across to the Proclaimers ... and not that much else. Limited it may be, but if you are one of those strong devoted to Dexys Midnight Runners in particular, it is worth the effort.
Anyway, what's Bob Dylan got to do this, you've no doubt forgotten to ask? Well, as indicated above, the New York in my head was Bob Dylan's New York, of his early songs, of his Chronicles, of Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home, where, on cold, bleak(er) streets, he learnt his art in various dives, from folk/blues singers of various traditions, whether the Irish folk of The Clancy Brothers or the Blues/Protest songs of Odetta.
I went to a Bob Dylan tribute a few years back. It was a real fun event, and the stars of the show were without doubt the garrulous Liam Clancy, of whom Bob Dylan has said "I never heard a singer as good as Liam. He was just the best ballad singer I heard in my life' and the frail Odetta Holmes, of whom Bob Dylan said "the first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta". Of all the music I have ever seen in my whole life, there has never been, and will never be, anything as moving as Odetta, shrunken and barely able to stand, holding the crowd utterly enthralled for the 10 minutes of her version of Mr.Tambourine Man with the strongest, boldest voice you ever heard. It was a real privilege.
Odetta died last year, a few weeks before Obama's inauguration, which she had hoped to perform at.
Anyway, the event (not her death, but the concert at the Barbican) prompted this reaction from me, called
LIAM & ODETTA (not unreasonably)
In the back room in the White Horse Tavern
One parting glass to toast days of the past
the fetid air filled with rebel songs, fervent
desires that the best days will forever last.
In your unfurnished flat off Harrowby Street,
we soaked up your folk songs from a world we didn't know
Tommy Makem, Liam Clancy, low, bold and sweet
children's songs, rebel songs, strong, proud and slow.
She had Odetta, you had Liam Clancy
but those were the days and they didn't last forever
though last night, my eyes saw the sweetest surprise
Odetta and Liam Clancy were back together.
She had Odetta, you had Liam Clancy
and I've got Bob Dylan at the centre of all
from strange fruit hanging to blowing in the wind
from the White Horse Tavern to the Barbican Hall.
These rebel songs, Paddy, they will not accept
the lot they've been given, beaten and bowed.
What's happened to us all, Dad, what happened to you?
Where's your rebel song now, where's my rebel song now?
A billion exile hearts keep on fighting
to find a solution, a direction home,
So where's the fight now, the will to escape
from the fate of the unmourned, incomplete unknown?
She knew enough and she loved Odetta
She knew enough to go where she needed
History's given a million clear warnings
but I ain't got the rebel heart to heed it.
Liam led us in Those Were The Days
but, fuck, I'm still young, it's not yet my time
to give up on the present and cry for the past
So I'll bid farewell and move on down the line
So, there we go, Bob Dylan at the centre of all, again. I think I include too many swear words. There's really no need for it.
10 Songs about New York
Myriad Harbour - New Pornographers
New York City Cops - The Strokes
Waiting for the Man - Velvet Underground
Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters - Elton John
NYC - Interpol
Across 110th Street - Bobby Womack
Spanish Harlem Incident - Bob Dylan
The Only Living Boy in New York - Simon and Garfunkel
Chelsea Hotel No 2 - Leonard Cohen
Rapture - Blondie
So these are the ten songs I've chosen about New York, though there are, of course, literally 100s and 100s to choose from, and some of them the finest songs in all popular music. I've tried to go for a fairly varied selection, which give a feel of the city and bring to mind specific places.
Not that I really know. I only went there once, and spent a frenetic fortnight trying to see every inch of the city I possibly could.
Not only do you get two lists for the price of one here, but within this first list you get two verses for the price of one (hurray) both brief, one about one of New York's finest, who is on the list above, one about the city itself.
Here's the first.
Deborah Harry: embarrassing granny
or the coolest fucker in the world?
I choose the latter - 63 year-old rapper.
There's still no topping the Sunday Girl.
Quite some life Debbie Harry has led. You don't meet many people who don't like Blondie at least a bit but I know one or two, and that did lead me to pause for thought before embracing the spectacle of seeing them doing Rapture in London and at Latitude a couple of years ago. Cool? Ridiculous?
Here's the second - you could call it Netherland if you were being a bit too clever
This isn't what I expected - first thing that I saw
from the back of a yellow cab, driving through Brooklyn
was cricket. And have I missed something or is
everywhere uptown these days? I'm not complaining
like I'm not complaining that my seaside town hunch
will have no use. This sure ain't Bob Dylan's New York
Oh so neatly, mention of Bob Dylan leads into my next post
10 Songs for the Celtic Diaspora
Letter from America - The Proclaimers
My National Pride - Dexys Midnight Runners
Sally MacLennane - The Pogues
Madame George - Van Morrison
Irish Blood, English Heart - Morrissey
The Parting Glass - The Clancy Brothers
Let's Get out of this Country - Camera Obscura
Shipping up to Boston - Dropkick Murphys
Fairytale of New York - The Pogues
Apple of my Eye- Damien Dempsey
The Celtic Diaspora, of course, encompasses a pretty large chunk of the population of the Western world, from Sydney to Ealing to Boston to New York. Letter from America is a particularly awesome song for the Scottish overseas, and I love the way it's what Declan sings drunk at a wedding at the start of 'The Commitments' which Jimmy says is 'something approximating music' - The Commitments, of course, is a film about soul music, and they sing and play American soul music, rather than the more limited genre of Celtic Soul, which has a line from Van Morrison to Dexys across to the Proclaimers ... and not that much else. Limited it may be, but if you are one of those strong devoted to Dexys Midnight Runners in particular, it is worth the effort.
Anyway, what's Bob Dylan got to do this, you've no doubt forgotten to ask? Well, as indicated above, the New York in my head was Bob Dylan's New York, of his early songs, of his Chronicles, of Martin Scorsese's No Direction Home, where, on cold, bleak(er) streets, he learnt his art in various dives, from folk/blues singers of various traditions, whether the Irish folk of The Clancy Brothers or the Blues/Protest songs of Odetta.
I went to a Bob Dylan tribute a few years back. It was a real fun event, and the stars of the show were without doubt the garrulous Liam Clancy, of whom Bob Dylan has said "I never heard a singer as good as Liam. He was just the best ballad singer I heard in my life' and the frail Odetta Holmes, of whom Bob Dylan said "the first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta". Of all the music I have ever seen in my whole life, there has never been, and will never be, anything as moving as Odetta, shrunken and barely able to stand, holding the crowd utterly enthralled for the 10 minutes of her version of Mr.Tambourine Man with the strongest, boldest voice you ever heard. It was a real privilege.
Odetta died last year, a few weeks before Obama's inauguration, which she had hoped to perform at.
Anyway, the event (not her death, but the concert at the Barbican) prompted this reaction from me, called
LIAM & ODETTA (not unreasonably)
In the back room in the White Horse Tavern
One parting glass to toast days of the past
the fetid air filled with rebel songs, fervent
desires that the best days will forever last.
In your unfurnished flat off Harrowby Street,
we soaked up your folk songs from a world we didn't know
Tommy Makem, Liam Clancy, low, bold and sweet
children's songs, rebel songs, strong, proud and slow.
She had Odetta, you had Liam Clancy
but those were the days and they didn't last forever
though last night, my eyes saw the sweetest surprise
Odetta and Liam Clancy were back together.
She had Odetta, you had Liam Clancy
and I've got Bob Dylan at the centre of all
from strange fruit hanging to blowing in the wind
from the White Horse Tavern to the Barbican Hall.
These rebel songs, Paddy, they will not accept
the lot they've been given, beaten and bowed.
What's happened to us all, Dad, what happened to you?
Where's your rebel song now, where's my rebel song now?
A billion exile hearts keep on fighting
to find a solution, a direction home,
So where's the fight now, the will to escape
from the fate of the unmourned, incomplete unknown?
She knew enough and she loved Odetta
She knew enough to go where she needed
History's given a million clear warnings
but I ain't got the rebel heart to heed it.
Liam led us in Those Were The Days
but, fuck, I'm still young, it's not yet my time
to give up on the present and cry for the past
So I'll bid farewell and move on down the line
So, there we go, Bob Dylan at the centre of all, again. I think I include too many swear words. There's really no need for it.
Thursday, 23 April 2009
22. 10 Songs about the Circus and Clowns
Send in the Clowns - Frank Sinatra
Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite - The Beatles
Trapeze Swinger - Iron & Wine
Tears of a Clown - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
Acrobat - Maximo Park
Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
Cathy's Clown - The Everly Brothers
Walking on a Wire (or The Great Valerio) - Richard and Linda Thompson
Clowns - Goldfrapp
My Wandering Days are Over - Belle and Sebastian (or The Circus is Leaving Town - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan)
Perhaps Mr Frith might hope for Circus by Erasure, but, you know, I listened to it and I didn't like it like i remember liking it when i was a kid. And Emmy the Great has a song called Secret Circus, but it's just about my least favourite song of hers.
My favourite song for years was Like a Rolling Stone, and my favourite bit in it was 'You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you, You never understood that it ain't no good, you shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you' as my school yearbook page attests. I was just rather dazzled by the wordplay. It's not really a song about clowns. Also on Bob Dylan, he once described Smokey Robinson as America's Greatest Living Poet, something I don't really see. Tears of a Clown contains the line 'Just like Pagliacci did, I try to keep my surface hid', Pagliacci being a famous opera about clowns, or a famous real clown, or something. That gets called a great line, but I think it's a wee bit forced.
Clowns as something sinister, or sad, in films is quite a hackneyed device, from Brassed Off to Octopussy, and I suppose it is in songs too, though Sufjan Stevens' 'John Wayne Gacy' still maintains the capacity to shock with the line "he dressed up like a clown for them". That's a great song. Also a great song is 'Send in the Clowns'. That's on the original 100 list which kicked off this godforsaken blog, isn't it?
Here is a brief thing called
THE HOLY FOOL
Face not fitting shoes,
it's not so easy being
crazy for Jesus.
I've actually seen this Holy Fool, an ordained minister who goes round doing clown shows with an allegorical bent. I saw it when I was a teenager. It was rather a beautiful thing.
You got to be crazy to be for Jesus these days, eh ...
Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite - The Beatles
Trapeze Swinger - Iron & Wine
Tears of a Clown - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
Acrobat - Maximo Park
Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
Cathy's Clown - The Everly Brothers
Walking on a Wire (or The Great Valerio) - Richard and Linda Thompson
Clowns - Goldfrapp
My Wandering Days are Over - Belle and Sebastian (or The Circus is Leaving Town - Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan)
Perhaps Mr Frith might hope for Circus by Erasure, but, you know, I listened to it and I didn't like it like i remember liking it when i was a kid. And Emmy the Great has a song called Secret Circus, but it's just about my least favourite song of hers.
My favourite song for years was Like a Rolling Stone, and my favourite bit in it was 'You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you, You never understood that it ain't no good, you shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you' as my school yearbook page attests. I was just rather dazzled by the wordplay. It's not really a song about clowns. Also on Bob Dylan, he once described Smokey Robinson as America's Greatest Living Poet, something I don't really see. Tears of a Clown contains the line 'Just like Pagliacci did, I try to keep my surface hid', Pagliacci being a famous opera about clowns, or a famous real clown, or something. That gets called a great line, but I think it's a wee bit forced.
Clowns as something sinister, or sad, in films is quite a hackneyed device, from Brassed Off to Octopussy, and I suppose it is in songs too, though Sufjan Stevens' 'John Wayne Gacy' still maintains the capacity to shock with the line "he dressed up like a clown for them". That's a great song. Also a great song is 'Send in the Clowns'. That's on the original 100 list which kicked off this godforsaken blog, isn't it?
Here is a brief thing called
THE HOLY FOOL
Face not fitting shoes,
it's not so easy being
crazy for Jesus.
I've actually seen this Holy Fool, an ordained minister who goes round doing clown shows with an allegorical bent. I saw it when I was a teenager. It was rather a beautiful thing.
You got to be crazy to be for Jesus these days, eh ...
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
21. 10 Elemental Songs
Helium Hearts - Super Furry Animals
Oxygen - Willie Mason
Gold - Spandau Ballet
Iron Lion Zion - Bob Marley & the Wailers
Lithium -Nirvana
Fire - The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
Neon Bible - Arcade Fire
Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem
Carbon Dioxide - Regina Spektor
Solid Air - John Martyn
Fire and Rain - James Taylor
Bit of a cheat this one, as I've clearly drawn on different interpretations of what elements are to create this. I'm really thinking about the Four Original Elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, hence the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and his like, but I couldn't resist a few songs with a chemical element feel. So we end up with a bit of an unhappy compromise.
I think, ahem, it was, was it not, DH, was it not DH Lawrence who said
Why don't people leave off being lovable
Or thinking they are lovable, or wanting to be lovable,
and be a bit elemental instead?
Since man is made up of the elements,
Fire, and rain, and air, and live loam
And none of these is lovable
but elemental,
Man is lop-sided on the side of the angels.
I wish man would get back their balance among the elements
And be a bit more fiery, as incapable of telling lies
as fire is.
I wish man would be true to their own variation, as water is,
which goes through all the stages of steam and stream and ice
Without losing its head.
I am sick of lovable people.
Somehow they are a lie.
Not my words, not my words, ladies and gentlemen, but the words of one DH Lawrence. Fine words, fine words. Was it not Bob, was it not one Bob Dylan, who sang of his mythical love that "she doesn't have to say she's faithful, but she's true like ice, like fire". That's pretty true.
So, elemental? But how hard it is to be elemental, now we've learnt so thoroughly not to be.
And how hard to be at one with nature, when we have barely no contact with anything that is not in some way manufactured.
The only thing elemental about me is my god damn rhyming scheme
I'm no longer in the elements
I no longer smell the air
and the wind brings me no sorrows
and the rain brings me no care
And the elements have no power
to twist fortune everywhere
And the stars do not redeem me
They may as well not be there
Jesus hides not in my details
there's no spirit in my charts
I'm a careless statistician
no sharp master of the arts
Christ bears me not on his shoulders
when the darkness shrouds my heart
In the bargain with my demons
I look after my own part.
There's no charity in my pupils
I'll neither give nor take away
I'll no guilt feel for my hardness
I grew tired to live that way
There's no debit on my statements,
no debt conscience bids me pay
Horror brings just mild discomfort
Genocide makes no dismay
I'm no longer with the living
in the senses I ought to be
Passions weight not on my footsteps,
but a distant memory
I no longer fear the elements,
Nothing means a thing to me.
Storm is over, sun is sunken,
Of all feeling, I am free.
Oxygen - Willie Mason
Gold - Spandau Ballet
Iron Lion Zion - Bob Marley & the Wailers
Lithium -Nirvana
Fire - The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
Neon Bible - Arcade Fire
Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem
Carbon Dioxide - Regina Spektor
Solid Air - John Martyn
Fire and Rain - James Taylor
Bit of a cheat this one, as I've clearly drawn on different interpretations of what elements are to create this. I'm really thinking about the Four Original Elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, hence the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and his like, but I couldn't resist a few songs with a chemical element feel. So we end up with a bit of an unhappy compromise.
I think, ahem, it was, was it not, DH, was it not DH Lawrence who said
Why don't people leave off being lovable
Or thinking they are lovable, or wanting to be lovable,
and be a bit elemental instead?
Since man is made up of the elements,
Fire, and rain, and air, and live loam
And none of these is lovable
but elemental,
Man is lop-sided on the side of the angels.
I wish man would get back their balance among the elements
And be a bit more fiery, as incapable of telling lies
as fire is.
I wish man would be true to their own variation, as water is,
which goes through all the stages of steam and stream and ice
Without losing its head.
I am sick of lovable people.
Somehow they are a lie.
Not my words, not my words, ladies and gentlemen, but the words of one DH Lawrence. Fine words, fine words. Was it not Bob, was it not one Bob Dylan, who sang of his mythical love that "she doesn't have to say she's faithful, but she's true like ice, like fire". That's pretty true.
So, elemental? But how hard it is to be elemental, now we've learnt so thoroughly not to be.
And how hard to be at one with nature, when we have barely no contact with anything that is not in some way manufactured.
The only thing elemental about me is my god damn rhyming scheme
I'm no longer in the elements
I no longer smell the air
and the wind brings me no sorrows
and the rain brings me no care
And the elements have no power
to twist fortune everywhere
And the stars do not redeem me
They may as well not be there
Jesus hides not in my details
there's no spirit in my charts
I'm a careless statistician
no sharp master of the arts
Christ bears me not on his shoulders
when the darkness shrouds my heart
In the bargain with my demons
I look after my own part.
There's no charity in my pupils
I'll neither give nor take away
I'll no guilt feel for my hardness
I grew tired to live that way
There's no debit on my statements,
no debt conscience bids me pay
Horror brings just mild discomfort
Genocide makes no dismay
I'm no longer with the living
in the senses I ought to be
Passions weight not on my footsteps,
but a distant memory
I no longer fear the elements,
Nothing means a thing to me.
Storm is over, sun is sunken,
Of all feeling, I am free.
Sunday, 19 April 2009
20. 10 Songs about the Neighbourhood
1. Round Are Way - Oasis
2. Penny Lane - The Beatles
3. Two Doors Down - Mystery Jets
4. My Hometown - Bruce Springsteen
5. Stereotypes - Blur
6. Your Own Backyard - Dion
7. Stanley Road - Paul Weller
8. The Street Where You Live - from 'My Fair Lady'
9. Local Boy in the Photograph - Stereophonics
10. Screen Door - Uncle Tupelo
Yes, of course I could have included 'Neighbourhood' by Space, but, really, how low do you want me to go?
The theme from Neighbours was a more realistic option. It's true, after all, that just a friendly wave each morning helps to make a better day. That being so, I can only look at my recent attitude to my neighbours and despair. I think, with each different neighbour, I've become increasingly entrenched and insular - perhaps it reflects the erosion of society and community precipitated by Margaret Thatcher. I've gone from the golden childhood idyll of our first neighbours the Hymases, who i practically felt we shared house and garden with, to the suspicious and furtive way I look at my recent neighbours in South London, via kindly old women who always throw back your tennis ball, Kenyan farmers and their children always hanging round looking for biscuits, weird Scottish drunks and their insane cats, dull students gatecrashing parties, young professionals I could barely muster a smile for. What remains true is that we love to make up stories about our neighbours, imagine their lives, their thoughts.
I actually quite like the neighbourhood i live now - it feels more like a genuine community than a lot of parts of South London. The different strata of life seem to co-exist pretty happily round here, the newsagents are friendly, the walk home from the tube late at night doesn't feel like a gauntlet, even if local character Mental Steve is being particularly mental, the curry places recognise my face, the kids pouring out of the local school every day scream and shout at each other, occasionally annoying but never intimidating, the cars crash every month or so at the dodgy junction, the joggers churn round Clapham Common, but a) i lack the basic warmth to actually befriend people and b) the ones that piss me off are the ones in the posh flats, playing rubbish music, the kind of rubbish I play to them -for these surely are my clientele, at the quizzes i run. There's really nothing to it, though occasionally i build it up into a feeling of alienation and grand contempt. Hence
The balcony of the opposite flat
is full of city drinkers,
Blaring out the standard tracks
and shaking up the neighbours
But anger is so awkward
now that language is so loose.
The truth is that the best you
can do is keep your cool.
The punch is late in coming -
eyes have gone on elsewhere.
Some sing along distracted,
of course the words are threadbare
and I know no one else knows
as many words as I
But the feints that duck the truths
validate those lies.
I know the city drinks us dry
of sanctity and solace.
Profanity's my currency
in common with the godless.
The sea wind blessed my thoughts -
perhaps it will again
one day when the punches
have all been thrown in vain.
Mercury rises just as seldom
as it falls in these parts -
anger is as futile as staking
all on charts and graphs.
I could stare you out forever
if I could hold your gaze
for even one tender fragile second
of one of those rare mercury days.
Across the street, some city killers
no doubt confront their demons.
Let them. I won't fight a thing, though,
except overwrought feelings
'cause anger is so awkward, while
resignation is so solid
though neither has an answer to
the emptiness that follows.
2. Penny Lane - The Beatles
3. Two Doors Down - Mystery Jets
4. My Hometown - Bruce Springsteen
5. Stereotypes - Blur
6. Your Own Backyard - Dion
7. Stanley Road - Paul Weller
8. The Street Where You Live - from 'My Fair Lady'
9. Local Boy in the Photograph - Stereophonics
10. Screen Door - Uncle Tupelo
Yes, of course I could have included 'Neighbourhood' by Space, but, really, how low do you want me to go?
The theme from Neighbours was a more realistic option. It's true, after all, that just a friendly wave each morning helps to make a better day. That being so, I can only look at my recent attitude to my neighbours and despair. I think, with each different neighbour, I've become increasingly entrenched and insular - perhaps it reflects the erosion of society and community precipitated by Margaret Thatcher. I've gone from the golden childhood idyll of our first neighbours the Hymases, who i practically felt we shared house and garden with, to the suspicious and furtive way I look at my recent neighbours in South London, via kindly old women who always throw back your tennis ball, Kenyan farmers and their children always hanging round looking for biscuits, weird Scottish drunks and their insane cats, dull students gatecrashing parties, young professionals I could barely muster a smile for. What remains true is that we love to make up stories about our neighbours, imagine their lives, their thoughts.
I actually quite like the neighbourhood i live now - it feels more like a genuine community than a lot of parts of South London. The different strata of life seem to co-exist pretty happily round here, the newsagents are friendly, the walk home from the tube late at night doesn't feel like a gauntlet, even if local character Mental Steve is being particularly mental, the curry places recognise my face, the kids pouring out of the local school every day scream and shout at each other, occasionally annoying but never intimidating, the cars crash every month or so at the dodgy junction, the joggers churn round Clapham Common, but a) i lack the basic warmth to actually befriend people and b) the ones that piss me off are the ones in the posh flats, playing rubbish music, the kind of rubbish I play to them -for these surely are my clientele, at the quizzes i run. There's really nothing to it, though occasionally i build it up into a feeling of alienation and grand contempt. Hence
The balcony of the opposite flat
is full of city drinkers,
Blaring out the standard tracks
and shaking up the neighbours
But anger is so awkward
now that language is so loose.
The truth is that the best you
can do is keep your cool.
The punch is late in coming -
eyes have gone on elsewhere.
Some sing along distracted,
of course the words are threadbare
and I know no one else knows
as many words as I
But the feints that duck the truths
validate those lies.
I know the city drinks us dry
of sanctity and solace.
Profanity's my currency
in common with the godless.
The sea wind blessed my thoughts -
perhaps it will again
one day when the punches
have all been thrown in vain.
Mercury rises just as seldom
as it falls in these parts -
anger is as futile as staking
all on charts and graphs.
I could stare you out forever
if I could hold your gaze
for even one tender fragile second
of one of those rare mercury days.
Across the street, some city killers
no doubt confront their demons.
Let them. I won't fight a thing, though,
except overwrought feelings
'cause anger is so awkward, while
resignation is so solid
though neither has an answer to
the emptiness that follows.
Monday, 13 April 2009
19. 10 Songs about Birds
Flightless Bird, American Mouth - Iron and Wine
Hummingbird - Wilco
Birds - Neil Young
And Your Bird Can Sing or Blackbird - The Beatles
I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry - Hank Williams
Love minus Zero/No Limit - Bob Dylan
Black-winged Bird - The Cake Sale
Bird on a Wire - Leonard Cohen
The Birds Will Sing For Us - Ed Harcourt
Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
There's something running through American music about ravens, I think with Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Raven' as its starting point. The NFL team The Baltimore Ravens have three mascots, called Edgar, Allen and Poe.
I can't, in truth, say I'm wild about birds. I couldn't tell many from another, and I never watch nature programmes on TV.
When I was running on Clapham Common, I was listening to Roots Manuva's song 'Stone the Crows' and I was repeatedly divebombed by a crow. That's my best story about birds.
Some of them are scary bastards.
A sickly sun leans on the city's
suited heroes stuck picking up
old coins on pavements long discarded.
I'm squinting, out for new ideas
but the same unconnected numbers
invade and keep me up all night.
One swallow, that's all I ask for,
one swallow on a damaged statue
to ease me to untroubled sleep.
One kingfisher, whatever it loooks like
on a mercury day in the last good
summer of your last good century.
I'm sorry I ever envied you, now
you're scared to meet the crow's challenge
as you make your vain heavy steps,
buying time and imagining traps -
this common land serves as prison to your
ridiculous dreams of big numbers.
On the island, you say you heard
the city swan sing his final song and,
these times, I can't but be relieved that
My headphones, deep down in my ears
play the country soul music too loud
to hear a thing but numbers running.
Hummingbird - Wilco
Birds - Neil Young
And Your Bird Can Sing or Blackbird - The Beatles
I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry - Hank Williams
Love minus Zero/No Limit - Bob Dylan
Black-winged Bird - The Cake Sale
Bird on a Wire - Leonard Cohen
The Birds Will Sing For Us - Ed Harcourt
Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
There's something running through American music about ravens, I think with Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Raven' as its starting point. The NFL team The Baltimore Ravens have three mascots, called Edgar, Allen and Poe.
I can't, in truth, say I'm wild about birds. I couldn't tell many from another, and I never watch nature programmes on TV.
When I was running on Clapham Common, I was listening to Roots Manuva's song 'Stone the Crows' and I was repeatedly divebombed by a crow. That's my best story about birds.
Some of them are scary bastards.
A sickly sun leans on the city's
suited heroes stuck picking up
old coins on pavements long discarded.
I'm squinting, out for new ideas
but the same unconnected numbers
invade and keep me up all night.
One swallow, that's all I ask for,
one swallow on a damaged statue
to ease me to untroubled sleep.
One kingfisher, whatever it loooks like
on a mercury day in the last good
summer of your last good century.
I'm sorry I ever envied you, now
you're scared to meet the crow's challenge
as you make your vain heavy steps,
buying time and imagining traps -
this common land serves as prison to your
ridiculous dreams of big numbers.
On the island, you say you heard
the city swan sing his final song and,
these times, I can't but be relieved that
My headphones, deep down in my ears
play the country soul music too loud
to hear a thing but numbers running.
Saturday, 11 April 2009
18. 10 Songs about Killings
The Mercy Seat - Johnny Cash
Stagger Lee - Nick Cave
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll - Bob Dylan
Jenny Was a Friend of Mine - The Killers
Jack Killed Mom - Jenny Lewis
John Wayne Gacy - Sufjan Stevens
Switching Off - Elbow
Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do - Goldie Lookin' Chain
Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen
Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine
Of course, Cave, Cash and Dylan have killing songs coming out of their paws, but I limited myself to one each of them - though the Cash one is Cave too in this case.
I rather wish I'd been able to find more songs about Death Row and the American fetishisation of serial killers, as that is what was on my mind, but whether I didn't look that hard, I didn't find that many suitable songs, although films like that are innumerable.
Apparently, Debbie Harry managed to escape becoming a victim of the serial killer Ted Bundy, when she got in his car, realised there was something funny about it, and managed to break her way out of it. There isn't, funnily enough, a Blondie song which makes explicit reference to this.
Anyway, executions ... really awful. The one in Monster's Ball is what sticks in my mind. It's P. Diddy, for a start, but it captures the shift from banality to the realisation of what the prisoner, the prison guards and the observers are all about to go through.
Shut my eyes and push me over,
I'm bored already of greys and blues.
I'm bad and ready for every last flower
I can't smell, each hour I can't misuse.
Close the sky and open the heavens,
Wrap me up, I hope it's summer.
Don't say a word, now, any misgivings
you feel you owe only make this harder.
Spin it out if that's your pleasure,
I won't respond, all senses deadened.
Switch me off and push me under,
Close my eyes and open the heavens.
Stagger Lee - Nick Cave
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll - Bob Dylan
Jenny Was a Friend of Mine - The Killers
Jack Killed Mom - Jenny Lewis
John Wayne Gacy - Sufjan Stevens
Switching Off - Elbow
Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do - Goldie Lookin' Chain
Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen
Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine
Of course, Cave, Cash and Dylan have killing songs coming out of their paws, but I limited myself to one each of them - though the Cash one is Cave too in this case.
I rather wish I'd been able to find more songs about Death Row and the American fetishisation of serial killers, as that is what was on my mind, but whether I didn't look that hard, I didn't find that many suitable songs, although films like that are innumerable.
Apparently, Debbie Harry managed to escape becoming a victim of the serial killer Ted Bundy, when she got in his car, realised there was something funny about it, and managed to break her way out of it. There isn't, funnily enough, a Blondie song which makes explicit reference to this.
Anyway, executions ... really awful. The one in Monster's Ball is what sticks in my mind. It's P. Diddy, for a start, but it captures the shift from banality to the realisation of what the prisoner, the prison guards and the observers are all about to go through.
Shut my eyes and push me over,
I'm bored already of greys and blues.
I'm bad and ready for every last flower
I can't smell, each hour I can't misuse.
Close the sky and open the heavens,
Wrap me up, I hope it's summer.
Don't say a word, now, any misgivings
you feel you owe only make this harder.
Spin it out if that's your pleasure,
I won't respond, all senses deadened.
Switch me off and push me under,
Close my eyes and open the heavens.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
17. 10 Fun Songs by Punters who Got Lucky
Mr Brightside - The Killers
Like a Prayer - Madonna
Unbelievable -EMF
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
One - U2
Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire
Runaway Train - Soul Asylum
Pretty Vacant - Sex Pistols
Wires - Athlete
Gangsta's Paradise - Coolio
The above lunks are basically useless, but fate smiled upon them just the once to produce a song of considerable quality.
There are many, many examples of this through music, where someone with no consistent quality hits upon something magical briefly, and in many cases they kid people that their other stuff is good too, and build a critical and commercial career out of it.
It makes me cross. Kind of.
And also there's the fact that when we get snobby and say songs like 'My Heart Will Go On' or You're Beautiful' are cynical cack with no true beauty to them, we ignore the fact that actual people, and probably not bad people, have them at their actual weddings and actual funerals, and they actually mean more, deep down in a real way, to more people than have ever even heard all the songs we actually think are great.
I wrote this ages ago, before I cared if rhymes were silly if they were funny.
There are some who're in line for
what they don't have the time for -
overgrown children with golden tongues
hawking their wears where
ever they dare fare
lying with every last note in their lungs
And sometimes I'm triggered
by such lumpen figures
to see my search for all beauty as finished
and often it chills me
that it slightly thrills me
to see any honest beauty diminished
There are days when i feel like
I'm so down at heel I
can hardly lift my foot to kick out
There are sorry excuses
I'd use to confuse you if
these sorest of thumbs began to stick out.
There are lines in some songs which
always give me a strong itch
to cut off my fingers and write no more -
for sweet or for sad times
it's often the bad lines
which bare our souls and bite at our core
Like a Prayer - Madonna
Unbelievable -EMF
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
One - U2
Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire
Runaway Train - Soul Asylum
Pretty Vacant - Sex Pistols
Wires - Athlete
Gangsta's Paradise - Coolio
The above lunks are basically useless, but fate smiled upon them just the once to produce a song of considerable quality.
There are many, many examples of this through music, where someone with no consistent quality hits upon something magical briefly, and in many cases they kid people that their other stuff is good too, and build a critical and commercial career out of it.
It makes me cross. Kind of.
And also there's the fact that when we get snobby and say songs like 'My Heart Will Go On' or You're Beautiful' are cynical cack with no true beauty to them, we ignore the fact that actual people, and probably not bad people, have them at their actual weddings and actual funerals, and they actually mean more, deep down in a real way, to more people than have ever even heard all the songs we actually think are great.
I wrote this ages ago, before I cared if rhymes were silly if they were funny.
There are some who're in line for
what they don't have the time for -
overgrown children with golden tongues
hawking their wears where
ever they dare fare
lying with every last note in their lungs
And sometimes I'm triggered
by such lumpen figures
to see my search for all beauty as finished
and often it chills me
that it slightly thrills me
to see any honest beauty diminished
There are days when i feel like
I'm so down at heel I
can hardly lift my foot to kick out
There are sorry excuses
I'd use to confuse you if
these sorest of thumbs began to stick out.
There are lines in some songs which
always give me a strong itch
to cut off my fingers and write no more -
for sweet or for sad times
it's often the bad lines
which bare our souls and bite at our core
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
16. 10 Songs You Can Listen To While You're Running
The Loneliness of the Middle Distance Runner - Belle and Sebastian
Roadrunner (Once) - Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
Keep on Running - Spencer Davis Group
Run for Me - Richard Hawley
Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
No Distance Left to Run - Blur
Run Run Run - The Velvet Underground
Run - Snow Patrol
Running Girl - Ooberman
Run - Stephen Fretwell
People run for different reasons. I'm not really sure why I run. To not get fat. To take a break from work. To still feel young. To be able to run faster. Those are some reasons some people run. I did a lot of running last year, always listening to music, culminating in a somewhat disastrous Chicago Marathon in 30 degrees - and not listening to music. My running was shortly after that curtailed by a broken leg, but the second half of the marathon was way more ghastly and unbearable than breaking my leg.
I was fast in the months before the marathon. Fast and mildly obsessive about getting faster. Now i'm getting back to my running after breaking my leg, even after a month, I'm still straining every sinew in my body to run significantly slower than I could run 6 months ago without even drawing breath. But it feels great to be running again. And truthfully, one of the main reasons I run is because if you're listening to the right song on the right day, running at the right speed, it is a marvellous marvellous feeling. These are good running songs, i guess, though a bit pun-based.
Songs I really like to run to are Sons and Daughters by The Decemberists and You Got Your Cherry Bomb by Spoon.
Some people say running is a really good time to chew over thoughts and make decisions. Haruki Murakami has written a book (which I've only read snatches of) called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
Well to take off that in a haiku style
What I think about,
if I think, when I'm running,
is running. Running
Roadrunner (Once) - Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
Keep on Running - Spencer Davis Group
Run for Me - Richard Hawley
Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
No Distance Left to Run - Blur
Run Run Run - The Velvet Underground
Run - Snow Patrol
Running Girl - Ooberman
Run - Stephen Fretwell
People run for different reasons. I'm not really sure why I run. To not get fat. To take a break from work. To still feel young. To be able to run faster. Those are some reasons some people run. I did a lot of running last year, always listening to music, culminating in a somewhat disastrous Chicago Marathon in 30 degrees - and not listening to music. My running was shortly after that curtailed by a broken leg, but the second half of the marathon was way more ghastly and unbearable than breaking my leg.
I was fast in the months before the marathon. Fast and mildly obsessive about getting faster. Now i'm getting back to my running after breaking my leg, even after a month, I'm still straining every sinew in my body to run significantly slower than I could run 6 months ago without even drawing breath. But it feels great to be running again. And truthfully, one of the main reasons I run is because if you're listening to the right song on the right day, running at the right speed, it is a marvellous marvellous feeling. These are good running songs, i guess, though a bit pun-based.
Songs I really like to run to are Sons and Daughters by The Decemberists and You Got Your Cherry Bomb by Spoon.
Some people say running is a really good time to chew over thoughts and make decisions. Haruki Murakami has written a book (which I've only read snatches of) called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
Well to take off that in a haiku style
What I think about,
if I think, when I'm running,
is running. Running
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
15. 10 Songs of Consolation
Be Not So Fearful - Bill Fay
From the Morning - Nick Drake
Don't Worry Baby - Beach Boys
Oxygen - Willie Mason
Sad Eyes - Josh Rouse
Hey Jude - The Beatles
Stop Your Crying - Spiritualized
Don't Be Sad- Whiskeytown
Cry Baby - Janis Joplin
He's Simple, He's Dumb, he's the Pilot - Grandaddy
Goodness, these are some of the best songs going, these ones. I'd particularly recommend the Grandaddy song. He sings "Are you giving in, 2000 man?" I guess it's a companion to "Waiting for a Superman" by the Flaming Lips, but that's a song which really offers no consolation at all.
Anyway, I always preferred the idea of respite to consolation. Who wants consolation prizes? Consolation often seemed too phony as an idea. But maybe you've got to take what you can get.
So, i just shamelessly nicked the heart from Be Not So Fearful, and played around with it with my own words. I've really just tried to write more and more verses to the same song. Tried to make it mostly two or under syllable words. Didn't quite manage.
So here are some of them
This time is selfish
selfish and sad
children are fighting
a different breed
the harmonising
is frail and weak
my ears are straining
to hear you speak
the noise is endless
be not afeard
i know it's threatening
i know it's hard
i know i'm selfish
lord knows, it's true
i'd still do all that
i can for you
these times are restless
to no avail
we long to save but
we're doomed to fail
time is beyond our
most awful power
life slips from us all
every hour
but do not listen
to my despair
life still explodes defiant
everywhere
life still exceeds my wishes
everyday
be not afeard to live
as you may
don't seek to quash
the joy of pain
be sure your suffering
is all in vain
be not so downcast
accept defeat
our days are numbered
let them be sweet
you won't escape from
your skin and bone
don't scorn and envy
that not your own
be not so careworn -
we all endure
we'll find no answer
and no true cure
be not so eager
to doubt your friends
don't always trust you can
make amends
be not so angry
each time you fail
in graceful failure
we shall prevail
be not so sorry
for every thought
facile contrition
counts for nought
don't scorn the words of
those who console
be not so fearsome
be not so cold
Bit fatuous, really, and rather unnecessarily gloomy. Funnily enough, I was listening to 'Float On' by Modest Mouse as I was typing. Now there's a proper joyful song of consolation - OK!
From the Morning - Nick Drake
Don't Worry Baby - Beach Boys
Oxygen - Willie Mason
Sad Eyes - Josh Rouse
Hey Jude - The Beatles
Stop Your Crying - Spiritualized
Don't Be Sad- Whiskeytown
Cry Baby - Janis Joplin
He's Simple, He's Dumb, he's the Pilot - Grandaddy
Goodness, these are some of the best songs going, these ones. I'd particularly recommend the Grandaddy song. He sings "Are you giving in, 2000 man?" I guess it's a companion to "Waiting for a Superman" by the Flaming Lips, but that's a song which really offers no consolation at all.
Anyway, I always preferred the idea of respite to consolation. Who wants consolation prizes? Consolation often seemed too phony as an idea. But maybe you've got to take what you can get.
So, i just shamelessly nicked the heart from Be Not So Fearful, and played around with it with my own words. I've really just tried to write more and more verses to the same song. Tried to make it mostly two or under syllable words. Didn't quite manage.
So here are some of them
This time is selfish
selfish and sad
children are fighting
a different breed
the harmonising
is frail and weak
my ears are straining
to hear you speak
the noise is endless
be not afeard
i know it's threatening
i know it's hard
i know i'm selfish
lord knows, it's true
i'd still do all that
i can for you
these times are restless
to no avail
we long to save but
we're doomed to fail
time is beyond our
most awful power
life slips from us all
every hour
but do not listen
to my despair
life still explodes defiant
everywhere
life still exceeds my wishes
everyday
be not afeard to live
as you may
don't seek to quash
the joy of pain
be sure your suffering
is all in vain
be not so downcast
accept defeat
our days are numbered
let them be sweet
you won't escape from
your skin and bone
don't scorn and envy
that not your own
be not so careworn -
we all endure
we'll find no answer
and no true cure
be not so eager
to doubt your friends
don't always trust you can
make amends
be not so angry
each time you fail
in graceful failure
we shall prevail
be not so sorry
for every thought
facile contrition
counts for nought
don't scorn the words of
those who console
be not so fearsome
be not so cold
Bit fatuous, really, and rather unnecessarily gloomy. Funnily enough, I was listening to 'Float On' by Modest Mouse as I was typing. Now there's a proper joyful song of consolation - OK!
Monday, 30 March 2009
14. 10 Songs for Bob Dylan
Song for Bob Dylan - David Bowie
Song to Bobby - Cat Power
Like Dylan in the Movies - Belle and Sebastian
American Pie - Don McLean
Dylan - Emmy the Great
Blonde on Blonde - Nada Surf
Talkin' New Bob Dylan - Loudon Wainwright III
Mr Jones - Counting Crows
Bob Dylan's 49th Beard - Wilco
Diamonds & Rust - Joan Baez
Bob Dylan, eh?
I guess this whole endeavour is in the spirit of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, where he plays lots of old themed songs people pretend to like because it's Bob Dylan playing them.
Bob Dylan's a crazy man these days. There's nothing he's not doing. I went to see his art exhibition and reallly enjoyed it, safe in the knowledge I know nothing about art.
But does he have anything left in the tank musically? Really, really? The new song i heard today suggests perhaps not. We'll see soon.
This was written before the last one came out and I can't say I feel the same about the forthcoming one.
Bob Dylan's crept into a lot of the things I've written, When I was younger I tried to write like him, but his slightly bullshitty stuff like Desolation Row, not his supercool beautiful stuff like To Ramona and Idiot Wind. My attempts were so hideous, they embarrass me more than leaning on the alarm handle on a tube station by mistake - which is embarrassing.
But here is a brief thought on Bob Dylan's last new album
I'm not sure what lies are being told here
Summer in the city's so different these days.
Anger has aged it - it's gaudier and colder,
Spitting out new forms of rage at random
so I say, for my solace, who gives a fuck
about anything but Bob Dylan's new album?
Song to Bobby - Cat Power
Like Dylan in the Movies - Belle and Sebastian
American Pie - Don McLean
Dylan - Emmy the Great
Blonde on Blonde - Nada Surf
Talkin' New Bob Dylan - Loudon Wainwright III
Mr Jones - Counting Crows
Bob Dylan's 49th Beard - Wilco
Diamonds & Rust - Joan Baez
Bob Dylan, eh?
I guess this whole endeavour is in the spirit of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, where he plays lots of old themed songs people pretend to like because it's Bob Dylan playing them.
Bob Dylan's a crazy man these days. There's nothing he's not doing. I went to see his art exhibition and reallly enjoyed it, safe in the knowledge I know nothing about art.
But does he have anything left in the tank musically? Really, really? The new song i heard today suggests perhaps not. We'll see soon.
This was written before the last one came out and I can't say I feel the same about the forthcoming one.
Bob Dylan's crept into a lot of the things I've written, When I was younger I tried to write like him, but his slightly bullshitty stuff like Desolation Row, not his supercool beautiful stuff like To Ramona and Idiot Wind. My attempts were so hideous, they embarrass me more than leaning on the alarm handle on a tube station by mistake - which is embarrassing.
But here is a brief thought on Bob Dylan's last new album
I'm not sure what lies are being told here
Summer in the city's so different these days.
Anger has aged it - it's gaudier and colder,
Spitting out new forms of rage at random
so I say, for my solace, who gives a fuck
about anything but Bob Dylan's new album?
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
13. 10 Songs which skilfully insert sections of other songs
I'm not just talking about covering or sampling, it's when the other song is explicitly referenced as being a different song, almost like an ekphrasis
Our Mutual Friend - Divine Comedy (The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore)
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space - Spiritualized (I Can't Help Falling in Love)
Chinese Cafe - Joni Mitchell (Unchained Melody)
Reminisce - Dexys Midnight Runners (I'll Say Forever My Love)
A Case of you - Joni Mitchell (O Canada)
First Love - Emmy the Great (Hallelujah)
I'm a Cuckoo - Belle and Sebastian (Boys are Back in Town)
Holes - Mercury Rev (I don't know, when it goes "How does that old song go?")
Tom Traubert's Blues - Tom Waits (Waltzing Matilda)
Young Americans - David Bowie (A Day in the Life)
This is a supercool thing to do in a song, probably my favourite example being I'm a Cuckoo, where Stuart Murdoch sings I'd rather listen to Thin Lizzy-O and the guitars play a bit from Boys Are Back in Town and at the second he actually manages to sound like Phil Lynott, even though their vocal styles couldn't be more dissimilar.
I tried to think of a clever way of doing this with words, but of course I'm borrowing words and referencing phrases all the time, it hardly seems worth pinpointing it, and borrowing a phrase or quoting a phrase isn't quite so powerful for me as quoting a song, tune and all.
So, I will just mention the most brazen example of all, from Borrowed Tune by Neil Young
where he sings
I'm singing this borrowed tune
I took from the Rolling Stones
Alone in this empty room
too wasted to write my own.
I always imagine the reason he included "alone" and "empty" in the same line is to show just how ill-equipped he is at this stage for the songwriting process.
I might add to this post if I can think of a clever way to do so, but it's an excellent list of songs, so i thought I'd put it up at once.
Our Mutual Friend - Divine Comedy (The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore)
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space - Spiritualized (I Can't Help Falling in Love)
Chinese Cafe - Joni Mitchell (Unchained Melody)
Reminisce - Dexys Midnight Runners (I'll Say Forever My Love)
A Case of you - Joni Mitchell (O Canada)
First Love - Emmy the Great (Hallelujah)
I'm a Cuckoo - Belle and Sebastian (Boys are Back in Town)
Holes - Mercury Rev (I don't know, when it goes "How does that old song go?")
Tom Traubert's Blues - Tom Waits (Waltzing Matilda)
Young Americans - David Bowie (A Day in the Life)
This is a supercool thing to do in a song, probably my favourite example being I'm a Cuckoo, where Stuart Murdoch sings I'd rather listen to Thin Lizzy-O and the guitars play a bit from Boys Are Back in Town and at the second he actually manages to sound like Phil Lynott, even though their vocal styles couldn't be more dissimilar.
I tried to think of a clever way of doing this with words, but of course I'm borrowing words and referencing phrases all the time, it hardly seems worth pinpointing it, and borrowing a phrase or quoting a phrase isn't quite so powerful for me as quoting a song, tune and all.
So, I will just mention the most brazen example of all, from Borrowed Tune by Neil Young
where he sings
I'm singing this borrowed tune
I took from the Rolling Stones
Alone in this empty room
too wasted to write my own.
I always imagine the reason he included "alone" and "empty" in the same line is to show just how ill-equipped he is at this stage for the songwriting process.
I might add to this post if I can think of a clever way to do so, but it's an excellent list of songs, so i thought I'd put it up at once.
Sunday, 22 March 2009
12. 10 Songs about Badasses
Stagger Lee - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Joey - Bob Dylan
Sonny Could Lick All Them Cats - Chuck E Weiss
Theme from Shaft - Isaac Hayes
The Boy With the Arab Strap - Belle and Sebastian
King of New York - Fun Lovin' Criminals
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Pinball Wizard - The Who
Rudie Can't Fail - The Clash
Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie
So, I guess there are a different types of badasses - the true badass, the hardest bastard alive who literally doesn't care about a thing, Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, the mean motherfucker named Stagger Lee etc
And there's the different type of badass, the tragic badass, the Sonny Liston, the big man who falls - in a sense the archetype of the tragic hero. The harder they come, the harder they fall, I heard a man say.
And the fall of these men is very hard to watch.
This is about big men falling, but it's quite scattergun. It mentions someone I went to school with. He wasn't a badass, as such, but he was a big man with a big, occasionally fragile ego which was interesting to watch. And I guess, on a personal level, I was thinking about the rivalry we had, of sorts, at school, and how I was in a no way a badass and wasn't a big man but that wasn't always necessary a bad thing and I had one or two other tricks.
I was also thinking about the delicacy you see at the side of a boxing ring, and just that generally hard bastards are quite often people you'd count on in a crisis, the people who'd know how to do first aid, stuff like that ...
It takes a detour into Mean Streets-y Christian imagery in the middle. The relevance of that is how Gangster Films used to be my favourite, stories of big bad men, their occasional humanity, glimpses of redemption, and their downfalls, and then they began to bore me and cared more about normal people, and how that kind of mirrors the near total erosion of my competitive edge.
I'm not sure it all makes quite enough sense, and rereading it, it's clearly just a slightly unhinged conversation with myself, but hey, what's wrong with that?
I scarce remember the names of the fighters
who made my eye twitch and lip quiver
But, Sam, sentences seem to be reforming
bold to sneak a relative clause in;
or not - the blood's running into your eye
and I've not the touch tender to wipe away.
Watch me, tho, spin this cricket ball
and I dare erase my self-mocking nickname -
that's touch, power of the hand over flame.
"You don't make up for your sins in the church" -
oh, I lost patience with believers
and cruelty's infected my gentle teasing.
I flinch at their mildest inquisitions
as if I am the Lord and God of all reason.
Herol Graham and Wayne McCullough -
look, I recall crying at Matthew Harding,
for fuck's sake, halfway through a pilgrimage
so don't tell me I've not had some lives.
Carl Thompson and Danny Williams -
look, I wept at the death of the Emperor,
so, yes, it's tininess that touches me now
and the creeping futility of off-kilter lives
but tell Sam I still flinch when a big man falls
and still well up when a big man stands tall.
And my sentences, which cost me my brutish aggression
are reforming, ready to do their own battle
and Sam, you and I were never that subtle
and I'll be upfield for one last competition.
Joey - Bob Dylan
Sonny Could Lick All Them Cats - Chuck E Weiss
Theme from Shaft - Isaac Hayes
The Boy With the Arab Strap - Belle and Sebastian
King of New York - Fun Lovin' Criminals
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Pinball Wizard - The Who
Rudie Can't Fail - The Clash
Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie
So, I guess there are a different types of badasses - the true badass, the hardest bastard alive who literally doesn't care about a thing, Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, the mean motherfucker named Stagger Lee etc
And there's the different type of badass, the tragic badass, the Sonny Liston, the big man who falls - in a sense the archetype of the tragic hero. The harder they come, the harder they fall, I heard a man say.
And the fall of these men is very hard to watch.
This is about big men falling, but it's quite scattergun. It mentions someone I went to school with. He wasn't a badass, as such, but he was a big man with a big, occasionally fragile ego which was interesting to watch. And I guess, on a personal level, I was thinking about the rivalry we had, of sorts, at school, and how I was in a no way a badass and wasn't a big man but that wasn't always necessary a bad thing and I had one or two other tricks.
I was also thinking about the delicacy you see at the side of a boxing ring, and just that generally hard bastards are quite often people you'd count on in a crisis, the people who'd know how to do first aid, stuff like that ...
It takes a detour into Mean Streets-y Christian imagery in the middle. The relevance of that is how Gangster Films used to be my favourite, stories of big bad men, their occasional humanity, glimpses of redemption, and their downfalls, and then they began to bore me and cared more about normal people, and how that kind of mirrors the near total erosion of my competitive edge.
I'm not sure it all makes quite enough sense, and rereading it, it's clearly just a slightly unhinged conversation with myself, but hey, what's wrong with that?
I scarce remember the names of the fighters
who made my eye twitch and lip quiver
But, Sam, sentences seem to be reforming
bold to sneak a relative clause in;
or not - the blood's running into your eye
and I've not the touch tender to wipe away.
Watch me, tho, spin this cricket ball
and I dare erase my self-mocking nickname -
that's touch, power of the hand over flame.
"You don't make up for your sins in the church" -
oh, I lost patience with believers
and cruelty's infected my gentle teasing.
I flinch at their mildest inquisitions
as if I am the Lord and God of all reason.
Herol Graham and Wayne McCullough -
look, I recall crying at Matthew Harding,
for fuck's sake, halfway through a pilgrimage
so don't tell me I've not had some lives.
Carl Thompson and Danny Williams -
look, I wept at the death of the Emperor,
so, yes, it's tininess that touches me now
and the creeping futility of off-kilter lives
but tell Sam I still flinch when a big man falls
and still well up when a big man stands tall.
And my sentences, which cost me my brutish aggression
are reforming, ready to do their own battle
and Sam, you and I were never that subtle
and I'll be upfield for one last competition.
Friday, 20 March 2009
11. 10 Songs Sung Blue
Blue - The Jayhawks
Blue - Lucinda Wiliams
Blue - Joni Mitchell
Blue - McAlmont and Butler
When the Stars go Blue - Ryan Adams
The Blues are Still Blue - Belle and Sebastian
Powder Blue - Elbow
Way to Blue - Nick Drake
Weaker Shade of Blue - The Pernice Brothers
Bluetonic - The Bluetones
Blue is the pre-eminent colour in rock'n'roll, for obvious reasons.
Everyone ever has had the blues, apart from Holly Golightly, who had a serious case of the reds, but that didn't become a trend.
All these songs are about blue - rather than blues.
I don't think, of all the tapes I'll list here, there'll be another ten songs so beautiful, or bluetiful. Even The Bluetones one has a wry melancholy, tho is somewhat at odds with the rest.
I love the Bluetones though. Not love, but rather, still think they were pretty good. They're kind of my benchmark for overhyped music. If a world is going crazy for a band and you know it's phony, you say "It's ok, but it's not as good as the Bluetones" and it turns out to be true.
Anyway, here is my thing about Blue, a self-prophesying, self-referential little thing written a fair while back.
It is called
A POEM CALLED 'LITANY'
I'm making a night of it, a night in
Nineteen ninety six, I reckon, with twists
A night where foxes' screams are drowned out
By a sony walkman playing a tape
I made, of Songs Called Blue
A night where I don't just imagine
the abandon of inapproriate singalongs
with a quiet smile on the tube
as voices crack and words fail
At the end of Grace ... the end of grace.
I'm making a tape - called Songs Sung Blue
it's for before iTunes and before
I figured out all my current truth.
It's a word play, you understand,
you're amused, perhaps, delighted, perhaps
where this ain't a list, not even a litany
but a poem called LITANY, goes
Lucinda Williams goes Joni Mitchell
goes McAlmont & Butler goes Jayhawks
goes BLUE so BLUE.
I'm making a night of numbers and figures
with fingers and thumbs at all angles
I'm building a tower of song so high
it dares to touch the dark blue sky
and sends the years spinning, spinning back.
Blue - Lucinda Wiliams
Blue - Joni Mitchell
Blue - McAlmont and Butler
When the Stars go Blue - Ryan Adams
The Blues are Still Blue - Belle and Sebastian
Powder Blue - Elbow
Way to Blue - Nick Drake
Weaker Shade of Blue - The Pernice Brothers
Bluetonic - The Bluetones
Blue is the pre-eminent colour in rock'n'roll, for obvious reasons.
Everyone ever has had the blues, apart from Holly Golightly, who had a serious case of the reds, but that didn't become a trend.
All these songs are about blue - rather than blues.
I don't think, of all the tapes I'll list here, there'll be another ten songs so beautiful, or bluetiful. Even The Bluetones one has a wry melancholy, tho is somewhat at odds with the rest.
I love the Bluetones though. Not love, but rather, still think they were pretty good. They're kind of my benchmark for overhyped music. If a world is going crazy for a band and you know it's phony, you say "It's ok, but it's not as good as the Bluetones" and it turns out to be true.
Anyway, here is my thing about Blue, a self-prophesying, self-referential little thing written a fair while back.
It is called
A POEM CALLED 'LITANY'
I'm making a night of it, a night in
Nineteen ninety six, I reckon, with twists
A night where foxes' screams are drowned out
By a sony walkman playing a tape
I made, of Songs Called Blue
A night where I don't just imagine
the abandon of inapproriate singalongs
with a quiet smile on the tube
as voices crack and words fail
At the end of Grace ... the end of grace.
I'm making a tape - called Songs Sung Blue
it's for before iTunes and before
I figured out all my current truth.
It's a word play, you understand,
you're amused, perhaps, delighted, perhaps
where this ain't a list, not even a litany
but a poem called LITANY, goes
Lucinda Williams goes Joni Mitchell
goes McAlmont & Butler goes Jayhawks
goes BLUE so BLUE.
I'm making a night of numbers and figures
with fingers and thumbs at all angles
I'm building a tower of song so high
it dares to touch the dark blue sky
and sends the years spinning, spinning back.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
10. 10 Songs about Africa
Africa - Toto
Rock the Kasbah - The Clash
Sunset Coming On - Damon Albarn
Marrakesh Express - Crosby, Stills and Nash
Mozambique - Bob Dylan
Free Nelson Mandela - The Specials
Afrika Shox - Leftfield
Liberian Girl - Michael Jackson
Redemption Song - Bob Marley
Do they know it's Christmas - Band Aid
Of course, these are all songs about Africa from an outsider's perspective - none of your Fela Kutis and Amadou and Mariams from me. This 10 is bookended by a couple of songs of almost irredeemable naffness, but I knew I had to include them, sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus over the Serengeti.
Talking of terrible verse, I have loads of words about Africa funnily enough, probably because of trying to tap into the very few parts of my memory which aren't fairly monochrome.
These are quite bland words, but I like them because they do actually remind me of some of the sheer weirdnesses of some of the time when I was in Kenya
Dogs are sleeping in the valley
'neath the bitter burning forest
Some they say the rains are coming
with the changing of the council
There's a funeral on the west slope
for the man who guards the schoolyard
He looked like Morgan Freeman -
couldn't speak a word of English
There's wailing 'cross the hillside
which sounds like a rehearsal
grief always seemes so cliched
till the moment that it strikes you
Snakes are crawling from the forest
Dessperate and endangered
Boys are sleeping with their knives out
trying hard to feel like grown men
Teeth are grinding in the bedrooms
of the blinkered unbeliever
Fire will bring the rain upon us
with the changing of the spirits
The preacher's voice gets louder -
the good book takes a beating
Drowning out the ululating
at this raging god of hatred
Blessed fresh water's getting scarcer
Fingernails are getting dirtier
The cane becomes less fruitful
Just a minor inhibition
Lightning streaks across the valley
and I do believe in nothing
but dancing in the rainstorm
I watch the fire extinguished.
Rock the Kasbah - The Clash
Sunset Coming On - Damon Albarn
Marrakesh Express - Crosby, Stills and Nash
Mozambique - Bob Dylan
Free Nelson Mandela - The Specials
Afrika Shox - Leftfield
Liberian Girl - Michael Jackson
Redemption Song - Bob Marley
Do they know it's Christmas - Band Aid
Of course, these are all songs about Africa from an outsider's perspective - none of your Fela Kutis and Amadou and Mariams from me. This 10 is bookended by a couple of songs of almost irredeemable naffness, but I knew I had to include them, sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus over the Serengeti.
Talking of terrible verse, I have loads of words about Africa funnily enough, probably because of trying to tap into the very few parts of my memory which aren't fairly monochrome.
These are quite bland words, but I like them because they do actually remind me of some of the sheer weirdnesses of some of the time when I was in Kenya
Dogs are sleeping in the valley
'neath the bitter burning forest
Some they say the rains are coming
with the changing of the council
There's a funeral on the west slope
for the man who guards the schoolyard
He looked like Morgan Freeman -
couldn't speak a word of English
There's wailing 'cross the hillside
which sounds like a rehearsal
grief always seemes so cliched
till the moment that it strikes you
Snakes are crawling from the forest
Dessperate and endangered
Boys are sleeping with their knives out
trying hard to feel like grown men
Teeth are grinding in the bedrooms
of the blinkered unbeliever
Fire will bring the rain upon us
with the changing of the spirits
The preacher's voice gets louder -
the good book takes a beating
Drowning out the ululating
at this raging god of hatred
Blessed fresh water's getting scarcer
Fingernails are getting dirtier
The cane becomes less fruitful
Just a minor inhibition
Lightning streaks across the valley
and I do believe in nothing
but dancing in the rainstorm
I watch the fire extinguished.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
9. 10 songs about Emilys
A Rose for Emily - The Zombies
Emily - Joanna Newsom
See Emily Play - Pink Floyd
Emily - Stephen Fretwell
Emily - Barbra Streisand
For Emily, Whenver I May Find Her - Simon and Garfunkel
Emily - Adam Green
Emily's Pine - The Bluetones
Emily - Manic Street Preachers
Emily - Kelly Jones
I have no words of my own for anyone called Emily, apart from Hello Emily if you're reading this, so I'll take these lush words from 'Emily' by Joanna Newsom, about her astronomer sister
"And, Emily, I saw you last night by the river
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle they were lost, and slipped under forever,
In a mudcloud, mica-spangled,like the sky'd been breathing on a river
Anyhow, I sat by your side, by the water
You taught me the names of the stars up overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
Though all i knew of that rote universe were those pleiades loosed in December
I promised you I'd set them to verse so I'd always remember
that the meteorite is the source of the light
and the meteor's just what we see
and the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee
and the meteorite's just what causes the light
and the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee"
I don't know if this is all strictly true, but it's quite fun
Emily - Joanna Newsom
See Emily Play - Pink Floyd
Emily - Stephen Fretwell
Emily - Barbra Streisand
For Emily, Whenver I May Find Her - Simon and Garfunkel
Emily - Adam Green
Emily's Pine - The Bluetones
Emily - Manic Street Preachers
Emily - Kelly Jones
I have no words of my own for anyone called Emily, apart from Hello Emily if you're reading this, so I'll take these lush words from 'Emily' by Joanna Newsom, about her astronomer sister
"And, Emily, I saw you last night by the river
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle they were lost, and slipped under forever,
In a mudcloud, mica-spangled,like the sky'd been breathing on a river
Anyhow, I sat by your side, by the water
You taught me the names of the stars up overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
Though all i knew of that rote universe were those pleiades loosed in December
I promised you I'd set them to verse so I'd always remember
that the meteorite is the source of the light
and the meteor's just what we see
and the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee
and the meteorite's just what causes the light
and the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee"
I don't know if this is all strictly true, but it's quite fun
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
8. 10 Songs about Wolves
Wolves - Josh Ritter
Raised by Wolves - Voxtrot
When We Were Wolves - My Latest Novel
Wolf among Wolves - Bonnie Prince Billy
Wolves (act I and II) - Bob Iver
Werewolf waltz - BC Camplight
Wolves (Song of the Shepherd's Dog) - Iron and Wine
Let the Wolves Howl at the Moon - Super Furry Animals
Werewolves of London Town - Warren Zevon
Wolf Like Me - TV on the Radio
Have you read The Tenderness of Wolves? Very good
I'm not sure wolves are terribly dangerous. Werewolves on the other hand ... you wouldn't mess with Michael J Fox, would you?
Anyway, wolves ... traditional symbol of fear ...
The mistake we made, when I look back at it
is thinking the wolves needed keeping at bay.
God, we're such suckers for myth and excitement -
all that energy wasted and time thrown away.
Talk in basement bars that vengeance was coming
must have been planted by enemy agents.
God, we're such suckers for outrage and gossip
Protection and panic became the contagion.
The hills of the north were just teeming with furies,
The dales of the south overrun by the ghouls.
God, now us idiots are staring at bootstraps
Asking what plague came and made us such fools.
The air filled with whispers ricocheting off windows
and the witchdoctors gave it a million new names.
God, we're such suckers for motives and syndromes,
ducking and wildly misapportioning blame.
The word went around that the wolves were a-circling
The lookouts had seen and had pictures for proof.
Diseases they'd bring and their fierce teeth would strip skin
From the wisdom of age and the fountain of youth.
God, we're such suckers for horror and bloodshed
Snakes starting sneaking over rooftops, down drains.
The city of centuries' care and construction
Turned into a jungle in a matter of days.
The wolves dissipated, though little we knew it -
their howls lingered on in our terrorised ears.
God, we're such suckers for own destruction,
Imprisoned by freedoms and stabbed through with fears.
The gates kept us in and the wolves kept truth out -
Where the wolves are now the sky alone sees
Little they know and even less would they care
that their very existence brought us all to our knees.
It's like a fable, woohoo!
Raised by Wolves - Voxtrot
When We Were Wolves - My Latest Novel
Wolf among Wolves - Bonnie Prince Billy
Wolves (act I and II) - Bob Iver
Werewolf waltz - BC Camplight
Wolves (Song of the Shepherd's Dog) - Iron and Wine
Let the Wolves Howl at the Moon - Super Furry Animals
Werewolves of London Town - Warren Zevon
Wolf Like Me - TV on the Radio
Have you read The Tenderness of Wolves? Very good
I'm not sure wolves are terribly dangerous. Werewolves on the other hand ... you wouldn't mess with Michael J Fox, would you?
Anyway, wolves ... traditional symbol of fear ...
The mistake we made, when I look back at it
is thinking the wolves needed keeping at bay.
God, we're such suckers for myth and excitement -
all that energy wasted and time thrown away.
Talk in basement bars that vengeance was coming
must have been planted by enemy agents.
God, we're such suckers for outrage and gossip
Protection and panic became the contagion.
The hills of the north were just teeming with furies,
The dales of the south overrun by the ghouls.
God, now us idiots are staring at bootstraps
Asking what plague came and made us such fools.
The air filled with whispers ricocheting off windows
and the witchdoctors gave it a million new names.
God, we're such suckers for motives and syndromes,
ducking and wildly misapportioning blame.
The word went around that the wolves were a-circling
The lookouts had seen and had pictures for proof.
Diseases they'd bring and their fierce teeth would strip skin
From the wisdom of age and the fountain of youth.
God, we're such suckers for horror and bloodshed
Snakes starting sneaking over rooftops, down drains.
The city of centuries' care and construction
Turned into a jungle in a matter of days.
The wolves dissipated, though little we knew it -
their howls lingered on in our terrorised ears.
God, we're such suckers for own destruction,
Imprisoned by freedoms and stabbed through with fears.
The gates kept us in and the wolves kept truth out -
Where the wolves are now the sky alone sees
Little they know and even less would they care
that their very existence brought us all to our knees.
It's like a fable, woohoo!
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
7. 10 Songs which are about trains
The Engine Driver -The Decemberists
Night Train - James Brown
Siffler le train - Richard Anthony
Downtown Train -Tom Waits
Rise - Josh Rouse
Whistle of a Distant Train - Ed Harcourt
Midnight Train to Georgia - Brook Benton
Waiting for the Ghost Train - Madness
It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry - Bob Dylan
Madame George - Van Morrison
I love trains, In particular the East Coast mainline. I love it. It's part of the holiday. Get drunk in the buffet of the East Coast mainline staring out at Bamburgh Castle and Lindisfarne and The Angel of the North and the North Sea. It's awesomeness..
Not all these songs are totally about trains, but trains are pretty key to them. I didn't include Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat from 'Cats'.
Here's something which isn't really about trains, though it's also called
The Engine Driver
It's a sad story about a face I recognised in a hospital waiting room and then a name I recognised in a newpaper a while later.
The engine driver felt something he didn't wish to feel,
a pang of bliss, the pain of loss for life he almost lived
of wild abandon, borders crossed, packets pushing pockets,
waved through to further exploits seen but not believed,
as he drove the train to Brighton and dreamt he drove the line
way down South where music began and lived on in his mind
but he drove up to Victoria, not such a handsome scene
as the glorious high and lonesome of a purer, deeper time.
The engine driver saw some things which made his colleagues blush -
superstars in waiting and shoulders brushed with legends
"Lads, I'll tell you stories of life I dared to live
beyond the boundaries, off the tracks - ever burning engines"
as he held the dead man's handle and let his spirit wander
"but, sure, this is a life and line not to be idly sniffed at
I see some beauty, feel some life that many sure would envy.
I've been through that, I've come to this, brain and soul intact."
The engine driver felt some thing he didn't wish to feel
which took him 'cross from Victoria to nearby London Bridge,
impatient in crowded waiting rooms with aged and infirm
who grimace and grin and condescend to tell him Life's a bitch.
"Life is brutal - what you mean - utterly fucking brutal.
What right have I to this position of sympathy unwanted?
I am almost a rock'n'roll star and I am an engine driver
and I am so many things to come in life I've barely started.
I am the engine driver and I had a million lines in me,
I am more than just three paragraphs across the country's press
I am artist and artisan, I am shaman and servant
I walk out of this colourless room and no one could care less."
The engine driver saw something he couldn't bear to see
He saw his train driving away without him at the wheel.
And is that it, this brutal life where lessons learnt are worthless?
The engine driver felt something he could no longer feel.
It was sad. I hope that comes across.
Night Train - James Brown
Siffler le train - Richard Anthony
Downtown Train -Tom Waits
Rise - Josh Rouse
Whistle of a Distant Train - Ed Harcourt
Midnight Train to Georgia - Brook Benton
Waiting for the Ghost Train - Madness
It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry - Bob Dylan
Madame George - Van Morrison
I love trains, In particular the East Coast mainline. I love it. It's part of the holiday. Get drunk in the buffet of the East Coast mainline staring out at Bamburgh Castle and Lindisfarne and The Angel of the North and the North Sea. It's awesomeness..
Not all these songs are totally about trains, but trains are pretty key to them. I didn't include Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat from 'Cats'.
Here's something which isn't really about trains, though it's also called
The Engine Driver
It's a sad story about a face I recognised in a hospital waiting room and then a name I recognised in a newpaper a while later.
The engine driver felt something he didn't wish to feel,
a pang of bliss, the pain of loss for life he almost lived
of wild abandon, borders crossed, packets pushing pockets,
waved through to further exploits seen but not believed,
as he drove the train to Brighton and dreamt he drove the line
way down South where music began and lived on in his mind
but he drove up to Victoria, not such a handsome scene
as the glorious high and lonesome of a purer, deeper time.
The engine driver saw some things which made his colleagues blush -
superstars in waiting and shoulders brushed with legends
"Lads, I'll tell you stories of life I dared to live
beyond the boundaries, off the tracks - ever burning engines"
as he held the dead man's handle and let his spirit wander
"but, sure, this is a life and line not to be idly sniffed at
I see some beauty, feel some life that many sure would envy.
I've been through that, I've come to this, brain and soul intact."
The engine driver felt some thing he didn't wish to feel
which took him 'cross from Victoria to nearby London Bridge,
impatient in crowded waiting rooms with aged and infirm
who grimace and grin and condescend to tell him Life's a bitch.
"Life is brutal - what you mean - utterly fucking brutal.
What right have I to this position of sympathy unwanted?
I am almost a rock'n'roll star and I am an engine driver
and I am so many things to come in life I've barely started.
I am the engine driver and I had a million lines in me,
I am more than just three paragraphs across the country's press
I am artist and artisan, I am shaman and servant
I walk out of this colourless room and no one could care less."
The engine driver saw something he couldn't bear to see
He saw his train driving away without him at the wheel.
And is that it, this brutal life where lessons learnt are worthless?
The engine driver felt something he could no longer feel.
It was sad. I hope that comes across.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
4. 10 Songs for Doing Nothing
Don't Just Do Something - Spiritualized
Busy Doing Nothing - Brian Wilson
Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks
Let it Be (or Tomorrow Never Knows) - The Beatles
Lazy - X-Press 2 & David Byrne
Sitting on the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
The Summer Wasting - Belle and Sebastian
Watching the Wheels - John Lennon
Can't Get out of Bed -The Charlatans
Lazy Sunday - Small Faces
Doing nothing - highly underrated. I think it's the closest I have to a philosophy on life, and it's beautifully expressed by the above Spiritualized song. I certainly realised from most of my early attempts to do good in life that they were doing more harm than good, so "don't just do something, sit around instead"
Almost as good as Doing Nothing is Feeling Nothing. Harder to manage, but still a very valuable tool. Toot-toot, he breaks into song ....
Sometimes it's kinder not to care
as the cameras glare and flash.
Indifference is respect -
to disregard the crash,
It's kinder not to care about
each last ebbing ideal,
not to feel a thing
if you don't know what to feel.
Busy Doing Nothing - Brian Wilson
Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks
Let it Be (or Tomorrow Never Knows) - The Beatles
Lazy - X-Press 2 & David Byrne
Sitting on the Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
The Summer Wasting - Belle and Sebastian
Watching the Wheels - John Lennon
Can't Get out of Bed -The Charlatans
Lazy Sunday - Small Faces
Doing nothing - highly underrated. I think it's the closest I have to a philosophy on life, and it's beautifully expressed by the above Spiritualized song. I certainly realised from most of my early attempts to do good in life that they were doing more harm than good, so "don't just do something, sit around instead"
Almost as good as Doing Nothing is Feeling Nothing. Harder to manage, but still a very valuable tool. Toot-toot, he breaks into song ....
Sometimes it's kinder not to care
as the cameras glare and flash.
Indifference is respect -
to disregard the crash,
It's kinder not to care about
each last ebbing ideal,
not to feel a thing
if you don't know what to feel.
6. 10 Songs about Teaching and School
The Teacher - Super Furry Animals
The Art Teacher - Rufus Wainwright
Another Brick in the Wall -Pink Floyd
The Headmaster Ritual - The Smiths
Teachers - Leonard Cohen
I'm not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend how to Dance - Black Kids
Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III - Cornershop
Don't Stand so Close to Me - The Police
School Days - Loudon Wainwright
School's Out - Alice Cooper
Teaching - very important and wonderful. Not for everybody, though. This is what someone who found himself teaching and being hopeless at it might think. St Cassian is an early martyr, murdered with writing implements by his vicious and unruly class. Happy Days!
Into the heart of darkness
I've peeked and scarred my eyes
And in my clouded mind I see
only weakness, battling lies.
Just south of the river
I stepped out of the shallows
and flapped and flailed but would not
cry for rescue from my perils.
And in the sun-drenched darkness
my sweat clung like a shroud
And now I wish I'd never dared
to drown, so bold, so proud.
And in the wonder of the night
I clung to bright escape
But morning came; I swam in vain
for any saving shape.
The vicious sun has stripped my skin
and inside lies a mockery.
The laugh grows louder every hour,
as sharpened points attack me.
Cassian saw the heart of darkness,
I see the joke in Cassian.
I see the base of my ideals,
the abortion of this mission.
I wish that I could take this darkness,
hold it and embrace it,
but every time my blood arises
my muddled brain can't face it.
Beyond the heart of darkness
may lie a misted marshland
but bring it on, with tickertape
bring on the braying brassband
For I'll take grey uncertainty
I'll take dirt and squalor
to flee from darkness my green eyes
were rash enough to follow.
In the melodramatic and overblown spirit of Prudentius' 'Liber Peristephanon' as you've no doubt noted.
The Art Teacher - Rufus Wainwright
Another Brick in the Wall -Pink Floyd
The Headmaster Ritual - The Smiths
Teachers - Leonard Cohen
I'm not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend how to Dance - Black Kids
Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III - Cornershop
Don't Stand so Close to Me - The Police
School Days - Loudon Wainwright
School's Out - Alice Cooper
Teaching - very important and wonderful. Not for everybody, though. This is what someone who found himself teaching and being hopeless at it might think. St Cassian is an early martyr, murdered with writing implements by his vicious and unruly class. Happy Days!
Into the heart of darkness
I've peeked and scarred my eyes
And in my clouded mind I see
only weakness, battling lies.
Just south of the river
I stepped out of the shallows
and flapped and flailed but would not
cry for rescue from my perils.
And in the sun-drenched darkness
my sweat clung like a shroud
And now I wish I'd never dared
to drown, so bold, so proud.
And in the wonder of the night
I clung to bright escape
But morning came; I swam in vain
for any saving shape.
The vicious sun has stripped my skin
and inside lies a mockery.
The laugh grows louder every hour,
as sharpened points attack me.
Cassian saw the heart of darkness,
I see the joke in Cassian.
I see the base of my ideals,
the abortion of this mission.
I wish that I could take this darkness,
hold it and embrace it,
but every time my blood arises
my muddled brain can't face it.
Beyond the heart of darkness
may lie a misted marshland
but bring it on, with tickertape
bring on the braying brassband
For I'll take grey uncertainty
I'll take dirt and squalor
to flee from darkness my green eyes
were rash enough to follow.
In the melodramatic and overblown spirit of Prudentius' 'Liber Peristephanon' as you've no doubt noted.
5. 10 Songs for Jesus
I Want to be a Christian - The Proclaimers
Sweet Jesus - James Yorkston
O Happy Day - Spiritualized
The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ - Jackie Leven
Jesus Was a Crossmaker - Judee Sill
Corpus Christi Carol - Jeff Buckley
Jesus Christ - Big Star
Jesus Walks - Kanye West
Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam - Nirvana
Check Out My New Jesus - Joy Zipper
A lot of the best songs are about Jesus. Rock'n'Roll of course has religious roots but more often than not Jesus is just as likely to be used in secular songs. It's a strong word.
I might have used Jesus here, but I didn't, but I guess this is about Jesus
Brother, please recall
the grey chapel
which saw me running round in circles
eyes, clasped tight to see
some trinity
of tricks & lights & silence
See, the day is passed,
the one he gave -
spinebent books with golden letters
and chords so sad and strong
the oldest song
could make the worst day so much brighter
and I, I used to pray
five times each day
make five different times of promise
for peace, till end of days
the old cliches
on the cusp of being honest.
I recall
the holy ghost
the Dorset Coast
now i'm running round the island
to escape my wildest mind
so long confined
by hangovers and minefields
as the priests
cast shame on me -
apostasy
is an ever-present menace
to their grip,
the fellowship
of fresh grace and sweet communion
lost so long, even their ghosts
aren't even close
to disrupting frozen freedom.
Please, just let me be,
running free
you won't catch me on the island.
Sweet Jesus - James Yorkston
O Happy Day - Spiritualized
The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ - Jackie Leven
Jesus Was a Crossmaker - Judee Sill
Corpus Christi Carol - Jeff Buckley
Jesus Christ - Big Star
Jesus Walks - Kanye West
Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam - Nirvana
Check Out My New Jesus - Joy Zipper
A lot of the best songs are about Jesus. Rock'n'Roll of course has religious roots but more often than not Jesus is just as likely to be used in secular songs. It's a strong word.
I might have used Jesus here, but I didn't, but I guess this is about Jesus
Brother, please recall
the grey chapel
which saw me running round in circles
eyes, clasped tight to see
some trinity
of tricks & lights & silence
See, the day is passed,
the one he gave -
spinebent books with golden letters
and chords so sad and strong
the oldest song
could make the worst day so much brighter
and I, I used to pray
five times each day
make five different times of promise
for peace, till end of days
the old cliches
on the cusp of being honest.
I recall
the holy ghost
the Dorset Coast
now i'm running round the island
to escape my wildest mind
so long confined
by hangovers and minefields
as the priests
cast shame on me -
apostasy
is an ever-present menace
to their grip,
the fellowship
of fresh grace and sweet communion
lost so long, even their ghosts
aren't even close
to disrupting frozen freedom.
Please, just let me be,
running free
you won't catch me on the island.
Monday, 2 March 2009
3. 10 Songs about Sport
This Sporting Life - The Decemberists
When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease - Roy Harper
I Wish - Skee-Lo
Piazza, New York Catcher - Belle and Sebastian
Waltze of the Tennis Players - Meg Baird
Hurricane - Bob Dylan
Snooker Loopy - The Matchroom Mob
The Loneliness of the Middle Distance Runner - Belle and Sebastian
Three Lions - The Lightning Seeds
Ice Hockey Hair - Super Furry Animals
I love Sport. It's the best thing in the world. To prove it conclusively, I draw upon these overblown words. They trundle along in imitation of Derek Pringle running into bowl
When I'm feeling low, when I'm feeling insipid
When I've no noble notion within me to share
When all that is fine about me is crippled
by the grinding motion of going nowhere
When my days turn to night and the nights have no fire
When the drop is straight and straits are dire
I watch sport
Oh yes .... I watch sport.
When I'm sad and blue, when the deck is stacked
When the clouds don't break for the summer's length
When I'm sucked dry of temper and tired out of tact
and no god I could muster could just give me strength
When my words turn to dust and the dust coats my room
And no lamp will serve to lighten the gloom
I watch sport
That's right .... I watch sport.
When the symphony's silent
When the chords clang and clash
When the filmmaker's art's
Lost in longing for cash
When the poet's derided
for losing all touch
When a soul needs supporting
and art is no crutch
For the simplest of pleasures
The truest of joys
For fair separation
of men from the boys
For battle less bloody
than Plataea or Culloden
For the apex of cultures
both ancient and modern
For humanity's rising, triumphant, surprising
Federer, Henin, Wilkinson, Ambrose, Gebrselaissie, Woods and Calzaghe
Giggs and Habana, Le Tissier, Gower, Bolt, Flintoff, Lara
I watch sport every time.
So there we have it. The final word on the matter
When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease - Roy Harper
I Wish - Skee-Lo
Piazza, New York Catcher - Belle and Sebastian
Waltze of the Tennis Players - Meg Baird
Hurricane - Bob Dylan
Snooker Loopy - The Matchroom Mob
The Loneliness of the Middle Distance Runner - Belle and Sebastian
Three Lions - The Lightning Seeds
Ice Hockey Hair - Super Furry Animals
I love Sport. It's the best thing in the world. To prove it conclusively, I draw upon these overblown words. They trundle along in imitation of Derek Pringle running into bowl
When I'm feeling low, when I'm feeling insipid
When I've no noble notion within me to share
When all that is fine about me is crippled
by the grinding motion of going nowhere
When my days turn to night and the nights have no fire
When the drop is straight and straits are dire
I watch sport
Oh yes .... I watch sport.
When I'm sad and blue, when the deck is stacked
When the clouds don't break for the summer's length
When I'm sucked dry of temper and tired out of tact
and no god I could muster could just give me strength
When my words turn to dust and the dust coats my room
And no lamp will serve to lighten the gloom
I watch sport
That's right .... I watch sport.
When the symphony's silent
When the chords clang and clash
When the filmmaker's art's
Lost in longing for cash
When the poet's derided
for losing all touch
When a soul needs supporting
and art is no crutch
For the simplest of pleasures
The truest of joys
For fair separation
of men from the boys
For battle less bloody
than Plataea or Culloden
For the apex of cultures
both ancient and modern
For humanity's rising, triumphant, surprising
Federer, Henin, Wilkinson, Ambrose, Gebrselaissie, Woods and Calzaghe
Giggs and Habana, Le Tissier, Gower, Bolt, Flintoff, Lara
I watch sport every time.
So there we have it. The final word on the matter
2. 10 Songs about Dead Film Stars
Here's my second list. I'm trying to make nearly all the songs on all the tapes songs I really like. I haven't quite managed it here:
The Right Profile - The Clash
Vogue - Madonna
Matinee Idol - Rufus Wainwright
Judy - The Pernice Brothers
Grace Kelly - Mika
Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
Candle in the Wind - Elton John
Steve McQueen - Lambchop
Just Like Fred Astaire - James
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
Montgomery Clift
Various
River Phoenix
Judy Garland
"
"
Marilyn Monroe
"
"
Judy Garland
respectively
and last summer I wrote about a film star a month or so before he died
I was thinking about the cool hand
on the hottest day of summer
I was thinking about the blue eyes
staring down the vicious sun
I've been thinking about Paul Newman
how there'll never be another
how he'll leave his life so truly lived
no one else should even bother
I've been thinking about the old man
with the twinkle of a killer
I've been thinking about the airman
from an era lost forever
I've been thinking about Paul Newman
and how much Paul Newman matters
I've been praying for this new world
getting colder, grayer, sadder
The Right Profile - The Clash
Vogue - Madonna
Matinee Idol - Rufus Wainwright
Judy - The Pernice Brothers
Grace Kelly - Mika
Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes
Candle in the Wind - Elton John
Steve McQueen - Lambchop
Just Like Fred Astaire - James
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
Montgomery Clift
Various
River Phoenix
Judy Garland
"
"
Marilyn Monroe
"
"
Judy Garland
respectively
and last summer I wrote about a film star a month or so before he died
I was thinking about the cool hand
on the hottest day of summer
I was thinking about the blue eyes
staring down the vicious sun
I've been thinking about Paul Newman
how there'll never be another
how he'll leave his life so truly lived
no one else should even bother
I've been thinking about the old man
with the twinkle of a killer
I've been thinking about the airman
from an era lost forever
I've been thinking about Paul Newman
and how much Paul Newman matters
I've been praying for this new world
getting colder, grayer, sadder
101 Tapes - the beginning .... songs about Music
After a few teething problems, I think I've hit on the appropriate format for the blog. In the spirit of the original idea - listing music - but in a more user-friendly, shorter-listed way, I will seek to produce 101 separate tracklists for themed compilation tapes.
Back in the day, I used to make tapes all the time for myself and for my friends, but of course it's now a defunct form. Sites like muxtape have tried to keep the dream alive, but I tend to find them rather unsatisfactory, so this is my own little mixtape haven.
Ideally, I'd have links to the songs etc, but I think I'll keep it simple and tidy and stick to dry words.
For added value, I will also include some extra words underneath the tracklisting, whether my own or borrowed from somewhere, hopefully on the same theme.
I'm sure this has been done a million times before, but I'm pretty enthusiastic about this - I've already come up with over 10 ideas for tapes, and we'll see what kind of silliness I can come up with to accompany them.
So, here we go, Tape 1: 10 Songs which ... celebrate or mock Music and the Music Scene
Sweeping the Nation - Spearmint
The Late Greats - Wilco
Heard about your Band - Brakes
Garageland - The Clash
Geno - Dexys Midnight Runners
Creeque Alley - Mamas and the Papas
Glamorous Indie Rock'n'Roll - The Killers
I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well - Pooh Sticks
Fake Takes of San Francisco - Arctic Monkeys
C30 C60 C90 Go - Bow Wow Wow
As Wilco say
"The best song will never get sung
The best laugh never leaves your lungs
So good, you won't ever know
I never hear it on the radio
Can't hear it on the radio"
so here's a song which doesn't have a tune about a band which doesn't have any members or has never produced any music.
They are my favourite band of all time - they're called The Turkletons
Let's go see The Turkletons playing
Everyone's saying they're the next best next best
I hear they're like The Smiths on acid
or maybe that was The Shins on speed
Have you got the new Turkletons single
It's a blast of sun-drenched punk
The Beach Boys meet the Sex Pistols
Al Jardine gets beaten up
I really like your Turkletons t-shirt
classic indie merchandising
you could do with losing some pounds
indie fashion's unforgiving
My mate's met the Turkletons drummer
in the loo at Koko, I think
He said their album'll be a classic
but i think they're already past it
So that's the story of The Turkletons, the greatest band that never lived, and that's how it works - themed virtual tape, silly words of some sort. 101 times. Yippee
Back in the day, I used to make tapes all the time for myself and for my friends, but of course it's now a defunct form. Sites like muxtape have tried to keep the dream alive, but I tend to find them rather unsatisfactory, so this is my own little mixtape haven.
Ideally, I'd have links to the songs etc, but I think I'll keep it simple and tidy and stick to dry words.
For added value, I will also include some extra words underneath the tracklisting, whether my own or borrowed from somewhere, hopefully on the same theme.
I'm sure this has been done a million times before, but I'm pretty enthusiastic about this - I've already come up with over 10 ideas for tapes, and we'll see what kind of silliness I can come up with to accompany them.
So, here we go, Tape 1: 10 Songs which ... celebrate or mock Music and the Music Scene
Sweeping the Nation - Spearmint
The Late Greats - Wilco
Heard about your Band - Brakes
Garageland - The Clash
Geno - Dexys Midnight Runners
Creeque Alley - Mamas and the Papas
Glamorous Indie Rock'n'Roll - The Killers
I Know Someone Who Knows Someone Who Knows Alan McGee Quite Well - Pooh Sticks
Fake Takes of San Francisco - Arctic Monkeys
C30 C60 C90 Go - Bow Wow Wow
As Wilco say
"The best song will never get sung
The best laugh never leaves your lungs
So good, you won't ever know
I never hear it on the radio
Can't hear it on the radio"
so here's a song which doesn't have a tune about a band which doesn't have any members or has never produced any music.
They are my favourite band of all time - they're called The Turkletons
Let's go see The Turkletons playing
Everyone's saying they're the next best next best
I hear they're like The Smiths on acid
or maybe that was The Shins on speed
Have you got the new Turkletons single
It's a blast of sun-drenched punk
The Beach Boys meet the Sex Pistols
Al Jardine gets beaten up
I really like your Turkletons t-shirt
classic indie merchandising
you could do with losing some pounds
indie fashion's unforgiving
My mate's met the Turkletons drummer
in the loo at Koko, I think
He said their album'll be a classic
but i think they're already past it
So that's the story of The Turkletons, the greatest band that never lived, and that's how it works - themed virtual tape, silly words of some sort. 101 times. Yippee
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