Here we go! Part the third and last of 2019's song and lyric round-up. And look who it is, leading from the front. Bloody Morrissey again...
I Was Looking For A Job -
The Smiths from
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now
- Calling Capt. Obvious. Morrissey is so horribly quotable,
blast him. Once again, I'd prefer a cover to His Miserableness but even
with hundreds to choose from I can't find a good one. If
Puddles can't carry it, no-one can.
It's All Happening -
Tommy Steele - Hear that noise? That's the sound of a barrel being scraped, that is. Although a barrel being scraped would have a better tune.
Welcome To Difficult - Cowboy Crush, from
Difficult. Wikipedia
lists nearly
seventy sub-genres of "country ". I'm guessing this must be one of them
but I wouldn't be able to tell you which. I'd probably come across as a
lot cooler if I said I'd taken my post title from
Difficult Listening Hour by
Laurie Anderson but I'd be lying. What really happened was that I googled for songs with "
difficult" in the title and this is what I got.
Punishment Of Luxury - Here, though, I definitely
was thinking of the band of the same name, often referred to as
Punilux. And though I didn't know it at the time, it's also a song by
Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark. I imagine they have some common history. Where's
Pete Frame when you need him?
A Change In The Weather -
Love Spit Love - Isn't that a terrible name for a band? Particularly coming from the guy who came up with
The Psychedelic Furs.
I never rated The Furs until I reluctantly went to see them with a
girlfriend back in the 80s and they were just great. Then I saw
Pretty in Pink and that was me sold.
What Has Happened To Your Review? - from
Peppy Solex by
Solex. Okay,
I admit it. This is just obscurity for the sake of it. 229 YouTube
views in nearly five years pretty much says it all. It's great, though,
isn't it? That's her picture at the top of the post, too. Actually, it turns out she's not as obscure as all that. She did six John Peel sessions...
Whole Wide World -
Wreckless Eric - There
are those who might also find Wreckless a tad obscure but compared to
Solex he's Justin Bieber. Erm, that didn't quite come out right. This is
the classic that cemented his place in pop history but he's written
dozens as good or even better than this. He's also the drunkest
I have ever seen anyone who was also still able not just to sing but to remember all the words - and
I'm including Shane McGowan and Mark E Smith in that.
Yeah, Yeah, I Got An Alternative -
Gorrilaz, from
Hip Albatross. The line itself is a quote from from the film "
Day of the Dead".
I do love dragging non-sequiter fragments out of popular culture and forcing
them into service. As does Damon,
apparently.
Fight For Your Right (To Party) -
Beastie Boys - Enough with the obscurantism, already! Play something we know! There are a million covers of this on YouTube, some
quite bizarre -
Debbie Harry seems oddly fond of doing it, though she probably shouldn't. There's a
Dance Mix, a
Lounge version, even
Coldplay have
had a bash although that's where I draw the line. In fact, I draw my line
well before Coldplay... My
favorite so far has to be this slab of Argentinian Jazz Funk courtesy of
Profesores de Tennis, which, for some reason, I embedded at the top of yesterday's post.
Born To Run -
Bruce Springsteen -
If you're going to go mainstream, might as well go all the way. The
Boss's signature tune, here interpreted by the second band ever to have
three consecutive U.K. number ones with their first three singles -
Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Better than the original, I'd say.
Let's Go To The Moon -
The Equals -The drummer sounds like he's beating the dents out of a Ford Escort with a sledgehammer. Which was probably his day job.
Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me - But I Have It
-
Lana! Second appearance of the year for this song as a post title,
this time used in full. It's a song so good I can hardly bear to listen
to it. As the last track on
Norman Fucking Rockwell it arrives like the dawn coming up over the ruins at the end of the world. No? Just me, then...
I Got Skills - From the sublime... an obvious and unsubtle pun on "
I got chills" from
You're The One That I Want by
Olivia Newton John and
John Travolta. I actually saw
Grease at the cinema on original release so I shouldn't get too sniffy about it. Even so, let's have
the Angus and Julia Stone version.
Savage Silk -
Suzi Quatro
I must have been a very strange teenager. I would guess Suzi was maybe
five years older than me when she hit big in the early 70s. Half the
adolescent boys in the country must have had posters of her on their
walls. For some reason I cannot now fathom, she looked to me to be about
the same age as my mother. I thought of her accordingly. Sometimes
you'd just like to go back and give your younger self a good talking to.
Or a dry slap. This is not one of Suzi's best known bangers plus it has
a
very odd intro.
When I Feel Heavy Metal -
Blur, from
Song 2
- Can't help but feel Damon's making some kind of point with this one
but I'm jiggered if I know what it is. It's a scary song at the best of
times but the
Glastonbury version is positively feral.
On The Road Again -
Canned Heat
- It's hard to explain why, especially since by the time I saw the
movie Woodstock was barely five years in the past, but to my adolescent
mind this was ancient history. I don't think I really understood that any
of these people were even still alive. Come to think of it, some of them
probably weren't.
Road To Nowhere -
Talking Heads - There are some interesting covers of this radio standard, not least by
The Rosebuds (who I saw at
The Thekla, a ship moored on the Bristol waterfront. They didn't play it then, though).
Nouvelle Vague covered it, too. Of course they did.
Keep Pushin' 'Til It's Understood -
Bruce Springsteen, from
Badlands. He gets everywhere! I'm not even that much of a Bruce fan. He's just kind of universal, I guess.
Carry The News, Dude -
Mott The Hoople from
All The Young Dudes. This is one of those absolutely superb songs that's suffered horribly from being overplayed.
This great version by
The Rebelles (with Ian Hunter on backing vocals) brings back what it was like to hear it fresh..
My Little Ponies, You Opened Up My Eyes - From the
My Little Pony theme song
Friendship Is Magic. Tune, brah! I have Brony tendencies, it cannot be denied.
We All Love Our Pets -
Taking Back Sunday - Now that's what I call Emo!
New Tricks - I have a feeling I was thinking of
Lena Lovich when I used this but the song of hers I would have had in mind is actually called
New Toy. The specific phrase turns up in
Dog New Tricks by
Garbage, which is on an album we have in the house and also on
Pure Pleasure Seeker by
Moloko, who we have a couple of records by as well
, so theoretically I might have been thinking of one of those. Only I wasn't.
The Other Side Of The Door -
Taylor Swift, from the period when she was a John Hughes movie come to life.
New Best Friend - Be nice if I could claim it was from the gloriously woozy
Boredom by
Tyler The Creator [feat. Anna of the North, Corinne Bailey & Rex Orange County] or This Is What Makes Us Girls by Lana, which is even better, because
Lana! What I was in fact thinking of was
My Bag by
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. Lloyd is one of the finest lyricists since Cole Porter and I used this very song as the title of the
first post I ever wrote.
Rainy Days And Mondays -
The Carpenters.
I love this. So sue me. I was fourteen when it was a hit and if
fourteen year old me caught 61 year old me listening to The Carpenters
he'd punch me in the face. If I didn't punch him first for listening to
Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Pretend We're Dead -
L7 - I know this from their amazing performance on
The Word. Live TV at its dangerous best and an object lesson to producers to always use a five second delay.
Don't Fear The Reaper -
Blue Oyster Cult
- I own an album by
BOC. The live double. Haven't played it in thirty
years but this is a good tune. They had about three, as I recall. Still, three more than a lot of bands. There are several interesting
covers out there -
Big Country, Evanescence, The Beautiful South (!)- but the ones I like best are by
The Alice Band and
Keep Shelly In Athens (fantastic name!).
Don't Start Me Talking -
Sonny Boy Williamson - I know it mainly from the
New York Dolls cover on
Too Much Too Soon. I ummed and ahhed over the album version or the rougher-edged demo but in the end I thought "
it's the Dolls, ffs!". So I went with the rough.
Blood Moon Rising - inspired by
Credence Clearwater Revival's
Bad Moon Rising.
In their heyday,
CCR were credited with bringing a raw, live edge back
to rock music but the original sounds leaden by modern standards. Sadly, many of
the covers I've heard are even worse.
Juliana Hatfield's is lovely though and the video from
The La La Love Mes, which I used at the top of yesterday's post, is just nuts.
Saturday Night In The City Of The Eyes - a pun that really doesn't work, taken from
Saturday Night In The City Of The Dead by
Ultravox.
You wouldn't think swapping one single syllable would cause such a
rhythmic train wreck but it does. I knew as much at the time and yet I
still went with it. I'm duly ashamed.
All The Tired Horses -
Bob Dylan - The original, from Dylan's much-maligned covers album,
Self Portrait,
is haunting and strange. I came across it, uncredited, on a mix tape
sent me by a friend and for years I didn't even know it was Dylan. Not
surprising, since he doesn't sing on it. The original is nowhere to
be found on YouTube and almost all the covers are execrable. This one,
by
Jimmy And Noelle,
is the only one I could find that comes anywhere close to the bleak,
elegaic desperation I remember from the tape I listened to over and
over.
Memories Like A Shroud - from
Halloween by
Siouxsie And The Banshees. And it wasn't even a halloween post...
Complaints (It's My Department) - from
Complaints by
Sparks. Quite possibly the weakest track on the magnificent
Kimono my House
album but even a throwaway filler from Sparks is likely to come stuffed with great lines. I'm looking forward to the upcoming Edgar
Wright documentary.
Time To Build -
Beastie Boys - There's
a very strong argument for The Beasties being rap for rock fans but I
wouldn't be the one making it. I love the way they hit the last word
of every line like they're banging in nails.
Customized Or Ready Made - from
Trash by
Roxy Music. They were already past their best by the time this came out but the video is fun. Apparently that's Gary Tibbs of
Adam and the Ants making a complete show of himself on bass.
Bits And Pieces -
The Dave Clark Five
- Caveman rock! Actually, cavemen probably knew more about melody than
this lot. I grew up listening to this kind of thing, you know. If you tried that now someone would call social services - at least I hope they
would. I thought long and hard
before using it for a title but sometimes you just have to grit your
teeth and go with the obvious, because it works.
Around And Around -
The Rolling Stones - from the same year (1964). Might as well be from a different galaxy. Is it any wonder their respective careers took the arcs they did?
I Still Have Faith That What Was Mine Can Still Be Mine - from
Apology by
The Go-Gos. If that was the title it would be up there with Lana's "
Hope..."I
kind of missed The Go Gos when they were around the first time. I only
picked up on them when Belinda Carlisle and Jane Wiedlin started having
solo hits. I gather they were seminal, although that's probably not the
most appropriate way of putting it.
Fresh Starts And Second Chances -
Buck 65 from
Jaws Of Life.
His voice is pitched so high here I thought whoever posted it had sped
it up to avoid copyright takedowns. But no, Buck was just young, once.
It'll Squish -
Sonic Youth from
Mariah Carey And The Arthur Doyle Hand Cream.
It must be painfully apparent by now that I like an abstruse song title
more than most people but even I draw the line at this. There aren't
all that many songs with "squish" in the lyrics to choose from, though,
and the few there are you mostly wouldn't want to be caught quoting.
Fifteen - Taylor Swift - I already used the John Hughes line. I should have saved it for this one.
Slip Sliding Away -
Paul Simon - Of the huge number of covers of this I glanced at on YouTube, almost every one is by someone who looks
exactly like the kind of person you'd expect to cover a Paul Simon song. About the only one I could stand was
this.
To Cooking School, To Cooking School - from
Margot Known As Missy by
The Judybats. I couldn't believe it when this came up on a lyric.com search.
So perfect!
I have a CD by these guys somewhere. I bought it because of their
name, surprise, surprise. I don't remember there being anything as good as
this on it, though.
Don't Go, Kitty Kitty -
Avril Levigne from
Hello Kitty. I frickin'
love this song
and the video. Judging by the YouTube comments I probably shouldn't have said that out loud.
Look Around You, Art Is Everywhere -
MGMT. These weird kids' shows are a gift that never stops giving. I don't think anything's ever going to top
Starcrawler doing
Ants on
Pancake Mountain. Kids in the audience are going to be reliving that day in therapy thirty years from now.
Take Five -
Dave Brubeck Quartet - The original is sublime but we've heard it so many times all impact is lost. Try
King Tubby or
The Specials or even
Lisa Simpson.
When The Party's Over -
Billy Eilish
- It's a very, very common phrase in umpteen songs, particularly ones
with "party" in the title but this is the one I meant. It has to be
since I was listening to it when I wrote the post. She's everything they
say she is and more.
Step Into A New World - from
Step Into The New World by
Soulhead. Not
sure why I would have changed the definite article to indefinite.
Didn't it work anyway? Also, not going to pretend I have any idea
who Soulhead are. Nice old school groove, that's all I do know.
We Choose To Go To The Moon -
There's A Light - No clue who these guys might be, either, although I'd lay odds they took their name from
The Smiths "
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out". They seem to like borrowing stuff. Fair dos. So do I.
Let's Go Faster -
Stray Cats - Who doesn't like a bit of overamped rockabilly?
Squares, that's who, daddio!
Am I Squeezing You Too Tight? -
Avril Levigne from
Things I'll Never Say - Two tracks by Avril Levigne? Seriously?
I think it's time we called it a day.
See you all in 2020!