Songs About People # 91 Robert McNamara

The most name-dropping song of them all. The page devoted to it on Wikipedia lists over thirty people in all. Chock a block in less than two and half minutes. Of course a Dylan parody, Paul Simon always had and probably still has a chip on both of his small shoulders about Bob. Nicely done in any case. Robert McNamara by the way was US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968.

'I been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored
I been John O'Hara'd, McNamara'd
I been Rolling Stoned and Beatled till I'm blind
I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
A Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed
That's the hand I use, well never mind
I been Phil Spectored, resurrected
I been Lou Adlered, Barry Sadlered
Well, I paid all the dues I want to pay
And I learned the truth from Lenny Bruce
And all of my wealth won't buy me health
So I smoke a pint of tea a day
I know a man's brain's so small
He couldn't think of nothing at all
Not the same as you and me
He doesn't dig poetry
He's so unhip when you say Dylan
He thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas
Whoever he was, the man ain't got no culture
But it's alright, ma, everybody must get stoned
I been Mick Jaggered, been silver daggered
Andy Warhol, won't you please come home?
I been mothered, fathered, aunt and uncled
Been Roy Haleed and Art Garfunkeled
I just discovered somebody's tapped my phone.'

SongwritersPaul SimonPublished byPAUL SIMON MUSIC

Kamasi Washington

Now here's something I was directed to by an old friend and supporter of this blog in an e-mail yesterday. A recently released triple album called The Epic from an American Jazz Musician, arranger and saxophonist that will really clear out any cobwebs. In the words of my friend 'bracing'!

Jo Mama Post Script

So after coming upon this by reading a chance comparison to Prefab Sprout by Robert Christgau last night I've spent a very enjoyable hour at work in the company of their eponymous 1970 album thanks to Spotify where you can find it. It didn't really particularly remind me of Prefab Sprout though I did see what he was talking about with the general 'open-ness' of it. It's pure California Sunshine, also reminiscent of Carole King, Steely Dan and well, just being outside. Halfway through my Spotify listen I found myself thinking, I need to own this, and searching Discogs for it. Trust me, the record's great. Such is the life sentence of the addicted music buyer. More information of the musicians and technicians involved who branched from and to The Fugs, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, Carol King, Peter & Gordon, James Taylor, The Rocky Horror Show and elsewhere here.

Mixtape - Songs that Steal the 'Be My Baby' Drum Sound # 19 The Pet Shop Boys

Side 2 Track 5 5.52.  A song about how Britain, and London in particular in this case, became something of a battlefield towards the end of the late Eighties.

'King's Cross sums up how PSB's alchemy was becoming prophetic at this point. A song about poverty and disillusionment under Thatcherism, referring to the station that becomes the main gateway from the impoverished north, Tennant is talking about 'the smack of firm government when he sings of 'Dead and wounded on either side'. Two months after Actually's release, on 18th November 1987 thirty-one people lost their lives in a fire at King's Cross underground station. Many saw the disaster as a symbol of how London had declined under a government hostile to its multi-cultural politics, a sort of murder by neglect. The song seemed to see it coming.'

Garry Mulholland, Fear of Music

Song of the Day # 506 Jo Mama

Found my way here via Robert Christgau's review of Prefab Sprout's Steve McQueen, entitled Four Wheels Good on its American release due to a run in with the great man's estate, (McQueen not Christgau). Here's the review:

'Two Wheels Good [Epic, 1985]
Paddy McAloon is a type we've met many times before--the well-meaning cad. Expressing himself with a grace befitting an intimate of Faron Young and "Georgie" Gershwin, he's sweet enough to come out on the losing side sometimes, but in the end he'll probably "let that lovely creature down," because he can't resist a piece of ass. J.D. Considine calls this music "Steely Dan Lite," which suggests the crucial contribution of producer-sideman Thomas Dolby but misses its pop-folk roots. Reminds me more of the justly obscure, unjustly forgotten Jo Mama--or of Aztec Camera if Roddy Frame were a cad. B+'

As for Jo Mama, I know nothing more about them except that this was released in 1970. There's a great song at the heart of things here, then half way through they head off into a jazzy, funky jam that may not be to everybody's taste before wandering back eventually to the core of the track. Their audience might have nodded off however, in the meantime. As for their name, is this an early musical reference to the Yo Mama gags that gained so much currency, particular in Hip Hop in the decades that followed?

Songs Heard on the Radio # 58 C Duncan

All I need to do is listen to Gideon Coe, who I think is quite the best DJ on the radio at the moment to hear wondrous things coming out of my radio. I had no idea who C Duncan is before hearing this but a rudimentary search on Wikipedia helped me find out that he's Scottish at least. I'll endeavor to find out more.

June 8th 1940 Nancy Sinatra

Songs About People # 90 Howard Hughes

Ride are an odd one. Their recent reforming and series of gigs has taken me back to the original records and made me think about them in a way I never bothered to first time round. Writing this blog might also have something to do with it. To me at the time, though I enjoyed the noise that they made, they seemed like a bunch of nice and slightly fey Home Counties boys with little to say and a vast array of effects pedals to help them disguise that truth with waves of sound.

Perhaps age had something to do with it. I was pushing my Mid-Twenties when they first emerged which was probably a few years north of their main constituency. The band themselves were nearer their early Twenties when they broke big and their core audience a few years younger than that. These few years meant a lot. I'd already given my heart to R.E.M., The Smiths and The Velvet Underground in the Mid-Eighties and had limited emotion to impart on a set of reticent middle-class introverts who seemed vaguely wet behind the ears even if I liked the tunes.

I'm probably more disposed to them strangely twenty years on. Just as Shoegazing, a scene which was at least partially ridiculed at the time by the British Music Press has gathered a measure of respect and even reverence it never had first time round in the years since. Now Ride seem vaguely like older statesman, partly because it seems apparent now that were they a British guitar band to emerge now with the set of songs that they released in their first few years together they would absolutely sweep all before them.

In retrospect it seems clear that Ride were one of the very last British bands to really arrive and proceed to let out an absolute avalanche of notable tracks during the course of their relatively short career. In the tradition first established by The Beatles, Stones, Who and Kinks and maintained by The Clash, The Jam and most obviously The Smiths, theirs was an incredible work ethic and sense of urgency despite the apparent lethargic edge to some of their recorded output. It seems inevitable given the way the music industry and the way we all live and consume in general  has changed in the intervening years that we may never see the like of these bands ever again in the UK. It feels like a shame somehow, as if a certain sense of popular, shared communal excitement and release has gone forever in exchange for the comparative mundanity and introversion of  settee, Internet and boxsets. 

Of course I'm aware that I'm a middle aged bloke spouting on! So back to Ride and one of the tracks released on the several excellent EPs they released over the course of their career. In this case in a supporting role to Twisterella, the second single from their second album Going Blank Again. Like so many of their songs, the vocal is vaguely nondescript, barely there in this case, but once the instrumentation kicks in, particularly the organ (Hammond I imagine), it makes a pretty strong case for itself. The connection with Howard Hughes? I guess they were feeling a little sorry for themselves. Even reclusive. Trust me, it happened quite a lot in the South of England during the early Nineties. 

Mixtape - Songs that Steal the 'Be My Baby' Drum Sound # 18 Explorer's Club

Side 2 Track 4 2.35. Now this is odd. Not only the Be My Baby drumbeat but then the whole Beach Boy Sixties package hook, line and sinker. Quite odd that someone would want to do this though it's not as if there's not a willing market out there. The jury is out but it has to be said in its defence that the whole thing does sounds nice!

Song of the Day # 505 Ike & Tina Turner

'Given Tina's latter day revelations about Ike's activities as slave-driver and wife-beater, the concept (she's trying to trap him into getting hitched) could hardly be more ironic. Her hoarse shrieks now have an entirely different meaning, as do his drawled professions of winking innocence.The arrangement is still driven on by Ike's twanging blues guitar though, which maybe makes 'It's Gonna Work Out Fine' the final truth that horrible humans can make great music.'

Dave Marsh, The Heart of Rock & Soul

One of the great talking songs. Mickie & Sylvia, who made perhaps the greatest, Love Is Strange, also contributed to the making of this track.

June 7th 1957 Paddy McAloon

The Steve McQueen album was a perennial of my first year a University. Astonishingly that's almost thirty years ago now. Astonishing to me at least.

Album Review # 34 The Bluetones - Expecting To Fly

An NME review of an album I thought about writing about myself before realising that I wouldn't have the necessary energy to go through each song in detail on a sunny Sunday morning when I should really be outdoors (in fact I've since written sufficiently about it to pop it into that category nevertheless). It's not a bad record, more like a middling to good one that I've got a certain subjective fondness for because the band hailed from the same part of London as I grew up in, just down the road in Hounslow. The airplane roar at the beginning of the record certainly takes me back to being sat in the garden in Teddington on a sunny day for most of the Eighties and the first half of the Nineties when Concorde would suddenly break across the sky and shatter the calm.

The Bluetones were a very melodic proposition, and a well drilled and close outfit who generally had to counter the accusation that they were a poor man's Stone Roses. They certainly lacked the full on intent of that particular band. Generally pleasant rather than extraordinary. But they came across as friends, which not all bands do and this contributes towards a definite warmth and sincerity that spreads itself out across the record as a whole. The album has four or five moments at least that suggest they deserve a little more recognition than they got and in general shows a solid understanding of the great tradition that it draws on. Why it's such an indescribably rewarding experience to sit down and listen to a record, on vinyl  preferably, from start to finish.

There's an interview on YouTube involving John Cale and Jonathan Richman where Cale describes being initially attracted to The Modern Lovers by a definitive weakness in their sound. The Bluetones seem to have something of that weakness about them and it's strangely their essential strength. They're as white as Mother's Pride bread (trust me, very white). Their strongest player is guitarist Adam Devlin who is at once a second division Johnny Marr or John Squire, but at the same time a pretty accomplished player in his own right.

Singer and leader Mark Morriss meanwhile had a wry, intelligent way with lyrics that suggested that the band had a language all of their own that they used to communicate between themselves primarily to keep themselves amused but which also helped them establish a minor cult like faction of devotees. 

These lyrics and interviews from the time indicate that the birth of the band seemed to emerge from a certain amount of familial turmoil which bled gently into their lyrics without really suggesting genuine lasting trauma that would push them towards the creation of truly great art. After all they had the contentment of suburban South West London and its parcelled housing and gardens to return to if all else failed them

Nevertheless, despite my initial misgivings, forty minutes or so into this, I've got to A Parting Gesture, second to last song and I'd say the best thing they ever did, even over Slight Return, their big hit single and I found it as I always do, genuinely affecting. I'll write about that song at greater length as I found it on my local's jukebox on Friday evening and I have a whole spurious series dedicated to that. So, The Bluetones  Expecting To Fly, hints of greatness among slightly more generic fare. Eight out of Ten as the review below suggests is probably just about right.

'TONE LOCO The Bluetones: Expecting To Fly (Superior Quality/All formats) ...And sure enough, the first sound you hear, before the songs of bitter love, the bold statements of identity, and the sound of a group searching for something entirely new; before the journey really starts at all, is the sound of an aeroplane passing over The Bluetone's Hounslow home. Oh, they know where they came from, alright. And they know where they belong. This is the story of "Expecting To Fly": the tale of quiet resolve winning out against the clatter of instant acclaim, of the redeeming power of single-mindedness against compromise; the joy in winning the battle bloodlessly, by force of personality alone. Not that the 'Tones themselves would use such a bold set of terms, but it is a strange debut album: a quiet fanfare; a manifesto written in a small typeface, that you have to look at again and again. Then when you do, you find the workings not of a tossed-together band scrambling towards the spotlight, but the methodical sound of the assembled group. Who, we are left in no doubt, have taken pains to show us who they are, what they are about, and give us an inkling of where they're going to next. "Expecting To Fly" isn't just the sound of a group who have made preparations, it's of a group still preparing for something different, for when they go on to still greater things. They have, after all, stated their intentions boldly elsewhere, and marked out that which is theirs: their debut single asked "Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?". They have their own bizarre concept of time (The Bluetones' day begins late and ends very late); they have their own vocabulary (a b-side called "Nae Hair On't"? Of course!); their own spelling ("Carnt Be Trusted"); their singer's own peculiar dances (indie-George Formby at a push), and their own colour. The point is, though, that Blue clearly isn't so much a colour, more a state of mind: you join the group on their search for that which is Bluetonic, that which carries with it the Essence of Bluetone. The search is necessarily accomplished with a little charm, and a lot of style. So the album we listen to, almost by virtue of having it's own anthem "Bluetonic" alone, bears about it the hallmark of its makers: the understated charm of an acoustic song like "The Fountainhead" is a guarantee of quality on its own. It entertains notions as fanciful as being "the boy whose thoughts keep running through his head", and speaks quietly about how The Bluetones succeed. It's in the casual flick of the wrist, a rethink about what's cool, and an elegant flirtation with possible embarassment. Throughout we are, basically, round their house. Just as the album starts with the sound of a 'plane overhead, there is, even if you have a CD copy, a crackle of antiquated static between 'sides' one and two. The only way to listen to pop music is, evidently, on vinyl, and this mood of the contemporary meeting the antiquated runs through the whole LP: it's in Mark Morriss describing women having qualities like "virtue" while Adam Devlin's guitar reverberates with the sound of epic Johnny Marr, and the way a baggy shuffle like "Cut Some Rug" mentions "the blitzkrieg and the doodlebug". The Bluetones have a refined gathering where Sir John Betjeman takes tea with Ian Brown, while the hosts themselves are eloquent men in excellent trainers. Understandably, then, "Expecting To Fly" is a record that conducts itself with all moves between a deceptively casual shuffle and an occasionally rightful preen, with all moods between the celebration of the closing "Time And Again" and the bitterly lovelorn "Slight Return". It's where any direction that presents itself - sat the country-blues of "A Parting Gesture" where harp is blown, and guitar is slid - is seen to be less a hopeful juggler of genre than part of a larger set of schemes that the strictly pop likes of "Slight Return" had only hinted at. Hear the English beat group dabble with both clarinet and xylophone! Hear the many configurations of guitarist Adam Devlin: the straight-backed tunesmith of "Time And Again", and the baggy behemoth of "Carnt Be Trusted"! Then take the example of the six-minute opening track, "Talking To Clarry" where the crash of virtuoso guitar gives way eventually to a brief twist of folk. It could be the drugs that did it of course, but more likely than that, it sounds like a statement of intent: if they are of a mind to begin their album with a wobbling and slightly flapping epic, then a wobbling and slightly flapping epic shall indeed provide its commencement. The skill of The Bluetones is to stand on the precipice completely indifferent to whether anyone applauds or watches them fall. It doesn't seem to bother them at all. They'd still do it anyway. What pushes The Bluetones forward is their way of approaching the most hackneyed situations with just this attitude. "Putting Out Fires", probably the best new song on here, approaches the stale relationship with an incredible naivety. There's the slink of guitar, but it's Mark Morriss whose "Heart beats quicker, faster" because of "skin as pale as an alabaster", and runs the risk of "losing a lover/ And gaining a friend". Not to mention the risk of being branded, albeit romantically, as a right wuss. But still he keeps on. In "Talking To Clarry", in a fruitless relationship, he asks "Do you the answers to all of my questions?". "Maybe not," he says, "but I'd love to hear your suggestions." And this is the mood of "Expecting To Fly", a leap into the uncharted, taking in quizzical notions, curious diversions, and being mindless of the consequences. By the time it finishes, a sense of continuity takes over: that it is better to have leapt in anticipation and, say, made an hour-long occasionally confused album than not to have leapt at all. That, after all, is The Way Of The Blue. We leave Mark Morriss in his garden. He is looking, inevitably, for "a brand new colour". (8) John Robinson Extracted from NME, 10th February 1996

Mixtape - Songs that Steal the 'Be My Baby' Drum Sound # 17 Camera Obscura

Side 2 Track 3 4.18. Glasgow band who emerged in the Mid-Nineties, obviously in the slipstream of Belle & Sebastian but hey there's room  though it seems difficult to imagine a note of this existing if Belle hadn't been there first. Melodic and wistful might be considered adjectives that fit. Well I've listened through to it a couple of times while writing this piece and would be perfectly happy if YouTube foisted it on me for a third time so I'm hardly complaining.

Song of the Day # 504 Leila &The Snakes

An odd one this one. An offshoot from The Tubes in the late Seventies, They were produced by The Stranglers, Hugh Cornwall. Shades of Rocky Horror. A historical curiosity. Not to everyone's taste. Not entirely to mine but worthy of a Song of the Day as we march onward.

David Bowie Reviews The Velvet Underground & Nico

Bowie meets Lou and the rest.

'Some time around the end of 1966, my then manager Ken Pitt, came back from a trip to the US with two albums he had been given by someone in New York.. Not being his particular cup of tea, he gave them to me to see what I made of them.. The first was a great, rollicking noisy affair by anarchist-hippies The Fugs entitled The Virgin Fugs. More fun than was strictly healthy and great music for drinking and getting stoned to. But the second, a demo with the signature Warhol scrawled on it, was shattering. Everything I both felt and didn't know about rock music was opened to me on one unreleased disc. It was The Velvet Underground & Nico album.

The first track glided by innocuosly enough without really registering. However, from that point on, and with the opening, throbbing, sarcastic bass and guitar of I'm Waiting For The Man, the linchpin, the keystone of my ambition was driven home. This music was savagely indifferent to my feelings. It didn't care if I liked it or not. It could not give a fuck. It was completely preoccupied with a world as yet unseen by my suburban eyes.

In fact, though only 19, I had seen rather a lot but had accepted it all quite enthusiastically as 'a bit of a laugh'. Apparently, the laughing was now over. This was a degree of cool that I had no idea was humanly sustainable and it was quite ravishing. One after another, the tracks squirmed and slid their contorted tentacles around my head: the evil and sexual violin on Venus in Furs, like some pre-Christian pagan revival music; the distant, icy, 'fuck me if you want, I really don't give a damn' voice of Nico's Femme Fatale. What an extraordinary, one-two knockout punch that was. By the time European Son was done, I was so excited I couldn't move. I sat transfixed, unable to comprehend what I'd just heard. It was late in the evening and I couldn't think of anyone to call so I played it again and then again and then...

By March of the next year, I had convinced the band I was with, The Riot Squad, to put I'm Waiting For The Man in our live setlist, making this the first time (the album remember, was still in unreleased demo form) that a Velvets song had been covered by anyone, anywhere in the world. Lucky me. Looking back through that month's set list, I'd like to note that we also included Zappa's It Can't Happen Here and The Fugs Dirty Old Man.

You try explaining that to the kids today.'

From Mojo, July 2002

Mixtape - Songs that Steal the 'Be My Baby' Drum Sound # 16 Badfinger

Side 2 Track 2 3.36. This song was given a whole new lease of life by being featured on Breaking Bad fairly recently. A big hit in America in 1972 though strangely it bombed in the UK where Badfinger had first come to notice by signing to The Beatles Apple Label in the late Sixties. The sound of heartbreak which Big Star were busy perfecting at the same time in Memphis on their first two albums and Teenage Fanclub later built the best part of a career on. From a band that experienced more genuine, real life trauma than perhaps any other. See their Wikipedia page for full details. Having a bad finger was the least of their problems.

Covers # 6 Cilla Black

Cilla had her moments. Like this. A Randy Newman song and he's stated that this was the best version of one of the batch of songs he wrote as a singer songwriter in the early Sixties at Metric

Song of the Day # 503 Leon Bridges

''It sounds like a love in watched over by the spirits of Cooke, Eddie Giles,Otis Redding and Clay.'

Uncut Magazine, July 2015

Old as the hills and deliberately so. This reminds me of Sam Cooke which is a high compliment of course. That seems to be the spot it's aiming to hit. But it's new and out right now. 

Mixtape - Songs that Steal the 'Be My Baby' Drum Sound # 15 Clinic

Side 2 Track 1. 3.00. Switches very quickly from Be My Baby to the Velvet Underground, Suicide with perhaps a pinch of The Violent Femmes chucked in and plenty of themselves, Drives along 'til it reaches the three minutes. Plus a great title. Directed at the NME. A band that follows their own dictates. As any decent band should.

Lyrics - Mazes

'

'I am a mountain climber. I am a deep sea diver. You are a winning quiz team. You are the morning sun.'

Complete nonsense of course. But as we race towards Friday lunch and the weekend looms it, and the song it's attached to hit the spot. Proper Teenage Riot and Parquet Court guitar adventurism.

Song of the Day # 502 Joni Mitchell

'You'd better come now or you're gonna come later.'

'A song like Cold Blue Fire & Sweet Fire' should have been sung by a man, but I think I could probably sing it better now. That was a song about the seduction of heroin, which I never did but which I was around.'
Joni Mitchell

Can

Songs Heard on the Radio # 57 Houndstooth

'Well you call me a lost cause. I might be well on my way. Call me a lost cause. I'd rather keep it that way.'

Still holding a candle for this band about six months after first hearing them. This is the first song on the second side of their new record. Listen to that authentic, Velvet Underground chug.

June 4th 1944 Michelle Gilliam

 

Who became Michelle Phillips. She also married Dennis Hopper. The marriage lasted a week.

 

 

Mixtape - Songs that Steal the 'Be My Baby' Drum Sound # 14 Bats For Lashes

Side One Track 14 2.58. Genuinely frightening. The most obvious updating in this series of not only the drumbeat of Be My Baby but also the whole dramatic shtick and glamour of that record and the early Sixties, before and as The Beatles and Stones arrived . This soundtracks the fear of heading back late at night to the suburbs in darkness (well at least the video suggests it is). This steals, not only from Spector and The Ronettes but also from The Shangri-Las, (that group's biggest real rivals before the Motown Girl Groups really began to emerge), who were always a slightly more scary and Street proposition, as good as The Ronettes were. 

Song(s) of the Day # 501 Emmylou Harris

A couple of songs from her breakthrough 1975 album Pieces of the Sky. Incredible purity of emotion. A very similar feel to the great, landmark records she made with Gram Parsons. Feel free to weep into your beer.

Possibly not about the Birmingham in the English Midlands.

June - The Go-Betweens

A belated song for June which is kicking in now.

Songs About People # 89 Buffalo Springfield

A song about himself and his youth and trying to recover that simple pleasure of how you felt when playing with a group of like minded people full of the same hopes and dreams as you had. In fact it probably says very little more than that but it's a song about a feeling more than anything else and Neil Young is very good at expressing that open-ended, simple stuff. Also, of course, the name of Buffalo Springfield's second album.

Mixtape - Songs that Steal the 'Be My Baby' Drum Sound # 13 The Dictators

Side 1 Track 13 3.27. More New York. Seventies band who acted as a prime inspiration for the founders of the Punk magazine with the album this came from Go Girl Crazy. Lead singer Handsome Dick Manitoba has a bar in New York where some friends and I were told we couldn't dance to the brilliant live band that were playing because they didn't have a dancing licence more than ten years back. The waiter drew a swastika on a napkin to indicate what he thought of things.

500 Days, 500 Songs, 500 Artists

1. Andrew Oldham Orchestra
2. Dion & the Belmonts
3. Big Youth
4. The Left Banke
5. The Undisputed Truth
6. Ted Taylor
7. The Real Kids
8. U-Roy
9. The Regents
10. The Nits
11. The Velvet Underground
12. Jacques Dutronc
13. Aretha Franklin
14. The Lovin' Spoonful
15. The Shins
16. Carl Orff
17. Minutemen
18. Peggy Lee
19. The Chambers Brothers
20. The Thompson Twins
21. R.E.M
22. Louis Armstrong
23. Bugsy Malone Soundtrack
24. Dennis Brown
25. Charlie Rich
26. Roky Erikson
27. Richard Harris
28. Fleetwood Mac
29. Ricky Nelson
30. Linda Lewis
31. The Breeders
32. XTC
33. The Byrds
34. The Isley Brothers
35. The Swinging Blue Jeans
36. Al Green
37. Warren Zevon
38. Cal Tjaeder
39. Tim Hardin
40. The Creation
41. The High
42. Melvin Van Peebles
43. Yamasuki
44. Nina Simone
45. Cowboy Junkies
46. Black Blood
47. Ride
48. Friend & Lover
49. Chicory Tip
50. The Psychedelic Furs
51. Elvis Costello & the Attractions
52. Os Mutantes
53. Nico
54. The Paragons
55. Dmitri Shostakovich
56. The Au Pairs
57. The Sir Douglas Quintet
58. Gregory Porter
59. Pharell Williams
60. Television
61. Miriam Makeba
62. Billy Fury
63. It's a Beautiful Day
64. Simon & Garfunkul
65. C.W.Stoneking
66. Derek & the Dominos
67. Grace Jones
68. New Order
69. Ivan
70. Darrell Banks
71. Los Saicos
72. Dr. John
73. Dalek I Love You
74. The Mynah Birds
75. Bonny & Sheila
76. The Aristocats
77. The Flamin' Groovies
78. Broadcast
79. The Blue Orchids
80. Desmond Dekker
81. Love
82. The Rolling Stones
83. Guided By Voices
84. Parquet Courts
85. The Screaming Trees
86. Neil Young
87. Kate Le Bon
88. Patti Smith
89. The Black Lips
90. Mighty Hannibal
91. Nyuyorican Soul
92. Vernon Green & the Medallions
93. Cornershop
94. Dorothy Ashby
95. The City
96. The Smiths
97. Subway Sect
98. Deerhunter
99. Black Merda
100. Scott Walker
101. The Charlatans

102. Magazine
103. Lush
104. The Stoney Poneys
105. The Allman Brothers
106. John Cale
107. Toni Harper
108. Tammi Lynn
109. Althea & Donna
110. Bobby Womack
111. Japan
112. The Strangeloves
113. David Bowie
114. The Handsome Family
115. Echo & the Bunnymen
116. Grant Lee Buffalo
117. The Jim Carroll Band
118. Waylon Jennings
119. Carl Douglas
120. Otis Redding
121. Peter & the Pirates
122. Strawberry Switchblade
123. Ben Harper
124. Shoes
125. The Capitols
126. Dusty Springfield
127. Fats Domino
128. Buddy Holly & the Crickets
129. Josef K
130. The Feelies
131. The Heptones
132. Minnie Ripperton
133. The Go Betweens
134. France Galle
135. Loretta Lynn
136. Half Pint
137. Death in Vegas
138. Sun House
139. The Liminanas
140.  The Organ
141. Gladys Knight & the Pips
142. Viv Albertine
143. The Ikettes
144. The Ronettes
145. The Fresh & Onlys
146. TV On The Radio
147. Grizzly Bear
148. The Jimi Hendrix Experience
149. 23 Skidoo
150. Nicodemus
151. Serge Gainsbourg
152. The Moles
153. Devo
154. The Go! Team
155. Kim Wilde
156. Brian Eno
157. The Langley Schools Music Project
158. The Cure
159. George Jones
160. The Gun Club
161. David Hemmings
162. Sugar Chile Robinson
163. John Phillips
164. October Country
165. Lloyd Cole & the Commotions
166. Francois & the Atlas Mountains
167. Dexys Midnight Runners
168. Andy Williams
169. Kraftwerk
170. Jackie Mittoo
171. Martha
172. The Chills
173. Richard Barrett
174. Mazes
175. Strawberry Alarm Clock
176. Bruce Springsteen
177. J.D.McPherson
178. Elliott Smith
179. Liz Phair
180. East Brunswick All Girls Choir
181. Future Islands
182. Split Enz
183. The Walking Who
184. Townes Van Zandt
185. Bill Callahan
186. The Mantles
187. Sam & Dave
188. Aztec Camera
189. Jimmy Scott
190. Reigning Sound
191. Sparks
192. Rosetta Hightower
193. Big Star
194. Crime
195. Johnny Cash
196. Moby Grape
197. Katty Line
198. Sinead O'Connor
199. Ultimate Painting
200. The Kinks

201. Jan & Dan
202. Santigold
203. The Boomtown Rats
204. Tim Rose
205. Toots & the Maytals
206. Bobby Darin
207. Billy Swan
208. Marcia Griffiths
209. King Creosote
210. Led Zeppelin
211. Hortense Ellis & Prince Weedy
212. SBTRKT
213. The Pogues
214. Twin Peaks
215. The June Brides
216. The Nips
217. Kate Bush
218. Midlake
219. The History of Apple Pie
220. Dr Alimintado
221. Dr. Savannah's Original Savannah Band
222. White Reaper
223. Orange Juice
224. The Bangles
225. The Allah-Lahs
226. The Exciters
227. Ty Segall
228. Agincourt
229. Baxter Dury
230. The Tyde
231. The Pretty Things
232. The Pastels
233. The New York Dolls
234. Life Without Buildings
235. Felt
236. Sugar
237. Bo Diddley
238. Music Go Music
239. The Troggs
240 Mark Mulcahey
241. U2
242. Hiss Golden Messenger
243. Nilsson
244. Spacemen 3
245. Buffalo Springfield
246. Immigrant Union
247. The Fall
248. Phil Phillips
249. Scritti Politi
250. Slapp Happy
251. Phosphorescent
252. ATV
253. Caitlin Rose
254. Opal
255. Frank Sinatra
256. Lena Horne
257. Hookworms
258. Urge Overkill
259. Jeff Buckley
260. Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66
261. The Sundays
262. The Monochrome Set
263. Joan As Policewoman
264 Bradford
265. The Growlers
266. Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
267. The Who
268. Marcelo Carmelo
269. The Wipers
270. Eric Burdon & The Animals
271. Mission Of Burma
272. Thurston Moore
273. The John Steel Singers
274. Pixies
275. Brigitte Fontaine
276. Tindersticks
277.McGough & McGear
278. Le Roux
279. Yo La Tengo
280. Smoke Fairies
281. ABBA
282. Steely Dan
283. Jimmy Cliff
284. The Beta Band
285. John Lennon
286. Young Fathers
287. Lou Reed
288. Beth Orton
289. Julian Cope
290. Tuff Love
291. John Denver
292. Leonard Cohen
293. The Beach Boys
294. Jim Noir
295. James
296.. My Bloody Valentine
297. Barrington Levy
298. Spectres
299, Fun Boy 3
300. The Saints

301. Grandaddy
302. Eleanor Friedberger
303. The Delgados
304. Villalog
305. My Morning Jacket
306. Miaow
307. Vampire Weekend
308. The Shop Assistants
309. Francoiz Breut
310. Alice Coltrane
311. Blonde Redhead
312. The Shirelles
313. Cass McCombs
314. Creedence Clearwater Revival
315. John Grant
316. Bobbie Gentry
317. Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band
318. The Unthanks
319. Slim Cessna's Auto Club
320. Jessica Pratt
321. The Faces
322. Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside
323. Warpaint
324. Dandy Livingston
325. Ex Hex
326. Ought
327. The Delines
328. Kings of Leon
329. Morton Valance
330. The Twilight Sad
331. Michael Head & the Strands
332. The Czars
333. Sun Kill Moon
334. Woods
335. fIREHOSE
336. Tricky
337. Adrian Crowley
338. Caravan
339. The Vacant Lots
340. Tommy James & the Shandells
341. Charlie Brown
342. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
343. Eurythmics
344. Judy Collins
345. Fraser A. Gorman
346. The B52s
347. Courtney Barnett
348. Benjamin Brooker
349. The Cartoons
350. Joanna Gruesome
351. The Embarrassment
352. Uncle Tupelo
353. Sleater Kinney
354. Tess Parks
355. The Brian Jonestown Massacre
356. Panda Bear
357. Sons of Bill
358. Gold-Bears
359. Curtis Harding
360. Simply Saucer
361. Liam Hayes
362. Cowboys International
363. Natalie Prass
364. Thin Lizzy
365. The Rails

366. Aldous Harding

367. Belle & Sebastian

368. Waxahatchee

369.Django Django

370. Half Japanese

371. Can

372. Julie Discoll

373. The Supremes

374. The Stems

375. .Unknown Mortal Coil

376. Robert Wyatt

377. The Oh Sees

378. Ryley Walker

379. Twerps

380. Alasdair Roberts

381. Dick Diver

382. D'Angelo & the Vanguard

383. Sammi Smith

384. The Jaynettes

385. Viet Cong

386. Duke Garwood

387. Peter Tosh

388. Darren Haywood

389. Blank Realm

390. Richard Dawson

391. Death & Vanilla

392.Heidi Berry

393. Speedy Ortiz

394. Momus

395. Gregory Isaacs

396. Prince Fatty

397. Jesus & Mary Chain

398. Shack

399. Toro Y Moi

400. Lefty Frizzell

401. Summer Canibals
402. Songhoy Blues
403. Meatbodies
404. Moon Duo
405.Houndstooth
406. The Bronzettes
407. Husker Du
408. Cat's Eyes
409. Oh Ok
410. Surf City
411. William Onyeabor
412.David Kilgour & the Heavy Eights
413. X
414. The Undertones
415. The Skints
416. The Carpenters
417. Digable Planets
418. Lester Bangs
419. The Band
420. The Rutles
421. The Butthole Surfers
422 Sleigh Bells
423. Stereolab
424. Tobias Jesso Jr.
425. Sauna Youth
426. UB40
427. The Sacred Mushroom
428. Aerosmith
429. Hollie Cook
430. Gilberto Gil
431. Ellis Island Sound
432. Parker Milsapp
433. Come On
434.Kendrick Lamarr
435. Gary US Bonds
436. Arcade Fire
437. The Chanters
438. Steve Gunn
439. Houndmouth
440. The Parrots
441. Soko
442. The Jon Spencer Blues
443. Silver Jews
444. Los Yorks
445. The Mighty Lemondrops
446. Blur
447. Sonic Youth
448. Ultravox
449. Bop English
450 Wimpy Milkshake
451. The Field Mice
452. Swervedriver
453. Yazoo
454. The Sleaford Mods
455. Daniel Dare
456. Lana Del Ray
457.Carmel
458. Cat Stevens
459. Asha Bhosle
460. Eels
461.Hildegarde Knef
462. Papernut Cambridge
463.The Ladybug Transmittor
464. Sharon Van Etten
465. The Baptist Generals
466. BRONCHO
467. Arborist
468.Ron Sexsmith
469. The Doors
470. Weather Station
471.Stella
472. Mbongwana Star
473. Nadine Shah
474. Pins
475. Les Troubadours Du Roi Badouin
476. Elvis Presley
477. Sly & the Family Stone
478. The MC5
479. Jackson C. Frank
480. Gal Costa
481. Bill Fay
482. Las Kellies
483. ESG
484. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
485. Johnny Thunders
486. Moe Tucker
487. Joachim Witt
488. Canned Heat
489. Buck Owen
490. Sudden Death of the Stars
491. The Milk Carton Kids
492. Sissy Spacek
493. Susan Sondfor
494. The Knack
495. Dyke & the Blazers
496. Associates
497. Earth Wind & Fire

498. Irma Thomas 

499. Joannie Sommers
500 The Beatles

Song(s) of the Day # 500 The Beatles

A day after this turns two, I've got to the 500 consecutive day where I've posted a Song of the Day on here. That might as well be signposted with The Beatles as anything else. I'm not particularly one to knock them though sometimes McCartney's unrelenting show business-ness gets to me and I never care much for the songs they chuck at Ringo every album.

Lennon generally does it for me and Revolver is the album of theirs I like most, so here are the five songs he fronts on that record. He seems to be searching for enlightenment in some ways in all five of these and as I'm stumbling towards fifty and still searching around in that respect they seem to fit.

I can't really find fault in any of the songs here. They're melodic and concise and consistently thoughtful. Even Tomorrow Never Knows doesn't break three minutes which is remarkable given the statement it's trying to make. 

She Said, She Said, Dr Robert and And Your Bird Can Sing, seem to look out at the world in all its strangeness and ridiculousness and try to find some peace within it while I'm Only Sleeping and Tomorrow Never Knows search within for some kind of lasting calm.

Lennon, as the great cynic, probably knew he wasn't really likely to find that, at least in this world. All five songs stand up very well to my ears to the fifty plus years that have passed since their initial release. So, good on The Beatles, and onto something else.

Death # 2 Patti Smith

Patti Smith's debut album Horses is turning forty round about now. It's something to be noted as for me and many others it's one of the best and most important records ever made. One day, when I've got the energy, time and inspiration I'll get round to writing about it here in full and at length. In the meantime here's its second track. A succinct narrative.

Redondo Beach was a beach near Los Angeles known as a destination for lesbians in the Sixties and Seventies. The song was actually originally inspired though by something a bit closer to home. 

'(it) was also widely interpreted as the lament of a woman whose girlfriend has committed suicide and whose body washes up on a Los Angeles beach... Actually, says Smith, it's a song about her sister Linda, a sort of morbid fantasy rooted in remorse: the pair, rooming together in the Chelsea Hotel, quarrelled, and Linda disappeared, causing Patti much anguish. Written in 1971, the verses languished in a drawer for several years, until they were pulled out and given an incongruously jaunty reggae backing.'

Nothing incongruous about the backing. For me at least! Patti at her best, as she remained throughout Horses which despite the great stuff she's done since, remains her definitive statement in my mind, along with Piss Factory.

'Late afternoon, dreaming hotel

We just had the quarrel, that sent you away

I was looking for you, are you gone, gone?

Called you on the phone, another dimension

Well, you never returned, oh you know what I mean

I went looking for you, are you gone, gone?

Down by the ocean, it was so dismal

Women all standing with shock on their faces

Sad description, oh I was looking for you

Everyone was singing, girl is washed up

On Redondo beach and everyone is so sad

I was looking for you, are you gone, gone?

Pretty little girl, everyone cried

She was the victim, of sweet suicide

I went looking for you, are you gone, gone?

Down by the ocean it was so dismal

Women all standing with shock on their faces

Sad description, oh I was just looking for you

Desk clerk told me, girl was washed up

Was small, an angel with apple blonde hair, now

I went looking for you, are you gone, gone?

Picked up my key, didn't reply

Went to my room, started to cry

You were small, an angel, are you gone, gone?

Down by the ocean it was so dismal

I was just standing with shock on my face

The hearse pulled away and the girl that had died, it was you

You'll never return into my arms 'cause you were gone, gone

Never return into my arms 'cause you were gone, gone

Gone, gone

Gone, gone

Goodbye.'

American States # 27 Nebraska

Springsteen's song, written after the Fifties killers Charles Starkweather and Caril Anne Fugate who hit the road and murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming at the end of 1957 and the beginning of 1958. Not particularly a song to make you want to go to Nebraska.

June 2nd 1941 Charlie Watts

That's not Charlie Watts! But this is!

Mixtape - Songs that Steal the 'Be My Baby' Drum Sound # 12 Billy Joel

Side 1 Track 12 4.39. So while we're on things I didn't initially see myself posting up here when I started this, here's Billy Joel. But the steal is a blatant and heartfelt call out to his youth, it starts and ends with the Be My Baby drumbeat, the emotion sounds real and after all it's not a bad song at all either.

Song of the Day # 499 Joannie Sommers

Of course I try to post good stuff up here and would stand by almost everything I have put up here. This, however, is just god awful as I'll freely admit. But as the byline on the blog is about music and memory, this is one of my strongest childhood musical memories. From my parents rather meager, and quite odd musical collection. They had this single for whatever reason and it's forever ingrained on my cranium. With one of those clean cut, almost sickly,  All American voices, cheery backing and a classic nonsense lyric about the boy next door. Enjoy, if you can.

Two Years Old!

This blog is two today. So Happy Birthday to us!

My Husband's Stupid Record Collection

My other favourite discovery of the day. A woman reviews her husband's record collection. And he has a great record collection. Here's the site. She's only up to 'C'.

Songs Heard on the Radio # 56 Ultimate Painting

Hearing this made my day. This lot have featured on here before but this is just masterful. As the DJs pointed out afterwards, a classic chord progression. Reminiscent at different moments of Nowhere Man, Tired of Waiting for you and Lazy Line Painter Jane. Also, not a million miles away from the better moments of Teenage Fanclub. Quite excellent on its own terms!

June 1st 1958 Barry Adamson

Mixtape - Songs that Steal the 'Be My Baby' Drum Sound # 11 The Troggs

Side 1 Track 11 2.06. I'm not sure it's an exact replication of Be My Baby but there's certainly some of that spirit there. Wonderfully concise!

Song of the Day # 498 Irma Thomas

Just wonderful. So many great moments in such a short song. Dripping of The South.

Songs About People # 88 Johnny Carson

A real oddity this one. The Beach Boys from 1976 with all manner of awkward rhymes.