20th February 2013 “Laugh along even though they're laughing at you and the stupid things that you do”

Common People - Pulp

This is such a great mid-90‘s pop song, but I don’t think it, or Pulp, were ever really a hit in the USA. I only heard of them because one year my brother sent me the Different Class CD for Christmas and we found the occasional Pulp track on compilations we picked up when we were back in the UK. Check out the bleeped word on the video... “screw”... really? 

Jump forward to the mid-90’s and the “so bad it’s good” William Shatner cover version, which includes a great vocal by Joe Jackson (goodness knows how he kept a straight face with Shatner over-emoting next to him), and some real OTT grand finale keyboard playing by Ben Folds. 

Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM

http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=15866

“I send this smile over to you”

Disarm - Smashing Pumpkins

Good grief, this song is 20 years old!

I’m a sucker for a cello part, and “Disarm” has a great strings arrangement. Sad little song, but then again are there any cheerful songs featuring a cello? Answers on a postcard please. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1acEVmnVhI

18th February 2013 “Moving away from home, without a care in the world”

Driving Away From Home (Jim’s Tune) - It’s Immaterial

This is one of those unique little 80‘s songs that you really like, but can’t figure out why. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypadKraAb1s

“When we first met I could hardly believe the things that would happen, what we could achieve”

Best Years of Our Lives - Modern Romance

Back in the 80s music was fun, and you didn’t get more “fun” than Modern Romance. Hard to pick just one song of theirs, when you are spoilt for choice with such classics as Everbody Salsa, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, and the unforgettable AyAy Ay Ay Moosey. 

I picked this one though as the title is kind of appropriate as it’s our 24th Wedding Anniversary today :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i8VE0TAbF0

16th February 2013 “Standing in the shadows, where the in-crowd meet”

Time For Action - Secret Affair

Not that I ever had a clue where the in-crowd met... but how great was it to be a teenager listening to music in 1979? There were so many different styles of music out there, at the same time, in the charts. This charted around mid-September 1979, and Secret Affair, a Mod revival group, would have been rubbing shoulders with the Specials and Madness who were 2 Tone, Gary Numan who was synth, Boney M and Sister Sledge who were disco, Boomtown Rats who were New Wave, Darts who were doo-wop (I hated them), Buzzcocks who were punk and Cliff Richard and Johnny Mathis, old farts who just refused to go away. 

I am not saying they were all good, but there was certainly plenty of stuff to choose from, and I have to say that clean-cut Mods in suits made a change from scruffy gobbing punks ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=528SPxMdMUU

15th February 2013 “Hating all the faking”

Bring On The Dancing Horses - Echo and the Bunnymen

Love the Bunnymen. Not quite sure what they were thinking of with this video, but the song is brilliant. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaWs79v0ugE

“He's got a crush on my best friend, but she don't care, 'cause she loves someone else"

Love’s Unkind - Donna Summer

Cast your mind back to Eastwood Comp Upper School, or as some people would reinvent it “The Hall Park School, Eastwood”. 

It’s 1977 and it’s not me, but Claire my best friend at the time who has set her sights on a hapless, shy, quiet strawberry blond boy in our year, who shall remain nameless, and apparently wasn’t in the least bit interested in her. Not sure quite how he felt about being followed around at school by giggling females,  pursued home from school by giggling females, or getting phone calls at home from females who giggled and then hung up, but I bet he was far from thrilled at being her crush.

This song always reminds me of her and him.

I can’t find a good quality version of Donna Summer performing this so you’ll have to put up with a Legs & Co Top of the Pops version. Sorry guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPJMe1SSWS0

13th February 2013 “People getting angry”

The summer of 1981. A Levels were over, school was over, I was decompressing at home, watching England and Ian Botham beat the pants off the Aussies at cricket on TV, reading The Thorn Birds and trying to avoid all the Royal Wedding hype, whilst hoping my exam results would be good enough to get me out of Eastwood and off to college in London.

Meanwhile there was mass unemployment, rioting in Brixton, Handsworth and Toxteth, and a general feeling of unrest in the country.

This song pretty much summed it up. People getting angry.

I got 3 B’s and left Eastwood for London in September.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slmb4ZZ5pkY

“There was a hope in our English hearts”

Swords Of A Thousand Men - Tenpole Tudor

Been a bit down the past couple of days. Time to watch the TOTP version of Tenpole Tudor’s “Swords of a Thousand Men” to cheer myself up, methinks. If Eddie rocking the leather jacket and hose combo doesn’t make you smile, nothing will.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pln7nsSbH4

11th February 2013 “I still need you, but I don't want you now”

Dreaming Of you - The Coral

Love this song. I first heard it on the Janice Long show on radio 2 about ten years ago when I discovered some of my favourite DJs from the Radio 1 of my college years were now accessible online, albeit relegated to Radio 2, and in Janice’s case the midnight to 3am slot, which, on the plus side is 7-10pm for me.

Back in the early 80‘s, for those of us sad students with no money and nowhere to go on a Saturday night, staying in with Janice, followed by “smooth, suave, sophisticated, young, free and single, Whoa Gary Davies, was quite a treat!

Enjoy the song. I bet it’ll make your toes tap!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w2AJc1IORc

10th February 2013 “I never dreamed I'd lose you”

The Dark Is Rising - Mercury Rev

I love how this song flits between melodramatic orchestral parts and gentle piano and vocals. No idea who Mercury Rev are, whether they are famous or if this song was a hit. I found it one one of those Acoustic compilation CDs we found on one of our trips back to England. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgVoYONg8cE

9th February 2013 “I know it sounds absurd but please tell me who I am”

The Logical Song - Supertramp

What does this remind me of? Sixth Form and that dreadful Caroline Londer girl in the Upper 6th. Ugh. Song is OK though!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcX1qA1Etc8

8th February 2013 "Don't look back, you can never look back"

Boys of Summer - Don Henley

I am so sick and tired of winter and of being cold, I thought this would be a great song to cheer myself up with.

Sorry about the late post, but migraine strikes again....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfiKT1N670M

“The first cut won’t hurt at all”

Duel - Propaganda

Todays song is all thanks to Judith who just played the word “duel” in Wordscraper, and made this pop into my head :)

What a great song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skmrmdd4iAo

“Every Lousy Monday Morning Heathrow jets go crashing over my home”

Sound Of The Suburbs - Members

I think I mentioned before that when I graduated college I worked for Air France at London Heathrow. It was the worlds largest airport in terms of international passengers carried, which meant there were a hell of a lot of planes flying in and out between 5am and midnight every day. I lived in Isleworth, in a house with a railway line at the end of the garden, directly under one of Heathrow’s flight paths. We were right where the pilots typically lowered the undercarriage when the planes were coming in to land. You certainly couldn’t hold a conversation when planes were overhead and they were coming in every 30 seconds or so. Concorde would make the house shake. It’s amazing what you will put up with when you’re young!

“Sound Of The Suburbs” was out around the time of our mock O Levels in 1979, and at the time I was pretty sure they sang “Johnny’s upstairs in his bedroom sniffing in the dark, annoying the neighbours with his punk rock electric guitar”. If you do a lyrics search now, old Johnny appears to have cleaned up his act and is merely “sitting in the dark”. How boring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc6hbiNVfbw

“You came like a comet blazing your trail, too high, too far, too soon”

The Whole Of The Moon - The Waterboys

I had a fabulously miserable song lined up for today, then I changed my mind at the last minute, and picked this instead.

It’s an amazing song that is just so inspiring both lyrically and musically. There are so many parts woven together creating such an immense sound. Great violin, followed by the trumpet fanfare, building up to the crescendo of the last verse and the sax solo, and then too high, too far, too soon and it’s all over, and the listener is exhausted, but happy, and all the better for having listened to it.

Oh, and how many songs do you know with unicorns, scimitars and scarves in the same verse?

Listen to it. Enjoy. Then listen again, and go to bed happy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsNTmjlf1vI

"Pride will tear us both apart"

Ordinary World - Duran Duran

Talking of Duran Duran (yes they were briefly mentioned yesterday), in the 90’s I rediscovered them when they released the Duran Duran album, aka The Wedding Album.

We had moved to a new house in Frederick and I was pretty annoyed that WHFS, the only radio station I listened to, didn’t stretch that far. Then along came  satellite TV, a field which Tom’s employer was hoping to branch out into, and we signed up to be betatesters. Suddenly we had lots of channels at our fingertips and I finally got to watch MTV, which back in those days actually showed music videos. Imagine that!

This is my favourite track from that album, Ordinary World. You have to admit it’s a pretty brave bride who forgoes a strapless meringue for a dress with the biggest bow in the history of the world across the bosom, and replaces a veil with a lampshade!

Oh yes, why is it aka “The Wedding Album”? Because the cover art is photos from DD’s parents weddings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDLiVwpv89s

“I live in a wafer thin dream”

Waves - Blancmange

OK I admit it. I have a liking for miserable dirgelike songs, and this is one of the classics of that genre. Naturally my college room mate hated it as she liked more upbeat poppy songs, wheras I preferred to wallow in misery.

While Duran Duran were living the highlife, posing in designer clothes on classy yachts in the Far East, poor old Blancmange’s video budget only stretched to a cap and a sou’wester on a fishing boat off the coast of Cornwall! In case anyone thought that perhaps the video was filmed in a studio, check out the drenching at 2:10, LOL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbMi1Wg3uQU

2nd February 2013 “Well open up your mind and see like me Open up your plans and damn you're free”

I’m Yours - Jason Mraz

Ever had one of those songs that you heard on holiday, every night, that instantly transports you back every time you hear it again? I’m not talking Agadoo, Y Viva Espana or the Macarena, thank goodness.

I always wanted to go on the maiden voyage of a ship. I had a romantic idea that the ship would be welcomed into every port with bands playing and fireboats squirting water into the air, and that the voyage would be extra special.

In 2008 we sailed on the Celebrity Solstice inaugural sailing. There was nary a brass band or fireboat in sight, but what the ship did have was a fabulous aft bar with comfortable sofas, a drop dead gorgeous view of the ocean, and a great singer/guitarist playing out there every night. This was his trademark song that will always remind me of that cruise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGCJNH1oX68

Sadly the company was less appreciative!

1st February 2013 “People take my advice. If you love somebody, don't think twice”

Sugar Baby Love - Rubettes

I know what you are all thinking after yesterdays post.... “Please, please please let todays pick be the brilliant song that kept Shang-a-lang off the top spot”.

Oh go on then, twist my arm, here you are.

Start with an impressive falsetto, add some bubblegum lyrics and finish of with a dash of deep spoken word and you have the makings of a fab hit record. Add to that a band clad in matching white “Rubette” suits topped with caps, guitar and bass players who graduated from the Hank Marvin School of Dancing, a couple of pianists, a posing vocalist and a drummer who speaks, and you have one epic video.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZCbuPA5zDg

31st January 2013 “With the jukebox playing and everybody saying that music like ours couldn’t die”

Shang-a-Lang - Bay City Rollers

So bad it’s awful or so bad it’s good? Whatever your opinion you can’t help but have a laugh at this.

Mid-70’s and the Bay City Rollers were the biz. Everyone had their favourite, usually Eric or Les, hardly ever Alan as he was too old, and rarely Derek as he resembled a monkey. For some reason I liked “Woody”, who looked like a gerbil!

Notice how thin they are, and then check out the clothes. I think this TOTP video was from their pre-tartan years, (although Woody could be the trendsetter here), but the special roller trews (aka capris in the 21st century), are there and cut to that certain length to best show off the stripy socks and the platform lace up shoes. What better to wear those with than skinny rib jumpers that clung to their puny bods. Eat your hearts out fashionistas!

Looks apart, you have to admit this was a darn catchy song, and it got to number 2 in May 1974, kept off the top spot by the Rubettes.

Apologies for he who shall not be named introducing the clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_lKJQjTRu4

30th January 2013 “Just wait till tomorrow. I guess that's what they all say, just before they fall apart”

Regret - New Order

New Order had a knack of putting sad downer lyrics to catchy poppy tunes. Here they go one step further, having a laugh with a super naff video, shot on a beach, complete with Hasselhof, surfer dudes, beach babes and Peter Hook in his ... er..... leather trousers. No sunburn for him!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2RFmKmkEr4

29th January 2013 “In the hallway, in anticipation He didn't know the night would end up in frustration”

Come Dancing - Kinks

Probably not the usual choice when people pick their favourite Kinks song, but Come Dancing is another song that takes me back to college, and a time when all the best songs came with a great video, and this is no exception.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs2kFrGluKs

28th January 2013 “They're after you to sign your life away”

68 Guns - The Alarm

I went to college in London. Four of us from my course shared two double rooms in Mr Norris’s house in Ealing. Julia was obsessed with Brian Ferry and shared with Sarah who was all jolly hockey sticks and had gone to private school. I shared with Nici, who was uber-religious, and it wasn’t long before she moved out to share with someone who would have less of a negative impact on her chances of getting into heaven, than I would. Nici was replaced by Sue, whose ceiling had fallen in the night before and was so desperate for somewhere new to live, she agreed to move in with me. 

Sue and I had very different tastes in almost everything. She liked Abba, I liked The Alarm. She liked watching ice-skating, I preferred footie. About the only thing we did agree on was Corrie.

Anyway, I persuaded her to come and see the Alarm at Hammersmith Palais with me.

She lasted 2 songs then made her excuses and left. I couldn’t believe it! She really missed out. They were great.

Here is my favourite song of theirs. 68 Guns.

Oh, and in case you’re interested, Nici and Julia disappeared off the face of the earth, and me, Sarah and Sue still see each other whenever I go back home. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLK3k_0GHrg

27th January 2013 “I hated you, I loved you too”

Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush

Love the book, love the movie, love the song. 

Totally unique. Absolutely brill. An all-time fave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1pMMIe4hb4

26th January 2013 “Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a woman's man: no time to talk.”

Stayin’ Alive - Bee Gees

Go on admit it. As soon as you heard the opening bars to this the image of JT walking down the street in flares, carrying a can of paint, popped into your head, didn’t it? ;)

I subjected the kids to Saturday Night Fever over the summer when I spotted the DVD in the library, and I have to admit that watching it again a good 30 years later, a couple of things struck me, firstly, why oh why is the movie so long, and secondly, how the hell did they squeeze themselves into such tight pants (trousers)? The kids gave up watching after about 30 minutes.

Here are the impossibly thin Bee Gees singing Stayin’ Alive while wandering round a derelict movie studio back lot. If only Robin and Maurice had been as enthusiastic about “using their walk” as Barry was...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3b9gOtQoq4

25th January 2013 “You got your hips swinging out of bounds”

Tiger Feet - Mud

Mud. What a great 70’s glam band. Combine a little bit teddy boy, with a bit Elvis-impersonator, a bit of effeminacy, some classic dance moves and a big dollop of Chinnychap and you have one of the biggest songs of 1974, Tiger Feet. Here they are miming to it on Top Of The Pops. 

I have no idea where they acquired the dancers from for this song, but you have to admit they are all having one hell of a good time! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fPyrbDMTkU

24th January 2013 “I said "you are a lady". "Perhaps" she said, "I may be"

Up The Junction - Squeeze

I bet you know all the words.

Three minutes of perfect pop. Heart-tugging story of love gone wrong, brilliantly bad rhyming couplets, and a terrific tune. What more could you ask for?

Oh to be in 1979 when this, and yesterdays song of the day, were in the British charts together.  Sigh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQciegmLPAo

23rd January 2013 “Just for a second I thought I remembered you”

Are Friends Electric - Tubeway Army

Well when this first came out it was certainly different and old Gazza was a bit strange looking, but oh that synth riff, you just couldn’t get it out of your head. 

This was the only hit as Tubeway Army then Gary flew solo, in more ways than one.

Putting the “Army” behind him he became famous and started flying planes, about as well as Simon Le Bon sailed yachts. I think he was stranded in India for a while waiting for a spare part!

Odd really when you think which songs of that era you end up having a fondness for. Back then I would never have guessed that this would be one of them.

Oh and boys, Nick, Jacob and Lewis, he isn’t singing “There’s a mole outside”. He really isn’t.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=102NNwdI9i0

22nd January 2013 “Look for what seems out of place”

Cuts You Up - Peter Murphy

Look for what seems out of place. The story of my life. I can spot a mis-shelved book at ten paces, but I don’t think that’s what old Pete had in mind when he wrote this.

This is a song that reminds me of WHFS, a radio station that Tom discovered when we first came over, that saved us from the monotony of classic rock, or “same old 100 oldies day in, day out”, or heaven forbid, yee haw country. WHFS, “modern rock and alternative” and they even played British bands.

Cuts You Up, by Peter Murphy, ex of Bauhaus. Love the celloey riff, the brooding lyrics, the gothness and of course the singalong la la la la la bits.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpz2AWu4PZg

21st January 2013 - "She could spit in the eyes of fools"

Life on Mars - David Bowie

Great song but I will never again be able to listen to it without Gene Hunt popping up in my head :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v--IqqusnNQ

20th January 2013 “They met one night in the silver light on the road to Mandalay”

Nellie The Elephant - Toy Dolls

Back in the day when people were thin....

Best Cover. Best Dance, doable even by us.  Best skinny chest in the history of the world ever. What more could you want?

This one is for Judith

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eti21PVHXrg

19th January 2013 “Is it true what mummy says, you won't come back? Oh no, no.”

Excerpt From A Teenage Opera - Keith West.

You may not recognise it from the title, but if I was to say, “You know, the grocer Jack song”, all of you of that certain age would say “Oh I remember that”, and be instantly transported back to 1967, Ed Stewart and Junior Choice, which is the only place I ever heard it.

Odd choice really for a popular song on a children’s radio show, considering it was about an underappreciated shopkeeper who has a heart attack and dies, thus making everyone who dissed him feel rather bad, but there you go. It went straight over my head, which isn’t surprising considering I thought the kids were singing “Grow Sir Jack”!!!

To truly appreciate the song and the 1967 experience, you have to see the video, and I had a hell of a job finding a version visible in the USA. Thank you censors. This one looks french. Anyway first you have Keith in funky lilac flares and a body hugging nylon frilly shirt that Tom Jones would have been proud of and then you see the kids and you think OMG it’s us, just like we were in 1967! Dresses tied with a bow in the back, dresses decorated with ric rac braiding, knitted cardies, bows in our hair, knee length white socks and clarks shoes. The boy in shirt and tie, short shorts and a blazer like the old Beauvale uniform. Classic!

I have to say it made my day when I listened in online to Junior Choice and they played this in the first 2 or 3 songs. Brill.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6v212_keith-west-grocer-jack_music#.UPsEhKUaDS8

18th January 2013 “I just want you to know who I am”

Iris - Goo Goo Dolls

Not really much I can say about this, except that it’s a great song, and you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Kate sing it in the car :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajyu0Zue0FA

17th January 2013 “I’m looking for a complication”

Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters

I don’t have to look for complications. Complications find me!

I’ve had a very frustrating day trying to book a pair of plane tickets to Istanbul using reward miles. Sigh. Found a perfect flight with just over an hours layover in Frankfurt, so I booked it. A couple of hours later the credit card travel agency called to say that there had been a schedule change on the connecting flight and we wouldn’t make it, so we had to either “hope they changed it back” (really? what sort of fool do you think I am?) or cancel and start again. I opted for the latter. So I am flightless once again.

Anyway while I was dealing with that, it reminded me of this video, which has to be one of the funniest videos ever. Song isn’t bad either ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VQ_3sBZEm0

16th January 2013 “A Summer evening on the Champs-Elysees, a secret rendezvous they’d planned for days.”

I’ll Meet You At Midnight - Smokie

Been there. Done that. Got the T. shirt. 

In 1976 though, to those of us who hadn’t ventured far out of Eastwood, the mere thought of Paris and the Champs-Elysees was very exotic. The chance of us meeting a university student called Jean-Claude at that time was pretty non-existant, although a few years later our 6th form french teacher, Mr Bradley, produced a bizarre frenchman called Pierre, who wore a mac and smoked a pipe, for us to practice speaking with. I think we spent more time giggling at him than speaking, didn’t we Mich and Deb?!

Back to Smokie and “I’ll Meet You At Midnight”, another Chinnichap composition. I never thought of Chris Norman as a linguist, but as well as rocking the neckerchief and feathercut look, he had a darn good stab at pronouncing “universite” in the french fashion. Mr Bradley would have been proud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvjmabdYsmA

15th January 2013 “Is that Jimmy’s ring you’re wearing?

Leader Of The Pack - The Shangri-La’s

It seems like dead boyfriend/girlfriend is a common theme for songwriters. “Tell Laura I Love Her”, “Hello This is Joannie”, “Teen Angel”, but the best of it’s genre surely has to be “Leader of the Pack” by the Shangri-La’s.

The song has everything. Unsuitable boyfriend from the wrong side of town, disapproving parents, nosy girlfriends and a motor bike. Throw a rainy night into the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. Sorry Jimmy, but It’s not looking good for you.

Let’s jump to the video. All I have to say is if I was one of the friends, I’d be far more interested in knowing what the hell it is Betty has on her head, than if it’s Jimmy’s ring she’s wearing. But then again that’s just me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGQt6GY8nKA

14th January 2013 “Nobody knows me, but I'm always there, a statistical reminder of a world that doesn’t care”

One in Ten - UB40

Ouch, that lyric hurts. Talk about a timeless song. The words ring as true today as they did in 1981 when this song was a hit. What a sad comment on our society.

On a brighter note, looking at this video, did a band ever look any less rock and roll (or reggae) than these guys?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quTIjiw1xGE

13th January 2013 “Doesn't seem to care, no more wind in his hair as he reaches his last half mile.”

Night Boat to Cairo - Madness

Madness. A great British institution. How great is this song and how can it possibly be 30 years old?????? 

I defy anyone of my era, no matter how sophisticated, no matter how flabby, no matter how weakly bladdered, to sit still and not want to jump up and down on the spot for three and a half minutes to this. Whether we can still manage the full 210 seconds is another matter, LOL.

My kids grew up with “Night Boat to Cairo”. They tortured me by deciding to play the cello which meant I had to drive them to and from middle school every day. I, in turn, embarassed the heck out of them, by blasting this out of the car every afternoon as they approached my car after school. “How come your CD is always at this song every day when you pick us up?”, they asked. “No idea”, I responded, my face the picture of innocence.

OK kids. Confession time. I did it on purpose. Bwah ha ha ha haaaaaaa.

I give you “Night Boat To Cairo” by Madness. Feel free to dance along. I know Nick and Kate are ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLLL1KxpYMA

12th January 2013 “We can live beside the ocean, leave the fire behind, swim out past the breakers, watch the world die.”

Santa Monica - Everclear

Nick suggested I pick something from the 90’s today. I’m in a bit of a rush as I’ve been travel planning all day, so I’m not going to pick one of the songs he’s expecting, as they’ll need a long spiel to go with them.

Instead I’m picking this. Bad break up equals a great song. Enough said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW6E_TNgCsY

11th January 2013 “In the final seconds who’s gonna save you?”

Alive and Kicking - Simple Minds

Glad to report that not only is my husband alive and kicking, but he’s 60 today. Happy Birthday Tom!

This song has nothing to do with him though. It doesn’t really have any memories linked to it either. I love the song, and greatly admire the video and the beautiful scenery, but I have a terrible time watching it. You see I suffer from vertigo. Heights are not for me. I see this and want to grab the back of the bassists coat in case he trips. I’m saying “Come away from the edge Jim, and stop waving your arms around in case you overbalance and go over the edge.”

OK then. Don’t listen to me. See if I care. In the final seconds who’s gonna save you? Won’t be me that’s for sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljIQo1OHkTI

10th January 2013 “Caught in the crowd. It never ends”

It’s My Life - Talk Talk

I left college and went to work for Air France at Heathrow airport. I lived near Hounslow and if I had early shift I had to be at work by 5:30am. I didn’t have a car so was reliant on public transport, which at that time of day meant the hourly night bus from central London to the airport, which luckily passed by the end of my road. It was pretty much full of drunks and weirdos and the occasional airport employee. At that time of morning I didn’t really want to engage in conversation with anyone, so thanks to my walkman and the “It’s My Life” cassette, I spent many a morning keeping myself to myself, wishing I was still in bed.

Here’s the original version, before it was murdered by No Doubt. Enjoy the wildlife.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXQYyKzyDaE

9th January 2013 “Will I wake up? Is it a dream I made up? No I guess it's reality.”

Plowed - Sponge

You know how it is when a couple of you are looking for a movie to watch and and can’t find anything you agree on, so you start looking online at lists of people’s favourite movies for inspiration. I did that and noticed something called “Empire Records” kept showing up. I’d never heard of it so gave it a whirl with Nick, and we discovered our new favourite movie. It’s brilliant! You should see it! I should put it on a “365 Brilliant Movies In The World Of Susan List.” :)

Long story short, towards the end of the movie a song came on that I didn’t know I knew. I didn’t know what it was called, or who sang it, but I knew the tune and a lot of the words. It must subliminally have been drummed into my psyche by WHFS. I painstakingly sat through the credits and the songs on the soundtrack but couldn’t see any title that was reminiscent of the song. Thankfully an internet search revealed it was “Plowed” by Sponge. Huh? Never heard of it. Apparently I had. Here it is, a great song to sing loudly in the car!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqKcUS2Npic

8th January 2013 “I’ll drive a million miles to be with you tonight.”

Everybody have Fun Tonight - Wang Chung

What’s not to like about a band that not only has a crazy name, but turns it into a verb and uses it in the chorus of one of their most popular songs?

I actually saw Wang Chung live in the 80’s at a Radio One concert at Wembley. They were at the lower end a large bill of various artists in a concert that culminated with Elton John. In my defence, (ahem!), I think I was there to see Nik Kershaw. Anyway someone pulled out on the day, I think because their equipment got lost en route. Big Country, one of my favourite 80’s bands replaced them at the last minute and played a fantastic set. Brilliant, my street cred was back intact!  After seeing them I headed off as I had to get back to Hounslow by the rather long and tedious underground into central London and back out again. Sorry Elton, but I didn’t want to see you enough to risk missing the last tube!

Fast forward about 30 years, and this song suddenly re-emerges in 2011 as “The Trung Song”, with new lyrics. “Everybody have fun tonight, everybody Skype Trung tonight”. LOL. Today Trung is heading off back to the Marines. So good luck to him, and I’m sure it won’t be long before the sound of his dulcet tones are gracing my kitchen again via Kate, her macbook and Skype.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXu6QmxpJE

7th January 2013 “Seemed so wrong but now it seems so right”

December ’63 (Oh What a Night) - The Four Seasons

So we go from January 1973 to December 63, chuckle chuckle, in a radio onesque link.... a song that charted in 1976. Such a happy cheerful song. It had longevity too as it was the song Kate’s 5th grade class danced to in the Talent Show in her last year of elementary school!

Have you ever seen Jersey Boys? Great show, but too much of a good thing if you have a sinus infection (Kate) or a headache (me) as those falsetto voices become like hundreds of tiny drills boring into your skull!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrp9RLVAUgs

6th January 2013 “We just haven’t got a clue what to do!”

Blockbuster - Sweet

Wailing sirens, guitar riff then ah ahhhhhhh, ah ahhhhhh. Chinnichap at it’s finest and Sweet’s only number one, January 1973.

Their TOTP appearances used to elicit great grandad comments. “Must be a puff with hair that long.” “Is that man wearing make up?” “Can’t he afford a shot?” (Eastwoodese).

I see myself dancing to this in a brown and orange floral crimpelene maxi dress with cream coloured sleeves, (made by my mum), at a Beauvale juniors 4th year Christmas Party, DJ’d by Mr Watchorn! Happy days indeed! It was all down hill from there.

Great special effects in the video and a brilliantly choreographed dance just before the 2 minute mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgrYf7VWASE

5th January 2013 “Tonight, of all nights, there’s gonna be a fight”

Rat Trap - Boomtown Rats

Was there ever a better place for browsing records and finding hidden gems than Woolies in it’s heyday?

Autumn 1978, I must have been in 5th year at “The Hall Park School, Eastwood”, aka Eastwood Comp. Deborah Slatcher’s older sister Karen was a Saturday girl at Woolies in Eastwood and worked in the record department. I went in to buy a copy of Rat Trap and she served me and was nice enough to give me the copy of the single that had the picture cover rather than the plain cover. I was well pleased.

Sadly I no longer have said copy of the single. Someone stole it from my parents attic when I moved to the USA and my money is on my brother!

As a footnote, I hear the Boomtown Rats are re-forming this Summer and playing the Isle of Wight Festival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=024UcB1m7Do

4th January 2013 “I thought there was a virtue in always being cool”

Fight Test - Flaming Lips

The first time I heard this was on Janice Long and it was one of those songs you feel you’ve known forever, except you haven’t, because it’s new.

Then came accusations of plagiarism, saying the song was a rip off of Cat Steven’s Father and Son. Except I hadn’t ever heard that song before. Having since compared the two, they are a tad similar in parts, although this is much better :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EbrMAZbFpo

Jan 3rd 2013 “If your chance came would you take it?”

I’m Mandy Fly me - 10cc

Take your mind back to the mid-70’s. There are numerous attractive pop stars to have a teenage crush on. Bay City Rollers, David Soul, David Essex, Kenny, Slik, 10cc.... Er who? 10cc? Really? I had two friends who were rather keen on 10cc in general and Eric Stewart in particular. A rather unusual choice perhaps, but I suppose there was less competition for him than say for one of the two Davids.

I was never really a fan, but have to admit a certain fondness for “I’m Mandy, Fly Me”. Not quite sure what the song was about, other than perhaps a fantasy about an air hostess (yes that’s what they were called back then), on a poster, although I can’t say I’d choose to end up in shark infested waters after a plane crash in a fantasy of my own creation, but it’s what Eric, Graham and Kev came up with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIwXLQW20UE

Jan 2nd 2013 “My life swam around me. It took a look and drowned me in its own existence”

Down in the Tube Station at Midnight - The Jam

We go from riding on trains to riding on the tube. If ever there was a song that brings back the edgy years of living in London, it has to be The Jam’s “Down in the Tube Station at midnight”. They had it nailed. You really didn’t want to be down there, alone, at that time of night, hurrying along those long winding corridors, avoiding the drunks and the beggars and the skinheads, and watching the rats scurrying along the tracks as you waited for the train.

Here it is, a menacingly violent picture of Late 70’s London, but a great song nonetheless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf4EFDGP4yg

Jan 1st 2013 “... So we’re told this is the golden age, and gold is the reason for the wars we wage.”

New Years Day - U2

Let’s start off 2013 with the most original song imaginable for January first.
New Year’s Day, U2. (Ha! Caught you out! You thought I was going to pick Happy New Year by Abba, didn’t you?!).

New Years Day from the War album by U2. 1983 I think.

I was in college in London and had bought myself a walkman with the proceeds of my first summer working abroad. This song was on a cassette that had the entire album on both sides. I think the idea was that you could record other stuff on the back of it, but I never did. I used it as a quick way to flip between my favourite tracks, and skip the ones I didn’t like. This was a favourite album and for some reason reminds me of travelling on good old BR Intercity 125’s at cheap rates with my student railcard!

I loved early U2. Their music was exciting, angry, passionate, something I think that they lost in their later years as they got richer, balder and egotistical. Here they are pre-ego and pre-mullet in great 1980’s coats, playing in the snow.

Happy New Year!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1y50r_u2-new-years-day_music#.UQw7GqUaDS8

365 Brilliant Songs In The World Of Susan

365 Brilliant Songs In The World Of Susan

Ever looked at those lists of “Top 100 Songs In The History Of The World Ever” and thought that while they are oh so clever and serious, (aka pretentious), they are a bit predictable and not really full of songs you’d really want to listen to every day?

I started wondering what sort of list an “ordinary” person would come up with, as opposed to a music journo or someone in the business. What guilty pleasures might be revealed? What memories would those songs trigger? What would *my* “Top 100 Songs In The History Of the World Ever” be like?

Well, since you ask, for starters I wouldn’t do 100,  I’d do a years worth of songs, 365 classics in the world of Susan. Songs that my kids have been tortured to. Songs I hum along to in the shower. Songs I sing loudly in the car. Oh, and guess what. I’ve had a brilliant idea. I’ll make it into a project for 2013!

Don’t go looking for any Dylan, dead Buckley’s, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton or tuneless warbly women on my list. I didn’t grow up listening to “serious” music, didn’t sit around analysing lyrics on LPs played backwards and to me the Beatles were always an oldies band, their career over before I started to get into music. I grew up in the era of glam, disco, punk, new wave, synth and new romantics. I listened to pop music on Radio One and Radio Luxembourg with a bit of Capital and Radio Trent thrown in. I watched Top of the Pops, rushed home from school Tuesday lunchtimes to find out what was the new number one and listened to the chart rundown in the bath on Sunday evenings. That was where I got my music from. Then I moved to the USA, suffered a few years of highly pigeon-holed commercial-packed american radio, discovered MTV and then finally came full circle and rediscovered BBC radio and all my favourite music, (albeit now on Radio Two not one), via the internet.

So here is my list. 

One song a day for 2013.

365 Great Songs In the World of Susan. 

Enjoy. Or not.