(Not) A Traditional Easter

Ah, here we are at that most glorious of occasions: an extended bank holiday weekend. Two four-day working weeks on the trot (for most of us).

This bank holiday weekend is to celebrate Easter, a festival which, frankly, other than the aforementioned shortened working weeks, I have absolutely zero interest in.

Actually, that’s not strictly true, it’s also a weekend where I try to post some vaguely Easter-related tunes. Last time around, which was two years ago, last year having been skipped for health reasons (mine, not yours), I pulled together a special Good Friday Night Music Club mix, which I won’t be doing again this year (there will be a non-Easter related edition along this evening though), so if you really must get your fix of Christianity, you can find that mix here.

Long term readers will know that the only tradition I observe every Good Friday is to post the same song (which I snuck into that mix two years ago and was busted by long term reader mshillaber via the Comments section) this glorious camp and slightly blasphemous beauty:

Army of Lovers – Crucified

More soon. Roundabout 21:00 UK time, to be precise.

Good Friday Night Music Club

By which I mean, a Friday Night Music Club mix for Good Friday, as opposed to “At last! A good Friday Night Music Club!”

I’ve “ummed & ahhed” about posting this one to be honest; whilst I am not in the least bit religious – I’m firmly in the “religion is the opium of the people” camp – I do think it’s important to respect those who do have faith, no matter in which God, and I didn’t want this to come across as me taking the mick.

Besides, if I’m going to happily accept some extra days off work at Christmas and Easter, it would be rude to bite The Hand that feeds me.

That said, when you’re trying to find pop songs which in some way relate to the biggest Christian festival of the year, of which there are few, and whilst also trying to stay away from obviously religious songs, of which there are many, one does worry that what I’ve prepared may see disrespectful. Genuinely, it’s not meant to be, and I hope it isn’t.

See, I think I’ve dodged that particular pitfall by trying to make this mix so that it roughly follows the events of Easter weekend (as far as I can remember from junior school), starting a little earlier with Judas’s betrayal of Jesus, through Peter’s repeated denials, the crucifixion and resurrection, with some stuff about chocolate and bunnies thrown in to cover the Saturday, when nothing much happened. Apologies if I have misremembered the ‘true’ sequence. If only someone had written it down in some kind of, I dunno, good book that I could have referred to…

I also wanted to avoid including anything from obvious film or theatre portrayals, so there’s nothing from Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar or from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Oh ok, there is a teensy bit of Life of Brian in there, but don’t fret, it’s not Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.

For those of you pondering Dylan’s inclusion, he’s in there for two reasons: firstly, the song title seemed pretty apt, and secondly, because of the infamous moment when someone shouted “Judas” at him at a gig after he dared to start playing an electric guitar. This of course only makes him the third worst Judas that I’m aware of: there’s the obvious Iscariot chap at #1, and of course Sol Campbell at #2, for leaving Tottenham on a free transfer to go to play for Arsenal. (See, if I was religious, I’d have forgiven him by now.)

Anyway, as I say, I’m honestly not trying to offend with this mix (so there’s no need for an ‘effing and jeffing’ warning this week), rather the idea is to offer up a way that non-Christians can enjoy the weekend’s activities from a musical perspective, and who knows, perhaps even engage in a way they haven’t done for a long time.

Here we go then:

Good Friday Night Music Club

Here’s your track-listing:

• !!! – Even Judas Gave Jesus A Kiss
• Cowboy Junkies – Good Friday
• Bob Dylan – Knocking on Heaven’s Door
• Prince – The Cross
• The Beatles – Carry That Weight
• That Petrol Emotion – Creeping to the Cross
• Monty Python – Not So Bad Once You’re Up
• Army Of Lovers – Crucified
• Shanks & Bigfoot – Sweet Like Chocolate
• Kylie Minogue – Chocolate
• Ash – Return Of White Rabbit
• The Undertones – More Songs About Chocolate and Girls
• The White Stripes – The Denial Twist
• Mott the Hoople – Roll Away the Stone
• Status Quo – Resurrection
• Gabrielle – Rise
• The Cardigans – Rise And Shine

Here comes the disclaimer: any skips or jumps are down to the mixing software; any mis-timed mixes are down to me; all record selections are mine.

Oh, and for those of you rolling your eyes at the inclusion of yet another Quo tune, you’d best avoid BBC4 tonight, for it’s Quo night, making today not just a Good Friday but a great one!

More soon.

(Not) A Traditional Easter

It seems almost incredible that just over a year ago, I was writing about the new sensation that was working from home.

It feels incredible not in a “hasn’t time flies?” kind of way, but more in a “was that only a year ago??” kind of way.

And now it’s Easter weekend, and for the second year running I won’t be travelling to spend it with my parents, although there are pencilled-in plans to visit them for my Dad’s birthday towards the end of the month, provided restrictions have been lifted sufficiently to allow such adventurous activity to happen, and also, of course, assuming he hasn’t gone and got himself a hospital bed like he did last year.

Anyway, there’s on tradition which lives on here at Dubious Towers, and that’s to post this blasphemous slice of camp glory:

Army of Lovers – Crucified

More soon.

(Not) A Traditional Easter

It may have escaped your attention, in these weird days of self-isolation and lockdown, that it’s Easter Weekend, news that would normally be greeted with great joy since it hails every working person’s favourite type of weekend: the four day one.

But not this year.

I’ve been working from home for the past couple of weeks, and all this means is that in the same way that I wouldn’t normally go to the office until Tuesday, this year I don’t have to go to my living room for the same period.

Which will make this weekend seem even longer than it will already feel.

Some other traditions won’t be observed this year; for example, ordinarily I would go and spend the weekend with my parents, but that’s off the menu now. Easter usually falls close to my Dad’s birthday – it doesn’t this year, but I doubt I’ll be able to visit him when it does happen later in the month, and this is particularly frustrating this year, as he celebrates a significant milestone this year. More of this a little nearer the time.

In the meantime, one tradition which lives on: that I post this song every Good Friday.

Army of Lovers – Crucified

More soon.

A Traditional Easter

It’s Good Friday, and long-time visitors to these pages know this means two things:

1. A super long Bank Holiday weekend, and
2. I’ll post this:

Army of Lovers – Crucified

I’m away to visit the folks for the weekend, which also includes my Dad’s birthday on Tuesday, so there might not be as many posts as over the weekend as you may have gotten used to over to recently – it very much depends how many I manage to write on Thursday night when frankly I should be packing.

In other words: more soon.

A Traditional Easter

No, not organising an Easter egg hunt.

Not stuffing my big fat face full of hot cross buns either.

Nope, round these parts we like to celebrate the Easter weekend by posting some appropriate and/or vaguely blasphemous records.

And this gets one posted on this day every year:

Army of Lovers – Crucified

Nice to see another year having passed hasn’t tarnished that. It’s still fabulous and camp.

More soon.

A Good Friday

So, it’s Easter weekend again, and time for us all to pretend we’re devout Christians honouring a long-standing tradition, when really all we care about is the fact that we all get to stuff our faces with chocolate and, in the UK at least, enjoy a super long, four day weekend:

The Bluetones – 4-Day Weekend

Yes! A whole four days to think about doing that bit of DIY you’ve been putting off for months, and which you’ll continue to think about until Monday when, suddenly aware that you’ve totally wasted the whole weekend, you’ll skulk off to B&Q and spend the rest of the day trying to construct a flat-pack chest of drawers, armed only with a knife masquerading as the screwdriver which you can’t find, several screws less than your supposed to have, and an instruction manual written in every language except English accompanied by the most confusing diagrams known to mankind.

But we shouldn’t ignore the real reason we get this extended break. So, here’s a little something which references the events which didn’t actually take place at all, let alone on this day (controversial, I know):

!!! – Even Judas Gave Jesus a Kiss

Regulars will know that, despite not having a single religious bone in my body, I do love to post festive songs at Christmas but, as I pointed out in previous years, there just aren’t that many which can be linked to Easter celebrations, unless you go down the egg route, which I’m not going to.

So, here’s my tradition: posting this every year in all it’s outrageous, glorious campness:

Army of Lovers – Crucified

More soon.

Happy Easter

There are considerably less Easter-y songs than there are Christmas-y ones, which some of you might be quite pleased to hear.

Actually, there might be loads which have a tenuous link, but I can’t think of any. There’s always next year.

What I can think of is this gloriously outrageous slice of Swedish campness which, before you turn your noses up at it, Kurt Cobain praised in his posthumously published journals. Either that or Courtney made it up. You decide.

Army of Lovers – Crucified

More soon.