Picture the scene: it’s March 1984, and freshly imbued with the success of Now That’s What I Call Music, the suits at Sony Music and Universal Music decided there were more bucks to be made from this compilation mullarkey, and so they lobbed out Volume 2 in the series.
Let’s see what pop singles they considered to be worthy of flagging to us this time around, shall we? And don’t be shy, ‘fess up to those atrocities you bought back in the day via the Comments section; trust me, you’ll feel free from the burden of embarrasment if you do. I’ll be ‘fessing up, and also dropping any I remember my brother owning too, jusy to annoy him.
A song, written by drummer Roger Taylor, which mourns the passing of time and the progress of technology. Still, we can all do a synchronised communal clapping, which should distract us all from noticing how thin Freddie’s starting to look.
Named after the the two bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson in the Tin Tin series of comic novels, they were in fact a three-some, although this number had been stripped down from at least seven members before they found success. My brother, much as he may protest, bought their Into The Gap album and I’m pretty sure briefly joined their fanclub. Doctor, Doctor, indeed.
You know where I’m going with this. The thing that Matt Bianco are best remembered for is not their *reads notes* “irresistable blend of jazz and Latin-flavoured music”. it’s for this moment when they appeared on a Saturday morning kid’s show in 1984, engaged in a phone-in, where fans could call in and ask their musical heroes anything they liked:
And that’s why we now have wall-to-wall cookery shows on TV on a weekend morning.
This lot were a bunch of between-jobs actors, who got together to record some a capella versions of popular songs, and scored a surprise Christmas #1 with this, their take on Yazoo’s #2 hit single from 1982. Given that he has written so many catchy electro-pop singles, it must stick in Vince Clarke’s throat that the only two #1s he achieved were The Pickets’s version of this, and an ABBA cover when he was one half of Erasure.
The main bloke from The Flying Pickets was a chap called Brian Hibbard. Shortly after finding success in The Pickets, he landed a role in Coronation Street. He used to drink in a pub in Cardiff I occasionally frequented, The Royal Oak.
I’d often see him there, sitting at the bar. Normally, when I see a celebrity out in the wild, I’ll leave them be, decide not to bother them, and that’s probably because of the one time that I actually approached one. Him. I asked him this: How did it feel to steal Mike Baldwin’s Jag? (I had, of course, neglected to take into account that this was the point when he was written out of Britain’s top soap). His answer, predictably, rightly, was this: “Fuck off, mate.”
Bloody hell, we all fancied Nena when we were young, hairy German armpits and all. Shame she never released anything else that bothered the charts here in the UK.
The soundtrack to a billion awful hen do’s. God I hate this record. She made many better, less succesful songs, hopefully one of them will come up later. My brother bought the She’s So Unusual album this sits on, which I’ll admit has it’s moments (She Bop and the later single I bought by her…)
Since I started posting streaming links to songs rather than an mp3 download from my own collection, it’s rare that I come across a song which none of the main streaming platforms are able to offer. But such is the case with this one. Read into that what you will.
This was the theme tune to the hugely popular TV series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, which, written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (authors of Porridge and The Likely Lads, to name just two), told the story of a bunch of (mostly Geordie) labourers, working in Germany. It kick-started the acting careers of Jimmy Nail (thanks for that!), Kevin Whateley, Tim Healey and Timothy Spall, to name but a few.
Many years ago, at a gathering at mine and Hel’s flat, I promised a Geordie friend of ours, Jo, that I had a song which would make her happy. I played her this. I cannot repeat the profanities which came from her mouth. Brian Hibbard would’ve blushed.
Terence Charles “Snowy” White used to be in Thin Lizzy, and a backing guitarist with Pink Floyd. Neither of which has any bearing on this record, except we can safely say he is musically competent. This is a perfectly nice record, but nothing that would, or indeed did, set the world alight.
Thank you all for the comments left for me after last week’s first instalment of this series, where I go through all of the tracks on each volume (that I own) of the long-running compilation album series Now That’s What I Call Music.
But you’ll not put me off, oh no. And if you thought, like long-time reader George did, that last week’s serving was “…the worst set of songs I’ve ever read on a blog. Teeth-grindingly bad…” (It’s nice to have such a devoted fanbase), well buckle up because Side 1 of the second disc of Now That’s What I Call Music, where we’re heading today, is, in my opinion, even worse.
Let’s see who wants to admit to having bought any of these back in their more youthful days, shall we?
What did New Edition ever give us? Well, they gave us this utterly irritating UK #1, sung by annoying little pipsqueaks and featuring a horrid squelchy bassline. What else? Well, they also gave us three further UK Top 20 singles; the first, Mr Telephone Man, came two years later, in 1985, and then two more, Hit Me Off [I’m sorry, do what to you, exactly…?] and Something About You but they didn’t scrape the lower regions of the UK Top 20 until 1996 and 1997 respectively, some 13 years after Candy Girl hit the top of the charts. Presumably by then they had all matured into hunky looking young men who danced with their shirts off, or, more likely, in a precursor to the Sugababes’ method of keeping things fresh, an entirely different line-up.
Safe to say, then, that they did not exactly capitalise on their early succeess, and praise be for such small mercies.
But what about in between, in what has become known in Dubious Towers as ‘The No Second Edition Years’? Well, after the follow-up single Popcorn Love [which conjures up horrid images of young men taking their dates to the cinema, buying a massive carton of popcorn, making a hole in the bottom, resting it on their lap and inviting their beau to ‘grab a handful’] limped it’s way to #43, it was followed swiftly – probably more swiftly than their record company had anticipated – by Is This The End to which we as a nation chorused “We fucking hope so!” as we booed it to it’s triumphant peak of #83.
What else did New Edition give us? Well, they also gave us Bobby Brown, and therefore, by extension, dead in a bath tub Whitney .
Here’s the compilers of Now… breaking that well-known rule one should always bear in mind when putting together a mixtape/album/playlist/whatever: Thou shalt not include two tracks by the same artist. Fair play, by the time this came out the Kajas (The GooGoos?) had kicked that prick Limahl out, and lead vocal duties were now taken over by bass player Nick Beggs.
You know how many people’s go-to-reference for awful 80s haircuts is A Flock of Seagulls? Well that overlooks the godawful barnet Beggs had:
Several years later, a mate of mine at Uni inexplicably tried to revive this haircut. He dyed his hair peroxide blonde and then got white hair extenstions put it in. He had them all cut off less than 24 hours later when he got fed up with people baa-ing at him.
Anyway, Big Apple is about life in New York, which is also named The Big Apple. I don’t know how they came up with such a complicated concept to sing about. Imagine: living in a city! In America!!
Ably assisted by Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 fame on backing vocals and production duties, this. a cover of the Al Green classic, was the first of Tina’s great comeback singles. Before this, which reached #6 in 1983, she’d not had a hit in the UK since 1973’s Nutbush City Limits, and that was with her ex-husband and all-round-not-a-nice-guy Ike.
To open the doors on the amnesty of admission: Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession. Whilst I didn’t buy this as a single, I did buy Private Dancer, the album it appears on.
Join me in ‘fessing up via the Comments. It’ll be a laugh, I promise.
Or rather (Keep Feeling) Fascination as the band called it, but the Now… compilers refused to. They probably had a cap on brackets policy in place. And on the number of times they could use the word The on one set of packaging.
Anyway, by April 1983, The Human League were on a roll. This was their 5th Top Ten UK hit in a row, if you ignore The Holiday ’80 EP which re-entered the charts in February 1982, having been originally released in – you guessed it – 1980. This, remember, long before the days of downloading, where 10,000 clicks can get you a #1. No, back then you had to go out and find the record you wanted, flick through the racks of your local vinyl emporium, scour through the ads at the back of the NME to see if you could buy one with a postal order or a cheque. So that re-entry – only at #46, but in the charts for 5 weeks, is indicative of just how massive The League had become.
Or, to put it another way (Dad joke incoming!): it meant Phil Oakey could now afford to get the other side of his hair cut.
For a while in the early-80s, if you wanted a solo male UK pop star, it was either Howard Jones or Nik Kershaw: them’s yer choices. I’ll admit, in time, to buying a couple of Kershaw’s singles, but never anything by Jones. His were just a bit too Casio-toned for my rock-loving ears. And, he had that annoying twat Jed – Roy Jay (look him up) meets Marcel Marceau meets Bez – accompanying him in the videos and TOTP performances for this single:
Oh go on then: Roy Jay. This passed as entertainment in the 80s. Slither!:
No, go on, do make him cry. At least he won’t be singing this interminably dull sub-snoozing reggae then.
And if you’re short of practical ideas about how to make him cry, well a very young Danny Dyer has some suggestions intended for Peter Andre but which I’m sure could easily be transferred over:
Oh Jesus wept. Ordinarily, this sort of schlocky slop would have featured on a smash-hit movie soundtrack, and that would explain how it got to #2 in the UK Charts. I mean: there’s only one explanation for (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life‘s inexplicable popularity: it’s in Dirty Dancing. People – by which I mean, women, like Dirty Dancing. (I’m sure they exist, but I know of no men who like Dirty Dancing. Not any straight ones, anyway.) But Tonight I Celebrate My Love didn’t feature in any blockbuster movie. And back in 1983, just like now, Steve Wright’s Sunday Love Songs wasn’t a thing. So the only place this would get played would be in the last ten minutes at your local disco, when the DJ slllooowwwweedddd tttthhhhhhhiiiiinnnnnnggggsss dowwwwwwwwwwwwwn for ‘all the lovers out there’.
Wake me up when the erection section’s finished will you?
That’s more like it! I’ve written about this, and Tracey’s brief pop career before, here, should you fancy having a read.
Suffice it to say: They Don’t Know is a damn-near perfect pop record. And therefore, I didn’t buy it at the time, though I have subsequently availed myself of a vinyl copy of You Broke My Heart in 17 Places, the album it lives on. Kirtsy MacColl’s original version is probably the song that appears most in my iTunes library. It’s 100% skip-proof: I’ve never gotten tired of hearing it and I doubt I ever will.
Blimey, two absolute crackers in a row. Things are looking up.
Let’s see what wiki has to say about it: “Kissing with Confidence” is a song by Will Powers (the stage name/persona of photographer-turned-singer Lynn Goldsmith) from her 1983 album Dancing for Mental Health. It was written by Goldsmith, Jacob Brackman, Nile Rodgers, Todd Rundgren, and Steve Winwood. Goldsmith used a voice recorder to sound like a man. Carly Simon is the uncredited lead singer”. I mean, c’mon: that’s not a bad set of artists to be working with. Although that voice recorder needs chucking out: I have never for a moment thought it was man providing the central advice on this record.
I’ve posted this before and extolled its’ virtues, and it was met with a decidedly lukewarm reaction. I bloody love it. But of course, I didn’t buy it at the time, although I sponge-like absorbed every word of advice it offered. Y’know…just in case….
Anyway, no, I didn’t buy that, but, I did buy this:
Yes. That’s right. I bought this. In fact, I bought the album, not the single. And I bought the album because it had this on it.
Look. I know we all know what Phil Collins is now. But those were different times, back then. We had no idea how he would turn out. The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing. I also had no clue that Genesis used to be some adored arty prog-rock band, fronted by Peter Gabriel dressed as a chrysanthemum; no idea what Collins had converted them from and into.
And you know what? Now I do know, and I’ve listed to Gabriel-era Genesis, and I’d rather listen to Collins-era Genesis than that old shite anyday.
I’m sure they’ll crop up again in this series, if they haven’t already appeared on these pages. There are other Collins/Genesis songs that I like. And when the time comes, I will hold my head up and confess: I. Like. This. Song.
Not now, obviously. I don’t want to expose myself uneccesarily.
There I’ve said it: there are other Collins/Genesis songs that I like. I’m not sure why so many find this such an alien concept. Just because I – we – like the occasional record that someone makes, but dislike them and much of their other recorded output, that does not make me – you – a fan of theirs. That makes me – you – honest enough to give credit where I – you – think credit is due.
The album that has this on it that I bought, the wittily-titled Genesis is, as you would expect, rubbish apart from That’s All.
I mean, this is just magnificent, isn’t it? I didn’t buy it at the time, of course, but fear not! My days of buying Cure records were just around the corner. Redemption is nigh.
I hated Simple Minds back then. I think it was partly because Jim Kerr reminded me of Michael Myers from the Halloween horror movie franchise:
Spot the difference
Anyway, time and age has mellowed me, and I can now appreciate the shimmering magnificence of some of those early Simple Minds records, this one included.
To round off what’s actually turned out to be a pretty decent fourth side, given some of the shite they could have picked, another band making their second appearance on the same compilation album. Tut, tut, compilers.
But having mentioned how much I hate Karma Chameleon last time out, I woudn’t want you to think I was some homophobic twat who hated Culture Club unconditionally because of Boy George. Quite the opposite, I really like Mr O’Dowd, and some of the band’s other singles – Church of the Poisoned Mind, Time (Clock of the Heart), It’s a Miracle, this and…er…well, that’s about it really. So, the ones Helen Terry was involved in, pretty much.
Anyway, that’s it for this week. Hopefully we’re ending things on a positive note this time.
Next time (which should be next week, all being well), we’ll move on to Now That’s What I Call Music Vol II and see what delights that has in store for us, shall we? No peeking!
I’d say there are four things that Tracey Ullman is known for here in the UK:
Being a very funny comedian;
Having a very busy 1980s where, in reverse order, she had her own TV show in the States in the late 80s which gave birth to The Simpsons;
Appearing in Three of a Kind, a sketch show in the UK in the mid-80s, in which she starred with Lenny Henry an David Copperfield (not that one);
Having a brief but wonderful pop career in the early 80s, which included 3 Top 10 and a further 2 Top 40 hits in the UK.
It is of course the pop career we’ll be looking at this morning. And just in case you’re already turning your nose up and thinking “novelty hits” well…you’d be partly right, for all of her hits were cover versions.
But these were novelty hits with some artistic weight behind them, for they were released on the legendary Stiff Records label, home at some point or another to such luminaries as Nick Lowe, The Damned, Lene Lovich, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, Devo, Madness, The Pogues, The Belle Stars, and, most importantly, Kirsty MacColl.
MacColl actually wrote the title track for Ullman’s debut album, You Broke My Heart in 17 Places:
I mean, it’s got early Kirsty written all over it, hasn’t it?
The first of her hits was a cover of an old Irma Thomas tune, written by Jackie DeShannon and Sharon Sheeley, and was probably the least well-known as a cover when it was released in March 1983, peaking at #4 in the UK charts:
I have two things to say about that; firstly, when she first released that, it was called Break-A-Way rather than Breakaway; and secondly, if you’re of a similar vintage to me, and if your brain is wired the same way as mine (and heaven help you if it is) then you too will have seen the word Breakaway and immediately thought of this, and are now feeling a bit peckish:
But I digress.
You may have noticed a recurring theme when looking at Ullman’s album and single sleeve; Ullman dressing up in various guises. This is something which she carried over into her videos; here she is in the Breakaway promo, where, when not dressed as a go-go dancer with an array of beehive hair-do’s, she demonstrates the art of singing into a hairbrush:
This is entirely in keeping with Ullman’s background, for truth be told she very much stumbled into her pop career: “One day, I was at my hairdresser,” she once recalled, “and Dave Robinson’s [head of Stiff Records] wife Rosemary leant over and said, ‘Do you want to make a record?’… I went, ‘Yeah I want to make a record.’ I would have tried anything.”
Before she embarked upon her brief life as a popstar, she had won a full scholarship to the Italia Conti Academy at the age of twelve, attended a dance audition at sixteen, which resulted in her landing a contract with a German ballet company for a revival of Gigi in Berlin, then joined Second Generation dance troupe on her return to the UK, before branching out into musical theatre where she was cast in numerous West End musicals, such as Grease, and The Rocky Horror Show.
Now, if you thought having written the title track of Ullman’s first album, that Kirsty McColl’s work here was done, then you’d be very much mistaken, for the second single was a cover of Kirsty’s ruddy marvellous They Don’t Know, which reached #2 in the UK charts in September 1983.
Rumour has it that Ullman was unable to hit the high “Baby!” after the instrumental break, so Kirsty had to do it. It certainly sounds like her…:
Probably one of my favourite records ever, that. It’s certainly in the Top 10.
The video for Ullman’s version not only gave her further opportunity to dress up and show both her acting and dancing chops, it started a trend which she continued through her next few singles: the celebrity guest appearance.
Wait for it…..:
Single number three from the album was a cover of Doris Day’s Move Over Darling; released in December 1983, it peaked at #8 in the UK:
There were more guest appearances in Ullman’s video:
I should end this here, but the next single from the follow-up album You Caught Me Out is worth mentioning. Not because it was her final Top 20 hit (it wasn’t – it peaked at #23; the next single Sunglasses got to #18 and that was the last time Ullman bothered the Top 40)…
I had hoped I’d last slightly longer than the second weekend of the year without having a rant, but events this week haven’t exactly worked out that way.
Let’s start with the events in America this week. I don’t think there can be many of us who weren’t shocked at the scenes from Washington DC, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to overthrow the legitimate result of the Presidential election in November, as it was being verified.
Shocked, yes, but surprised? Honestly, not really. This has been building up since before the election. You’ll doubtless recall this exchange in one of the Presidential debates, when Trump was asked to condemn white supremacists and militia groups, specifically The Proud Boys. This was his response:
No criticism of them, just “Stand back and stand by.”
Post-election, when he wasn’t playing golf, attempting to get the election result overturned by the Courts (and having each of the 60 attempts thrown out on the grounds that no evidence had been submitted to support his claims), or watching Rudy Giuliani’s paint-job run at a particularly hot press conference (presumably the heat coming from a nearby sex shop), he was sending out further dog-whistles via his now-suspended Twitter account:
Twitter was a fascinating place to be on Wednesday/Thursday, not only watching the whole thing as it happened, not for the righteous outrage and indignation that bubbled and boiled, but for the concerted effort from many to identify those who had participated in the storming of the buildings and to pass that information on to the law enforcement agencies (presumably not the same ones who assisted the mob with access to the building, that is).
At the same time, many right-wingers tried to claim the attack was totally spontaneous and not pre-planned and that Trump had nothing to do with it. Oh yeh? Then how comes they’d printed up their own merchandise?
And that’s not even the cheap, unofficial shite you usually find spread out on the pavements when you leave a gig (ah…gigs…remember them?). No, that is your bona fide, 100% authentic mail-order MAGA merch, right there.
And this one even turned up with what, in the hands of your average honest-as-the- day-is-long electrician is merely a bunch of cable ties, but in this scenario can only have been brought for one purpose: to restrain and tether people:
Spontaneous, my arse.
Luckily, identifying many of them did not prove too arduous a task since, for as one would perhaps expect from such a baying mob, many of them wunt too cleverest.
If I was running a course on how to start a revolution, then Day 1 Lesson 1 of Revolutionary School would go something like this:
1. Keep your identity secret when trying to over-throw the government, at least until you have gained power.
But no. For a start, as devout Trump-followers, and thus by definition the hard-of-thinking, most of them were also Covid-deniers, and so refused to wear face masks.
If that wasn’t dumb enough, many decided to take pictures of themselves in various poses within the Capitol Building, and then post the snaps on their own social media, which were of course, open to the public to view.
And have a look at this one man tribute to the film Deliverance:
This one is so smart that he’s wearing his work lanyard. Needless to say, his now former employers were none too impressed:
It would appear that this knuckle-dragger was part of The Proud Boys, the group that Trump told to “Stand back and stand by.” Here’s a group shot of some of the leading lights taken on the day:
I mean, if I’d paid good money to see a Village People tribute act, and this is what waltzed out on stage, I think I might suggest storming the parapets too. Just saying.
Incidentally, is it just me or doesn’t the name The Proud Boys sound just a little bit….camp? Like a dance troupe of buff but exceedingly gay male strippers, dripping in baby oil? No? Just me then.
And then there’s this chap, who provided perhaps one of the most famous images from the day:
Now I don’t know about you, but I think that Robbie Savage should be free to do whatever he likes with his down-time. In fact, anything that keeps him away from “commentating” or football punditry in general is to be encouraged and is absolutely fine by me.
He may have less than two weeks to go until he has to begrudgingly hand over power to Biden, but there has to be consequences to Trump for his part in all of this. Hopefully he’ll end up wearing a boiler suit the same colour as his skin, but I can see a scenario where he gets off scot-free, and it’s one floated by Television’s Richard Osman on The Late Leg a few weeks ago. And it runs like this: Vice President Mike Pence relieves Trump of his duties for the final stage of his presidency, and in that time issues a pardon to him, in the same way as we have seen Trump issue pardons to all of his imprisoned cohorts over the past few weeks.
Thankfully, Pence – presumably with one eye on the next election – does appear to be distancing himself from Trump over the past couple of days, so maybe I’m being a little pessimistic.
What’s absolutely stark here is the difference between Trump’s handling of the BLM protests – call in the National Guard and the armed forces, shoot them – and his refusal to do the same when his buddies were doing the same when democracy itself was under threat. Hmm. I wonder white that might be….
Anyway, time for a tune, and I’ll start off by making the same joke as I did when I last posted this tune back in 2017: I wish it had the letters “Im” at the start of the song title, and then this would be perfect:
See, the problem with most of the songs I have about uprisings or revolutions is this: they’re generally performed from the perspective of those rising up, with whom we, the listener, have empathy. So, not especially appropriate to post now.
And then I thought of this, a record more angry than any other, which builds and builds into a furious explosion about the antics when in power of Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu. I’m not going to draw too many parallels, but….this is magnificent in it’s fury and outraged anger, which should, frankly, be our default position right now:
What all of this does bring into question is the matter of freedom of speech, and the platforms afforded to those who invoke it.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that – finally – various social media providers, such as Twitter, Facebook and their ilk have decided to ban Trump, The Proud Boys, QAnon and many others from their platforms in the wake of this week’s events.
However, it happened far too late. This should have been done years ago, in which case we may not have even had Trump as President. But the revenue streams brought to those providers were too great to resist, and so these people have been allowed a place to spew their bile in the name of balance.
Nowhere is this more obvious than with the BBC. The problem the BBC has is that, publicly funded body as it is, it is obliged to appear impartial. So for every view point that they wish to give some airtime to, they have to provide an equivalent amount of airtime to somebody who wishes to present a counter argument.
It’s the reason why, say, during a by-election, they may focus on the main parties, but then have to list all of the other candidates from other parties, standing in the same constituency.
The problem is that where one position is sound, knowledgeable and appropriately given a platform, but where the opposite position is half-baked and usually wrong, both voices have to be allowed to be heard, no matter how ill-informed or – and I hate to use this term, but it has entered the common vernacular – Fake News it may be.
(NB: as a general rule of thumb, when somebody uses the phrase “Fake News” as an argument against something they disagree with, you can immediately discount them from the conversation, because they are clearly an idiot. It’s like when online arguments liken someone’s stance to Hitler.)
This topic reared its ugly head this week when YouTube removed from its platform all of the content from Talk Radio, on the grounds that many of the clips were promoting Covid as a hoax, or anti-lockdown/mask propaganda. The BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, invited voices from either side of the fence on to the show to discuss the topic. This is how it went:
Twitter, as you would expect, was ablaze after that was broadcast. Many of those in my liberal bubble were bemoaning that Young had been given a platform at all, whilst you only have to read the comments on YouTube under that clip to see that many thought Young came out the better in that exchange, even though it was proven in that clip that his own position had changed from one previously expressed.
Here’s what I think: I don’t like or agree with what the likes of Young, Hartley-Brewer, Burchill and (God help us) Hopkins say, but if you refuse them the platform to talk their horse-shit, then this will only serve to feed the bottom-feeders, who simply seem incapable of rational thought and blindly seek out conspiracy theories.
Moreover, it adds fuel to the fire for those who claim they have been “cancelled”.
If “cancelled” isn’t the new word of the year according to the Oxford English Dictionary, then I’ll buy a hat and eat it*. It means ‘to be ignored’, or, more specifically, ‘to be prevented from airing your views’.
So the way forward is surely to allow these dunderheads one shot to present their argument and whatever evidence they have to support it. And then, to meticulously dissect everything they say so that their position is exposed as flawed. You then no longer have to invite them on to your show, or give them column inches, because their views have been discredited. End of story.
“We’ve listened to you once. You said nothing of any substance. We’re not listening to you again. Good bye”.
Take Suzanne Moore. I can’t profess that I followed her story all that closely, but I gather she is a former Guardian journalist, who was sacked quit her job because her views on trans matters did not chime with those of her employers.
The reason she came to my attention was because she was suddenly appeared everywhere, complaining that she had been “cancelled”.
Which she hadn’t been, because if she had, then I’d never have heard of her.
What had actually happened was that one platform listened, published, gave voice to her views, decided they thought she was talking utter codswallop, and decided not to be associated with her anymore.
And that’s what The Mail Online is there for: to hoover up all of the dislodged, jilted rhetoric, and publish it all in one place where we all know that everything that appears on its pages is bullshit, and that anyone who ever reads it or comments on it can be safely ignored.
I had a similar conversation with somebody at work recently. We get on very well, and often enjoy a good laugh and a conversation with each other. But in one conversation towards the end of last year, Trump’s name came up. I can’t remember precisely how, or why, the orange coloured one made an appearance, but he did and I made a disparaging comment about him. My colleague chastised me:
“Oi!”, he said (he literally did, I didn’t think anyone outside of The Beano said “Oi!” anymore). “Don’t go slagging Trump off!”
The schoolboy within me wanted to snigger at the proximity of the words ‘Trump’ and ‘off’, but I resisted. Composing myself, I retorted:
“What, you’re a fan are you?”
“Yes I am,” came the proud, chest-puffing reply.
“You’ll be telling me you think Brexit’s a good idea next”, I quipped, a comment which was met with a stony silence.
And so he was added to the list of people I know that there’s just no point in discussing politics with.
Here’s Stewart Lee, to further illustrate my point:
On the matter of Covid, the Government has finally introduced some rules about people coming into the country. They come into force next week; basically anyone arriving on our shores now has to provide documentation to prove that they had a Covid test within 72 hours of travelling, and that the test was negative.
This is good news, right? Of course it is.
But it’s January 2021.Why wasn’t this done in March 2020? The UK is an island, and therefore is almost uniquely placed (apart from other islands) to control who comes in to our country, and thereby potentially reduce the risk of further Covid-carriers coming into the country.
I haven’t seen it yet, but if it hasn’t been already appeared then it’s only a matter of time before it is posited that EU Regulations prevented us from doing this earlier. And that, dear reader, is horse shit.
We’ve always had control of our borders, we have just chosen not to enforce it because it was too costly.
When the mutant strain of Covid was identified in the UK in December, several EU countries – but, crucially, not all of them – decided that they would not allow flights from the UK to land in their territories. Not all of the EU, some/most of them. A perfect illustration, if you will, that we had control of our borders when we were in the EU, and that anyone who says that we didn’t is flat out lying to you.
In unrelated news, here’s a picture of Nigel Farage having a pint.
Often, finding an appropriate picture is difficult. But go to Google Images, type in the words “Nigel Farage pint” and see how many results you get.
Lots, right?
He’s quite determined that you accept his image as an ordinary man who likes a pint, isn’t he? Odd that, isn’t it?
*****
Anyway, Brexit. I seem to have stumbled upon it, so I may as well finish off with it.
It’s happened now, hasn’t it? And contrary to everything I thought would happen, Boris managed to get a deal with the EU. And, much as I didn’t want to leave, getting a deal with the EU is much better than not getting a deal with the EU, and us crashing out with No Deal and having to trade under WTO terms. So I’m sort of happy – happy that the worst case scenario isn’t going to happen, but still angry that the next “best” thing is.
The problem is that to get a deal with the EU, Boris pretty much had to agree to all of their stipulations, and give up ours. He didn’t negotiate a great deal, as promised, he capitulated rather than be branded the PM who forced us into a No Deal/WTO situation.
“We hold all the cards…”….”We’re not planning for No Deal because we’re going to get a good deal….”…”The deal is oven ready”…blah blah blah. Such was the rhetoric before and after the referendum and now them chickens are coming home to roost.
Chickens is probably not the best analogy here, maybe fish is more appropriate.
For this week, our proud UK fishermen have found that to export their daily catch to the EU is not as easy as promised. Indeed, many of them are finding that by the time they have completed all of the documentation required to allow them to export to the EU, then them fish ain’t as fresh as promised and nobody wants to buy them.
The flip side of this is that I have read many examples of companies within the EU who have seen the amount of red tape and bureaucracy now required to export goods to the UK, weighed that up against the amount of profit they will make, and decided: nah. Actually, they probably gave a Gallic shrug. They can export elsewhere and make more money with less form-filling in.
Still, as long as (Remainer) Liz Truss is opening those pork markets:
But then there’s the cheese problem:
What this fails to acknowledge is that many of those cheesy products she refers to had EU Protected Status. This meant that you could not, for example, make Stilton Cheese – the King of all Cheeses – and call it Stilton Cheese unless you were making it in the home of the Stilton Cheese, Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire (not Cambridgeshire where the village of Stilton is. Long story, which I’ll explain sometime. Maybe.)
Now, we are no longer in the EU, and so those EU Protected Status tags have been removed from our yummy products, meaning that anyone, anywhere can now make mouldy old delicious cheese and call it Stilton. And so now, they no longer need to import it from us.
The flipside is that we can now produce our equivalent of EU products, such as Brie. Hurrah! And then you taste Lymeswold and think…it’s not as good, is it?
Too late! Brie producers in the EU have no intention or need to sell to the UK, because their protected status market is too good, and the paperwork to do so is too time-consuming.
And nobody wants to buy our Brie-replicant, because they have a deal with France which means they can buy as much of the authentic runniness as they like, complete with its valuable EU protected status.
We’re nine days in, and already our supply and demand chains are being throttled by the deal Boris signed off.
It’s not Boris’ fault though. This was always and forever how it was going to be.
And we’re now signed into this for the long-haul: various aspects of the Trade Agreement will be reviewed every five years, at which point they may be removed but, on the balance of probabilities, will be extended. Meaning we’re just as tied in as we were before, only now we have no say whatsoever, no voice at the table, and with more red tape and bureaucracy – the very things Brexit was supposed to bring us escape from.
Well done, 52%. Give yourselves a pat on the back, you fricking legends.
Personally, I’m looking forward to the day when they have to announce that the Covid vaccine can no longer be imported. Which will be down to those pesky EU rules (which we’ve agreed to).
The other good thing, of course, is that for the past nine days, £350 million pounds per day has been pumped back into the NHS, just as was promised in the referendum. Right? No……?
Anyway, what I mean to say is this: everything is just fine. No need to worry.
Here’s something to brighten your morning, complete with gospel singers and steel drums, chosen to invoke a decidedly sunnier climate than we currently have in the UK:
I got into work on Thursday, and was immediately asked if the Spurs v Real Madrid game I went to the night before (did I mention I was there?) was as amazing as it had looked on the TV. (It was, of course, and I know because I recorded the match and watched it again last night.)
First to ask was the chap who sits next to me, also a life-long Spurs fan, who I knew desperately wanted to be there. (I gave him a program from the match in a valiant but vain attempt to make up for it.)
And then Kay rocked up and asked me about it, and I told her the same tale about how amazing the night had been.
And in between those, there was Bob. Bob sits opposite me, also a music junkie, but he’s a Chelsea fan, despite which I love him to bits.
Chelsea, by the way, got beaten 3-0 in the Champions League the night before.
Feigning ignorance, I asked Bob why, when you look at the Champions League group tables, Tottenham Hotspur have a (Q) after their name, but Chelsea don’t.
(If Badger is out there reading this, I’m sure as a fellow Spurs fan, he will concur: we don’t get many opportunities to crow, and so when we get the chance….well, crow I most certainly did.)
Bob’s too nice to actually swear at me, but I could see he wanted to, on this and on many of the other occasions that my workmate and I brought the subject up.
He was even more annoyed when I managed to crowbar some more references in on Friday.
So, although he doesn’t read this (as far as I know), this is for Bob:
When I was younger, I was a serious vinyl junkie, much to my mother’s annoyance.
Every spare penny went on two things:
records, and
the bus fare into town and back so I could buy records.
And every time I returned home, square plastic bag clutched in my sweaty little hand, I would race upstairs to listen to my latest purchases, oblivious to my Mum’s calls after me that “money burns a hole in your pocket”.
Well, something happened this week which, when she reads this, will lead her to tut, roll her eyes and mutter how she was right and how nothing has changed.
I’ll explain. Wednesday evening, I’ve finished work and am waiting to catch the bus home. Just next to my bus stop is a charity shop which has fairly recently opened. I’ve no idea what charity it supports; I rarely check the benefactors of such establishments, just in case its one that I don’t like. You know, one of those notorious bad charities.
Anyway, the shop has closed but the shutters aren’t down yet so I thought I’d do a bit of window shopping. Truth is, I’ve done this quite a lot at this shop recently, ever since the chap who sits on the desk opposite me (also a vinyl junkie, also a lover of trawling round charity shops in the hope of unearthing a bargain) waltzed back into work after lunch, gleefully clutching a hardback copy “Alan Partridge: Nomad” that he’d picked up for £2.00 there.
The book shelves are quite close to the window, and with a bit of squinting you can make out some of the titles: Dan Brown, Dan Brown, Russell Brand, Dan Brown. The usual selections one finds donated to charity stores.
But underneath that, I spied a new addition to the Entertainment Section: a plastic container full of vinyl, and there, right at the front, a copy of “Now That’s What I Call Music Vol II”. I determined that I would return there the following day to investigate further.
Thursday lunchtime. I’ve been out visiting one of the schools in the Borough and have caught the bus back to the office. I say the office, but actually I swung by the charity shop in question en route. (S’ok, it was my lunch break.)
The 80s compilation album was there, priced up at £3.75. Reasonable, I thought, as long as the vinyl itself was in good nick. I slipped both discs from their inner sleeves (reassuringly, the previous owner had placed them with the opening facing upwards so the vinyl couldn’t roll out or attract dust), held them both up to the light from the window and examined them. A tad dusty, but not warped and no obvious scratches or blemishes. I decided to buy it. As I turned to approach the counter, I glanced down at the plastic container, and there, now, after I had liberated “…Vol II”, at the front was….
“Now That’s What I Call Music”.
The first volume. They didn’t call it “Now That’s What I Call Music Vol I” for much the same reason, I imagine, as the First World War wasn’t called that at the time: they didn’t know there was going to be Second one.
I knelt down again, pulled that one from the container. And behind it was “Vol III”. And “Vol IV”. And “Vol V”. And “Vol VI”. And “Vol VIII”. And “Vol IX”. And “Vol X”. And “Vol XI”. And “Vol XIV”. And “Vol XVI”. That’s 12 volumes, all in pretty good nick, all, bar Vols I & II, priced at just £1.10 each.
Five minutes later, I left the shop, just over £18.00 poorer, but immeasurably happier. So, what if it’s two weeks until payday, I don’t need to eat every day.
At work, one of the girls asked me what I’d bought. She’s quite a lot younger than me, so I showed her, but started off by saying “You’re probably not old enough to remember these…”, meaning when the “Now…” series started. “Oh, I remember those,” she said. “My Dad used to own some records.” Bubble of joy duly punctured.
I’ve mentioned a couple of times how much I enjoy watching the reruns of old 80s editions of Top of the Pops on BBC4, as they bring back so many memories and the same is true of these albums, the first couple being from roughly the period those repeats are no now. Although, perversely, I didn’t buy a single one of them back in the day. (I say perversely, but I know exactly why I didn’t: Quo don’t appear for the first time until Vol VIII. Had they featured earlier/more frequently, the teenage me would have undoubtedly been unable to resist. And to save you checking, yes Vol VIII was amongst the ones I bought.)
So I thought I’d spread some 80s joy today, and every now and again on a Saturday morning, picking my favourite track(s) from each side of each one that I picked up.
Volume I was released in 1983, and the compilers of the album have made my task somewhat easier by picking two tracks by Kajagoogoo (no thanks) and, one by former Kajagoogoo singer Limahl (by far the worst record on here, and given the inclusion of UB40 – also twice – that’s really saying something. Bop bop shoo be doo wah.) Seriously, breaking the golden rule of mix-tapes and compilations by featuring the same artist more than once really didn’t bode well for this series of releases, but here we are, 24 years later, and they’re still going.
Anyway, front and cover art is below, so you can have fun guessing which tracks I’ve picked, deciding which you’d have picked, and trying to remember what the significance of the pig was:
(I love this. It was going to feature on my motivational Monday morning series sooner or later, but I can’t resist the…erm…temptation to post it here.)
(It’s nowhere near as great as the original, but it least it has Kirsty on it, performing the “Baby!” at the end of the musical bridge, as Ullman couldn’t hit the note.)
(If I’m pushed, that’s probably my favourite record by The Nutty Boys. But, I don’t understand why people call them The Nutty Boys. It takes longer to both say and type than Madness does.)
It’s weird how things pan out. We have various categories here, where I award points for (nobody’s counting, the points mean nothing, apart from giving a warm glow for the recipient) the following:
Worst/Cheesiest Record of the Week
Showboat Comment of the Week
The Next Record in The Official Chain
Well, this week, we have a suggestion for each of the above. All of them will receive points. Yes: one person correctly guessed the next song in The Official Chain. If I could afford Ray Winstone’s head to pop up to ask you to lay your bets “nahhhhh”, this is where he’d be.
To recap: last week, we ended up with “Bonny” by Prefab Sprout, from their “Steve McQueen” album. Plenty of food for thought there, you’d think? Well, we have the most tunes ever to get through this week, although that’s mostly because I kept thinking of new ones.
Oh and by the way, it was rather pleasing to note that absolutely nobody complained about my deliberate mistake last week, which was to omit the link for the Crazy Frog tune. My faith in humanity is almost restored.
But before we go any further, many of you will know that regular Chain Ganger Badger’s better half was Lorna was involved in a car crash last week. Needless to say, our thoughts and best wishes go out to them. Get well soon.
“Beans often come from sprouts so how about something by Sunflower Bean? Tame Impala perhaps…”
Yes, that’s Tame Impala by Sunflower Bean, rather that Sunflower Bean by Tame Impala. As it says on their Bandcamp page: “Tame Impala wrote a song called Led Zeppelin and now they have a song named after them.” You can’t fault their logic.
“I feel that this is as good a time as any to mention Jasper Carrott and Funky Moped, although I think that a fair proportion of its sales were down to the inclusion of the non-musical Magic Roundabout on the flip side.”
You’re probably right, GG, so let’s stick with the A-Side which is, by the way, the Worst Record of the Week:
There you go, that’s your five portions of vegetables sorted out for today. A reward for finishing off all of your Brussel Sprouts is deserved; here’s Jasper with a classic routine:
Of course, Brussels also leads us to Europe, and to Belgium. Here’s Michael:
“Brussels being the capital of Belgium….Arno is a legend, in Europe often singing in English , ‘Les Yeux de ma Mère’ is a beautiful song , so you could also argue the bonnie link.”
And since we’re in Belgium, here’s Charity Chic from Charity Chic Music:
“Plastic Bertrand is the only Belgian singer I’m aware of….”
What, you haven’t heard of Arno before, CC…..? Care to nominate a song by the most famous Belgian (after Hercule Poirot and Jan Vertonghen, both of whom would have done better than our actual defence did yesterday).
In a normal week, the next suggestion, from George, would win the Comment Showboat of the Week. Not this week though, oh no:
“Using the song title, Bonny, to the name Bonnie, which leads to child star of the 70s Bonnie Langford, who appeared on a TV show with Lena Zavaroni, one of Rothesay’s famous exports, and there is no way I’m suggesting ‘Mama He’s Making Eyes At Me’, NO WAY, because I am linking from Bonnie Langford to Jon Langford, founder member of The Mekons, and to the song ‘Prince Of Darkness’, who seems to be having a rare old time at the moment in the UK and the USA. (The Prince of Darkness, that is, not Jon Langford)”
See that? Biting satire as well a great suggestion:
“The obvious temptation with Bonny is to go the Tyler route, but who likes obvious when there’s the Bonnie Raitt route, maybe with ‘Something To Talk About’.”
Time for The Robster from Is This The Life? with a bit of a history lesson:
“The only thing I’m coming back to is ‘My Bonnie’, the 1961 debut single by Tony Sheridan. He was backed on this by some young upstarts called The Beat Brothers (as the label credited them). Apparently they went on to become quite famous under a slightly different name…”
There was a distinctly outlawish theme to a few of the suggestions; step forward Lynchie:
“Bonny made me think more of one of Billy The Kid’s aliases – William H. Bonney – so I’d like to put in a good word for Joe Ely’s ‘Me and Billy the Kid’.”
In the movie ‘Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid’, the Kid is played by one Kris Kristofferson, who regular readers will know is a hero of mine, so here’s one by him:
Many of you weren’t content at simply linking to Bonnie, plumping for songs which reference, or are just plain about, famous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde. Here’s another one of mine to kick this batch off:
Okay, are you all sitting comfortably? Good, because I’m about to go off on a bit of a tangent, and hog the limelight for….oooh…the next five songs.
In the movie about the outlaws Bonnie & Clyde, pithily titled “Bonne and Clyde” Bonnie was played by Faye Dunaway, and Clyde was played by Warren Beatty. Beatty may, or may not have been the subject of this record:
And, of course, her co-star in The Thomas Crown affair was one Steve McQueen, which is, of the course, the name of the album that this week’s source record comes from.
(If I could award myself the Comment Showboat of the Week for that little lot, I would. Guess I’d better give it to one of you lot instead. Harumph.)
Go on then George, do your stuff:
“From Steve McQueen to Alexander McQueen, the designer, whose partner was George Forsyth, which is also the name of a long dead American General, and also of a Peruvian footballer. And also from Peru was Daniel Alomia Robles, who wrote the song El Condor Pasa, which was made famous by Simon And Garfunkel as ‘El Condor Pasa (If I Could)’.”
“Shaun Ryder cribbed the opening to the Happy Mondays’ ‘Step On’ (“You’re twistin’ my melon, man…”) from a documentary about Steve McQueen. ‘Step On’ is, of course, a cover of a John Kongos number that I believe has featured on these pages before [it hasn’t, so we could have it…] Happy Mondays also covered Kongos’ Tokoloshe Man. So that instead, please.”
Fair enough. This featured on “Rubáiyát”, which was released to mark record label Elektra’s 40th Anniversary:
Okay, where shall we go next? I know, let’s have some suggestions relating to Prefab Sprout themselves, and to kick things off, here’s Alyson from What’s It All About, Alfie?
“I always thought that their ’88 hit ‘King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ was called ‘Albuquerque’ as the word comes up so often in the lyrics – Whenever watching the TV show Breaking Bad which was set in Albuquerque I thought of the song ‘A Horse With No Name’ by America (from Ruislip) and sure enough it popped up in the third season (and is my suggestion for this week). A tenuous double link is that the America band members back in the early ’70s would have worn the fashionable trouser of the day – loon pants – and Prefab Sprout’s main man was of course Paddy McAloon!”
“I should go from something by Prefab Sprout to the *original* Prefab Four, i.e. The Rutles, but I’m not actually familiar with their output. ‘Cheese and Onions’ is a mildly infamous song of theirs, though, so I’ll go with that.”
Now, we’ve had numerous links to Steve McQueen, the album that the source record features on, but what about other albums by Prefab Sprout?
“Prefab Sprout’s next album was ‘From Langley Park to Memphis’ and one of the singles from it was aforementioned ‘King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’. Elvis of course was the KORNR and he lived in Memphis so an alternative suggestion is ‘Walking in Memphis’ by Cher (as she dressed up as Elvis on ‘Top of the Pops’ back in the day).”
And what about the album after that….? Over to Martin again:
“‘Protest Songs’ … which is all the excuse I need to pitch ‘The Internationale’ by Billy Bragg, and hope that it scores extra points for being more relevant now than ever.”
No extra points, I’m afraid Martin, but I will take this opportunity to nudge you in the direction of Swiss Adam’s Bagging Area, where he has just finished posting a week of protest songs. Worth a visit, in my opinion.
Anyway, that’s your lot for this week. Except, a little while ago, Rigid Digit mentioned the Steve McQueen film and Blur album “The Great Escape”, but didn’t actually nominate a song from said album. Magnanimous host that I am, I asked him if he had one particular song in mind:
“My choice would be the peerless ‘The Universal’ (despite it’s continuing usage on the British Gas advert)”
And that, as you will have gathered by the number craftily placed at the start, is the next record in The Official Chain, so congratulations, and bonus points, to Rigid Digit.
So, your suggestions, please, for songs which link to “The Universal” by Blur, along with a brief description of the link, via the Comments Section down below, in time for next Sunday’s edition.
So, so much to get through this week, so I’ll assume you all know what we do here, and will dive straight in.
Last week’s records was “Inbetweener” by Sleeper, and the suggestions for records that link to that came in thick and fast. Now, I know I swore off fiddling around with the order last week, but as it turned out, this week there were several suggestions which followed similar themes so I thought I’d try to group those together, interspersed with the remaining ones.
And so to kick things off this week, here’s The Swede from Unthought of, though, somehow which just happened to be the first one I received:
“Louise Wener of Sleeper published an autobiography in 2010 entitled ‘Different For Girls’. ‘It’s Different For Girls’ is the title of a rather splendid Joe Jackson song.”
It most certainly is, and you need proof, here you are:
Wener’s post-Sleeper career has largely been based upon her writing skills; not only has she written that aforementioned autobiography, but she’s written several works of fiction too. Which made me think of this record, which contains my favourite mop-top guitar riff:
Don’t worry, it’s not all bout me this week! But “Reader Meet Author” leads us nicely on to SWC from When You Can’t Remember Anything‘s first nomination of the day:
“I once got stuck in a lift with Louise Wener AND the keyboardist from The Wannadies. There is no link here unless you want to post ‘Hit’ by The Wannadies, in all of its two minute brilliance?”
Of course I want to post that! It was going to feature in a future unrelated post, but I’m not adverse to posting the same song more than once, and I can always postpone that one:
Moving further away from Wener’s writing prowess and SWC’s stalker tendencies (I’m sure he’ll claim it was a work-related incident, though), here’s Charity Chic from Charity Chic Music:
“A sleeper is a train that transports you through the night – if you were to get a Midnight Train to Georgia like Gladys Knight and the Pips, chances are it would be a sleeper.”
Whenever I hear the name Gladys Knight & The Pips, I always think of Geordie adult comic Viz, to the snappily titled “The Viz Book of Crap Jokes: A Pitiful Array of Poor Quality Jokes from the pages of Viz” which I used to own but which seems to have got mislaid on one of my many house-moves over the years, and particularly to this, which young folks who’ve never had to use a public phone probably won’t understand:
Now, can we all give a warm Chain Gang welcome to the first of many new contributors who’ve been in touch this week. Here, from his frankly quite wonderful blog Is This The Life? is The Robster:
“I was going to suggest It’s Different For Girls until Swede beat me to it. So instead I thought about Louise’s first novel ‘Goodnight Steve McQueen’ which led me to the Prefab Sprout album ‘Steve McQueen’. But I never liked Prefab Sprout (a heretical remark in some quarters, but I stand by it) [In which case, we’ll skip playing anything by them – Chain Ed]. “There was also a book she wrote called ‘Just For One Day’ about Britpop which is as good an excuse as you could ask for to include some Bowie.”
The Robster continues: “Then I went down the sleeping route: Sleep by Godspeed You! Black Emperor would be a good one, but you probably don’t want to post a 23-minute instrumental, do you?”
Okay folks, brace yourselves. It’s become a bit of a tradition here on The Chain that we feature at least one cringe-worthy song every week. Not because we necessarily like it, but because…well, did you ever hear that quote, which I had always thought was attributed to mountaineer Chris Bonnington, that goes “Q: Why do you want to climb that mountain? A: Because it’s there.”? (A quick internet search tells me that it was actually first said by George Mallory, an English schoolteacher and mountaineer, born 1886, died 1924 trying to errm….climb Mount Everest. Not so smug now, eh, Mallory, old bean?) I digress – it’s the same principal here. So, babylotti, why did you recommend this record? Because you could. Or, as you put it:
“Inbetweener conjures one song up for me immediately. It’s that excruciating dance scene in the Inbetweeners film where they ‘move’ across the dancefloor to ‘We No Speak Americano’ that’s my suggestion, right there. Sorry.“
And just in case you don’t know the scene babylotti is referring to:
Which leads us rather neatly on to the next suggestion, and can we have a warm Chain Gang welcome to The Beard, who does not appear to be the biggest fan of the show which gave us such phrases as “Bus Stop Wankers!”, “Bum-der” and “Clunge” (I advertently described a cheesecake at a recent party as “looking a bit clungey”, not realising what that meant until the words were already out there. I am free to host the Great British Bake Off, in case anyone on C4 is interested).
Anyway, here’s The Beard’s suggestion:
“The plural of Inbetweener is Inbetweeners. The Inbetweeners was a mildly-amusing-but-quickly-lost-its-charm comedy. One of the protagonists was called Jay. A more famous Jay is Jam Master Jay. ‘Here We Go (Live At The Funhouse)’ by his band, Run DMC, is ridiculously good.”
Since we’re on a rap/hip-hop vibe, here’s Rol from My Top Ten:
“Literal link again: the only song I have in my collection with Sleeper in the title is Nightbus Sleepers by Dan le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip. Not usually my bag, musically, but I love Scroobius Pip’s rambling rhymes”.
Seems a bit quiet around here without George this week, doesn’t it? Time to rectify that, with more of his Tottenham Hotspur links:
“Sleeper is a film by Woody Allen. Dave Allen was in the Gang of Four, leading to Dave Mackay of Tottenham Hotspur (their finest ever midfielder), leading to Andy Mackay of Roxy Music, and Ladytron.”
“At the risk of looking as if I am stalking George by copying everything he comes up with (it’s all a coincidence honestly) [I knew it! You might call it stalking, we call it spying! – Chain Ed] my first thought was also that Woody Allen was in a film called Sleeper with one-time partner Diane Keaton, but we all know that Woody also had a long-term relationship with Mia Farrow. [Phew! I wondered where you might be going with that for a moment there. I was dusting off the word ‘allegedly’ ready for quick insertion – Legal Ed] Now Mia was once married to Frank Sinatra so I could go down that route but instead, in the interests of championing the Guilty Pleasure tagline yet again, I will go down another route. Ms Farrow starred in the excellent film Rosemary’s Baby and back in 1970 Edison Lighthouse did really well with Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) – I think the brackets are important!”
Anyone whose services as the resident pop nerdo boffin in pub quiz team will know how invaluable knowing where the brackets go in a pop song title is. My favourite one that catches people out is Heaven 17’s “…(And That’s No Lie)” which you’ll note quite literally has no words that aren’t in brackets.
Time for a warm welcome to the third of our new contributors this week, which comes from within Alyson’s sleeper cell humble abode:
“Don’t know if my other half is allowed to join in but out of interest his suggestion probably falls into the Guilty Pleasure category also and it’s The Gambler by Kenny Rogers – The opening few lines being relevant to a) Sleeper trains b) Being too tired to sleep c) Railway lines are laid on sleepers.”
Tick, tick, tick, as The Hives once said, as did the nit nurse at my Junior School (although The Hives also added the word “Boom!”).
I’ve digressed again. Here’s King Kenny (no, not that one. Or that one. This one):
If you didn’t catch Kenny Rogers’ Sunday Afternoon Legends slot at Glastonbury back in 2013, you can see it here. Well worth a look, in my book.
Anyway, before I forget, a warm Chain Gang welcome to Alyson’s other half, Jamie.
Now, as they say, for something completely different, and to my final suggestion for this week. “Inbetweener” comes from Sleeper’s debut album, “Smart”. Smart is a word which has several different meanings: Well dressed (The Great Gog will expand on this in a moment); to be in pain (as in “Ouch, that smarts a bit”), or to be clever.
If you’re the opposite of clever, then you could easily be described as intellectually-challenged, or just plain stupid. That’s S-T-U-P-I-D:
Since I’ve just mentioned him, here’s The Great Gog:
“One can be said to be smart if one is wearing one’s Sunday best. Off the top of my head, the only song I can think of that references Sunday best is The Icicle Works’ “Who Do You Want For Your Love”, in its second line. And it’s a particular favourite of mine.”
Not one I was overly familiar with before getting your suggestion (I really don’t know how this one passed me by, to be honest), but it’s fast becoming one of mine too:
A suggestion which coaxed The Swede back for a second stab:
“I’ve now got Elvis Costello’s ‘Sunday’s Best’ as an earworm, a song that’s as relevant today as it was in 1979, if not more so. It also contains the line ‘…Sleepy towns and sleeper trains….’, so can be designated a double-linker!”…
…which in turn caused ructions with The Great Gog’s working day:
“Whilst staring at an increasingly confusing spreadsheet at work, I’ve just remembered that Madness’ “Our House” makes mention of Sunday best. Needless to say, it is currently ear-worming…”
“I was once in the audience of Jools Holland, it was a Hootenanny special (filmed in August) but one of the acts there was Audioweb who performed their minor hit ‘Sleeper’ – they had more chart success with their ragga indie version of ‘Bankrobber’.”
As it’s a Clash cover, let’s dedicate this one to George:
“As my obligatory second option”, Badger continues,”another song on the debut Sleeper album was ‘Lady Love Your Countryside’ which was a slight piss-take of supposed political rebels S*M*A*S*H and their ‘feminist anthem’ ‘Lady Love Your C___’ who actually turned out to be posho college boys. Either way ‘I Want to (Kill Somebody)’ was a great three minutes of Tory baiting”:
Now, since Audioweb have been mentioned, here’s Swiss Adam from Bagging Area:
“Sleeper was a song by mid 90s Manchester dub/rock/electronic and Audioweb, an actually pretty good piece of mid 90s music. The 12″ came with not 1, but 2, Andrew Weatherall mixes.”
Now these are mixes which I did not own. But fear not, I thought: Swiss is renowned for being a bit of a Weatherall nut, so I figured I’d just pop over to his blog, type Audioweb into the Search function, and get them from him, only to be met with the following message when I did:
“No posts matching the query: audioweb”
Gah!
Anyway, I managed to track down the following two mixes. I’ve no idea if one, or the other, or both for that matter, are in any way Weatherall related (although they both sound pretty similar to these ears…)
Okay, time for Comment Showboat of the week, which undoubtedly goes to Dirk from sexyloser. I’d get comfy, if I were you:
“A ‘sleeper’ these days is of course not only a person, who, like you and me do, goes to bed in the evening and, well, sleeps. No, a sleeper is a spy planted in advance for future use, but not currently active (not necessarily a terrorist, back in the golden days of the cold war we just had spies, you know, for younger readers, all harmless stuff!). This may be hard to believe, but fear not: there is a movie which might shows it all: ‘Salt’. In it, Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, who is accused of being a Russian sleeper agent and goes on the run to try to clear her name.
Now, as you might or might not know, Angelina Jolie announced that she and Brad Pitt go ‘different ways’ from now on, a divorce will come soon, I’m afraid. Very sorry to hear this, and I would just l.o.v.e. to help Angelina in those difficult times of misery, but I fear that Mrs Loser would have severe objections against my noble offerings. So, Angelina, the only advice I can give you currently, is to see your future positively and to sing along loudly to Huey ‘Piano’ Smith & His Clowns’ ‘Free, Single And Disengaged’: a neat song indeed and, coincidently , my tip for this week’s ‘Chain’.
PS – Angelina, if you’re reading this, there is no current Mrs Jez, and you seem exactly the sort of headcase that some of my ex-girlfriends were clearly readying me for. Call me, maybe?
Sticking with the Cold War/Spy angle, here’s Alex G from We Will Have Salad:
“OK, other people have done railways and spies. So let’s combine the two, and what springs to my mind is James Bond getting into a bit of a scuffle in “From Russia With Love”. As it happens, I have a soft spot for Matt Monro, so let’s hear him singing the title song from said movie.”
You’d have to be pretty annoyed if you were Matt Monro. Your most famous record (as far as I know, feel free to provide alternatives) and you don’t even get to feature on the sleeve. Such is life.
Now a warm Chain Gang welcome back to Kay, who continues the theme:
“Sleeper made me think of a sleeper cell – cold war, John Le Carre novels, Russia etc ….then Russia made me think of Babushka by Kate Bush”:
Which just leaves us with George’s second suggestion, and for what I think is for the fourth time on the trot, it’s related to Tottenham Hotspur:
“In Sleeper, the singer was Louise Wener. Louise was/is the name of a pop-singer who is married to footballer Jamie Redknapp, son of former Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp, who signed Dutch footballer Rafael van der Vaart. And speaking of things Dutch leads to prog-flute band Focus, and their song House of the King. a splendid pop prog song with flute-ing and hand-clapping.”
My knowledge of Focus, I thought, began and ended with “Hocus Pocus”, until I heard this and recognised it as the theme tune to Steve Coogan’s BBC comedy series “Saxondale”, so truly thanks for pointing me in its direction (don’t let the word “prog” put you off, George is right, this really is splendid):
And that’s it for another week. Of course, none of us guessed the official link to the official record, which I’ll have to concede is a better link than usual, if still not a patch on any of ours:
“…From Sleeper – part of an earring – to a hit from Dutch band Golden Earring…”:
(Relax ladies: all of the members of Focus and Golden Earring are either married or dead).
So: let’s be having your nominations for records which link to “Radar Love” by Golden Earring”, along with your explanation of how you got to it, via the Comments section below, in time for me to source and write this by the same time next week.
You know how I said I had a lot to get through last week? Well this week, even more so.
But before we get cracking, and to kill off any semblance of suspense, I’ll tell you that none of you – including me – picked the official record in The Chain. In fact none of you – including me – went down the same route as the person who picked the official one, which when you read it, will have you slapping yourself in the face and saying “Of course!!! Why didn’t I think of that!!”
First out of the traps, so to speak, this week was Charity Chic, proving once and for all why the name of this blog is very appropriate indeed, for I must admit, it was a song which I owned, albeit on a 90s compilation CD I’d picked up for something else entirely, but which also contained his suggestion:
“Dundee Unite fans despairingly sing “You’ve only got one shoe” to the socially deprived fans of Glaswegian clubs. When Gordon Strachan was manager of Celtic he was known as Chesney after a small red headed boy on the soap opera Coronation Street. So The One and Only by Chesney Hawkes please Jez. It’s bound to be the winner.”
It’s okay. It’s safe to come out now. The be-moled one has gone.
But hot on his heels, here’s S-WC from When You Can’t Remember Anything, who not content with giving us two suggestions in his first week, goes two better by giving us four this week. So, deep breath, here we go:
“Shoes were made for walking which immediately gives you ‘Fools Gold’….”
“…Although ultimately if you have Kirsty singing about one pair of shoes you really need another point of view so you have to go with Fucked Up and ‘The Other Shoe’. Argument over.”
Moving swiftly on before I make really bad joke about that, here’s bagging area with more multiple suggestion mullarky, the third of which is my favourite link of the week:
“The Charlatans walked with no shoes on ‘Tellin’ Stories’…”
“…Keith Richards once said ‘I don’t remember much about making Exile On Main Street but I do remember I had this really cool pair of snakeskin shoes’. “Happy” off that album is a blast.”
“I was thinking of suggesting this: the Kirsty MacColl track comes from the album Tropical Brainstorm, and Typically Tropical did that single Barbados in 1975.”
But before George has chance to flood me with multiple suggestions, can we give a warm Chain welcome to The Badger, who co-authors the When You Can’t Remember Anything blog with S-WC, who…erm…floods me with multiple suggestions:
“Whilst my esteemed colleague S-WC is probably right about Fucked Up, he should consider this: Kirsty MacColl famously covered ‘A New England’ by Sir Billy Bragg. Billy Bragg also sang about Shoeburyness in the classic A13. So you could go there…”
And we will, for I once got Janice Long to play that for me on her late night Radio 2 show, kicking off – and I know you’ll find it hard to believe I could be behind such a thing – an hour of themed songs about roads:
Moving on…no, wait…George hadn’t finished it seems…
“Then I thought of this: one of the other tracks from the Tropical Brainstorm album is “Não Esperando” which is Portuguese for No Waiting (and I didn’t have to look that up!), and the “waiting” bit leads to, yes, one of the 5 best songs ever recorded, Jesus Is Waiting by Al Green, the last track on the Call Me album, and 5-and-a-half-minutes of absolute genius.”
Next up is Alex G, author of the rather fantastic We Will Have Salad who is kind enough to give my Copy and Paste skills a bit of a break by just suggesting the one song:
“What would you find “In These Shoes?”. If you were a shoemaker, probably a last. And Bob Last was the man behind the legendary late-70s indie label Fast Product, which in its brief existence gave us the debut singles by The Human League (the only reason I know the word “sericulture”), The Mekons, Dead Kennedys and Gang Of Four. Nice one, Bob. My pick: the original Fast Product version of “Damaged Goods” by Gang of Four, which Mr Last also produced. And which is great.”
And here’s Marie, who rather wonderfully adds an element of creative writing into her suggestion:
“I imagined the title of Kirsty’s “In These Shoes?” as a response to an invite to a Northern Soul All-Nighter. When asked, “What’s wrong with them?”, she might have answered, “Ain’t No Soul (In These Old Shoes) (by Major Lance.)”
One of the things I love about running this post (I can’t really claim to write it), is that often I’ll be introduced to a record I’ve never heard before, and which I instantly love. There’s a couple of tunes up there I was unfamiliar with, but my favourite of those this week goes to:
Next, the return of another who I think we can now safely call a regular contributor round these parts. Here’s What’s It All About Alfie?
“This Chain could grow arms and legs, but it’s feet we’re interested in this week as feet live in shoes. A pair of shoes has two soles and following Marie’s thinking, how about Soul ll Soul with Keep On Movin’ (in these shoes) – a bit of a “lady” choice but gives The Chain balance perhaps?”
When this came out in 1989, my girlfriend at the time bloody loved it (in fact, we met because of it; she asked me to play it when I was DJ’ing one night, which I did, despite not being all that fond of it myself (No guitars, see..) The following week, I kept an eye out for her arrival, waited for her to get herself a drink and take up a spot kind of near the dancefloor, and then proceeded to play it for her again. Bingo! The oldest trick in the DJ’s Handbook.) but it wasn’t until a good few years later that the penny finally dropped with me about Soul II Soul and what an amazing record Club Classics Vol. One is:
“I shall ignore all this talk of shoes and go with the fact that there is a chain of newsagents called McColl’s (yes, I know the spelling is ever so slightly different). Therefore I think that a song about a newsagent would be appropriate. I can think of no better such ditty (indeed I can think of no other, either) than In The Middle Of The Night from the debut album from Madness.” (Nope, me neither. The Jam’s “Man in a Corner Shop” is about the best I can come up with).
Here’s The Swede, who picks up where George left off, linking to the title of the album from which “In These Shoes?” is taken:
“…‘Tropical Brainstorm’, which was co-produced by Dave Ruffy, drummer with The Ruts, one of the few groups of their time with the potential to rival The Clash in terms of passion and musical versatility. Certainly they were the only ‘punk’ band who got anywhere near The Clash when it came to reggae. ‘Give Youth a Chance’ is a good case in point.”
Which brings us to the last of the suggestions from you guys and girls, and, since we started with a slice of cheese from Chesney, ending with another slice of cheese seems appropriate. I’ll let Kay explain:
“My suggestion is Footloose by Kenny Loggins. Just the thought of Kevin Bacon dancing angrily in a warehouse brings a smile to my face. Can’t remember if he’s dancing to footloose or some other gem in the warehouse – but what a scene!”
Ok, cheese is a little unkind. I went to see that in the cinema when it came out in 1984, bloody loved it then, and bloody loved hearing it again now.
And, so to my choice. And mine is nowhere near as clever as all of yours (give yourselves a hearty pat on the back for another excellent week of suggestions, by the way). I’m giving you some breathy camp electro-clash-iness:
So, your suggestions please, via the Comments box below, for songs that link to Peter Gabriel’s “I Don’t Remember”, along with an explanation as to how you got there too please!
A History of Dubious Taste 