I’m cheating this week. And making no attempt to hide it.
Tonight’s mix has never featured on these pages before, but has appeared elsewhere on t’internet: over at JC’s ever magnificent The Vinyl Villain blog.
But this week I’m even more pressed for time than usual. I’m in the middle of composing a Christmasy mix for next week (you’ve been warned…) so I figured I may as well share this, in the unlikely event that anyone who comes here doesn’t also regularly frequent JC’s place and may have missed it. If that’s you, then have a word with yourself.
And since I’m using the same mix (actually, I have redone it to get rid of some of the skips which cropped up in the original mix – no need for the disclaimer that The Robster referred to in his post which reappeared over at No Badger Required a week or so ago), I may as well use the same words I did back then:
“Hello. My name is Jez and I am addicted to making playlists.
It has been three days since I put together my last playlist.
I’ve done mixes – compilation tapes, CD-mixes, playlists – for years now, always managing to find spaces where they could be heard: when I was younger, there were compilation tapes in the 6th Form common room, or in the motorway ‘restaurant’ I worked in during the holidays at 6th Form and at college (and for a year after I graduated). I would craft a new tape every other evening to take in the following day with which to wow my friends and work colleagues. Like snowflakes (the old usage of the term), no two were ever the same.
Becoming a DJ at college was almost inevitable and my plans for world domination moved on at pace: I started off by taking over the fortnightly Indie Night, before also becoming the regular DJ at the retro-80s night (which, incredibly, started in 1990), occasionally hosting the retro-60s & 70s night, playing between and after the bands on live music night, and eventually even the coveted Saturday night “Chartbuster” gig. (The fact that I was the Social Secretary and decided who got paid to DJ which nights was *coughs* entirely coincidental.)
After I graduated, I worked in a video shop for a few years, which only had a cassette player to play music through, so the compilation tapes kept coming. But as technology progressed I willingly followed, creating CD-mixes and then iPod playlists to soundtrack a Friday night with my flatmates, when we were too skint to go out, but between us could afford the ingredients to make several pints of White Russians all night until one of us inevitably fell asleep in the bathroom. This was the birth of the Friday Night Music Club which I’ve recently resurrected over at my place, A History of Dubious Taste (a link for which you can find over in the sidebar should you care to investigate further).
And of course, there was the far-more-frequent-than-I-care-to-admit compilation tape or CD-mix lovingly prepared for a young lady I was trying to impress. If you’ve ever read Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, (and if you’re reading this, then I would be extremely surprised if you haven’t) then you’ll know, if you didn’t already, that there are rules one has to observe when making one.
For example (and I’m paraphrasing here):
• Thou shalt not include the same artiste more than once in the same mix; and
• If there is a particular song which you want the recipient to hear thou shalt bury it somewhere towards the end of the mix (but not within the last three songs, and definitely not the final track) – mid-way through the second “side” of a C90 compilation tape should be about right
As you’ve probably guessed, it’s my love of putting together playlists which brings me here today. For last week, whilst laid up with a touch of the Covids and trying to decide what could feature in this week’s mix at my place (which is now last week’s mix, do try to keep up), the latest missive from our host dropped. It included a playlist, which, as one would expect from such an eminent source, was rather fine, featuring a load of songs with the word love in the title.
And there, at the end of the post, JC had written these words: if anyone out there wants to have a go, I’ll willingly make space for a guest posting.
Now, one of the things I love about doing a mix is trying to make a theme of it, but drunken flatmates would inevitably roll their eyes when I started to grill them as to what the theme might be each week, so I try to shy away from them these days (themes, that is: I got rid of all the flatmates years ago). But here was an invitation to create just such a thing, so I knocked this mix together and sent it to JC:
(Love is…also not caring that neither of you appear to have genitals…unless it’s just cold there….)
Well, hello. Nice of you to drop by. It’s Friday Night, fancy some tunes? Yes? Good stuff, I knew you wouldn’t let me down.
This week: the second week of the split down of the far too long, Volume 5. Running order tweaked a bit, a couple of songs which weren’t in the first one make an appearance, and there’s a definite 80s vibe about this one (once you get past the first five tunes, which are, in order: 70s, 60s, 70s, 90s, 00s.
I listened to this whilst waiting for a much delayed bus back from the hospital a few weeks ago, and, at the risk of appearing immodest, I bloody loved it. And I think you will too.
And, as is tradition, here’s your track-listing, and yes, this time I’ve even bothered to write some sleevenotes for you to tut over:
The Stylistics – Sing Baby Sing
I’ve become a tad obsessed with The Stylistics recently. I’ve been trying to work out why. Is it the natty suits? The dance moves? That incomparible male falsetto? Could be. More likely is that this is just one of many Philly Soul records they put out that are just irresistable to these ears.
2. Sandie Shaw – Girl Don’t Come
Ah, Gawd bless Sandie. As it was Eurovision a couple of weeks ago, it seemed appropriate to slip one of her less-remembered tunes in. And you’ll find no smutty jokes about that song title here, you’ll have to make your own up, which I’m sure you’re more than capable of.
3. Blondie – Picture This
Suprisingly, given the ones which were to follow – like it was an aperitif, designed to whet the palate in anticipation of what was to come – this was the lead single from Blondie’s incredible Parallel Lines album. Anyone who heard this when it was released in August 1978 probably had no idea they were being lubed up for the pounding that was to follow. And anyone who doesn’t love that long-player must be dead – or, given that last analogy, at least a little sore – inside, I reckon. But what else is there to be said that hasn’t already been said about Blondie? Not much, so I’ll simply repeat some well-versed facts: Blondie were probably (as in “I haven’t checked”) the most commercially succcesful band to emerge from the New York punk/new wave scene, and that was in no small part due to Debbie Harry (before she insisted on being called Deborah) being sexy, coquettish and just downright cool. Girls wanted to be her, guys wanted to be with her.
4. Echobelly – I Can’t Imagine The World Without Me
This is just ruddy great. The band’s first of too few Top 40 hits, this scraped in at #39 in June 1994, which is criminal. And here we are, almost 30 years later and it still makes me want to bounce around the room and proclaim my undying love for Sonya Madan.
5. Girls Aloud – Wake Me Up
You can keep your Little Mix, your Saturdays and any other all-girl pop band that came after them: Girls Aloud may not have written their own tunes, but they sure as hell had some bangers in their repertiore. This one is not as well known as some of their others mega-hits, but damn right it’s worth revisiting.
6 Kim Wilde – Chequered Love
Nothing wiill shake me from my opinion that this, and not Kids in America, is her finest moment, I had the pleasure of meeting her once (CLANG!); she and her entourage came into the motorway restaurant I worked in when she was touring supporting some bloke called Michael Jacksonon his Bad tour of the UK. Not sure what happened to him. She had a burger and chips and an ice cream float. She was nice (swoons).
7. Animotion – Obsession
Yes, it’s a bit euro-pop. Actually, it’s a lot euro-pop. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s no good. Because it isn’t, it’s the opposite of no good, which I believe is commonly referred to as good. In fact, it’s better than just good, it’s a terrific tale of unrequited lust. Still with me? An over-looked 80s classic in my book. Mind you, there’s quite a few entries in that book.
8. Colonel Abrams – Trapped
Speaking of over-looked 80s classics…
9. Gorillaz – Dare
It’s hard to believe that Shaun William Ryder is now probably better known as “that sweary bloke from Celebrity Gogglebox” or “that sweary bloke from I’m a Celebrity…” than he is as one of the most pioneering lyricists and shambolic, shuffling lead singer of Happy Mondays and Black Grape fame. I think this record had a lot to do with his reinvention, projecting him into the psyche of a new group of fans, especially because, so the story goes, it was supposed to be called There but whenever Ryder tried to say the word, it came out as Dare, so the title was changed. I mean, how can somebody be as famous as he is without being able to pronounce such a basic word? And then I realise that Bez is almost, if not more, famous, and it all starts to make sense.
10. Hercules And Love Affair – Blind
Now let me make something perfectly clear: I did not enjoy the musical output of Antony and The Johnsons. Each to their own and all that, but Antony’s voice just wound me up, like fingernails down a chalkboard, made worse when I read reviews describing his vocal performances as innovative, ground-breaking blahblahblahblahblah. So, suffice it to say I did not have high expectations for this tune, on which he, just like Ryder in the last tune, provided guest vocals. Blimey, was I surprised. I love this, I think despite rather than because of Antony’s presence. It’s a total banger, right kids?
11. Van She – Kelly (Cut Copy Remix)
The original of this is a bit yacht rock but this 80s-upped remix definitely isn’t. It’s the second best (that I can think of, off the top of my head) Kelly in pop, and no, Kelly Jones from Stereoploddingphonics is not the best (Kelly Watch the Stars by Air is, of course). And this isn’t a million miles way from the uber-cool French duo, it’s just a bit more upbeat and contains more obvious retro synth-stabs. You’ll like it. No really, you will.
12. The Human League – Love Action (I Believe In Love)
Since we’ve gone all 80s-esque, we may as well have the real deal, so you can see just how well these all slot together. Philip, Susan and Joanne: national treasures in all but name.
13. Beth Ditto – Open Heart Surgery
Back to the 80s-homage gang, and I’ve included this one because there’s something about the bassline which reminds me of The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me. Can you spot it too?
14. Simian Mobile Disco – Audacity of Huge
Here’s some reviews of this, which I lifted from wiki:
Pitchfork called it “a limber, name-dropping, ear-catching body-mover, sleek and uncluttered and populist”.
Consequence of Sound stated that the lyrics were “hopelessly catchy non sequiturs”
NME (remember them?) felt that said “hopelessly catchy non sequiturs” were the only thing that made the song “listenable” (instead of “as annoying as stubbing your toe”)
The Quietus praised it as “amusingly bizarre” and “a pitch-perfect satire of the bling-bejewelled breast-beating so prevalent on [Kanye’s] 808s and Heartbreaks“
This is why I would never have made it as a music journalist, as I wanted to be when I was in my late-teens: I have no idea whether any of those reviewers actually liked it or not (admittedly, I’ve not read the whole review, which usually gives a score at the end, which is a bit of a clue).
I’d never hit my required word target if all my reviews simply read: “An absolute beast of a record.” which this clearly is. And it features Chris Keating of Yeasayer on guest vocals, which I gather should be considered another point in its favour.
15. The Gossip – Standing In The Way Of Control (Soulwax Nite Version)
Yes, I know that there’s a strict “the same artiste shall not appear twice on the same playlist” rule in place. I haven’t broken the rule by including this. Yes, Beth Ditto was the lead signer with The Gossip, but that’s a very different beast to her flying solo. Anyway, I’ve not featured any of Soulwax’s awesome remixes for a while, so it seemed fitting to bring this week’s shenanigans to a close with one of theirs this week.
“Just one week off, please, one week where nothing happens to get my goat, one week where I can post something nice and positive of a Saturday morning. That’s all I ask,” I wrote last week.
A tap on the shoulder from my alter ego.
“There’s always The Chain, which you moved to a Saturday morning…”
Ohhhh yes. Totally forgot about that!
And so I revisited the last post I did in The Chain, and find it was so long ago – December 2020 – that I had the audacity to mention Spurs winning a game of kickball, which hasn’t aged at all well.
So, let’s pick up where we left off all those months ago, with the next record in The Chain that I invited suggestions for. This record:
OK, so you can probably guess where most of the suggestions stem from, but we’ll start off with a suggestion by George (not of ASDA).
“Two members of The Coasters used to be in The Robins, who’s best song, and this will undoubtedly be the best song on the next Chain, was Smokey Joe’s Cafe. Which was written by Leiber and Stoller.”
So, slightly obscure link dispensed with, let’s address the elephant in the room. There are at least two Charlie Browns, the one in the Coasters song of the same name, and the one that we’re probably all more familiar with, from the Peanuts cartoon.
So let’s kick off properly with songs which reference Charlie Brown, and I’ll hand over to Hal, who explains and suggests thusly: Thirty years ago (30 years FFS…) Jim Bob & Fruit Bat released 101 Damnations which featured…:
Hal’s “FFS” is of course Young People Speak for “For Flip’s Sake” [Are you sure about this?- Ed], and is often used when one encounters an anniversary of an event considered to have occurred relatively recently, but which transpires to have actually been much earlier, thereby adding to our feelings of old age and past-it-ness. Don’t be fooled by Hal’s use of Young People Speak, for he is as old as we are, which is why he can conjure up such selections from hitherto forgotten bands such as Carter USM (as I believe the “kids” on “the” “street” refer to them these days, if they do at all).
Hal is to be celebrated for refusing to accept that thirty years have passed since that monumental occasion, oft referred to in history books, as the year of Our Lord 19 Hundred and Ninety, the year Carter USM released their debut album.
And he’s right to refuse to accept this, because as the album came out in January 1990, it’s actually 31 years now. Sorry, Hal!
Staying on the Charlie Brown link, here’s Swiss Adam from Bagging Area who not only suggests a song linked to our favourite wibble-mouthed cartoon character, he also introduces a much needed touch of class:
Echo and the Bunnymen’s Bring On The Dancing Horses covers Charlie Brown in its first 2 lines via Jimmy Brown and Charlie Clown…
But here’s Rigid Digit, dragging us back into Carter USM territory:
Carter USM’s Falling On A Bruise includes the line: “You win some and you lose some, you save nothing, nothing for a rainy day, You need your nutra-sweet daddy or some Peppermint Patty”
Perhaps I should explain. Charlie Brown, as well as being the hapless character in The Coasters records, shares his name with a character in a cartoon written by Shultz called Peanuts.
…but within the cartoon strip known as Peanuts, there are many characters who do have their names crop up in songs. Peppermint Patty is one of them, and here she is again, courtesy of TheRobster:
‘And then there’s Nobody Speak by DJ Shadow & Run The Jewels which includes the line “I walk Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, Linus and Lucy / Put coke in the doobie roll moodies to smoke with Snoopy'”
There was also a band called Linus, continues TheRobster, but I don’t know much about them. Me neither, and I’m not going to do your research for you.
Another Peanuts character, picks up the Devonian, is Lucy Van Pelt, whose name was taken for a Japanese indiepop band, and then they had a trademark issue with whoever owned Peanuts after Charles Schultz died, so they changed it to Advantage Lucy instead. But from their days as Lucy Van Pelt, I’ll suggest:
Now when somebody describes a band as being “Japanese indiepop“, I had a pre-conceived idea of what they might sound like, but it was nothing like that. And that’s a good thing – my favourite “never heard of this lot before, must explore” record of the month.
And then there’s the eponymous Charlie Brown himself, or, as Phonic Pat deliberately mis-spells it to get it fit his next suggestion, Charly:
Along with his already aired suggestion Rigid Digit also laid claim to some other records being linked, which weren’t (unless I were to allow pun-related tunes, which I might be minded to if we were a little short on the ground of suggestions, which we’re not), so I’m afraid Hang on Snoopy (because it’s Sloopy, not Snoopy) and Oasis’ Don’t Look Back in Anger (because he admits to making up that the line “And so Sally can wait” was written after Noel Gallagher had been watching an episode of Charlie Brown), are both disqualified.
However, nothing wrong with his two Brown suggestions, even if he does claim that they are both related to Charlie’s non-existent siblings:
Devonian is back, with this suggestion: As nobody’s said it yet, “Charlie Brown” is not the only hit song to make use of the hookline “Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?”. There’s also…
Finally, says Phonic Pat, somewhat presumptuously, but I like this suggestion a lot, so I’ll let it slide, linking the trombone sound the adults make in the Peanuts films, how about a trombone take on the Pixies?
Although I get the impression he’s not proud of the second choice, as he signs off with the words “I’ll get my coat.” No need, Stevie, really: all of those rock’n’roll and doo-wop records of the late 70s and early 80s were my introduction to pop music, and I have a soft spot for them all, from Shakin’ Stevens to The Stray Cats, from Coast to Coast to Rocky Sharpe and The Replays.
What Stevie has inadvertently done there is lead us seamlessly into those suggestions which consider the Coast aspect of the source record, and here’s The Great Gog with another couple:
I also wonder what type of Coaster the band were named after. A mat on which one places a drink, a person that lives by the sea or a fairground ride? Assuming the latter, we could have:
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: Crikey, he’s been a bit quiet with his own suggestions this time. And you’d be right. Those last two were mine, and so are all of the rest left to go, all of which are Coast-related. To say I picked up on that and ran with it would be an understatement. So strap yourselves in, here we go:
If I was still giving out points, I’d have to consider giving myself one for that double coast link as a double pointer.
Now, some parts of the coast have a beach, some have other geographical characteristics. Where there’s a beach, they tend to fall into two general categories: ones made up of pebbles:
Now, earlier this week it would have been the comic genius Rik Mayall’s birthday, so indulge me for a minute will you?
Thank you.
Here’s the moment from the final episode of The Young Ones where it all goes utterly utterly wrong:
Here’s the video for the song:
And here’s the gang performing it live for Comic Relief:
And best of all, here’s the speech Rik gave when he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate. If you’ve never seen this before, I’d heartily recommend you take ten minutes to watch it:
All that leaves me to do is to announce the source record for next time’s edition, and to express some sympathy to The Robster, who picked the wrong version of the right song:
Whenever I’ve decided to go on hiatus before, I’ve usually said so in advance, but I decided to do so again this time might come across as a little needy, actively encouraging regular readers to ask if I was okay, to tell me that when writing this place becomes a chore then it’s time to take five – precisely the advice I’ve offered to my peers, as it goes. (oh, and thanks to those of you who did take the time to contact me anyway to make sure I wasn’t laying dead in a pool of Jack Daniels and my own bodily fluids.)
Truth is, I wasn’t suffering from writer’s block, nor did I feel the blog had become a task to be completed, several times a week. Actually, I just couldn’t be arsed to write anything for a while.
Anyway, now I’m back and I thought I’d kick off with something light.
Morrissey.
I’ve made no bones in the past of my utter adoration of The Smiths, late as I was to the whole party (did Smiths fans ever got to parties…?), but I did write a few months ago about how I had reached the end of my tether with the bequiffed professional grump, in light of some rather dubious opinions he had aired.
And lo and behold, he’s been at it again. I’m not going to give any more column inches to what he has actually said this time, but when I go on to Twitter and see my old mate Rich – a die-hard Morrissey fan if ever there was one, and, lest I forget, the man who properly switched me on to The Smiths back in 1986 (see, I told you I was late to the party) – has done a triple-linked tweet @Morrissey explaining why he was wrong, then suffice it to say Stephen Patrick must have crossed a line.
Now, I’m not going to criticise Rich for his continued adoration of Morrissey, despite all his faults. If I’m honest, I’d expect nothing less; after all Rich is my longest serving, and therefore most faithful friend, and if he can see past and forgive me for all of my oh-so-many faults, then I’d expect nothing less than for him to extend the same courtesy to the man who has by far had the greatest impact and influence on his life.
I mean, I’ve never written a lyric anywhere near as good as How Soon is Now? (though I have written a lot that are considerably better than Roy’s Keen. Just wait until I get round to telling you about the song about self-abuse based on both Bohemian Rhapsody and a Purple Ronnie card that I both wrote and performed live. Actually, now that I write that, it sounds fricking incredible).
I think the reason I’m so had-it-up-to-here with Morrissey is the sense of utter betrayal. When I was a teenager, assembling and honing my political position and societal standpoint which, let’s be honest, leaned ever-so-slightly to the left, and living in a leafy area of Cambridgeshire where I was most definitely in the minority, Morrissey was a beacon, a guiding light. His position was stoically working class (I can’t pretend I was anything other than middle class, but I empathised), anti-establishment and anti-royalty, sexually and gender ambiguous (okay, I never got fully on board with this to the extent where I wanted to dip a toe in, but still…) and to see the message he sends out now just feels like…is treasonous to strong a word? Duplicitous? I dunno.
See, I don’t understand how someone can go from being in one political position to being at almost the polar opposite a few years later. I appreciate there is the idea that as one gets older you become more right-wing, but it’s not something that has happened to me. In fact, I sit with Elvis Costello when, back in 1989, he said when introducing Tramp the Dirt Down on a BBC Late Show Special:
“I’m not some little kid that they can say “There, there, now, you’re just these young little teenagers that are having their moment of protest. I’m a man. I’m 35 years old. And I’m fucking sick of it, with what’s going on in this country.”
Part of me wants to attribute Morrissey’s recent statements to having a new record to promote, wanting to stir up a bit of controversy. But that’s no excuse with aligning yourself with unsavoury knucklescrapers.
Take his recent comeback single, Spent the Day in Bed. Something niggled at me when I heard that, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But the other day, it finally clicked into place. It’s that line:
“Stop watching the news, because the news contrives to frighten you.”
Isn’t that an ever-so slightly more articulate way of saying “Fake News”?
Remember when Ben Elton went from co-writing revolutionary landmark comedies The Young Ones and Blackadder, and doing vitriolic stand-up routines routinely attacking “Mrs Thatch” and being universally adored by the Left and the Youth, to being pilloried and lambasted for selling out by writing musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sun City stalwarts Queen? That’s what this feels like.
To paraphrase: Morrissey is the music world’s Ben Elton.
And I’ll be honest: vowing not to buy another record by Morrissey is not that tough an ask, given that I haven’t truly loved anything he’s released for, oh I don’t know, at least ten years now, probably longer.
But still.
Still there’s a part of me that won’t let go.
In the back of my mind there’s not just The Smiths that I have to thank him for. There’s the other cultural references he gave me way back then, things I may never have discovered for myself, things which are as important to me now as they were back in the day.
Oscar Wilde. Shelagh Delaney. The Primitives. Keats and Yeats.
Sandie Shaw.
The Sandie Shaw/Smiths collaboration was over long before I had tuned in to the Mancunian four piece, and it wasn’t until The South Bank Show documentary which focussed on them that I really became aware that she was more than just a woman who didn’t wear any shoes and who won the Eurovision Song Contest sometime in the 60s.
So here’s some songs by Sandie that I love, and which are included in a cheap Best of (although it is careful not to call itself that) album on the Hallmark label (the words of Nigel from Half Man Half Biscuit on 24 Hour Garage People ring in my ears: “That’s sure to be good!”) that I recently picked up.
And my absolute favourite by her, not least because of the horns which come parping in towards the end, like they’ve wandered in from Tom Jones recording It’s Not Unusual in an adjacent studio:
For here we are, a week later, and The Chain is back! Back!! Back!!! (again) for another instalment.
Truth be told, I was totally blown away by the response I received to last week’s edition, so blown away that I almost went full on Sally Field. So y’know, cheers.
I’m also delighted that not only have a couple of old Chain Gang friends chipped in this week, but we also have three new members to welcome aboard.
Before we go any further though, some admin, and I need to add a new rule to the ten I posted last week, namely this:
11. The same artist can feature twice in the same week, but only if suggested by different people. In other words, if you suggest two songs by the same act, I’ll ask you to just pick one of them; if you don’t reply, I’ll pick for one for you.
Actually, this is an old rule that I forgot to include last week. One of you nearly came a cropper with this one, but just about managed to dodge the bullet. You’ll see what I mean.
Ok, so we have 49 new songs (count ’em!) and over three and a half hours worth of tunes to get through this week, and there’s some real treats, including a couple of acts I was surprised to find featuring in The Chain for the first time, some commercially unreleased live stuff, a couple of songs which have featured here before under different guises, a couple of real rarities (I think), a contender for Worst Record In The History of Everything Ever, and – and I mention this now to introduce some totally unneccessary tension and excitement into proceedings – one of you correctly guessed the next record in the Official Chain.
So let’s kick things off with a reminder of the last source song, that is the song that you were all providing suggestions to this week:
And where better to start than with a new member of The Chain Gang? Ladies and Gentleman, please rattle your manacles and give a warm welcome to GMFree:
“The most obvious songs that I thought of first were ‘God Only Knows’ by James…”
Now, in the same way that I think if you’re going to cover a song you should try and do something interesting with it, by the same token I think that if you’re going to write a song and give it the same name as universally loved classic, then it is undoubtedly going to be compared to said song, so you’d better make sure yours is good….
“‘God Only Knows’? So what does he know? Well, he knows it’s true, obviously … so I’ll go for Teenage Fanclub”
Now, strictly speaking, I should be disallowing this suggestion, because this song has featured on The Chain before, back in edition #32, to be precise. However, I’m going to allow it this week for three reasons: firstly, it ws me who suggested it last time; secondly, I posted a Peel Sessions version last time and this time I’m posting the original, and thirdly, because last time it featured I had changed one word in the title from “God” to “Gourd” so that it linked to the source record (XTC’s “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead”, in case you’re interested).
“…and ‘Lord Only Knows’ by Beck, there is a great version from his Union Chapel show in 2003 which includes harmonica and merges into Hot In Here (Herre !?) in a way only Beck can do.”
We’re into not commercially released stuff with that one, as far as I know. Any chance to feature Beck, and moreover Union Chapel, my favourite venue in London, will be gratefully seized.
Next up, it’s over to The Beard, who provides one of his usual interesting links:
“God Only Knows is featured in the film Boogie Nights. The film centres around the supremely endowed Dirk Diggler, played by Mark Wahlberg. He also starred in ‘Four Brothers’ which is pretty much a remake of the John Wayne driven western ‘The Sons Of Katie Elder’. John Wayne? Motherfuck him as said Public Enemy on Fight The Power.”
Speaking of John Wayne, he also starred in the original release of ‘True Grit’ along with the next artist. Over to you, Alyson (of What’s It All About?):
“In light of [last] Tuesday’s sad news of the death of Glen Campbell, and the fact he stood in for Brian Wilson in 1964 as a Beach Boy, I am reminded of his song ‘Galveston’ which always makes me think of a beach because of the following lines:
‘I still hear your sea waves crashing While I watch the cannons flashing I clean my gun And dream of Galveston.’
I know we’ll all have heard it a lot over the last couple of days but I never tire of these songs of his.”
To be fair, Galveston is one of a clutch of Campbell’s records that I don’t think many of us will get tired of hearing:
And so we seem to have made the seamless move from songs which reference ‘God Only Knows’, to songs which link to members, full or part time, of The Beach Boys. So what next?
George has the answer:
“Can I propose a third song that is really, really shit?” he asks.
Yes, I know you haven’t heard his first two suggestions yet. I choose the order the songs feature in, and I want to post his third (really, really shit) suggestion first.
As I pointed out to George in the Comments to last week’s edition, he doesn’t normally ask permission.
“It’s by Wilson Phillips…….one of whom is a relation of a Beach Boy…….and the song is ‘Hold On’. But feel free to disqualify it because it is simply too dreadful.”
George is fully aware that a record being dreadful, or shit, or shittily dreadful, is not enough to preclude it from The Chain. For here, we embrace the dreadfully shit (by which I categorically do not mean Donald J Trump, who we try to keep at arms length at the very least).
And besides, I’ve listened to this – and all of the suggestions – a lot over the last week, and I’ve grown to quite like this:
Actually, two of Wilson Phillips are the daughters of Brian Wilson; I expected someone would suggest a record by the parents of the third member, but nobody did, so I may as well:
“God Only Knows”, of course, features on The Beach Boys album “Pet Sounds”, so how about a couple of suggestions which link to that? Step forwards The Great Gog, who I see has now got as far as starting his own blog, but hasn’t yet got round to writing anything on it just yet. He’s probably got far more important things to be getting on with, like suggesting this kind of thing:
“I’ll go with the fact that ‘God Only Knows’ features on the album Pet Sounds. This album also features a track called ‘Caroline, No’. Whenever I spot this on the album, I always think of the similarly titled Talk Talk track, ‘Does Caroline Know?’ – not surprising really as I owned the ‘It’s My Life’ album some time before I acquired Pet Sounds.”
‘Pet Sounds’ is one of those albums, I think – or at least it is to me – that I knew what a great album it is long before I actually got round to listening to it, let alone owning a copy. I don’t think I actually heard ‘Pet Sounds’ until I was in my late twenties, but I remember in my early twenties having a very long discussion in the pub one night with one of my friend’s younger brother’s friends about how amazing it is, without him realising I’d never heard it. Hold the front page: Jez is a complete bullshitter shocker!
“I’ve got to link to the best cover of one of The Beach Boys’ songs I’ve ever heard, Don’t worry baby by Ronnie Spector from the She Talks To Rainbows EP. Produced by no less than Joey Ramone”
“So many gods to choose from… luckily I don’t own anything by Hermes House Band, so you’re spared that. Instead, let’s go for the god to whom I am most frequently compared (admittedly in the form “you’re no…”) and some proper old-school house: ‘No Way Back’ by Adonis.”
Shame about the Hermes House Band; I’ve got loads of gags about the Hermes parcel delivery service all lined up and ready to go.
The rest of you stick to referencing songs with ‘God’ in the title, so let’s work our way through them.
First up, a song which we featured a cover by Tricky of back on The Chain #37. Nevertheless, it’s the original version suggested by Martin of New Amusements so it’s in:
“…and…” Whoa there, Martin! We’ve not finished with the songs that have God in the title.
First, we’re going back to The Swede for his second suggestion of the week, “…another divine link of a slightly more irreverent nature…” as he quite rightly puts it:
If any of our overseas readers would like to know who any of the people mentioned in that song are, feel free to email me, or, preferably, Google them.
Time to welcome aboard the latest member of The Chain Gang now, so Ladies and Gentleman, please click your pickaxes together and give a warm welcome to C from Sun Dried Sparrows:
“‘God Only Knows’ made me think of God, not something I do very often, for I am faithless. And then I thought of….”:
Who else haven’t we heard from yet? Ah yes, The Robster from Is This The Life?, I wonder what he’s got to offer?
“If we’re going down the God route though, and with God supposedly living in Heaven or some such mythical place, I offer Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the title track of their seminal second album ‘Lift Yr. Skinny Fists, Like Antennas to Heaven…’.”
Remember when I said there was over three and a half hours worth of tunes this week? Well that’s almost twenty minutes of them, right there. I’d pop the kettle on if I were you.
Ok, so if we’re on songs that feature God in the title and feature an exclamation mark somewhere, then it would be terribly remiss of me not to post this:
I’ll tell you who else hasn’t chipped in yet: Charity Chic from Charity Chic Music, that’s who:
“Sorry to disappoint you but there is noGod,” he blasphemes, “so…”
Hold up, what did you just say?
“Sorry to disappoint you but there is noGod…”
Thought so.
Pray, do continue.
‘No Gods (and Precious Few Heroes)’ by Dick Gaughan, please. JC recently posted a goose-bump inducing live version which is the one to feature”
And it’s JC’s legendary place that I visited to find the specific version CC was after, so it would be rude of me not to attribute credit where credit’s due and provide a link to his site The (New) Vinyl Villain (although if you visit me here, then I’d be really surprised if you didn’t already visit JC).
Although, admittedly, it’s not the best quality recording, and you kind of didn’t really suggest that one anyway, so for one time only I’m going to allow you to suggest a different song by the same artist:
And we’ll stay with GMFree for a moment longer, if we may:
“I had a habit on the much missed When You Can’t Remember Anything series to mention the great Stephen Jones almost every time, here are two from him…”
Wait a minute, what did I just say about ‘for one time only’…?
But this is the bullet-dodging suggestion I mentioned earlier, for the first of these two suggestions is by Stephen Jones recording under the name TrUcKeR and the other one…erm…isn’t (that one will be along in a bit, if you care to hang around long enough):
Is it okay if I like the sleeve of that more than I like the actual track….?
Now when I posted the Public Enemy track earlier, I deliberately avoided commenting on how sad it is that a record released in 1989 about black oppression felt as relevant today as it did back then. And that’s because I knew that one of you was going to make precisely that point about a record released a lot earlier than that. So, abramson60, the stage is yours:
“I’ve been listening to a lot of Nina Simone of late so taking the God road ‘Mississippi Goddam’, a song that is sadly still relevant today when we see what happened in Charlottesville [at the weekend] and it was only last week the UK police released the appalling hate crime figures.”
Now, here we are, linking to songs about God, and not one of you has suggested anything by the Reverend Cliff Richard yet. The closest we get is this, from Rol of My Top Ten:
“OK, my two suggestions will be as follows…
1. A song with the following lyrics…
No it’s never too late to change your mind Don’t step on snails, don’t climb in trees, Love Cliff Richard but please don’t tease It’s never too late to change your mind
Thereby giving you your Cliff Richard fix even if nobody suggests him this time. Cliff and God go together, after all.
“…the original version…actually prefer the Kiss version, but they don’t sing the verse about Cliff. Dunno why.”
I would imagine it’s because most of Kiss’ fanbase would have no idea who Cliff is, the heathens.
Anyway, I agree with you about preferring the Kiss version, but I do really like the Argent version too, although every time I’ve heard it my little ears have pricked up as I thought something by Focus had come up on shuffle for me.
We’ll come back to Rol’s second suggestion in a bit.
That’s all the God suggestions done. Next we have a song about Jesus, but I think we need some sort of bridging song, just to reinforce the link here. This’ll do the trick:
And so to Jesus, and, more specifically, to Martin of New Amusements again. Martin’s not the Messiah, but he knows another Martin who thinks they must be.
For the uninitiated, Mr Rossiter was the lead singer of Gene (who I adore) and I cannot recommend the album that track comes from (‘The Defenestration of Saint Martin’, in case you can’t make it out from the image above) highly enough. An over-looked gem, in my opinion. Seek, and ye shall find.
Which leads us on to God’s greatest adversary, and we’re heading back to GMFree’s seemingly never-ending list of suggestions, which is for this:
Now GMFree mentioned the much missed When You Can’t Remember Anything blog a little earlier, and regular visitors to these shores will know that the writers of that now deceased blog, SWC and Badger, often contributed here. So I was delighted when SWC got in touch to make some suggestions again this week, although the first one he doesn’t really suggest, more wonders out loud about it, which he knows full well is too much for me to resist:
“I need to decide whether to go down the beach route the boy route or the God route. I thinking if ‘God Only Knows’ then perhaps ‘Better the Devil You Know’ but I may change my mind.”
Too late! And count yourself lucky I picked this one and not the song of the same name by professional Scouser Sonia:
Which leads us nicely on to our third new member of the Chain Gang. Ladies and Gentlemen, will you please be upstanding and straighten out your natty suits with arrows on them for KC:
“I’d like to suggest ‘The Lord’s Favorite’ by Danish wunderkind iceage and I’ll apologise for the use of the word wunderkind, that was how SWC described them to me.”
That’s the way to do things: if in doubt, blame SWC.
Now many of you will recognise KC from her posts on SWC and Badger’s site; she was, if I recall correctly, a relative newcomer to writing and her posts were really rather excellent, so it’s a shame she no longer has a platform to show off her talents. So KC: if you want to continue to write, and haven’t had any other offers to do so elsewhere, drop me an email, you’d be more than welcome to contribute here. Just until the boys get bored and resurrect WYCRA, of course.
God…Lord…Jesus…Lucifer…all suggestions of Biblical proportions. Which leads me back to Rol for his second suggestion, which is this “…because it’s ace.” Have you and Martin been copying each other’s superlatives? You have, haven’t you? You’ve both let me down, you’ve let the class down, but most all you’ve let yourselves down.
Good job both of your ace suggestions really are ace:
Okay, so having covered the ‘God’ aspect of ‘God Only Knows’, perhaps it’s time to focus on links to one of the other two words in the title, namely ‘Knows’. Here’s Rigid Digit from Stuff & Nonsense
“The Beach Boys tell us that ‘God Only Know’s, but Robert Plant asserts that ‘Heaven Knows’ (which is arguably the same thing?)”
Now as a die-hard fan of The Smiths, mention of a song title that starts with the words “Heaven Knows” sets by clogged up heart beating a little bit faster, for it gives me an excuse to post this:
And here’s SWC with an actual, proper suggestion, and it’s no coincidence that I first heard this song because of a post on When You Can’t Remember Anything:
And as you can see, that features on an album called ‘Father, Son, Holy Ghost’ which makes that a Double-Linker. Points!
So, having exhausted those suggestions too, let’s have a look at some Boys. And one of you got very excited at the prospect. Hello Kay, who shortly after posting her suggestions, sent me a text to say she was worried it made her sound like, and I quote “a right creepy perv”.
See what you think, readers:
“I’m going for the theme boys – so many to choose from. Maybe….”
Nothing pervy about a woman of a certain age liking her boys wild and bad. And from the 1980s.
“…but I suppose I should go with the first song I thought of which linked to the Beach Boys and that’s…”
Brace yourself everybody. It’s Worst Record of the Week time, and if this isn’t one of the Worst Records in the History of Everything Ever, then I’d like to know what is. No scrub that, I really wouldn’t.
Quick, somebody else suggest something. GMFree, you must have a few hundred more up your sleeve, surely?
“Thinking about a link to Beach and Boys lead me to ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ by The Cure included on Standing On a Beach comp, along with the b-side ‘The Exploding Boy’.”
I’ve warned you about this already….
I’ll pick the more unknown one of those two, which featured on the B-Side of the band’s wonderful “In Between Days” single:
In case you’re interested, that’s the other song which has featured on The Chain before, but then it was performed by Ronnie Spector and came from the very same EP as the one BabyLotti suggested earlier.
Let’s have GMFree’s last suggestion, the other one by Stephen Jones, which you’ll recall I’m allowing because he released it under his Baby Bird moniker, as opposed to the TrUcKeR of the earlier suggestion:
Let’s see what else Alyson has conjured up on the beach theme next:
“The other song that came to mind straight away was this one, pure cheese…from back in the early ’70s when this kind of thing was all over the airwaves!”
Which, cheese or not, is also ace. And it gives me the chance to post this, my final suggestion of the week. And it may seem an odd one to go to, but some of you will have spotted the reason for the link when listening to that last tune:
Isn’t that ace too? We went through a phase a while ago of having a record by Kirsty pretty much every week on the Chain, but that’s the first time she’s featured in ages. Sort it out folks.
And from an artist who used to feature regularly to the band I was surprised has never featured before, so many thanks to abramson60 for rectifying that with this absolute belter:
Seriously, think of how many albums the Ramones have released, and how many songs of about two minutes that means they’ve recorded. This is the 41st edition of The Chain. How did we get this far without them cropping up?
Which leads me to the final suggestion of the week. Which just so happens to be next song in the Official Chain.
Here’s their link:
“From the Boys on the Beach to…”
And here’s ours, as penned by KC in this Sunshine Strand:
“If Badger was here he would agree that the greatest song to feature beaches either in the band title or the song title is…”
Congratulations, KC! Points to the New Girl! The rest of you: hang your heads in shame, she’s tucked you all right up there.
So, all that leaves me to do is to thank you all again for the love you’ve shown The Chain, for your awesome (and ace) suggestions, and to ask you to do it all over again.
Your suggestions, please, for songs which link to “Echo Beach” by Martha and The Muffins, along with a brief description of the link, via the Comments Section down below, in time for the next edition.
And here’s The Housemartins with their farewell single, which I always felt a little underwhelmed by. But then any single by The Housemartins was pretty great, and definitely better than much that was around in the charts at the same time:
The latter song is dedicated to Alan Duncan MP for his vile “low achievers” comments.
Us so-called low achievers are not jealous of the wealthy because of their wealth, we’re angry with them because of the way that they got their wealth. That, and their failure to contribute financially to the country in which they made it.
I am knackered from Friday night. Sadly, not from any late night dad-dancing into the small hours, but because the trudge back from the Park Stage was a real ball-ache. The rain, you see, the rain. Although it had stopped a few hours earlier, the damage was done, pathways churned up by 175,000 revellers desperate to get to Avalon, to Silver Hayes (the new name for the Dance Tents, though quite what was wrong with calling them the Dance Tents is beyond me. Maybe it was a bit too Ronseal. Perhaps in years to come the Pyramid Stage will be rechristened The Pointy Place) to The Glade, to Arcadia.
Arcadia is close to where we are camped, and the central feature is used as a reference point to guide us back to our tents. At night-time it’s easy to spot, a giant spidery thing which spurts fire, like this:
Fairly noticeable, right? But during the day, there it stands, sans flames, sans booming techno, sans massive throng of people. Every time I walk past it in the day time, cold and stationary, legs akimbo, it strikes me as being almost gynaecological, which reminds me I really must start my therapy again sometime. And phone my mother.
Anyway, Saturday, and I emerge from my tent to find the weather overcast and, without doing anything as sensible as either checking a) what effect the rain had actually had on the terrain, or b) the little book around my neck with the running order on it, I decide to return to my tent, in frankly a bit of a sulk.
I have it in my head that there’s nobody I want to see until Burt Bacharach on the Pyramid. I am wrong, and I am a twat. This assumption means I miss one of the acts I really wanted to see: Courtney Barnett. When I get home, I plough through all the BBC Glastonbury stuff I recorded, find this and I immediately regret not seeing her. There’s something about this, maybe the almost spoken delivery of the verses that reminds me of Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do” which is no bad thing in my book. (To add to my misery, when researching this post – and yes, I do research, though you’d be hard pushed to notice it – I find this duet with one of my heroes, Evan Dando and I’m even more gutted to have missed her.)
When I resurface, I find that I have managed to miss a couple of young lady guests that Andy has brought over to the camp site for a barbecue. I also find much hilarity ensuing at what Dean has brought to assist with the barbecues:
(With thanks to Chad for the photo and for reminding me about this).
I pull my wellies on and head to the Pyramid. The ground is firm. I curse my glass-half-empty thoughts about the state the terrain would be in, and pitch up to watch Burt Bacharach.
He is, and I hate to say this about a living legend, a wee bit disappointing. It’s not so much the fact that he doesn’t actually sing many of the songs himself: he’s never really been renowned for his singing prowess, and when he does venture to give his tonsils an airing it’s croakier than Kermit in need of a lozenge.
But I have a couple of other issues with his set. Firstly, we rarely get to hear a song all of the way through. This is kind of understandable, when you think about the vast back catalogue of classic songs he wrote or co-wrote with Hal David. Burt wants to appease each and every one of us by performing the one we like, and the only way to do that is to only perform a bit of each. And so, Pyramid becomes Medley-Central for the next hour.
But what we get are three singers performing snippets of these great, great songs who, whilst very good, are just a little bit cruise ship. They’re never going to do these wonderful songs justice and certainly aren’t going to really affect the on-looking crowd. It’s all just a bit….bland.
Next up is Paloma Faith. I’ve always had a bit of a soft-spot for this bat-shit crazy flame haired Hackney-ite, mostly from her flirtatious appearances alongside Noel Fielding on “…Buzzcocks” and I quite like a couple of songs off her first album. (On the matter of Noel Fielding, if you’ve never heard him tell the story of the time he went missing from his own tour, and was found working in a second hand vintage clothing shop in Brighton, then listen to this: funny as fuck.)
I am totally unprepared for just how much of a show-woman she is; she looks amazing, puts on an utterly spellbinding set, and I don’t really mind that I only know one of her songs (putting aside her frankly inexplicable decision to cover Purple Haze), or that she wants to get off her chest something about a bad thing that the red-tops have written about her, of which most of us have no knowledge, but seems to be about her saying she hates Glastonbury. Paloma: we know The Sun is full of bollocks, there really is no need to clarify.
Anyway, she clearly doesn’t hate Glastonbury. She clearly loves it and has an absolute ball.
She has as much of a blast as we all do watching her. Here’s her doing “Only Love Can Hurt Like This” but the crowd goes uber-wild when she wheels on two blokes behind keyboards/decks; they are apparently called Sigma, they are more than adept at pretending they are actually doing something with their keyboards/decks other than pressing Play, and they rattle through “Changing“, the crowd going mental joining in the “Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh” chorus (they don’t write ’em like that anymore) and I have never felt older.
As Paloma finishes, I espy Chad, Llyr, Emily, Andrew and Cara wending their way through the crowd. I join them, and after much standing around (mostly trying to work out where Andy is – we know he has his magical alchemy vodka drinks and we therefore need him) we make our way down the slope to a decent clearing ready for the next act: Pharrell Williams. Located, Andy passes me a bottle full of chocolate vodka, a swig and all is right with the world.
Pharrell is essentially the warm up guy for Saturday night’s headliner, Kanye West. Emily has written “Kan” in lipstick on her right cheek, and “Yay!” on her left in anticipation of the main event, which could also be construed as a show of strength and unity: his booking has been massively criticised, an on-line petition against his appearance at the festival has attracted waaaaay to many signatories from reactionaries and racists, and its refreshing to see someone wear their heart on their, errr, cheeks.
To be honest, the Eavis’ need not have booked Kanye, for Pharrell utterly owns the Pyramid Stage for the next hour or so. He treats us not just to his solo stuff, but to just about every record he has ever been involved in (actually, that’s not true – we’d still be there if he did that), so we get treated to a barrage of Pharrell’s Greatest Hits: “Frontin‘“, “Marilyn Monroe“, “Hot in Herre” (yes, I have chosen the magnificently camp Tiga version over the Nelly one there); “Lap Dance“, “She Wants to Move“, “Hollaback Girl“, a triumphant and glorious version of “Get Lucky” and we even manage to cast our liberal outrage aside to dance and sing-a-long to misogynist sex-fest “Blurred Lines” on the strict proviso that he doesn’t wheel out misogynist sex-pest Robin Thicke to co-perform it.
Pharrell’s set is embellished by a group of highly gyratory dancers, and also by ushering on stage a load of your common-or-garden punters, the male section of which seem to be hurried off equally quickly, leaving a group of awkward but star-struck young ladies to frug their way through a couple of songs whilst Pharrell and his enclave direct us to watch a dancer literally standing on her head and spinning. If this is what spinning classes involve, then I’m glad I’ve avoided them (and anything else which vaguely resembles a gym class).
Pharrell’s set is book-ended by an intro and super-long crowd sing-a-long-a-climax of “Freedom“, complete with cute kids brought on stage to stand and look cute, and then he is off, taking his Adidas-arse-logoed jeans with him and allowing the BBC producers to breathe again without fear of allegations of product placement being launched against them.
Now then. The Big One. Kanye. It can’t have escaped your attention that his set was, shall we say, more than a little contentious. I have no intention watching him. But let me set my position straight: I have no issue with Kanye West headlining the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. He’s not my cup of tea, so I won’t be joining in, but I appreciate that there’s a lot of people here who do want to see him, and I think he’s earned the right to be here. I had the same feeling about Jay-Z when he headlined a few years ago – I wasn’t there, probably wouldn’t have watched him if I had been, but those who did, fair play, enjoy!
The comparison between Jay-Z’s appearance and Glastonbury and Kanye’s is an interesting one. Both attracted quite the media storm when their appearances were announced (Noel: I think you’re often quite the amusing rent-a-mouth, but you just came across as a bit of a dick on the Jay-Z issue) but only one came away from their Saturday Night Glasto set with their integrity and standing intact, and it wasn’t Kanye. Why? Well, I watched the footage back when I got home, and it seemed to me the difference was that whilst Jay-Z was all charm personified, Kanye just seemed determined to prove himself to be a serious artiste.
Oh, and Jay-Z probably knows how Bohemian Rhapsody goes, and wouldn’t have attempted to ingratiate himself by singing it anyway.
And from what I gather from all those who stayed and watched him, and from the oh so many comments posted on social media, nobody else bought it either.
In short: Kanye bombed.
I later learn that Emily has changed the “Yay!” on her right cheek to “Nay!”, thereby earning herself some additional cool points which she really didn’t need, and effortlessly summing up the Saturday night headliner at the Pyramid.
As I said, I have decided not to watch Kanye. I am going to watch Suede. Suede are a band I was moderately obsessed with in the early 90s; I bought all of their early singles on the day they were released, along with the accompanying t-shirt of each, but somehow I have managed to never see them live. Well, not a full gig anyway. I have wandered past the Pyramid before and caught a snippet of them, but a full gig? Nosireebob.
As soon as Pharrell finishes, I announce I am off and I make my way to the John Peel stage. I am early and am delighted to catch the end of La Roux’s set. Her performance of “Bulletproof” is awesome and almost – but not quite – gets these old bones a-dancing (they’re knackered from dancing to Pharell).
Getting inside the tent for Suede is a non-starter, so I position myself outside in my little fold-up chair, in front of a flag (so nobody could sneak up behind me and steal my chair/booze/etc), ciders a-ready for quaffing.
It turns out to be quite a wise decision: I can see the stage and one of the screens, and a bit more importantly I can hear perfectly, and Suede are just…awesome. Brett Anderson is on great form, a lithe prowling skinny narcissist, working the crowd like a true pro. Five songs in and I’m in heaven: we’ve had Pantomime Horse, Moving, Trash, Animal Nitrate, We Are The Pigs….Suede were well and truly tearing up the John Peel Stage. Watch it here, listen to it all here, or if you just want a couple of numbers, then here’s Beautiful Ones and glorious come-back single “It Starts and Ends With You”
Filled with Britpop joy, I head home, fall into my tent and lay there, listening to the world go by. I’m fairly close to a pathway, and at one point I hear two people walking past, discussing Kanye.
“I quite like him, actually”
“What, even now? Before and after?”
“Before: yes. After: No, he was shit. I’d defend him, but not that far!”
I realise I made the right decision and fall into snooze-mode.
A History of Dubious Taste 