Sunday, 29 January 2023

Thank you for the days: Sunday

A new, seven-part series as a thiny veiled excuse to have something to write about: three songs that have a day of the week in the title. Not (just) in the lyrics but in the title. Today, part seven and our day of rest, as the series ends with Sunday, and perhaps the best trio of all.

Let's kick off with Blur and Sunday, Sunday, the third single from career-redefining (and career-saving) second album Modern Life Is Rubbish. Important to remember that all three singles from that album peaked in the chart mid-20s; a lot of the record-buying public still hadn't completely forgiven them for Leisure, and the omnipotence of Parklife was still a little way off. I'd forgotten how good this is when it kicks off at the 1:22 mark. Always fantastic live too.

It maybe isn't a massive leap from Blur back to The Small Faces, and Lazy Sunday. This hit #2 on release in 1968 (kept off the top by Louis Armstrong, of all people), and charted again in 1976 (I can't work out why that would be, just yet). And when was the last time you heard lumbago mentioned in a song? Anyway, all together now, "Wouldn't it be nice to get on with my neighbours..."

And so, finally, the twenty-first and final song to be featured in this little series. Sorry if you've had enough of SPM by now, or can't/won't separate artist from music. But this remains excellent, a career highpoint, and I'm not just talking about his solo career. Such a good video too, with the singer making blink-and-you'll-miss-em cameos in his own promo, whilst Lucette Henderson, Billie Whitelaw and Cheryl Murray (from Corrie, so I'm told) take the lead roles, along with Southend-on-Sea as the coastal town they forgot to bomb. Here's Everyday Is Like Sunday for those that still do. With bonus Charles Hawtrey!

Here endeth the series, probably.

Saturday, 28 January 2023

Thank you for the days: Saturday

A new, seven-part series as a thiny veiled excuse to have something to write about: three songs that have a day of the week in the title. Not (just) in the lyrics but in the title. Today, part six: the weekend is upon us in the form of Saturday.

First up, Whigfield. No, wait, come back! I promise this is the only Eurodance track I will feature all year, okay? For yes, this is disposable, bubblegum nonsense ... but it's catchy, isn't it? That "Dee dee na na na" hook is ... well, hooky, isn't it? Plus Sannie Carlson pranced around the video in a towel which, in '94, was quite exciting (Whigfield was the name of the group, not her). It's of its time, sure ... but Saturday Night is also the first song that came to mind for day six, and that has to be for a reason. Here you go:

Still here? Good; let's get back to safer territory. This is Suede, with Saturday Night, a real peach from their first Bernard-less album Coming Up. It hit #6 in early '97, and yes, that is a young Keeley Hawes in the video.

Onwards then. I'm hesitant to feature the same artist twice in this series, and he already appeared for Thursday but this is such a good clip, almost as much for the time-capsule introduction from Russell Harty as for the performance of Drive-In Saturday by David Bowie (a song that Alyson wrote excellently about at WIAA, just a short while ago). I was going to feature SPM's excellent cover of this ... but I'm saving him for the last post. So here's David:

No prizes for guessing what comes tomorrow.

Friday, 27 January 2023

Thank you for the days: Friday

A new, seven-part series as a thiny veiled excuse to have something to write about: three songs that have a day of the week in the title. Not (just) in the lyrics but in the title. Today, part five, which must mean the weekend is nearly here ... it's Friday.

You can't be my age and not have a soft spot for Shed Seven. This might not be their finest hour, but it's called She Left Me On Friday, so it's getting included here. Save your disappointment for the comments...

And here comes the song I started this mini series to feature: this is Friday On My Mind by 60s combo The Easybeats. I didn't know, until researching this, that they came from Australia, did you? Anyway, I properly love this, especially the verses - it's the very unusual guitar lines that run through it, I think. They sound like they should come from the more experimental, psychedelic end of the 60s, don't they? Anyway... love this.

I also love The Cure, and have done since first hearing A Forest way back when. So you can guess what's coming next, can't you? Possibly their most commercially successful single, certainly one of their most covered. It's the shiny, atypically-happy brilliance of Robert Smith's pension plan, Friday I'm In Love.

Well that's the working week over, time to kick back for the weekend...

Thursday, 26 January 2023

Thank you for the days: Thursday

A new, seven-part series as a thiny veiled excuse to have something to write about: three songs that have a day of the week in the title. Not (just) in the lyrics but in the title. Today, part four, which can only mean ... Thursday.

I probably haven't featured They Might Be Giants on here enough over the years. Let's start making amends for that right now, with I Lost Thursday, from last year's album Book.

Let's go from there straight to another artist that I also haven't featured on NA enough over the years: the Pet Shop Boys. This track, titled simply Thursday, sounds like ... well, it sounds like it could have come from any era of their near-40 year career. And I don't mean that as a negative, but a positive - they've stayed true to their sound, and made the music they wanted to make. Not strictly my cup of tea, but you can't argue with their success. Plus there's something about a spoken-word Chris Lowe refrain.

There's only one song to close with today though, right? Seven years gone and as missed as ever, this is David Bowie with Thursday's Child, from 1999.

You know what this means for tomorrow, right?

Wednesday, 25 January 2023

Thank you for the days: Wednesday

A new, seven-part series as a thiny veiled excuse to have something to write about: three songs that have a day of the week in the title. Not (just) in the lyrics but in the title. Today, part three, and some head-scratching on my part ... it's Wednesday.

Let's kick off with some stripped back twelve-bar R&B from John Lee Hooker, in the form of Wednesday Evening Blues. This song is 62 years old but must have had some kind of studio trickery applied in the remastering, because the vocal sounds like it was recorded last night...

Let's fast-forward from there to 1980, to Wednesday Week by Elvis Costello and The Attractions, from their Armed Forces period. This is fast and frantic at the start, but the second half is more typical of later Elvis and elevates this above many of its peers.

Let's close with my favourite Wednesday song though; also called Wednesday Week, and also from 1980, this is by The Undertones and signalled something of an advance for them musically, a little slower than much of what had come before, a little more complex too. Who knew, listening to this back then, that Feargal would end up the de facto guardian of the nation's rivers? More power to him!

Hmm, can't think what to do tomorrow...

Tuesday, 24 January 2023

Thank you for the days: Tuesday

A new, seven-part series as a thiny veiled excuse to have something to write about: three songs that have a day of the week in the title. Not (just) in the lyrics but in the title. Today, part two, which can only mean ... Tuesday.

To kick off with something unexpected, here's nineties lo-fi indie rockers Neutral Milk Hotel with a fairly typical slice of fuzzy eclecticism, Tuesday Moon.

And let's go from there to the expected, with Ruby Tuesday by The Rolling Stones. This has naturally been the inspiration for many cover versions, from the good (Melanie) to the why-bother variety (step forward, Sir Rod). Anyway, let's enjoy Mick and Keith's melancholia from all the way back in 1967.

And finally, a lesser known Tuesday song that probably owes its title at least to The Stones. This is Groovy Tuesday, by Jersey-based alt-rockers The Smithereens. Listen closely, there's a guitar line in the background that seems to me to owe a debt to The Small Faces...

No prizes for guessing what happens tomorrow...

Monday, 23 January 2023

Thank you for the days: Monday

A new, seven-part series as a thiny veiled excuse to have something to write about: three songs that have a day of the week in the title. Not (just) in the lyrics but in the title. Let's get started with Monday.

First off, Monday Monday, made famous by The Mamas and The Papas but subsequently covered, it seems, by everyone. You've probably even covered it too, maybe you've forgotten when. Anyway, from 1966 here's the Californian-sunshine soaked original, proving that sometimes the backing (Cass Elliot and Michelle Phillips' vocals, Wrecking Crew playing) can be more important than the apparent lead.

That's alright, I guess, and is musically very different to the next offering, Bob and his boys, trying to ride on the coat-tails of punk but really veering into new wave territories. The subject matter for this song filled lots of tabloid column-inches at the time, if I remember rightly. Anyway, sorry Bob but looking back it's Johnnie Fingers' piano that makes this song stand out. Anyway, let's be honest, who does like Mondays?

Let's close with undoubtedly the best song in the universe to feature 'Monday' in the title, in all its "12-inch sold at a loss" glory. So influential, so important, so enduring. I punned on the title of this for my Blue Friday blog series, but really it's Monday that was, is and ever shall be blue.

See you tomorrow for ... guess what?

Sunday, 22 January 2023

Days

For my money, Kirsty MacColl was one of the great voices of the 20th Century. No-one else sounded quite like her, and she (re-)interpreted songs so well it's sometimes hard to imagine others singing them. She took Billy's New England and ran with it, and her version of Days is probably the one I'd have at a funeral, rather than The Kinks original. Here's Kirsty's slightly surreal promo video for it:

The first comment after this on YouTube nails it: "Kirsty sings it straight. No warbling, no bollocks, no fake American accent. Just a straightforward, emotional delivery." Can't say fairer than that. However, the audio on this version is very quiet, so here's a more audible rendition from TOTP:

Oddly, the producer seems keener on showing the studio than Kirsty. Shame.

For completeness, here's the Kinks original:

All of which serves as a needless introduction to a new blog mini-series, starting tomorrow. Is there no beginning to the excitement?

Wednesday, 18 January 2023

My Old Man

For The Man Of Cheese.

Monday, 9 January 2023

About bookmarks

I have a complicated relationship with Twitter. I mostly dislike it, especially the chaotic version that has been in place since the Musk takeover... but I can't seem to tear myself away completely, because just occasionally it throws something up that I perhaps wouldn't otherwise have seen.

Like most people, I retweet things that I think need or deserve greater attention, and like things that I want to show support for (whether I actually "like" them or, rather, feel some other emotion in response, like sympathy). I guess most people do something similar. But how do you use bookmarks? I tend to use them as a reminder to come back to something when time or circumstance allow. By circumstance, I most often mean when I'm somewhere I can play a song or video without issue. Anyway, the upshot of this approach (and the raison d'ĂȘtre for this post) is that I end up with a backlog of bookmarked tweets that I often don't get around to ever actually catching up with; in other words, I have a virtual to-read pile almost as big as my real one.

All of which is an overly wordy and slightly boring introduction to a cheap post that relies solely on embedding other people's content. I know, the shame... but regardless, in no particular order here's a small selection of the many, many tweets I've bookmarked in the last three months. Enjoy, or not.

And that's only a fraction of it, but there - I've done Twitter for you. You can thank me later (or not).

Sunday, 1 January 2023

Keeping the winter at bay

Okay, let's do another year, shall we? Appropriately, this is January Hymn by indie folk-rockers The Decemberists, from their punningly-titled 2011 album The King Is Dead. Finger on the pulse, me.

On a winter's Sunday I go
To clear away the snow
And green the ground below
April all an ocean away
Is this a better way to spend the day?
Keeping the winter at bay
Where were the words I meant to say
Before you left
When I could see your breath lead
Where you were going to
Maybe I should just let it be
And maybe it will all come back to me
Seeing, oh, January, oh
How I lived a childhood in snow
And all my teens in tow
Stuffed in strata of clothes
Hail the winter days after dark
Wandering the grey memorial park
A fleeting beating of hearts
Where were the words I meant to say
Before she left
When I could see her breath lead
Where she was going to
Maybe I should just let it be
And maybe it will all come back to me
Seeing, oh, Janu... oh, January, oh.