Monday long song: Creep (Very 2021 Rmx)

There can't be many people (anyone?) unfamiliar with the original version of Radiohead's breakout hit, Creep, from 1992. However, I'd wager there aren't too many who are familiar with this remix from 2021, credited to Thom Yorke featuring Radiohead. It goes on a bit, and can perhaps best be described as uneasy listening. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Monday long song: This Is Hardcore (Tiny Desk Concert version)

You've probably seen this already, being the culturally savvy beasts that you are, but here's Pulp doing a stripped-back, minimal but still epic This Is Hardcore for the acclaimed, long-running series of Tiny Desk concerts. Interesting to watch the physicality of Jarvis's performance in such a constrained space too.

Because it's nearly Christmas and I spoil you, leave this running for the rest of the concert, and you'll get similarly stripped versions of Something Changed, from Different Class, A Sunset from this year's comeback More and Acrylic Afternoons from His'n'Hers.

Monday long song - Your Day (GLOK remix)

This is Your Day by Manchester revivalists Pastel. It's quite good but the eagle-eyed or chronometrically aware will notice that it is not a long song, Monday or otherwise, falling some way short of the unofficial MLS threshold of six minutes. It's alright though, isn't it? I'm quite partial to a band that wears its influences on its collective sleeve.

Yes, yes, yes, but this is a Monday long song post, isn't it? So let's get to a remix of the above by Andy Bell in full electronic alter ego GLOK mode. It's a very different animal and, truth be told, possibly more memorable than the source material? In the right setting, with the right speakers, I think this could sound immense. What do you think?

Quite fitting that the label, Spirit of Spike Island, have used footage from Kill Bill for this video, as the song in this form has a filmic quality, I reckon, and feels taylor-made for a soundtrack.

Anyway, if you could only take one version to a desert island, which would you choose and why?

Monday long song: There Goes The Fear

There are some songs that feel, well, if not quasi-religious, then certainly spiritual, to me at least. This is one such. It came on in the car at the weekend, an unexpected gem poking out through the grime of an otherwise mostly unremarkable indie compilation CD kept in the glovebox for emergency sonic variety - you know the sort of thing, The Best Ever Indie Anthems IV, available on the shelves of charity shops everywhere for 50p or less.

Anyway... I don't know if it was because I was with Amusements Minor and feeling sentimental because time is passing too quickly, or because I'd been thinking about my parents, or whether I'm just in a low place generally ... whatever the reason, we listened to this driving home and I felt myself starting to well up.

I've loved this musically since day one, when it was released as a single all the way back in (gulp) 2002. I especially love the extended musical outro, and how it ties itself up in a neat musical bow at the end: buh duh-duh, ba-dum dum. But on Sunday, it was the lyric that forced some mote or other into my eye, specifically the line about life passing you by. Because that's how it feels, often, I fear.

You turn around and life's passed you by
You look to ones you love to ask them why?
You look to those you love to justify
You turned around and life's passed you by
Passed you by, again

Here's the full-length album version, for a Monday long song. No single edits here.

Monday long song: We Haven't Turned Around

Forgotten how good this is, especially in its long-form, unexpurgated version. Also that it was used in the soundtrack of American Beauty, for the slightly awkward scene in which Angela (Mena Suvari) teases Jane (Thora Birch) that she like her dad, Lester (Kevin Spacey). Anyway, remember when Gomez were it?

Cover Charge #46 - Moby to New Order (plus a Monday long song)

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Kris Kristofferson to Moby

No playing fast and loose with what constitutes a cover today, oh no. Instead, let's go back twenty years to Moby's 2005 album Hotel and have a listen to the track that closed side one. It's very much an Own Stamp, massively slowing down the driving motorik of the original and turning it into a desperate lament. Moby's not much of a singer, so he wisely ceded vocal duties here to Laura Dawn but even she couldn't prevent this being panned at the time. The Drowned In Sound review called it "unbelievably bad". Harsh, or harsh but fair? You decide.

All of which is the scant excuse I need to wheel out New Order's original Temptation. 43 years old this year, and still sounding brilliant. And as a bonus, it's a Monday long song too. Ambassador, you are spoiling us, et cetera...

Next time: there may be dodgy wiring because I see...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Monday long song: You'll Never Walk Again

9½ weeks to go...

Hello, hello, hello
Welcome to the world
The sky looks brighter
I know, I know, I know
We could have more
Oh if only

Hello, hello, hello
At last I'm satisfied
At last I have arrived
We know, we know, we know
We don't want more

And you and I
One on one
The offer stands
I still know how to make love
With love, my love

Hello, hello, hello
Welcome to the fold
The neon's brighter now
We know, we know, we know
We don't want more

Oh you and I
One on one
The offer stands
I still know how to make love
With love, my love

Me and you
We are due
This world's on cue
I still know how to make love
With love, my love

They said you'll never walk again
Invalid until the end
We're giving the world
The kick it requires
And if you can't see why
Look into my eyes

They said you'll never walk again
Invalid until the end
We're giving the world
The kick it requires
And if you can't see why
Look into my eyes

They said you'll never walk again
Invalid until the end
We're giving the world
The kick it requires
And if you can't see why
Look into my eyes

I used to think
I had been on the planet too long
No intention to end this dull ache
But with you on my arm
No, the feeling's not gone
But I'm starting to think that it might

Can you pull me along?
Can you show me the sun?
I'm convinced I can do more than hate
Cause with you on my arm
No, the feelings not gone
Soon be leaving it dead in my wake

Monday long song: That's All

Originally released as a hidden track at the end of their fourth studio album, 1997's Bagsy Me, this is That's All by The Wannadies.

Monday long song: Druantia (City Lights Sessions)

Graham Coxon, always the most interesting quarter of Blur, has a side project with Rose Elinor Dougall called The WAEVE (their capitalisation, not mine). Here they are with a live-in-the-studio rendition of Druantia, from their album City Lights. A parallel album of these live recordings, City Lights Sessions, is released this very Friday, if you're interested.

Is it just me that is put slightly in mind of early-70s Genesis, on hearing this? Certainly that keyboard sound, if nothing else.

Monday long song: Sunflower (Lynch Mob dub)

Sunflower was an early Weller solo single, lifted from Wild Wood in 1993. In its original form, it peaked at 16 in the UK chart. Brendan Lynch was let lose on it for this remix, which later emerged as one of the B-sides to the first Weller single from Stanley Road, 1994's Out of the Sinking.

I would say, play this in the car, late at night, on a fast, empty road, and ramp the volume right up.

Monday long song: 32 Flavors

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

What do Ray Charles, Bruce Springsteen and Ani DiFranco all have in common? They were all born on 23rd September... so happy birthday. I guess. Others will no doubt write about Brother Ray and The Boss, so I'll go with Ani.

32 Flavors is from Ani's 1995 album Not A Pretty Girl, and takes a pretty direct aim at society's evaluations and expectations of women.

Ani's Wikipedia page is also quite informative - she has been, as Billy Bragg would say, active with the activists. More power to her.

Monday long song: Begging You (Lakota mix)

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

This Lakota mix is a longer version of Begging You, for me the highlight of The Stone Roses' much-maligned second album. The Lakota was released on the CD single but not, for some reason, the 12" vinyl. But whatever the format this sounds huge, and I recommend a proper pair of headphones to fully appreciate the pulsating rhythm section magnificence of Mani and Reni. Plus there's far less Ian Brown "singing" on this version ...

Monday long song: Sing

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

The signs were there, right from the start, when they were called Seymour, although their sound would change a lot before they finally became the Britpop behemoth we know today. Early song Sing finally emerged on their 1991 debut album, Leisure, by which time they were called Blur. Graham's droning guitar still sounds brilliant, especially through good headphones.

Monday long song: Astradyne

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

I'm not sure that Ultravox get remembered kindly enough. The received wisdom is that they were a serious synth outfit until John Foxx left and was replaced by Midge Ure, who took them in a more commercial, and implicitly less serious, direction.

Well, if that is correct, and it's a big 'if', then Vienna was the pivot around which everything swung. I'm not talking about the brilliant bombast of the single (Joe Dolce though, eh?) but the album of the same name, every second of which is a nailed-on, stone-cold synth classic.

My big sister's best friend had the album, which is how I came by a very hissy taped copy in 1980. This, Astradyne, was track one, side one, and it knocked me sideways.

Still sounds bloody great, I reckon.

Monday long song: Pure & Easy

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

The November issue of Uncut magazine had a big article on The Who, specifically on the forthcoming deluxe edition re-issue of Who's Next coupled with tracks from the troubled and much mythologised Lifehouse project. Excitingly, for Who fans everywhere, the magazine's cover mount CD had ten Who tracks, handpicked from that deluxe edition. It's been in my car, doing sterling service, ever since. But here's the thing - I say "handpicked" as a throwaway description, but I wonder if the tracks were handpicked by Mr Townshend? He certainly has lead vocal duties on six of the ten tracks, in part because some of them are his home studio demos, and Roger wouldn't have been around. But if you'd just landed from another planet, and this disc was your first exposure to The Who, you'd be forgiven for wondering who the nuclear-powered guest vocalist was on the incendiary live rendition of Won't Get Fooled Again.

Anyway, this is Pete's home demo of Pure & Easy, and in the accompanying magazine article he describes it thus:

For Tommy, the founding song was 'Amazing Journey', which told the whole back story, the under story, of it. And 'Pure And Easy' did the same for Lifehouse, which is why it’s such a shame it was left off Who's Next. It was easy to write and it was a pleasure to write. It’s very simple, just three chords, basically. I wrote it on piano.

Monday long song: You Took

We're into December, it's cold and the nights are drawing in. I really should start work on my That Was The Year That Was review of 2023, but I'm not sure I have enough to make it worthwhile. So instead here's a long song for your Monday, from Aussie outfit The Church's second album, The Blurred Crusade, all the way back from 1982. According to Wikipedia, this was about the time the band left their New Wave roots behind and expanded into "neo-psychedelia". Yes, really.

Whatever the genre description, Crusade remains a decent album, even if it has dated slightly. The first 90 seconds of this could be knocked up in Garageband in about, ooh, 90 seconds these days, I reckon. But that's not the point, is it?

Anyway, the song.

Monday long song(s): two for the price of one

TLDR: I'm about to ramble some complete old guff about two songs that I think could soundtrack death and the afterlife, respectively. For the record, I'm in no hurry for one and don't really believe in the other ... but not everyone will want to read that so if you don't want to read my twaddle, skip the text, just play the songs. They are both excellent, for certain moods. Okay? Okay.

I keep some old magazine cover-mount CDs in the car, sort of like an emergency stash of music. I don't play them very often. That's how I came to forget today's not one but two long songs. They have found their way into my collection (and consciousness) via a CD distributed with MOJO magazine in August 2016, entitled How Soon Is Now? Yes, they really called it that, although they did have the good sense to subtitle it Mojo Presents 15 Tracks Of Modern Independent Music... But I digress. I found myself listening to the CD on a recent longish drive to see my parents. I don't know if it was the mood I was in at the time, or my general state of mind, but these two tracks really struck a chord.

The first is by Ian William Craig, about whom I know nothing. Wikipedia tells me he is a "Canadian musician known for using broken tape machines" and that Rolling Stone described him as "the most exciting experimental composer of 2016". So there's that. All I know is that this is called A Single Hope and is from his 2016 album Centres. It starts with what sounds like radio static through distorted speakers, before a plaintive choral lament starts up, giving the song a definite hymnal quality. Some sparse percussion is added to the mix, and soon enough the whole thing sounds like a symphony in slow shoegaze. But here's the thing; the thought that struck me, chugging down the motorway in perfect isolation, is that this would be a good song to die to; here comes the end but don't be afraid because it's okay, maybe even a release for some. It's a thing of absolute beauty, I think, and I'm amazed it hasn't been scooped up for a soundtrack or two - you know the scene, the hero has just died and his loved ones are distraught but it's okay because he saved the world, that sort of glib nonsense.

So there I was, in the car, having a little bit of a moment to myself, and then the very next track on the CD was this: Logic of a Dream by Explosions in the Sky. Again, I know nothing about them other than what Wikipedia tells me, i.e. that they're a quartet from Texas, playing almost exclusively instrumentals that they describe as "cathartic mini-symphonies", and that this track comes from their 2016 (and final, to date) album Wilderness. And again, here's the thing: the thought that struck me on hearing this is that it would soundtrack an introduction to the afterlife rather well. I should say, at this point, that personally I don't believe in any kind of afterlife, sadly; I'm a rational humanist on that score. It just struck me that Logic of a Dream is the perfect track to follow A Single Hope, and if that's the sound of a "good" death (is there such a thing?) then naturally what follows should be the sound of whatever comes next. At various times, this track sounds like that would be Valhalla, at others heaven, before ending with nirvana.

Sorry, maybe I should just stick to embedding songs, and forget the words. Retrospective apologies.

Monday long song: Moments of Pleasure

Kate had a bit of a resurgence earlier in the year, thanks to Stranger Things. Odd that parts of this video look like they were filmed in the Upside Down.

Monday long song: The Return of the Giant Hogweed

I was listening to Radcliffe and Maconie's excellent 6 Music show over the weekend and they played a show ident of some deliciously smooth Radio 4-esque voice (Charlotte Green, maybe) saying, "Radcliffe and Maconie - immune to all your herbicidal batterings." This made me smile, a lot, because it's a reference to this slice of eccentric brilliance from Gabriel-era Genesis.

Monday long song: The Chemistry Between Us

Don't think I've featured much, if anything, from post-Bernard Suede before, so let's remedy that today. The Chemistry Between Us was from 1996's Coming Up, released at a time when Brett's own chemical use was starting to get a little beyond him. Whatever. At the time, the "class A, class B" lyric might have seemed a little risqué - now it seems barely noteworthy, something even Ed Sheeran sings about.