Category: Musical Snobbery

Musical Tuesday – Christmas Eve

It was Christmas Eve babe, in the drunk tank…

Yes, it’s Christmas Eve, and while I am not currently incarcerated in a drunk tank it’s an essential part of my festive season to make sure I dust off my copy of the Pogues’ (featuring Kirsty MacColl) Fairytale of New York (1987) and give it a spin (virtually speaking – clicking on it in iTunes doesn’t have quite the same ring).

Exactly why an Irish ballad about drunks, failed relationships and broken dreams should feel so quintessentially Christmasy has always puzzled me. But there’s no denying that it does. And a lot of people seem to agree. It’s been voted the best Christmas song of all time on numerous occasions, and re-enters the charts every December, over 25 years since it’s release.

Its enduring popularity however is not without controversy – chiefly over it’s use of the word “faggot”. It has been claimed that in Ireland the word traditionally means someone who’s lazy, but this hasn’t stopped numerous attempts at censorship, including by BBC Radio 1 who blanked the word (along with ‘slut’) for several hours in 2007 before public outrage forced them to change their minds.

Our second selection this week is Twisted Sister with We’re Not Gonna Take It (1984). It’s particularly well known for it’s video clip featuring Mark Metcalf more or less reprising his role of Neidermeyer from the movie National Lampoon’s Animal House.

By now you’re no doubt saying “Denys, that’s a great song and all, but what in the name of all that’s sane and holy has it got to do with Christmas?”. Well, let’s try a little experiment shall we? Sing with me mi amigos! We’re not gonna take it! No! We ain’t gonna take it! Did you sing along? Be honest, you didn’t did you? C’mon it’s not going to work unless you do!

Let’s try again. We’re not gonna take it! No! We ain’t gonna take it! Well, I have no way to tell if you did or not, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. So, now sing it again, but with some different lyrics. Come all ye faithful! Joyful and triumphant! See!? See!? It’s exactly the same tune!!

This is not some great revelation. Dee Snider has never made any attempt to conceal the fact that he borrowed the tune. It’s just an interesting little musical factoid that many people have never noticed, despite it being hidden in plain sight.

So that’s it for this festive edition of Musical Tuesday. A merry culturally appropriate festive celebration to all, and to all a good applicable time of day!

Musical Tuesdays – Filth

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Warning – This week’s Musical Tuesday contains language unsuitable for British Schoolchildren and other folk of delicate sensibilities. You have been advised!

So, this week I thought we’d explore some music in that is – to say the least – in very poor taste. In fact, it’s sheer filth. But both songs – as I hope to demonstrate – have their latent merits.

The first song is not actually the one I wanted to feature. My ideal choice was Dicktatorship by Australia’s own TISM, a song that explores the relationship between sex and politics by way of “cunt” vs “country” puns. It’s a catchy, bluesy track with perhaps the most memorable opening line in musical history – “The New South Wales Right have cocks like Mastodons“. But it doesn’t appear to be available anywhere online, so I was forced to sub in the same band’s Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the House of Representatives from 1993’s Australia the Lucky Cunt.

This doesn’t really say an awful lot, but is possibly the only song in history to include a refrain of “Gimme Bicameral Legislature!” My original choice had slightly more to say, but we have to work with what we have.

(On the subject of TISM, here’s them being interviewed by Shaun Micallef back in his Full Frontal days. Champagne comedy!)

My second selection is a track from fairly indescribable grindcore group Anal Cunt (yes, you read that correctly). In their many years of recording, AC (as they are – thankfully – usually know) perfected the art of taking 10 seconds of cacophonous screaming and drumkit abuse, titling it something cryptic, then shoving it onto a CD with forty or so similar tracks. I don’t know if you could honestly describe the results as music, but they’re certainly interesting.

Perhaps their definitive album is 1997’s I like it When You Die which packs 52 separate ‘songs’ into 41 minutes 44 seconds. The naming conventions of these tracks are what make the compilation notable, breaking down into three distinct types…

You Something: You Live in a Houseboat, You are a Food Critic, You Have Goals.

Something is Gay: Recycling is Gay, Rich Goyette Is Gay, Technology is Gay, Windchimes are Gay.

Completely Randomness: René Auberjonois, Hootie and the Blowfish, Hungry, Hungry, Hippos.

Despite this, every track sounds exactly the same – like a hallucinating cannibal falling down the stairs accompanied by the contents of a kitchen cupboard.

Anyway, the track I’m featuring is from 1999’s It Just Gets Worse, and is titled I Ate Your Horse. It’s unusual in that you can actually – sort of – understand the chorus.

So, that’s it for this week. I promise next week will be less disturbing (it would be hard for it to be more…).

Musical Tuesday – Epics

Well, better late than never!

I’ve been really busy this week – I reinstalled Civilization III and have been conquering the world as the glorious Persians. So much more important than blogging commitments I’m sure you’ll agree.

In any case, this week I’ve decided to focus on two songs that can only be described as epic. Or possibly far too long. Long, epic songs that almost approach prog-rock in their sheer lengthy indulgence.

We’ll start with another from Sheffield movers and shakers of the 90’s, Pulp. Wickerman (from their last album, 2001’s We Love Life) is a phantasmagorical tour of the Steel City and its surrounds with Jarvis Cocker as your guide. Let him show you the hidden rivers that run below the streets, the viaduct that drunks used to jump off and the pressed in plastic letters at the cafe at Forge Dam. Feel the regret and try to track down the sample taken from the soundtrack of classic British horror movie The Wicker Man – I’m assured it’s in there somewhere.

If you’re thinking that the whole thing sounds like poetry, you can hear it as such too.

If eight minutes of Jarvis Cocker isn’t enough music for you, please carry on to our second song, Dire Straits’ Telegraph Road. Taken from 1982’s Love Over Gold it clocks in at an almost unbelievable 14 minutes 18 seconds. It’s not in bad company either, the entire album only has five songs on it, the shortest of which goes for over five minutes.

The interior album art shows a snuffed out cigarette in front of an Amstrad PCW 8256 – which is what a lot of the album sounds like – a dim, smoke filled room at 3:00 in the morning with grit in your eyes and only a monotone cathode-ray tube for company. The recording process got so grim in fact that the band had to cut loose and compose Twisting by the Pool just to stop themselves going mental. But the end result is regarded as one of their best, and Telegraph Road is the crowning glory of the album.

It’s a winding story that starts with the history and development of a town, then meanders off into bleak 1980s post-industrial collapse, which merges into relationship collapse, then wanders into a rocking five minute guitar playout. If this wasn’t enough to make it an epic song, it was also first performed live in my home city of Perth. So there!

Here it is, see you in a quarter hour…

Tune in next week when I may actually be on time for once! 😀

Musical Tuesday – I remember Every. Single. Thing.

Yes, it’s that time of the week again when I pick two songs for your aural delectation and try to justify some vague link between them – Musical Tuesday!

We start today with a classic late-disco track from 1982, Laura Branigan’s Gloria

It may surprise people to learn the the track was originally by Italian singer Umberto Tozzi. A hit in Italy in 1979 it was similarly successful in various translations around Europe, but it only came to the attention of English speakers with the massive success of Branigan’s version three years later. Take a listen to it, from the perspective of 30 years on the production is a bit dated, but that girl could sing! Sadly she passed away from a brain aneurism in 2004.

My second selection this week is Disco 2000 by those thoughtful pre-emos of the 90’s Brit-Pop scene Pulp. Released in 1995 it was one of the band’s biggest hits and tells the tale of a young man in love with a childhood friend who seemingly can’t see him for all the popular people she now hangs out with (not that you’d realise that from the video clip…). The story is apparently autobiographical, with Jarvis Cocker (Pulp’s almost supernaturally tall and thin frontman who was a hipster back when a hipster was someone cool and interesting rather than a dickhead with a beard and stupid hat) claiming that the only made up part is the woodchip wallpaper.

So, what’s the connection? Well did you actually listen to them? The main riff of Disco 2000 is taken direct from Gloria, with Jarvis even driving home the point by singing “Deborah – Deborah” in exactly the same way as Laura Branigan. This should not be any great revelation – it’s been known about for 17 years – it’s just an interesting way to link two very fine songs, that’s all.

(Good lord, I just realised that gap between now and Disco 2000 is longer than the gap between Disco 2000 and Gloria. Damn I’m getting old…)

Note that I’ve embedded the full version of the song, that includes the Cocker trademark of a slightly strange monologue which is cut from the radio version. They always cut Pulp songs for the radio, Common People is never quite as good without the vicious third verse about dogs and chip stains. Sad.

Finally, some years back I had four concluding notes (something like C B A B) from a song stuck in my head for months. After almost going mad I eventually tracked it down to Disco 2000, the very last place I would have expected. Neat.

Lyrics – Hampden Parks and Recreation

I’ve spotted a few people in my logs looking for these lyrics, so, here’s my best shot at them. You’re welcome!

Hampden Parks (Freestyle Friday #7) – E-Dubble

Ay! Ay! Ay! Ay! Ay! Ay! Ay! Ay!

Yeah some days, I feel unfazed,
Like when I’m with my friends with a cup raised,
But come Monday, I got a gun raised,
Suicidal do or die until hump day,
Then I go right back at it like an automatic,
More drinks, more songs, more beats to rap,
For me to shrink, I’m gone, more time keeps passing,
No watch no thoughts at all just a hat,

New era – Rep my P’s and those O’s
Need a Phillies with the orange and black to feel home,
From Citizens Bank back to Camden Yards,
It’s the tale of two cities and trust we go hard,
Trust we go hard?
Yes we go hard,
You said we go hard?
I said we go hard,

Rockin’ my Bob Couseys, stockin’ up on the looseleaf,
The lyrics come easy but the life is a doozy,
And yes I’m choosy and no I won’t settle,
But I still take pop-off over that kettle,
Cuz’ I’m talking bigger picture and yes I’m gonna hitcha with that…

No shit!

Speak when necessary, no I never been a loud mouth,
Introvert but I insert a few wow-outs,
No Nick Cannon, David Banner when I pow-wow,
Hennessy but hold the hip I’m ’bout to have a brown out,
Clowns runnin’ round with the make up on they face,
To that I’m astringent – I been this way,
New bars, new beats, yeah that’s me all day
New cars, new freaks, no you keep that main,

I’m a business man, in a business, man!
Obstacles made me who I am,
Let loose, no truce, my boots come off,
Once Black Paisley has made my family’s fortune,
With a corner office and the greener pastures,
Sip cheap liquor till’ I’m leaning backwards,
Grip this dream you can see my passion,
Rep my city no beef with Asher,

Blue Bella and Blood help me write the chapters,
I’ll be home soon and we’ll toast the Asti,
Sip mimosas till me no-no my name,
EVA phhhht – I’m gone again!

Back to the mansion and yes I’m home again,
Rockin’ in Hampden and yes you know the name,
Young English – Black Paisley – Irish Toothache, who they be?
Who they be?
Who they be?
Who they be?
Well they be us!
Poor English, screwed up semantics,
I am talking real shit, speak my language,
Celebrate the blemishes, throw away the tentative,
I be on some other shit so go and tell the other kids,
Tell the other kids,
Tell the other kids,
Tell the other kids,
Tell the other kids,

Tell them other kids whatever you like,
It’s freestyle Friday, March 9 19th whatever,
I don’t doo derrrrrr ithat wenthay,
Dooba dooba dabba dooba deeba dub dub,
Rap songs, rap music we do what we want,
Dooba dabba dooba deeba dabba dooba the fronts…

Yeah, now look, I just checked my uh, checked the weather, on my phone, on my telephone, on my cellular telephone, it’s supposed to get up to 71 degrees today! S’posed to get up to 71 degrees. Holy guacamole. Hey y’know it’s not a traditional, saying for a rapper to say but holy guacamole’s underused, and um, what I’m trying to say is – it’s Springtime! OK? We’ve weathered the storm! Happy Freestyle Friday, seeya guys.

Musical Tuesday – Gallimaufry

With the Dr Who 50th anniversary over the weekend, what could be more appropriate than picking a couple of completely random and unrelated tracks – thus creating a musical gallimaufry* – for this week’s Musical Tuesday?

(well, I could l0ad up the extended 12 inch of Doctorin’ the Tardis, but no one needs that!)

So first up, a catchy little 60’s influenced track from Brooklyn three piece The Essex Green – Don’t Know Why (You Stay)

Despite the cheery tune and soaring harmonies in the chorus the lyrics are a bit grim – but then there are plenty of other great songs like that, so who are we to argue?

Secondly I present a real gallimaufry of a track consisting of a bit of Bach combined with a 12th century student drinking song, played on synth and bagpipes by some insane Germans who’ve chosen to name themselves after a contagious medieval dancing mania. So here is Toccata by Tanzwut (excuse the 40k imagery and terrible spelling, it’s the only decent copy of the song I know of on YouTube)

It sounds scary as hell, but the lyrics (taken from the same source as Carl Orff’s famous Oh Fortuna) pretty much translate as “If you’re not here to drink then get out of our party!”, which is still kind of threatening I suppose, but less so than the treatment might suggest.

OK, I’m done for now. Tune in next week for another two tracks that might have some more effective kind of theme than not having a theme at all.

* I’ve always presumed that Gallifrey – the name of the Doctor’s homeworld – took its inspiration from gallimaufry. Exactly what this says about Time Lord society is up for debate…

Musical Tuesday – You’re a Lion!

Back in the 1920’s a black South African man named Solomon Linda wrote a song. You know it. Everyone knows it. But you probably don’t know it by the name Linda gave it. He called it Mbube, Zulu for “The Lion” and the version he recorded with his band the Evening Birds in 1939 went like this…

Recognise it now?

Mbube went through a variety of mutations. America folk singer Pete Seeger turned it into song called Wimoweh and recorded it in 1952 with the Weavers. Popular and covered by many artists throughout the 50’s it was rewritten by one George David Weiss (co-writer of Elvis’s I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You) who added some mediocre lyrics about lions, retitled it, and gave it to Doo-Wop group the Tokens who released it as a B-Side in 1962.

You can probably guess the rest. The Lion Sleeps Tonight went on to become one of the most recorded songs in human history.

But what of Solomon Linda? He was paid a token fee of about 87 cents for the recording back in 1939. That was it. The success of the record made him a star in South Africa, but when he died in 1962 he had only $22 to his name, and his widow couldn’t even afford a gravestone for him.

Happily, things eventually worked out alright. In 2004 his family sued Disney – who were making millions from featuring the song in The Lion King – and a settlement was reached wherein the Linda family is now receiving the royalties they deserve. The lawsuit and settlement were prompted in no small part by the remarkable and evocative article In the Jungle by Rian Malan, published in Rolling Stone in 2000 and well worth a read if you’ve got an hour or so to spare.

My second track this week is for another descendant of Solomon Linda’s tune. Composed by German band leader Bert Kaempfert in 1962 (that year keeps coming up…) it’s titled A Swingin’ Safari and despite it’s campy 1950s-ness it has a place in my heart because my dad used to play it when I was a kid. So, enjoy!

Musical Tuesday – A Song for Europe

Well, today was the Melbourne Cup, the horse race that both proverbially and allegedly stops a nation. Woohoo.

I’ve never really been a fan of the Cup. I’m a contrarian by nature – if someone tells me that everyone does something I’ll tend not to do it, specifically to be a counter-example – so I’ve always reacted to being told that the Cup stops a nation by saying “Well it doesn’t stop me!” and ignoring it. I’m also not big on horse racing because of the animal welfare issues. I’m not a member of PETA or anything, and I eat plenty of meat, but racing somehow seems to be pushing our treatment of animals a bit far. I’ve also got a streak of puritanism deep in my soul, which pops up at unexpected moments to condemn things like gambling as wicked – so Melbourne Cup day has never held much attraction for me.

Of course working in an office environment makes such iconoclasm difficult, and heading off to a pub to watch the race at least provided a free lunch and 90 minutes or so of not-working. So I went along with it. I was also talked into placing a $2 bet, which I put down on Red Cadeux – the horse suggested by Diesel the Psychic Echidna, mostly just for a laugh.

As anyone who gives a crap about the race would know, Red Cadeux came in second, so I ended up winning $10. Not bad at all for advice from a monotreme, not bad at all.

Anyway, in honour of the event what song could I choose for today but My Lovely Horse from classic comedy series Father Ted?

For those unfamiliar with the show (have you been living under a rock for the last twenty years?) it follows the chaotic lives of a trio of notably unholy Catholic Priests exiled to a small island off the coast of Ireland – the venal Father Ted, the idiotic Father Dougal and the frankly diabolical Father Jack. In the episode A Song for Europe Ted and Dougal decide to enter the Eurosong music contest (an extremely  thinly veiled parody of Eurovision) and come up with a ridiculous dirge about ‘a lovely horse’. They later improve it by stealing a tune from another song, but end up representing Ireland in Eurosong with the original because the country is desperate to lose and avoid the cost of hosting it again next year.

In real life the song was written by Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy, and the band actually released it as B-Side in 1999.

In any case, here is the song as presented in the episode (the seemingly random inclusion of swimming sequences and ping pong is because it’s a parody of the video for That’s What Friends Are For by the Swarbriggs).

They really need to lose that sax solo…

My second pick sticks to the Eurosong theme with the song Wolves of the Sea, which was Latvia’s Eurovision entry in 2008. But I’m not going to make you listen to the campy Latvian version, instead I’m presenting the cover by Scottish pirate-metal band Alestorm, which was released in 2009 (yes, pirate-metal is a thing).

I first heard this track in the Morley branch of Games Workshop and was rather surprised to say the least. But not as surprised as some commenter on YouTube who seem to be unable to grasp the purpose of the steel drum break in the middle. I mean, is it really that hard to figure out what they’re referencing? Really?

Anyway, that’s enough for now. The prawns I had at lunch seem to be disagreeing with me, and I’m taking an early night.