The final third of our adventure is upon us. Today, all is subject to opinion.
Day 20: A song that has many meanings to you
2020: “Mis-Shapes”, Pulp
Pulp, again. Could you tell they’ve always been a favourite of mine?
Anyway, yes, being the clever clogs I was, I wondered to myself who this song was truly for.
Nerds and outcasts? Definitely plausible.
Communists? ‘We’ll use the one thing we’ve got more of/that’s our minds’. Also possible.
As I weigh my options for today, I must admit to finding myself facing a dilemma. Well, two dilemmas, the first is to find another song that I like which has one more than one meaning to me. But the second is that kind of thing can bring out your inner wanker when it comes to music. How many times have artists been rubbed the wrong way because listeners have scoured through every word in their songs, misinterpreting and reinterpreting them solely to sound cleverer than their peers?
And it’s at this point I remember I haven’t chosen a Beatles song yet. Perfect.
2025: “I Am The Walrus”, The Beatles
The song made to drive the people who seek meaning in the tunes they hear absolutely bonkers. John Lennon had grown tired of people saying ‘Ooh doesn’t this song talk about this?’ or ‘Well it’s clearly about that’. So he cooks up a few verses of word salad and serves it up to get the audience’s head in a spin. The whole thing being powered by acid certainly helps.
So what does it mean to me?
It represents the peak of psych-era Beatles.
It shows that drugs are bad, m’kay?
It demonstrates that some good did come out of that godawful film.
It’s meaningfully meaningless. See, I told you this kind of thing brings out your inner wanker. Ah, the joys of writing about music.
Serious talk for a moment. 2025 has been a godawful year, not just in general but for my family. I won’t go into detail but a lot of shit has come our way and it has meant that I have been thinking about life in general. Like, is this how it’s meant to be? Being buried under mounds upon mounds of shit and looking for any little escape, just a small gasp of fresh air to avoid suffocating.
Thank God music can make you forget about it for a moment. Until now, when I have to find a track that makes me think about life.
Day 19: A song that makes you think about life
2020: “That’s Entertainment”, The Jam
When I did this last time around, I took this particular day to mean choosing a song about life, hence I went for one of the Jam’s best songs (And I’m pretty sure the first I ever heard, during the end credits of an Inbetweeners episode of all things). Summing up life for the working class as the 80s got underway, and it’s fun to see how many of Paul Weller’s lines you can relate to, how many of his observances you yourself have spotted recently? Police cars and screaming sirens, pissing down with rain on boring Wednesdays, watching the telly and thinking about your holidays. That last one is perfect for the Christmas season.
Now for today’s choice, I think I may be swayed by a nagging thought I’ve had the further into my twenties I’ve gone – How old is old? I’m 27 now, much closer to my thirties than I’d like to be (Jeez, even as I type that I get a shiver down my spine), and I feel I’m in a strange limbo where I’m not quite young enough to be in with the burgeoning grads, but not old enough to be weighed down by all the responsibilities adulthood promises. God knows I’d like to have gone further than I am at right now. But then again, I could be further back.
Huh. I’ve just made up my mind for today.
2025: “D’Yer Wanna Be A Spaceman?”, Oasis
I mean, I know I was going to end up going for on Oasis song sooner rather than later, but I didn’t expect myself to be weighing up three b-sides which are all about the carosuel of changing dreams we have as we grow older.
“Flashbax” was my initial instinct, moreso for the unabashed bombast Noel has to offer with lines like ‘In my well paid opinion’. “Fade Away” is an early Oasis triumph. But “…Spaceman?” strikes the most chords for me, it’s got the most optimistic yet realistic message of the three. We all dreamt high, wanting to be spacemen and such. We miss the days of innocence we once thrived in, much like the Coral’s “Bill McCai” (but not to such a fatalistic extent), as they make way for the bills and the kids. But then towards the end Noel quite rightly says ‘All the dream stealers are lying in wait/but if you wanna be a spaceman, it’s still not too late’.
And it’s now I realise I’ve still got plenty of time. All those ‘no’s from dream stealers can be easily drowned out with a firm ‘yes’. Even if that loudest dream stealer may itself live in my head but surely that little bastard’s got to lose its voice eventually. Hell, I just went abroad for the first time in twenty years last week. Sure, the journey home was a disaster but the trip itself was great. I did things I’ve never done before, and I can do it again. World’s my oyster. Dreams are still waiting to be made real.
Should probably start writing up those New Years resolutions. They likely won’t hold but hey, thought that counts, right?
Well. I was born on October 27th 1998 so that is the year we shall be in for today.
Once again though I’ve decided that I won’t just do one song and be done with it. I’ll elaborate on a few favourites before I make my final choice for my new answer to this part of the 30 Day Song Challenge.
But first, let’s see what I chose back in 2020.
Day 18: A song from the year you were born
2020: “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next”, Manic Street Preachers
I was a bit obsessed with this song back in the day. It’s another one of those ones that appeal to the disenchanted youth while dressed up as a little history lesson, a Manics specialty. I remember signing off the last Drivetime show I did on the radio before the 2019 general election with this song, skating on thin ice given that neutrality is a must during those events. However, I think I got away with it as I lamented that sweet FA was really going to change no matter who got the keys to Number 10 that year, and I was right. Brexit was a foregone conclusion, and little did we know what other thrills and spills awaited us. Incidentally, 2020 was the year that the comment section for the video of “If You Tolerate…” was hijacked by the anti-mask, anti-vax brigade. Bless their cotton socks. It meant I quickly got over that obsession with “Tolerate” and ended up preferring “A Design For Life”, but that’s not to disparage this song. It is one of the Manics’ finest, and fully deserving of the Number One spot in the charts.
Ok. Time for the 1998 Lightning Round – One song, one sentence. Off we go!
“This is Hardcore”, Pulp – Best song from Pulp, forever and always.
“Angel”, Massive Attack – Drips with atmosphere and I love it for it.
“Whippin’ Piccadilly”, Gomez – My most hummed song at work this year.
“Destiny Calling”, James – Worth the price of admission for the line about black ones, posh ones, and cute ones.
“Road Rage”, Catatonia – Why do people not like Cerys’ voice?
“The Ballad of Tom Jones”, Space – If I had a Welsh friend, I’d have chosen this yesterday.
“Pure Morning”, Placebo – After my recent nightmare on the ferry, relatable.
“Stay”, Bernard Butler – ‘Bit much’ said Phil Spector.
“Millennium”, Robbie Williams – There are worse John Barry bits to sample.
“Tourniquet”, Headswim – This is sentimental to be honest; my biological father and his band are thanked in the notes of Headswim’s debut.
And that’s the end of the Lightning Round.
But for today, I am going to not only select a song from 1998, I’m going to go for the song that was Number One in the UK Charts on the day I was born in 1998! And that is:
2025: “Believe”, Cher
Ah, when Cher realised that autotune wasn’t just a remedy but a toy. And Christ, I hate this song for it. It’s that one bogey you can’t flick away. Once you’ve listened to it, it ain’t going away. But Number Ones are Number Ones so c’est la vie.
Except that time when the Tweenies released a song not long after called “No. 1” and completely missed the mark. That was f*cking hilarious.
Oh f*ck, let’s not. Me singing karaoke is under no circumstances a good idea. But if that is what the Challenge decrees and if we work on the assumption that anyone within the vicinity of my performance is deaf, let’s give it a try.
Day 17: A song you’d sing a duet with someone on karaoke
2020: “We Are The Champions”, Queen
…Ok, bit random of me to have chosen that one.
Class song and all, but is it duet material? It’d be fun to do the chorus I guess, but the quieter parts of the verses maybe less so. Then again, I’d stand more of a chance of being in tune there than when I’d be blasting out the title. Freddie Mercury I am most assuredly not.
2025: “Sunny Afternoon”, The Kinks
This might be even more random. But it’s been in my head all day, I love it to bits, and I think it would be a lovely experience to just prat about a little, get a bit tipsy and sing this song with someone. The ‘In the summertime’ refrains especially.
Ah, another day, another cop out. But hey we’re back in sync now, day eighteen will be released on December 18th, and at least I’m not choosing stuff from the 90s all the time, I’m actually adding some variation…
Still trying to get my inner ear to rebalance itself, using this as a way of distracting myself from the swaying.
This might take some time.
Day 16: A song that’s a classic favourite
2020: “Common People”, Pulp
Oh look, for the third week in a row a Pulp song emerges. But again, I was drunk on Britpop back in 2020 (Still am, let’s be honest) and when it came to classics, “Common People” was the first thing that popped into my head. I don’t think I need to tell you why, do I?
Oh OK, here’s a couple of Cliffnotes:
Lyrics? The pinnacle of biting and witty, one of Jarvis’ finest hours.
Sound? Of its time yet so timeless, with the unforgettable guitar riff, keyboard notes and violin swishes.
Now to choose something different but here’s the thing. Choosing a ‘classic favourite’ is a very broad category and I don’t want to just end up going for something from the 90s again. So what I’m going to do is I’m actually going to pick two songs; one of my own choosing, and one from a randomly generated year.
We’ll start with my own choice first:
2025, choice one: “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, Tears For Fears
To me there is no song that exists that is aging more and more gracefully than this. With dictators and big businesses putting their hands over the world’s mouth and suffocating the life out of it, it makes you wonder if Tears For Fears knew something we didn’t. Or maybe they believed that it couldn’t get worse at the time they made “…Rule The World”. Sorry, lads, it can indeed.
Incidentally, I heard this in a pub before leaving Amsterdam over the weekend and it was one of the three things that kept revolving around my head during that trip home. Worse songs to have on repeat when you’re sea sick and sleep deprived.
Ok, so the next song has to be a classic favourite from a randomly chosen year and that year is…
1976. Plenty of great albums from that year. Station to Station, Ramones, High Voltage, Arrival, and so on. But towards the end of the year, a certain band came along and released a debut single that definitely qualifies as a ‘classic favourite’.
2025, choice two: “Anarchy in the U.K”, Sex Pistols
I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest fan of the Pistols. All the respect in the world for them, but I’m not really the target market for pure punk. If I’d ever lived around that time period and gone to one of their gigs, I would’ve been absolutely twatted. Plus, can you imagine me with a mohawk and covered in safety pins? God forbid.
But the Pistols were a seed, one that grew to absurd proportions. That live show in at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester that led to the creation of Joy Division and Factory Records, that in turn led to the discovery of the Happy Mondays, which then led to Madchester and baggy music and ultimately to Britpop. That is the most trivial condensation of a story you’ll ever read but it’s true. One giant splash and ripples aplenty. So really I do have a lot to thank the Sex Pistols for.
And more still for those they no doubt inspired upon the release of “Anarchy in the U.K”, as the punk genre exploded and more was to come throughout the rest of the 70s. I don’t think there was a lot of younger folks at the time who didn’t want to emulate that sneer and growl of Johnny Rotten, or weren’t inspired by that opening proclamation of being the Antichrist. It is my favourite Pistols song. Skating around Alcatraz with it blasting on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 will have helped massively.
It’s a classic in every sense of the word, regardless of your thoughts and feelings. Its reputation in music folklore is set in stone, and nothing will change that.
A-Side Glance 