Thirty Days of Music, Day Twenty Three

Well, being a radio presenter, I can give you a library’s worth of music that you should listen to. Actually no, that’s hyperbole. Let’s be realistic. A very thin paperback perhaps.

I’m intrigued to see what I chose last time, I’m sure you are too. Let’s have a gander.

Day 23: A song you think everybody should listen to

2020: “A Design For Life”, Manic Street Preachers

A good choice if I do say so myself. One of the best anthems every anthem’ed, perhaps the Manics most powerful statement as not only do they make the ultimate song for the working class, but also proved they had a future beyond Richey Edwards.

Yup, it’s one of those ones that you must listen to if at the very least you want to call yourself a fan of 90s music. As far as rock, not just Britpop but rock, at that time goes, it frankly doesn’t get that much better.

2025: “The Old Man’s Back Again (Dedicated to the Neo-Stalinist Regime)”, Scott Walker

Genuinely, I had no idea this song even existed until a few days ago. But recently, while I was still trying to convince my brain that I was back on dry land and not bobbing up and down, I made a list of bands and artists I wanted to listen to soon and one of them was Scott Walker. A quick bit of Googling led me to Scott 4 and the many acts of brilliance that came within. The unquestionable highlight for me was “The Old Man’s Back Again”.

The word I’d use to describe this song? Evocative. Because oh my God does this song resonate with the modern day listener, provided they’re not too deaf to the world. Then, it was Scott contemplating the heat of the Cold War as Czechoslovakia was invaded. Now? Well, take your pick. The old man is coming back and doing so in a big way. And we can only hope that this time in some form, he trips and breaks a hip. It’s for the best really.

But yeah, political context or otherwise it’s a hauntingly beautiful song that needs to be heard at least once, along with the rest of Scott 4. I’ll talk more about the album itself in the New Year.

Thirty Days of Music, Day Twenty Two

It’s at this point I’m wondering why I thought this whole thing was a good idea if I have to deal with stuff like this. Alas, a challenge is a challenge.

Day 22: A song that moves you forward

2020: “Love Comes Quickly”, Pet Shop Boys

LIES.

I have no idea how and why this ended up in my playlist for me to use it for this five years ago but there that is. Plus, there’s other Pet Shop Boys songs I’d much rather listen to, like “It’s A Sin” and “West End Girls”.

So I guess for today I have to go for a song that makes me want to keep going, ignore the hardships and take the knocks on the chin. This feels a bit deep for my liking.

Deep. Deep?

Oh.

Oh!

2025: “It’s a Very Deep Sea”, The Style Council

So this is my favourite Style Council song. Indeed, I tried to write about its parent album Confessions of a Pop Group way back when on this blog but the whole thing kind of petered out. Bit of a shame considering this is easily Paul Weller’s most personal and most vitriolic work. He wasn’t a happy bunny around this time, between the failure of the Red Wedge, the downturn of the Council’s popularity and fortunes, and Polydor not treating him that well.

That’s why he opens the album with this song, one about being unable to let go of past grudges and wrongs. No underwater stone is left unturned, he can’t leave them unturned due to how shit is weighing him down, dragging him under the surface. He keeps finding regret after regret, as he dredges up the past.

But then, after five minutes of lamentations and the chilly melancholic piano of Mick Talbot, we end with Paul’s repeating ‘Come to the surface and come to my senses now’. He can’t keep swimming amongst the rotting wood and the tin cans forever. Sooner or later he has to come up for air. And I feel the same.

None of us lead a perfect life. I certainly haven’t. Regrets and spite threaten to drag me under and occasionally succeed when I’m left alone with my thoughts. But I know that given time I’ll come back to the surface and come back to my senses. And I’ll move forward, spend some time on dry land before finding the next ocean.

Thirty Days of Music, Day Twenty One

Why do I get the feeling that one of the easiest tasks I’ve been set during this challenge is going to end up being one of the hardest? There are literal billions of songs that include a name. I think I’ve got another list to put together this evening.

First things first, what I chose in 2020.

Day 21: A song you like with a person’s name in the title

2020: “Hey Jude”, The Beatles

No real comment needed, I feel. On we go.

So I decided to help me along my way with today’s choice I’d look through my Spotify, mainly the bands and artists that I have saved and find a song from them that includes a person’s name in its title. And it kind of spiraled out of control. You can have anything of the following:

  • “Beryl”, Barbara
  • “Eleanor Rigby”, The Beatles
  • “Jeff Goldblum”, Bebe Barry
  • “Isobel”, Bjork
  • “Gary”, Blossoms
  • “Tracy Jacks”, Blur
  • “Olson”, Boards of Canada
  • “Lazarus”, The Boo Radleys
  • “Mulder and Scully”, Catatonia
  • “Elisha”, The Clause
  • “Bill McCai”, The Coral
  • “Brimful of Asha”, Cornershop
  • “Proud Mary”, Creedence Clearwater Revival
  • “The Jean Genie”, David Bowie
  • “Come Home Billy Bird”, The Divine Comedy
  • “Jolene”, Dolly Parton
  • “Otis”, The Durutti Column
  • “Victoria”, The Fall (Hold on a mo before you get your knickers in a twist about that one)
  • “Nancy From Now On”, Father John Misty
  • “Clint Eastwood”, Gorillaz
  • “Donovan”, Happy Mondays
  • “Here Comes Alice”, The Jesus and Mary Chain
  • “Oh Yoko!”, John Lennon
  • “Ruby”, Kaiser Chiefs
  • “Michael (What’s Your Call?), Keyside
  • “Lola”, The Kinks (Told you. Thought I’d let the Fall have their little moment)
  • “James Dean”, The Kowloons
  • “Caesar on a TV Screen”, The Last Dinner Party
  • “The Life of Riley”, The Lightning Seeds
  • “Grace”, The Lilacs
  • “Enola/Alone”, Manic Street Preachers
  • “Egg Shaped Fred”, Mansun
  • “Johnny Don’t Be Scared”, The Molotovs
  • “Richard Has A Racecar”, MOOON
  • “Deanna”, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
  • “Polly”, Nirvana
  • “Jennifer String”, The NonStick Pans
  • “Lyla”, Oasis
  • “A Perfect Day Elise”, PJ Harvey
  • “Luciana”, The Painted Ceilings
  • “Isaiah”, Pastel
  • “Careful with That Axe, Eugene”, Pink Floyd
  • “Nancy Boy”, Placebo
  • “Kowalski”, Primal Scream
  • “The Night That Minnie Timperley Died”, Pulp
  • “Eleanor”, Red Rum Club
  • “Catherine’s Wheel”, Rialto
  • “Angie”, The Rolling Stones
  • “Candle For Ira”, The Safest Place
  • “Joanna”, Scott Walker
  • “Nice Guy Eddie”, Sleeper
  • “Luna”, The Smashing Pumpkins
  • “William, It Was Really Nothing”, The Smiths
  • “Gloria”, The Snuts
  • “The Ballad of Tom Jones”, Space
  • “Veronica Lake”, Sparks
  • “A Message to You Rudy”, The Specials
  • “Madame Helga”, Stereophonics
  • “Sally Cinnamon”, Stone Roses
  • “Metal Mickey”, Suede
  • “Mary”, Supergrass
  • “Hermann♥’s Pauline”, Super Furry Animals
  • “Neil Jung”, Teenage Fanclub
  • “Delilah”, Tom Jones
  • “Deere John”, Welly
  • “Making Plans For Nigel”, XTC
  • “Valerie”, The Zutons

Loath as I am to reference Family Guy, but I now understand what it was like for Seth McFarlane to try and come up with a long list of songs that all have a girl’s name in the title.

And out of all of that, what am I going to go for? None of them, because it just so happens I went to a grand ol’ tribute gig to Frank Zappa earlier this year so…

2025: “Bobby Brown Goes Down”, Frank Zappa

En-f*cking-joy!

Thirty Days of Music, Day Twenty

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?

  1. It represents the peak of psych-era Beatles.
  2. It shows that drugs are bad, m’kay?
  3. 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.

Thirty Days of Music, Day Nineteen

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?