Day 25 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song that makes you laugh...

Song 25 – A song that makes you laugh...’He almost looks like you’ – Otis Lee Crenshaw

Rich Hall as 'Otis Lee Crenshaw'

“Prison rape’s always had kind of a bad name, so when I wrote a song about it, I wanted to make it a good one” – Otis Lee Crenshaw.

Rich Hall’s character Otis Lee Crenshaw has lots of really good funny songs.  The comedy song is not a genre I normally much care for.  Aside from a few really great performers (Tom Lehrer, Jake Thackray) they’re generally not that funny and not that good as songs.  There have been a few comics who started out as musicians (Jasper Carrot, Billy Connelly, Mike Harding), finding that the talking bits got longer and the songs fewer.  They’ve tended not do funny songs though.  Stewart Lee’s last stand-up show featured him playing a song at the end, but he got his guitar out 15 minutes early, occasionally picking out a chord, on the grounds that he’d “noticed having an instrument allows you to get away with having inferior material”.  I’d agree with him.  Again.

Otis Lee Crenshaw - He almost looks like you

Otis Lee Crenshaw’s songs are both great songs and very funny.  This one has a fine tune, a sharp lyric and enough tenderness to make it a lot more uneasy listening than might otherwise be the case.  I’ve never managed to see Rich Hall live, either in his stand-up mode or as Otis Lee Crenshaw.  I must remedy that one of these days.

Jake Thackray - The Blacksmith and the Toffee Maker

Have a Jake Thackray song as a bonus.  Jake Thackray was a Yorkshireman, who played in the French song style, the ‘chanson’, the most famous purveyor,or chansonnier being, ironically, the Belgian Jaques Brel.  Despite the French style, he’s very English and there’s a real Yorkshire flavour running through his songs.  It’s a flavour that feels very genuine and fresh to me, avoiding the ‘grim up north’ and Northern TV drama stereotypes.  He was described as the ‘North Country Noel Coward’ and while he didn’t like the label he acknowledged being a part of that English Tradition.  He was quite capable of playing some beautiful straight songs, but became a TV regular in the 1960’s and 1970's with his comic songs.  His guitar playing is quite brilliant, part jazz and part classical, just have a listen to a few of his songs.  A ‘best of Jake Thackray’ album is a worthwhile purchase.  I’ve an extra soft spot for him as he was also an old Durham University graduate and my dad once played on the same bill as him too.  Recent artists he’s said to have influenced include Morrissey, Jarvis Cocker and Alex Turner.

Jake Thackray sadly died in 2002 at the age of 64, following problems with his finances and alcohol.  There’s no-one remotely like him around now.

Rich Hall is a comic who’s a musician, Jake Thackray was a musician who could be funny.  There’s a lot of pleasure to be had in both.

David Millington

25^th April 2011

Nottingham

Day 24 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song that you want to play at your funeral...

Song 24 – A song that you want to play at your funeral...  – ‘Re.Stacks'– Bon Iver

Bon Iver

This seems a whole lot less presumptuous than yesterday's song.  I did know what this song would be for ages, ‘Hallelujah’ by Jeff Buckley, but since the Alexandra Burke X Factor cover and that whole fuss, it’s been ruined for me.  I might pick the Colin Hay song that I chose as my favourite or this by Bon Iver.

It’s far too morbid to dwell on!  It’s a reflective song though, which seems appropriate, and it’s six minutes long which should make it easier for everyone to leave in an orderly manner.

I don't know why I'm worrying, the crying of the thousands of distraught women will drown out the music anyway.

Other rejected songs...

‘If You Don’t Know me by now’ – Simply Red

‘Disco Inferno’ – The Trammps

‘Answering Machine’ – The Replacements

‘Black River’ – Amos Lee

David Millington

24^th April 2011

Nottingham

Day 23 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song that you want to play at your wedding...

Song 23 – A song that you want to play at your wedding...  – ‘Come What May’– Moulin Rouge

Come What May - Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor

Well it seems a little presumptuous to picking a song I’d like to play at my wedding, as it’s an occasion that I very much hope comes to pass one day, but doesn’t look at all on the cards at the moment.  Plus, if I ever get married, it seems unlikely that I’ll have much to do with the day itself, other than being told when to turn up.  When she reads this I’ll be in trouble.  Picking a fight with my imaginary fiancé!  Foolish J

Come What May

This song is big and cheesy and perhaps a little camp too, but if you can’t get away with big and cheesy and camp at a wedding, when can you?  Don’t worry, I will be having a Korean mime and puppet troupe performing Titus Andronicus to add gravity to the day too.  I do really like the song and it’s a duet which seems appropriate.  It's a song I could sing and mean.  Nicole Kidman does look great in this film too.  As does Ewan – how I envy his hair.  I can live with the rest of me, but damn, I wish I had my hair back.

Moulin Rouge isn’t Baz Luhrmann’s best film, although it might be his last good one.  Strictly Ballroom is one of my top five.  It’s funny, full of heart and everyone wins at the end.  Even the baddies are just misguided and kind of loveable.  It’s good to see love triumph in the end sometimes.  I hope he makes a good version of ‘The Great Gatsby’ although it’s hard to see how he’s suited to the material.

David Millington

23^rd April 2011

Nottingham

Day 22 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song that you listen to when you’re sad...

Song 22 – A song that you listen to when you’re sad...  – ‘Dead Flowers’– Caitlin Rose

Caitlin Rose

I’ve not picked many ‘classic’ songs in my list so this is a good time to introduce one.  Dead Flowers is a Rolling Stones song, although I’m going for the Caitlin Rose version from last year.  It’s a fine song and her straight country version really suits it.  I can't find the studio version on Youtube so here's a live version.  She starts a little shaky bit picks it up from there.

Caitlin Rose - Dead Flowers (live)

I don’t think it’s a particularly sad song as it seems to be more about moving on and moving forward rather than dwelling on some past hurt.  It’s always good advice.  Not always easy to do of course.

Country and Western, as I suppose you could call this, has a truly terrible reputation.  While it’s true that the mainstream of country seems to produce some hugely schmaltzy songs and some politically very questionable ones, it’s important to remember that this genre came from folk music.  It’s therefore got some really sound roots, even if it’s often grown beyond recognition.  In recent years alt.country (how the alt. prefix is dated – it’s so 1990s newsgroupy!) or ‘Americana’ has appeared, which has in turn sparked a new folk revival in Britain.  People like The Low Anthem, Wilco, Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch and Drive By Truckers have produced music that’s very heavily influenced by country, if not out and out country.   There’s far too much to be said to fit into this post on that huge subject so I’ll stop there and maybe return to it in a later blog.

Caitlin Rose - Shanghai Cigarettes

Another of Caitlin's songs, this time rocking a little more.

David Millington

22^nd April 2011

Nottingham

Day 21 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song that you listen to when you’re happy...

Song 21 – A song that you listen to when you’re happy...  – ‘I still remember’ – Bloc Party



Bloc Party

I only just noticed that I’ve followed a song called ‘Remember me’ with one called ‘I still remember’.  Amateur psychologists might want to read something into ‘remember me’ being the angry song and ‘I still remember’ being the happy song.  There’s maybe some significance there.  Hmmm!  Of course the ‘song I like to dance to’ was also called ‘remember me’ and that doesn’t fit the pattern so who knows.

Happy seems a much more straightforward and uncomplicated emotion than angry.  Perhaps there’s something in that Tolstoy quote ‘Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’.   Maybe we don’t dwell on happiness in the way we dwell and brood on anger or sadness.  If you’re happy you can just get on with your life.  Misery demands dissection.

Bloc Party - I still remember

Bloc Party are a band that have written a few songs that I absolutely love, but albums that I rarely seem to make it all the way through.  This song, from their ‘Weekend in the City’ album of 2007, isn’t supposed to be particularly happy, more to do with fond memories.  I love the melody, the way the bass carries the song forwards, the almost ‘call and response’ of the singer and backing singers, the chiming guitar.  The lyric doesn’t particularly speak to me but there are some great lines in there that really strike a chord.  It does sum up a feeling of giddy new love, when you’re not quite sure about how the other person feels, when you’re full of that scary nervous excitement. 

It’s a feeling that I’m sure I thought would leave with age, but it hasn’t yet and I don’t suppose that it ever will.  There’s a great line in ‘High Fidelity’ (the book) from the narrator when he talks about meeting a new woman he really fancies and how he’s hoping to bump into her, hoping she’ll call, contriving reasons to talk.  ‘I’m nearly 40, when will I just grow up.’  That’s a total misquote but, as I lent the book to someone, I can’t look it up.  I was reading through some Thomas Hardy poems a couple of months ago looking for a good wedding reading.  I read a number of the love poems he wrote when he was in late middle age and they’re devastating good.  Love is not the province of the young.  And I much prefer Hardy the poet to Hardy the novelist.

Here’s one of them...

I LOOK into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, “Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!”
For then, I, undistrest	5
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.
But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;	10
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide. Thomas Hardy.

Just a quick word about the video.  The lyric to me seems pretty transparently the story of a crush between two teenage boys.  And yet the video doesn’t allude to this at all.  It would have been nice if it could have done, although I do accept this song is about relationships rather than gay or straight relationships.

David Millington

21^st April 2011

Nottingham

Day 20 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song that you listen to when you’re angry...

Song 20 – A song that you listen to when you’re angry...  – ‘Remember Me’ – British Sea Power

British Sea Power

‘Angry’ seems a bit of a blunt word to describe an emotional state.  I don’t often get angry on its own; it’s normally tinged with frustration, bitterness, sadness or something more destructive.  This song is a cathartic one though.   The music and lyrics seems to be railing against something and sometimes ‘something’ is as much focus as you want your anger to have.  There are some great songs that say ‘f**k you’ to unfaithful or requited lovers (‘Like a Rolling Stone’ by Bob Dylan springs to mind) but that’s a bit too precise for when you’ve just had one of those days.  I probably have as many good breakup records as love songs, which is kind of sad, but it’s these intense emotions that often seem to inspire good songwriting and art.  At least they give you something to say.  The grit around which the pearl forms.  But this isn’t one of those songs.  And it’s one I can listen to anytime.

British Sea Power - Remember Me

British Sea Power are an old school sort of an Indie band.  They’re very self-consciously arty, filling their music with references and allusions to obscure people, places and events.  There’s a song on their second album, ‘Open Season’, about Larson B, an Antarctic ice shelf that became detached and floated off.  There aren’t many other bands who’d want to tackle a subject like that.  I think that British Sea Power’s reach sometimes exceeds their grasp.  They’re not as interesting musically as they are in interview but I like their ambition.  They're a great live experience too.

British Sea Power - Oh Larsen B

David Millington

20^th April 2011

Nottingham

Day 19 – The 30 Day Song Challenge – A Song from your favourite album...

Song 19 – A song from your favourite album...  – ‘Cut Your Hair’ – Pavement





Like favourite songs, I don’t really have favourite albums any more but Pavement were my favourite band for about 5 years and this was my favourite album of theirs so we’ll go with it.

Pavement - Cut Your Hair

I could have picked half a dozen songs but ‘Cut Your Hair’ is probably the most fun if you’ve not heard the band before.  It bounces along nicely, the lyrics are fairly typical, with the odd memorable line, the odd line that makes sense and a whole lot of stuff that doesn’t.  Pavement were always criticised for sounding too much like The Fall but I always found it easier to like Pavement records than Fall ones. 

I lent a Pavement album to a classic rock purist once and he hated it.  It was all out of tune, the timing was off and the songs are unfocussed and jump around a lot.  I can't really disagree with anything he said.  The difference is perhaps that I like the unpredictability and the way that the songs sometimes create moments of beauty despite themselves and not because of themselves.  There are some songs in my list of 30 that I think you'd have to be mad not to appreciate.  This is not one of them, but if you do then great.  There's one more of us and one less of them.

David Millington

19^th April 2011

Nottingham

Pavement were the kings of ‘Lo-fi’, a style that was popular in the US at around the time of grunge.  It was similar to grunge in that it was a type of music that anyone could make and that didn’t require you to be a virtuoso to play it.  It was always more art-school and College based than grunge.  It was never as popular, never crossed over and I think has aged pretty well.  Blur were said to have been very much influenced by Pavement prior to their recording their 'Blur' album of 1997.  Other bands you might want to try in this style were Sebadoh, Archers of Loaf, Guided by Voices, Sammy, Small 23 and the Derby based Bivouac.

Guided by Voices - I am a Scientist