9 posts tagged “favorite singles”
A friend once got me an incredible video sampler from the label NETTWERK, featuring songs from the label’s impressive roster. Among the terrific songs was a sentimental pop tune called “You’re In A Mess”, by a group called Falling Joys.
From Wikipedia: Falling Joys was an Australian alternative rock band formed in Canberra in 1985. They were composed of lead singer Suzie Higgie, guitarist Stuart G. Robertson, bass guitarist and vocalist Pat Hayes, and drummer Pete Velzen.
In this particular video, Pat Hayes is singing the lead, and Suzie Higgie is singing the chorus, so I thought the group was fronted by a guy. I was in for a surprsie when I picked up their accompanying album Wish List, and found all the other songs were sung by Suzie!
Despite the title, the song is a bright and rather optimistic song, and the video (which I’ll try to embed if I ever find out how to turn my DVD files into avi format!) is full of flowers and pastel colors, a really sunny clip!
Speak, Speak out of time,
End up pushed aside, mistaken
But still you find trust in yourself
in these dead-end situations
You won’t need people around
With this clown’s act to amuse you all the time
Your life of quicksand’s not dragging me down
These bad days stay hidden inside
Shallow grave that’s getting deepeer
I wonder why you can get out, but you don’t even try!
These Bad Days…
These Bad Days…
These Bad Days, you are justified!
You’re In a Mess This Time…
Working on Over Overdrive
You’re in a Mess This Time
Don’t believe all you hear
Easily misled for the taking
But how could I get myself mixed up with you?
You’re In a Mess This Time…
Working on Over Overdrive
You’re in a Mess …This Time
Now you’ve left it twisting round my mind to understand you
Won’t waste my time when you’re still falling off your high-stool
You tear up all his work for just by laying down beside him
It could’ve worked both ways but still you did it just despite him
One more life that’s well worth saving
One less life of love you’re leaving
I had about three or four different friends who would regularly make cassette tape mixes for me just like John Cusack in that High Fidelity movie, and over the years I’ve been introduced to many, many terrific groups (many of which I have mentioned here on this blog!)!
Now, it doesn’t happen very often, but once in a while there will be a certain group or artist that will appear on ALL my friends mixes at one time. None of these friends know each other, and a couple of them don’t even live here, but somehow, sometimes there is something in the air and ALL my friends will get “turned on” to a new artist simultaneously! Even stranger was that most of the groups didn’t have radio or TV airtime, so most of these songs reached my friends through “the vine” as it were!
Some of the groups I remember appearing simultaneously on two or three cassette mixes at the same time were groups like Suddenly Tammy, Throw That Beat In the Garbage Can, Voice of the Beehive, and more recently groups like Bishop Allen.
Anyway, back in 1991, one of the groups that appeared on a bunch of tape mixes was a insanely wacky and catchy group called Too Much Joy. Apparently, their album Cereal Killers managed to make its way to three friends of mine at the same time, and they in turn, all attempted to turn ME onto it…and I liked it, I liked it! With Songs like “Long Haired Guys From England”, “My Past Lives” and “Crush Story” , this was certainly a GREAT way to be introduced to the band, to be sure!
Afterwards, I would see TMJ appear regularly on tapes and I got to know other songs like their zany take of “Seasons In The Sun” and the downright cracked “Take a Lot Of Drugs”, but the song that really stood out for me and became my favorite track from the group was a ditty called “Sort of Haunted House”.
Although the song appeared on the Mutiny Album somewhere in the middle, my friend Gerg had used the song as the cassette mix closer, and what a melancholy closer it was! Filled with catchy guitar picking, groovy bass riffs and that traditional Dark Humor TMJ was famous for, it instantly won me over the very first time I heard it!
The song is about a guy whose house is haunted by the memory of his late girlfriend, He welcomes her ghost because he loves and misses her, but as the song progresses, we find she got killed by a stray bullet when he shot her lover in their house! He is riddled with guilt and wants to be punished, but when he gets acquitted of the crime, he decides to make amends by killing himself. He wants to join her wherever she is, stating, “I join you now, in Heaven or in Hell”, but in true Too Much Joy black comedy fashion, adds the thought, “I pray HE’S not there as well!” Hahaha!
As I recall, the album Mutiny didn’t fare that well, and many blamed it on Too Much Joy’s change from a zany punky band to a more insightful (if not still decidedly skewered) outlook, but whenever I hear this bittersweet, brilliantly crafted song, I always feel that they were heading in the right direction!
A perfect song to get you all into the Halloween Spirit!
This house is sort of haunted
I’m not the man you wanted
Daytime now, but I dread the coming night
The stuff that you kept hidden
and all the things I didn’t
Laugh at me when I turn out the lights
That lawn looks kinda crazy
since you’ve gone I’m a little lazy
Still hear your voice every time that I come home
This man is somewhat stricken
I feel my heartbeat quicken
smell your perfume on the mouthpiece of the phone
In my sort of haunted house
your ghost in every room
I am not afraid, I am not afraid
In my sort of haunted house
your ghost in every room
I am not afraid
because
I still love you
This house is sort of haunted Im not the man you wanted
scrubbed the floor but the blood-stain’s settled in
I didn’t mean to astound you
that afternoon I found you
Swear to god, I aimed the gun at him!
In my sort of haunted house
your ghost in every room
I am not afraid, I am not afraid
In my sort of haunted house
your ghost in every room
I am not afraid
because
I still love you
The judge acquitted me,
My soul can never be free I’ll join you now in Heaven or in Hell
All will be repaired
When I step from this chair
I only pray that he’s not there as well!
In my sort of haunted house
your ghost in every room
I am not afraid, I am not afraid
In my sort of haunted house
your ghost in every room
I am not afraid
because
I still love you
I still love you
Sometime during the early eighties, a peculiar PV began airing on Night Trax starring a Lucille Ball-ish singer in a very kitschy retro-50’s style video called “They Don’t Know”. I’d later learn the woman was a popular British entertainer named Tracey Ullman.I was directed towards the video by a friend who knew my love of The Beatles, and one day the video came on and he told me, “Hey, you should check this video out- at the end of the song, her boyfriend turns out to be Paul McCartney!” Well, he was right, and I found the video, with Sir Paul as a country bumpkin truck drivin’ fool and bubbly Tracey as his lil’ lady, was so sweet and charming, I fell in love with the song in an instant!
Although no more significant singles came out of Tracey, she’d would later become a household name when she started her TV show The Tracey Ullman Show in 1987 (the skit show most famous for launching the careers of The Simpsons), and she'd go on to star in the award winning HBO shows “Tracey Takes On…” as well!
Fast forward to the year 1994, where Britpop music had taken over my life. My favorite groups at this time were the usual suspects like Belly, Lush, Darling Buds, Sundays, etc, and I was a big collector of these giant CD collections called VOLUME (fill in the number) that featured new and unreleased singles of the latest Britpop outfit!
VOLUME 10 had just arrived, and I immediately snatched it up as it featured both Tiny Monroe and Echobelly as well as a new song from Lush. Listening to the CD, I was plasantly surprised to hear a group called GIGOLO AUNTS doing a VERY Beatlesy rendition of the Tracey Ullman song!! Their version was so jangly and poppy (rather Smithereens-ish in tone), I ran about, getting all of my friends to listen to it!
It has since become one of our very favorite tunes, and the point was never clearer than when my friend Gerg found his copy of VOLUME TEN had oxidized(!) and wouldn’t play any more! He called me in a panic, first making me make sure that MY copy was okay, then begging me to burn him a copy so he could still have the song! I, of course, happily did so!
Fast forward again to around 2001, and I’m listening to a newly released greatest hits package of artist Kirsty MacColl’s work called “Galore!”, a collection I wanted for favorite tunes “Walking Down Madison”, “Innocence”, “I Can’t Stop Killing You”, and the catchy Smiths cover of “You Just Haven’t Earned it yet, Baby”, but was surprised to find what I assumed was another cover of “They Don’t Know”…and found out that the tune was originally written and recorded by Kirsty herself- Tracey Ullman and Gigolo Aunts had been covering KIRSTY all along!
Listening to Kirsty’s version was quite stunning- to hear the “actual version” which sounded so sincere and melancholy really hit home with me. But you know, in their own way, all the versions of the song are terrific, whether it be the Tracey Ullman version, the Gigolo Aunts one or Kirsty’s original song, so I decided to cobble together the three versions of Kirsty’s beautiful, upbeat and utterly unstoppable tune for everyone to lend an ear to- there’s no doubt in my mind that you will like at leat ONE of the versions of this song- it’s just TOO GOOD!
You've been around for such a long time now
Oh maybe I could leave you but I don't know how
And why should I be lonely every night
When I can be with you
Oh yes you make it right
And I don't listen to the guys who say
That you're bad for me and I should turn you away
'Cos they don't know about us
And they've never heard of love
I get a feeling when I look at you
Wherever you go now I wanna be there too
They say we're crazy but I just don't care
And if they keep on talking still they get nowhere
So I don't mind if they don't understand
When I look at you and you hold my hand
'Cos they don't know about us
And they've never heard of love
Why should it matter to us if they don't approve
We should just take our chances while we've got nothing to lose
Baby
There's no need for living in the past
Now I've found good loving gonna make it last
I tell the others don't bother me
'Cos when they look at you they don't see what I see
No I don't listen to their wasted lines
Got my eyes wide open and I see the signs
But they don't know about us
And they've never heard of love
No I don't listen to their wasted lines
Got my eyes wide open and I see the signs
But they don't know about us
And they've never heard of love
©1979
Granted, I've loved everything Tanya has done since her days back in the Throwing Muses, from her first album offering Green through The Real Ramona's Not Too Soon, her work with Kim Deal in both Breeders and This Mortal Coil, and her own projects including Belly and her self-titled albums, but 'Vanilla" is really a rare gem, one of those hard-to-find songs that are worth every minute and penny of your searching, because the reward of getting your hands on the tune is SO heart warming, catchy, full of Tanya Donelly goodness.
Just the other day I was telling my friend Gerg that I consider Tanya one of the finest songwriters out of that whole Alt/Rock movement, in MY opinion , anyway!
The pic on the side isn't the cover for Vanilla, by the way, as most fans will recognize it as the cover to "The Bright Light", but the blurry cover of the Pretty Deep 7" isn't so great, and Tanya looks just fantastic on this cover, so I opted for this one instead!
Man, if there ever was a hall of fame for "Feel Good songs of the 90's", The Sundays ultra-catchy song "My Finest Hour" surely gets my vote! The penultimate track off of the band's debut LP "Reading, Writing and Arithmetic", one feels that they only tacked on "Joy" after it because the end would have been too uplifting for the album to end!
A melody about the eternal hope of finding that special someone in your life, tinged with the self-deprecating bitterness (a la Morrisey) all Sundays tracks seem to have, happy or not!
And who can resist the winsome Harriet Wheeler cat-calls at the end?
British Alternative magazine SELECT would occasionally give away free music cassette samplers of upcoming / rare tracks from groups like Gene, Lucy’s Fur Coat, and Lush as a free bonus shrunk-wrapped with their issues.
On one of these fantastic collections, there was an incredibly catchy, jangly pop-perfect tune called Love of the Bottle, by new indie Britpop group Tiny Monroe. Fast- paced, and sassy, I fell in love with it immediately and knew I wanted to have a “hard” copy on CD (we all know how temporary those cassettes are), and I made a mental note to grab the release when it came out.
When the CD from Tiny Monroe called VOLCANOES came out, however, I was shocked to find the version on the album being QUITE different from the version on the cassette that I’d loved for so long! I was utterly baffled! Was the version on the sampler a single version? Or a work-in-progress? I do know that the LUSH song on the same sampler, a song called “The Childcatcher”, was a demo form, which was ALSO quite different from the LOVELIFE release, so maybe that was it.
The Album version was slower, more rock-oriented, and NJ’s voice was double-tracked during the choruses. The entire structure of the song seemed different, with new guitar breaks and guitar riffing during the second verse. Oh, and there were new vocals overlaid over the lead-out, as well… a LOT more polished, but where was that happy, poppy song?
In any case, although I did like the Volcanoes version and the Album in general (esp. Cream Bun), part of me wasn’t satisfied, knowing I was still missing my favorite song from the band! What I ended up doing was taking that precious SELECT cassette to a friend’s house, and having him rip it to MP3 for me. I know it ain’t “State of the Art”, but at least I can relax, knowing that my song won’t warp or demagnetize out of my life when I try to listen to it!
Hey, if there’s anyone out there who knows exactly what the scoop is with the cassette version, I’d really appreciate if you’d drop me a line!
I first heard of of Lush when their album Spooky conquered the College Radio charts. I remember being impressed because that album sat at the top of the college chart for weeks! But there was so much great new music coming out around that time, I wasn’t even sure I’d heard any of their songs on the radio yet. It wasn’t until months later when a friend brought over the Spooky LP that I discovered I already DID like a song of theirs, the awesome For Love, which had been in rotation while that album was dominating the college airwaves.
About a half a year later, I started working nights at an Art Studio with this really cool guy named Steve, who became my alternative music guru. One night we were talking about musical groups we were fans of, and he asked me, “Do you like 4AD Groups?” I had to pause and think before asking, “Wha…what ‘s 4AD?”
He explained that 4AD was a music label ,a pretty eclectic music label, at that, and he was an absolute fan of the groups in the roster. He was especially appreciative of 4AD’s unique artistic covers, featuring moody dreamlike designs by Vaughan Oliver.
He then proceeded to run down the list of some of his favorite artists on the label, and there were a few that I actually DID like, such as Cocteau Twins, Clan Of Xymox, Pixies, and his favorite group at the time: LUSH!
I mentioned that I DID get to hear the album Spooky, and I did like that song of theirs “For Love”, but didn’t really know too much more about them. He asked if I’d ever seen how the group looked, in particular the lead singer, to which I answered a polite, “No.”.
He smiled and said, “O.K…I’m gonna make you a VHS tape of some of their videos.”
Well, Steve was true to his word, and the very next week, he gave me a videotape with maybe six or seven LUSH videos, and quite frankly, yes, I was blown away! The songs were just terrific, the group looked cool, and the two girl vocalist / guitarists, well…what can I say? They were just beautiful!
The VHS tape Steve made for me had a the PV for “For Love”, as well as a few other videos for songs I only vaguely remembered hearing from Spooky, “Superblast!”, and the ultra-gorgeous “Nothing Natural” vid. He also included earlier songs from the band that I just fell in love with as soon as I heard them, “Sweetness and Light”, and a beautiful video for what has become my favorite clip of Lush, the incredible “De-Luxe”. From that point on, I was hooked! The two LPs that were out, GALA and SPOOKY, became some of our most-played discs at that studio late at night!
When I started working at Tower Records, I met a couple of really cool chicks named Christl and Leigh, and boy, these were some MAJOR Lush fans…I remember their lockers were covered with Lush pics, and as I recall, Christl was even in the Lush fan club, or at least had access to the fan club letters (which printed LYRICS, a must for the burgeoning Lush Fan!), and she really widened my scope of the world of Miki and Emma! (Christl also was a big TORI AMOS fan along with me, and she even introduced me to the band IVY, as mentioned in a previous post!) It was a wonderful time, because I made friends with these big fans just as Lush was set to release their NEW album, SPLIT! There was a LOT of excitement that year, I tell you!
Not only was there new LUSH music to listen to and learn, but there also was a whole slew of new Lush VIDEOS to get and love! Then the crowning present that year came when my friend Herb visited a Music store in Pennsylvania and bought me a COMPLETE Bootleg LUSH CONCERT! This was the famous Texas show, and I was simply blown away. To see them performing an entire concert was incredible, the quality was A+ perfect, and Oh My did Miki look just GORGEOUS! What a Gift!
It’s probably around this point that I morphed into a manic “must have it all” Lush fan, and I soon discovered there were TONS of Lush songs out there, tucked onto flip-sides, One-off compilations and EP bonus tracks, that needed to be acquired! Soon I was picking up different 4AD single variations, collections like “Alvin Lives in Leeds” and those terrific “Volume” series for collectible Lush stuff!
There were these three cool musicians I knew (Ray, Jon and Misti, by name!), who loved Lush as much as I did, and they invited me to play in a side-band project they had which did very Miki Berinyi-ish shoegazer music! I happily agreed, and for a while there, we were rockin some pretty nice tunes! We even did out version of “I wanna Be Your Girlfriend”! Ah, happy times!
In 1996, one of my dreams came true when LUSH announced they were coming to Hawaii to play in a little venue called “Nimitz Hall” to promote their brand new CD, LOVELIFE! Me and my friend Larry made our way down to that gig, and MAN, we were not disappointed. We got choice viewing positions on a balcony that looked right above the club stage, the scene couldn’t have been better if we were sitting front row!!!!
Miki and the gang started the show with “Heavenly Nobodies”, and I immediately started laughing, for this was their way of saying to the adoring crowd, “Don’t worship us-We may not live up to your standards!”
They ran through their catalog of hits, but the song that really knocked our socks off was their blistering performance of “Runaway”…the song was just POUNDING!, Miki and Emma’s soaring vocals never more spot-on! And of course I don’t have to say how great those two gals looked!
Miki had this habit of putting her guitar pick in her mouth whenever she changed guitars, and a lucky friend of mine managed to catch the pick when she flicked it into the audience. The next day, he showed it off, and I was in awe as I examined the pick – Miki’s pink lipstick was smudged into all the cracks of the “Fender” relief logo!!!
Sadly, as everyone knows, Chris would take his life a few weeks after this gig, and the wonderful group of LUSH would separate for good. When I think about it, I feel so blessed that I got to see them, because a few weeks difference and the concert I saw would never have happened. That makes me savor my memories even more. And even though the group is gone, I’m still collecting their stuff, only now instead of looking forward to the new releases, It’s acquiring those old/rare/unreleased/bootleg stuff still waiting to be discovered! Every time I acquire a new collectible or song (boy, ya shoulda been there when I finally got a copy of “Sweetie”!), it takes me back and reminds me what a fine group Lush was, and still is!
An uplifting and encouraging song, telling you that everything's gonna work out alright, with its infectious "Groovin" Young Rascals vibe!
"One day, things won't seem the same way, I know!"
While the “newer” version of Thoughtforms became (to me) the ‘real” version of said song, Scarlet’s two versions both had different things to offer for me. The newer version was more polished and dreamy (and bears a slight resemblance to “Monochrome”) while the ealier one was more “raw” in sound, almost live. It was THIS version that I slowly found myself attached to, especially during the choruses where Emma’s Guitar chords sound positively sonic following the lines “But What’d you say” and “When nothing’s meant? ”, “What’d You Do” and “When all is Spent?”.The tone of the guitars have this “british” feel to it and I for some reason, it reminds me of “Sparks” by The Who,,,
In fact, the huge, dreamy guitar washes during the lines “No one to fall…in love” and the subsequent spirally guitar picking behind the lines “Facless, faithless night…vanity’s delight” all have decidedly Townshend-ish flavouring, at least in my opinion, and that’s a major Who fan talking here!
Anyway, one Sunday, MTV's 120 minutes debuted (among other things) Saint Etienne’s brand new video for their song "You're In A Bad Way", and I was just blown away. The song was so catchy, the lead singer was so gorgeous, and the video was so kitschy!
The following Monday night at work, I excitedly gushed to Steve,"Wow, did you see that new St. Etienne song? Its so awesome, the lead singer is such a babe", etc, etc...” As you may have guessed, I was really taken in by this video!
Then Steve slowly smiled and pulled a CD out of his backpack...What was is? Why, it was Saint Etienne's new CD "So Tough", featuring their new song..."You're In A Bad Way"!! Sure enough, he was right on top of things, and had just purchased it earlier that day!
Of course I went nuts and we listened to that album over and over again that night while we worked! After that I became a big St. Etienne fan myself, and purchased my own copies of both Foxbase Alpha AND So Tough! Not to mention falling in love with Sarah Cracknell…(and who hasn’t)!
The lead-in to You’re in a Bad Way on the CD is a snippet of dialog (that I later learned was from the classic Billy Liar movie) where some gent says, “Of course London’s a big place…It’s a VERY big place, Mr. Shadrach…a man could lose himself in London. Lose Himself. LOSE Himself. LOSE…HIMSELF…IN LONDON!!” This was just a terrific opening, I thought, and I always included it whenever I put "You’re In A Bad Way" onto Cassette compilations I made for myself and friends.
Years later, in the advent of burned CD compilations and Ipod playlists, I was horrified to find out that the Billy Liar dialog was cut in half between "You’re In A Bad Way" and the previous track for “Avenue”. So unless I included “Avenue”, the song started with only the very last line of “Lose himself in London!”( kind of like the above Scopitone video clip’s track opening)…
I didn’t know what to do til I turned to my friend Saburo, who managed to record the track for me with the entire passage intact by recording the snippet at the end of Avenue and the body of You’re in a Bad Way and then ripping a brand new MP3 of the song! Yatta!
Just the other week, I was putting together another CD collection, and while setting up the track lists for the burner, saw that Saburo had written in the MP3 track info:
“Of course London’s a big place…It’s a VERY big place, Mr. Shadrach…a man could lose himself in London.
Lose Himself. LOSE Himself. LOSE…HIMSELF…IN LONDON!!”
Ahahahahahahha!
Long Live Saint Etienne!
Someone recently told me Sarah Cracknell reminded him of Scarlett Johanssen. This comment about Sarah’s looks got me to remembering about a time when a friend of mine told me she didn’t like how Sarah looked because she "didn’t imagine her looking like that”. My friend had assumed that since Saint Etienne were named after a city in France that the lead singer must look like Corinne Drewery of Swing Out Sister fame or something…
Imagine her surprise when she saw pretty Sarah all Blond and veddy British!
The classic scene in Billy Liar where Billy utters the famous “London” lines..
In the times of Mass Media, the Internet and Itunes, it’s hard to remember a time when you could hear a song on the radio a few times, fall in love with it, and never hear the song again!
But that’s just how it was back in the day. A song that you loved on the radio might be completely unattainable as far as locating a single, especially if it wasn’t brand new or if it was only a minor hit. Your local record store might have only brought in a few copies of the song, and once it was gone, that was it! All you could do was hope to hear it again on the radio, and if it was a one-hit wonder...well, those chances were slim!
There were so many songs I can remember loving and never being able to get a copy of the single for my own collection. “Crackerbox Palace” by George Harrison was one, and I remember trying desperately to get a copy of “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder, all to no avail!
Anyway, back in 1980 or so, there was this rocking, poppy song that they would play on the radio every once in a while, and I just loved it. The group was called “Spider”, and the single was a song I believed to be called “It’s A Mystery”, due to it’s catchy refrain. I remember trying to find the 45 at my store, but no luck. Just when I resigned myself to only hearing it on the radio, it seemed to disappear! Suddenly, I never heard the song again!
Years later, I was with a bunch of school friends, and we were talking about cool songs we liked. I casually mentioned liking a song that no one seemed to know, by a group called Spider, and began singing “ooh, it’s a mystery, do you know what I’m talking about?” I was quite surprised when one of my friends immediately said “ Yeah, “New Romance”! My sister has their album!”
I was instantly hopping around, saying that we HAD to get to his house so that I could tape a copy for myself! Yes, this is back in the days of cassette recording, friends. And so it was for the first time I was able to see the actual vinyl myself!
Hearing the song again really brought back memories for me! It was just as good as I remembered, and we all listened to it, wondering why this great group never made it big!
As an adult, I was happy to find they had finally gotten around to releasing their two albums onto a CD, and so without further ado, let us take a listen to the wonderful sounds of SPIDER!
New Romance (It’s A Mystery)
I fell in love today
Never thought I'd feel this way
Been so tired of one-night stands
Now I'm ready for a new romance
Ooh, it's a mystery, do you know?
I can't figure it out
Ooh, it's a mystery, do you know
What I'm talking about
Do you love me?
Do you want me?
Maybe it's crazy to give it a chance
I think I like this new romance
It was only yesterday
That love felt so far away
Then you smiled and asked me to dance
Now I'm ready for a new romance
Ooh, it's a mystery, do you know?
I can't figure it out
Ooh, it's a mystery, do you know
What I'm talking about
Do you love me?
Do you want me?
Maybe it's crazy to give it a chance
I think I like this new romance
Ooh, it's a mystery, do you know?
I can't figure it out
Ooh, it's a mystery, do you know
What I'm talking about
Do you love me?
Do you want me?
Maybe it's crazy, give it a chance
I think I like this new romance
Do you love me? (I'm looking for)
Do you want me? (a new romance)
Do you love me? (I'm gonna find)
Do you want me? (a new romance)
Do you love me? (I'm looking for)
Do you want me? (a new romance)