Song of the Year (Daniel)

Dear James,

Well, what with you in Dorset this weekend and me off to You're A Guy on Wednesday, it's that time to put on your nostalgic thinking cap and decide what was your song of the year. It doesn't have to be a song released this year (God knows, I haven't been aware of a song released in the same year since 1991), just the song that means the most to you now at this juncture in the light of the events of the past twelve months.

First of all, special mentions for also-rans Don't Stop Me Now, Potential Futures, The Power of Love and Everybody needs Somebody, special last-minute guests at your wedding; to Cold War Kids' We Used to Vacation, still top of my i-tunes pops but strictly speaking, last year's song; and especially to Andrew Bird's Heretics, a song that was with me for much of the duration and which i-tunes says is my most heard song of this year.

But in 3rd place, and also a contender for best cover that was better than the original, Love's My Little Red Book. The perfect break-up song, and the (hopefully) first song in the film, Songs of Bacharach and David. Here's the Manfred Mann version. Love supposedly worked it out after seeing the film just twice. And Burt Bacharach hated them for it, partly because they turned it into a minor key. Doesn't the original sound kind of minor? And if not, is this the first picardy third over a whole song and its cover version?

In 2nd place, While You Were Sleeping by Elvis Perkins. The night Josefina came round for the second time, she was late as usual and I was killing time scouring youtube for new things to listen to. I came across a Cold War Kids interview where they recommended two acts: Dr Dog, the band through which I got into Cold War Kids, and Elvis Perkins. I'd just started listening to this video when the doorbell buzzed, and there was Josefina. James, I lay with her that night, for the first time. We didn't sleep together, I had to go and catch a flight to Rio at 4am, but there was definitely a fair bit of sex there. And not for the last time.

And in 1st place, and here we get soppy, Postcards from Italy by Beirut. Josefina and I sang this together lots on the ukulele. In a parallel universe, there´s a video on youtube of us singing this at my birthday party, because in this universe the batteries ran out in my camera at that precise moment. If and when we get married, this will be our song.

Perfect Day

Our recent talk of covers which were better than the originals and Lou Reed butchering all his songs led me to reluctantly seek out this video. Eleven years on, it still makes my toes curl, but far less than the version which Radio One DJs did. Do you think the producers sat with Lou Reed going "Go on Lou, just sing one line properly. Please?" Do you think Lou Reed was a precursor to Milli Vanilli, and never actually sang any of his songs, which were in fact written and recorded by Brian Epstein? Me too. Still, even the sound of Lou Reed stripping his own classics of any recognisable melody is infinitely preferable to hearing Bono sing anything.

Then we get to play the "Name the People Who Used to be Famous" game.
1. Dunno. Girl from Morcheeba? 2. David Bowie, letting himself down badly. 3. Dunno. Girl from Coors? 4. Elton John, well-suited to this kind of rubbish. 5. Boyz One. Or is it Wetlife? 6. That awful opera singer woman. 7. Token reggae person. 8. Do you think Bono had a stipulation in his contract that he got at least two lines? 9. Is it Pavorotti? I also thought he sang in this? 10. The woman from M People. I'm bored with this game already and want to watch this instead:

Do you remember when we were living in the 1990s and thought it was the best decade ever? How wrong we were. Doesn't this song sound like it was meant to be a joke, like when indie bands cover Baby One More Time? Wouldn't you love to hear M People covering other Small Faces songs. "He's always there, when I need some speeeeeeeeed". "Oh, life, is just a bowl of All Braaaaaaaan!"

And I Love Her

Dear Daniel,

Rick Wakeman is currently (2:21pm, 18th December 2008) on 5Live basically busking tunes listeners are asking for. Unfortunately for Rick, he doesn't appear to know a great deal of them. He also just made a big deal of going to a music school and then was asked what a Picardy third was and admitted he didn't know. I guess that's not unusual, but it's more bizarre when Wikipedia includes Roundabout by Yes among the four big modern hits to feature one. Things aren't going well for Rick. He's been using a celeste sound on his keyboard, until Simon Mayo told him he was "turning everything to cheese." I wonder which guest pulled out at the last minute?

That list: And I love Her, Roundabout, Sweet Child o Mine and Black Sabbath's N.I.B.

Watching this bit from a Hard Days Night through again, I wonder why it took so many years for TV to copy the Richard Lester wobbly-camera bits that still look good here even though every show on the box has been doing it since 1995. Have you seen The Bill nowadays? Gor Blimey! Even my gran accepts shakeycam!

Dear James,

As an indication of how busy I am, it's taken me 22 hours to respond to this post. That's shocking blogging. Thanks for that clip of The Bill. Hasn't it changed these days? Although still with unfeasible storylines where accomplishes hand over the loot in broad daylight in the middle of the Arndale Centre. They're just trying to get on TV Burp, aren't they?

Anyway, music. We should probably explain to our reader that a Picardy third is when a song in a minor key changes to major. One of my favourite moments of the 1990s was when the Prime Minister donned a Davey helmet and went down a pit. There's nothing so finer than that change from Major to miner.

Sunday Morning

Dear James,

Not the one by The Velvet Underground, but the one by Bob Marley and the Wailers from before Bob got rastas. Doesn't he look very un-Boblike? I discovered this on pandora.com before they took it away from me, an event now 18 months old but from which I have never recovered, otherwise I wouldn't be writing blog posts about it. This post cleverly links to my other blog, which has stuff on pandora and Bob Marley, just so you can sit and flip back and forth between the two all day.

After hearing it on pandora, I told Garry I'd found a Bob Marley song that was really good, actually. He said there was no such thing. He left Buenos Aires before I could show him this. That too was 18 months ago. Oh, when will the grieving end?

Still, nice tune, eh?


Dear Daniel,

Lovely. I like Mr Brown. Not the drugs, the song.

Fill Your Heart

Dear James,

Re: covers which were better than the originals, I offer this 1968 Tiny Tim tune for your consideration. Once you've got passed the silly intro, the rest is interesting in how the phrasing of the words is different, the Bacharach style arrangement and the way it sounds way more like the 60s than Bowie's version, even though this song only came out three years before Hunky Dory. Bowie beats this version with the pace of his version, the sparcity of piano, and the way things build up before the saxophone.

Bowie recorded the cover as a last minute replacement for "Bombers", thus making Hunky Dory a far better album and consigning Bombers to the b-side of... no, I've got that wrong, it was a promo single in the US, backed by Eight Line Poem. Imagine getting home with that single, very disappointing. Fill Your Heart was written by Paul Williams, who wrote the Bugsy Malone soundtrack and any number of Carpenters' songs, and Biff Rose, a banjo-toting standup comedian, it says here. Here he is, selling used cars.

Dear Daniel,

Fascinating. I didn't even know "Fill Your Heart" was a cover, much least all that other stuff. Biff Rose sounds like he could be either endlessly interesting or endlessly irritating. A good firm start to this occasional series.

I'm with you on Bombers. An amusing trifle at best. A bit shriek-y, I always think. Crikey, and it even seems that way stood next to Fill Your Heart: "furrr-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE."

Paris 1919

Dear Daniel,

You've mentioned Hallelujah on a couple of occasions now and I've been firming up my knowledge on it for work since it will be Christmas #1 and people are asking about it. So, there's the Leonard Cohen version you posted and the Jeff Buckley one which many people think exists in the very small category of songs which were done better as a cover than they were by the artist who wrote them (which we could take on as a irregular theme here). But there is the version which some think influenced the Jeff Buckley arrangement and it's the version which was performed by John Cale.

Doing the research, I'm in danger of having heard the song itself too much. Coupled with the fact that simply to be in the UK over the next month and hear various versions on repeat could destroy much of the love for the track that existed in the first place, here's John Cale's Paris 1919. It's better performed on that album than it is here live, but judging by any Lou Reed concert ever, there must be an unwritten rule that all former members of the Velvet Underground change vocal phrasing and mumble while on stage.

Dear James,

It's at times like this that it feels good to be away from England. The concept of a Christmas Number One doesn't exist here, in fact not even the concept of Number One exists, and life is much the simpler for it. There's a Number Ten and he's called Diego, but that's about it. No X Factor, per se, no novelty records and no incessant in-your-face Christmas stuff on the telly. There's Dancing for a Dream, the pornographic version of "Strictly Come Dancing", but I just ignore it exists.

I didn't mean to keep mentioning Hallelujah, it's like haemorrhoids, it irritates me and so I can't stop myself bringing it up in conversation. Do you have any album to recommend from John Cale? Paris 1919, I s'pose. I thought I'd bought one of his a few years ago, but it turned out to be JJ Cale and I never got over the disappointment.

Canción Para Mi Muerte

Dear James,

I was going to post this as a link from the other Sui Generis song below, but this video is just so good I have to post it here and now. If you don't like it, I don't think I can be your friend anymore.

Dear Daniel,

It's alright! I like it! We can still be friends. I liked it the best on that compilation you made for me. I remember us listening it together at one point and you telling me who it was. Immediately, I forgot, while Doug Stegmeyer remained. So I'm glad you've brought it up again, thank you. What's a snow clone?

Dear James,

A snowclone is a set phrase that can be adapted for the purposes of comedic humour, such as including "moment of zen" anywhere you like, the phrase "no xs were hurt in the making of this y" and "x is the new y", as in that popular mid-70s dictum, "Stegmeyer is the new Moon". I have a friend called Stegmayer, you know? I remember on the compilation tape this song segued into Cat Stevens' Father and Son. That was one big hippierama.

Las increibles aventuras del señor tijeras

Dear James,

I was going to do a post about the UK Christmas number one, in light of that wonderful Alexandra girl's victory on Opportunity Knocks. I read in The Guardian that she "literally cried". Literally! Can you believe that? She didn't just cry cry, she literally cried. Anyway, then I saw the video to that evil satirist Peter Kay's Christmas song and only made it half way through before switching it off in disgust/boredom/the need to get to bed early. So I'm going to tell you about Sui Generis. No, not Genesis.

You'll know Sui Generis from a tape I sent you many moons ago which included their Cancion para mi muerte, or Song for my Death for those of us that don't have Spanish degrees. Well, last Saturday I found myself in the all-too familiar situation of an Argentinian asking me if I liked any Argentinian music, looking offended at the degree of negativity in my answer and then spending the rest of the evening trying to play me something I might like. This time it was one of Josefina's 297 cousins, Eduardo, and finally an Argentinian came good.

Las increibles aventuras del señor Tijeras, or the Incredible Adventures of Mr. Scissors, for those of us who thought a maths and chemistry degree would serve us well in life, being written in 1974 is about censorship, as you'll guess from the scissor sound effects at the start of the song. Taken from their third and penultimate album, the sound marks a change from the "hippies with a flute sitting round a campfire" aesthetic of their first two albums, and is all the better for it. In this respect, singer and songwriter Charlie (later Charly) Garcia is very much a latter day South American Dylan, although don't tell Argentinians that as they'll claim he's far huger than Dylan ever was, and indeed anyone else.

The things that made me like this song instantly are: 0:23 der der der der der der der der! 1:33 the "I'm bored of this musical direction, let's change in mid-song" moment of zen. Charlie had just got himself a new Moog from the States and couldn't wait till the next album to use it. My apologies for my use of the phrase "moment of zen", by the way. That's what we linguists call a snowclone. And then 2:45 when the synths come in, just when you thought the big musical change was at 1:33. One of Charlie/Charly's main influences was Procol Harum and Vanilla Fudge. I'm glad somebody was influenced by those bands.

Dear Daniel,

What wonderful, psychedelic nonsense. I love it. To me, there seems to be a gentle open-mindedness to this era of bizarre mixtures between Beatles-style harmony and avant-garde wierdness. A kind of engaging naivity which was completely missing from 70s prog rock, who is essentially the same hairdresser attempting the same job but with shinier scissors and an arrogant air of, "Who was the last person to cut this?".

Sweating Bullets

Dear James,

The Megadeth video catalogue is ripe with humour. I could've posted the brilliant "Peace Sells...but who's buying?" or the equally comical "Go To Hell", but I chose this one for Dave Mustaine's impeccable impression of a man pretending to be mad.

The song also begs the question: why does Dave Mustaine sing like a man on the toilet trying to force one out?

I was at Rock World in Manchester in 2004 when this song came on. A very hirsute gentleman got very excited and launched into his very own Mustaine impersonation. As far as party pieces go, it was right up there with my dad reciting Vincent Price's lines from Thriller.

As a youth, Dave Mustaine was a drug dealer and one of his clients paid him in Judas Priest and Iron Maiden records. Try slipping a "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" LP into a club and exchanging it for a couple of pills. Works every time.

Dave Mustaine is most fondly remembered, of course, for his cameo appearance in the comedy "Some Kind of Monster". Mustaine claims he withdrew his permission to use the footage of him in the romcom, and says they edited out the bit where Lars Ulrich storms out of a room crying. Poor Lars. Megadeth's Wikipedia page has a list of all the people Dave Mustaine has feuds with. It's a long list. Poor Dave.

Dear Daniel,

I thought Dave Mustaine came across as quite needy in that film. I felt for him. I also notice that he repeatedly looks a lot like Thom Yorke in the video you posted. Not always, just repeatedly. I would point out certain times when this happens but that would mean listening to the song through again and, frankly, Megadeth already owe me far too many wasted minutes.

Prelude / Angry Young Man

Dear James,

I spent yesterday afternoon listening to Billy Joel's Turnstiles album and smoking pot in the sunshine. If there's a better way to spend a Saturday, I've yet to find it. This live performance has much to recommend it: The way it takes a heavy-metalesque two minuutes before the lyrics start; Billy Joel's nonchalance, playing the piano one-handed while chatting with the crowd (if you read his lips, he's saying "look at this: one-handed! Do you want to meet me later?");

Once again, as in the Van Halen video, what's with the huge drumkit? It's not as if Billy Joel bothers to get a 150-key piano. I can understand that if you have eight tom toms you can do a couple of fills in the songs (there's a completely pointless one at 3:57), but is that really cost-effective? I'd invest my money in drumsticks. You can never have too many drumsticks.

How often to you see rock stars wearing suits like that these days? Was he trying to do an updated version of The Beatles' thing? Or had he come straight from a board meeting and not had time to change? And why does a fan hand him a pizza at the end of the song? Oh, hang on, it's a frisbee.

Dear Daniel,

As you know, I was a huge fan of Billy Joel at the age of 7 when An Innocent Man came out. At the time, as far as music was concerned, I liked only him and the Beatles so I may have made the suit-link without realising it. Naturally, I know all the answers to your questions. I also still know the name of the drummer. I know where and on which album sleeve you are able to find a picture of him wearing a watch around his ankle. Dammit, I even know the name of the saxophonist who is performing backing vocals. Compare this, for example, with the fact that I cannot remember any of the history I was taught at school. This is not an exaggeration. I can't even remember being taught history although I can remember the teachers who apparently did it, so there must have been at least some attempt on their part. I would probably be a better person if I knew more about the Peasant's Revolt and less about bloody Doug Stegmeyer.

This song is also on the live album Kohyept, and I hadn't thought seriously about that record for over 20 years until this summer, when I realised on a street in Irkutsk that it is supposed to be pronounced "concert".

Girls, Girls, Girls

Dear James,

Ah, 1980s MOR and naked women. John Spencer, watch and learn. Mötley Crüe are very touchy about their videos, all the versions of Girls Girls Girls are unavailable in my country and they've disabled embedding for this one too, so I'm obliged to illustrate this piece with a photo of Crüe drummer, Tommy Lee. (Readers please note: I do not own the copyright to this photo and it is used here merely for educational purposes.)

Watching this when I was 14 was the height of excitement. My neighbour Matt Blundell had recorded it off Raw Power and we watched that, the nudey bits from Monty Python films, and some dodgy interview off The Word, and then we had something to remember for later. We made our own entertainment in those days.

Aren't Mötley Crüe hard? I'm very impressed with their big bikes, their leather gear, and the way they gang up on an unarmed man minding his own business in a strip club (0:38). Notice at (1:38) the camera cuts to Vince Neill in the crowd, and he looks like just another stripper. Also good to see what a consummate professional Mick Mars was (3:32). He somehow finds himself in the strippers' dressing room, surrounded by ladies in lace, and he just lights up a cig and carries on playing his solo. Musical masturbation, some would call it.

The follow up to Girls Girls Girls was Bikes Bikes Bikes, featuring the boys riding around on women while some tarted-up Harley Davidsons flaunted their assets around a dance pole. The video was less successful.

Bassist Nikki Sixx (all these names are made up, one suspects) officially died in December 1987 after a heroin overdose. He was brought back to life with an adrenaline shot to the heart. Like that lady in the film. Sadly, this has never led to any kind of "Nikki is Dead" conspiracy theories.

Afro

Dear Daniel,

There is a reason. I've been plugged in by Virgin. So I was searching for "Plug Me In" by Add n To (x). I thought you might like the fact that it featured a porn star. Unfortunately, it's just too damn smutty for YouTube to allow so the result is less than happy. It's here though. Anyway, I remember John Spencer did something with them at some point and that reminded me I haven't heard Afro for a long time.

His ability to build a reasonably successful career from shouting "Blues explosion!" repeatedly while flinging himself at a theremin is quite something. God knows, I've tried to do the same. My techniques were "shuddering" and "sweating" - both of which mirror the complexity of John Spencer's ideas but which failed to bring me the level of praise dumped on this man in the late 90s.

I am willing to admit that his moves, if not more cool than mine, were a bit more socially acceptable.

Dear James,
That's positively filthy. In fact I watched the plug-me-in video 2 hours ago and it's taken me that long to get back to here. It was a wet and wild voyage. So it would appear that any two women with a polaroid and a dildo can now be popstars? That's very empowering. It's like Tatu all over again. I've told Josefina, if she can find a friend I'll lend her the piano.

Oh, and John Spencer? Meh. Didn't you make me go and see him at the Leadmill? He was rubbish then as well. No MOR and no naked women, what kind of video is that?

Mad Dogs and Englishman

Dear James,
Let it not be said that this blog is a sad 70s throwback by two middle-aged men trying desperately to be ironic by pretending to like dodgy MOR tunes which they actually do like because they crossed the fine line of irony many years ago and are now clinging onto a vinyl copy of Tigermilk as their last shred of musical credibility. I've heard people say that about this blog.

No, this blog can also be a sad 50s throwback too, and who better for our first glimpse of the days when people wore dinner suits for light entertainment television and talked proper than that staunch heterosexualist, Noël Coward. I'm only pretending to like him because Freddie Mercury was compared to him so often. But look at how fast he sings! He's like Eminem in a tux.

Some interesting facts about Coward I cribbed off Wikipedia:
-He was a spy and in the Nazis' Black Book. That's their book of people to kill, not to be confused with their Red Book of hot flings from their decadent Weimar days.
-His chum George VI tried to knight him but Churchill blocked it because he thought Coward was a bit of a whoopsy. Has Graham Norton been knighted yet? No. And it's all that homophobe Blair's fault.
-Peter Collinson, Italian Job director, was an orphan at The Actors' Orphanage, of which Noël Coward was president.
-Noël Coward's neighbour in Jamaica was Ian Fleming.
-The Doctor Who novel "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" features a version of Coward who has allied himself with alien poodles and gained time travel technology. I wish I'd made that up, but apparently it's true.

Dear Daniel,

You'll have to shoulder that confidence-crisis yourself. I take no responsibility for the massive splurge of 70s nonsense for which Genesis was the, er, genesis. And bearing in mind I'm pretty sure something's going to get me by the time I'm fifty, I was middle aged at 25. I'm currently sliding pleasantly towards dotage.

I know virtually nothing about Noel Coward, beyond him being wonderful in the Italian Job. And the chorus to this. I didn't realise it was quite such a performance piece. It really only just manages to stay clear of rampant xenophobia, tricking you into thinking it's a harmless, self-effacing jibe at the niavity of Imperial toffs and at the same time slipping in a few stereotypes and ubba-jubba laffs at African dialects like a street magician with a charming smile who's secretly going for your wallet.

Eminem in a tux indeed.

Border Song

Dear James,

Holy Moses! Elton John's coming to Buenos Aires on 22 January and I'm in the same quandary as when Queen+bloke came in November. Do I go and stand in a football stadium watching an act I've loved for years doing a poor impression of an act I've loved for years, or do I sit at home grumbling? My main worry with going to see Elton is that most of the set will be the post-1974 dross, with the worthy exception of This Train Don't Stop Here Anymore, which is really Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in disguise. Why is it we can put a man on the moon, but we can't create some kind of concert experience where a hologram video is projected in a small club-type arena of the acts we wished we'd seen in the 70s? Everyone could go in skin-tight flares and yellow wollen sweaters, a fine time would be had by all and the artiste in question need never know. My quandary is compounded by Elton´s support act, the inimitable James Blunt. Going to the gig would imply impeccable timing in order to miss Blunt but catch Elton. What would Moses do?

I like this bluesy version of the song. There are other versions on youtube with playback of the dull choir. This version grooves all over the place like Travolta on Ice, and is all the better for it. I was going to say that Elton looks quite conservatively dressed in this video. Then I noticed that big glittery bow tie jutting into his chin.

A boring musicians' note: notice the similarities between Elton John's and Freddie Mercury's chord sequences on the piano. Lots of use of rails (do we call them rails?) from F upwards, via the indispensable F#dim. I love F#dim. You can go anywhere after F#dim.

Jump

Dear James,
Tight trousers, big hair and a man playing a guitar which he thinks is a keyboard. No wonder we all loved Van Halen back in the day. And we weren't the only ones. VH1 decided this was the 82nd best rock song of the century. There's no arguing with that. Although I've got Pablo sitting next to me with half a sandwich in his mouth arguing that Charisma by Kiss is the best rock song of the 20th century. The people I have to work with...

Eddie Van Halen is a mystery unto himself. For the whole half of this video he does the worst keyboard miming act ever. That's a guitar, Eddie! Then for the solo he tries to play every single instrument on stage, failing only because he can't work out what those funny hollow drums are for.

David Lee Roth, meanwhile, does his Pamela Anderson impersonation. Even Pamela can't do the jumping splits that well. Have you ever heard DLR's cover of Californian Girls? You have now, and you wish you hadn't.

Pablo's just told me that it wasn't really Eddie Van Halen, but the bass player who was the musical genius in the band, playing all the instruments and managing everything behind the scenes like a puppet master. I believed him, I'm gullible like that.

Anyway, I was watching that video at work, my excuse being that I was stealing lines from the song to put in my characters' mouths. Until I realised I was giving them lines from an entirely different song called "Jump". Can you see why I would've got confused?

10538 Overture

Dear James,

This blog is so going to turn into a dodgy 70s rock blog. In a bid to turn the tide, here's some dodgy 70s rock. Pablo told me about this one, in a conversation about celloes and Ozzy Osbourne. He reckons Jeff Lynne sounds like Ozzy. I reckon I might start cello classes again. Jeff Lynne in this video looks like he'd always wanted to do a Christmas single like Wizzard. I bet Ozzy Osbourne's always wanted that too.

Have you read the bit in "17" where Bill Drummond says the bands that try to copy The Beatles are always the worst bands, just look at ELO and Oasis. Do you ever find ELO start to sound like Oasis? I do with this one, but less so with the likes of The Diary of Horace Wimp.

No Reply At All

Dear Daniel,

See? I can't be a music snob. I've posted Genesis. It's impossible to be a music snob and publically admit knowledge of their post-Gabriel work. Although clearly the only time it is acceptable to listen to this song is when you are making the point: I haven't replied to you because Virgin are too busy to plug me in before Thursday. Did you notice I wrote "work" before? I did that because I bet they call it work. Except Phil. Phil doesn't call it work. It's all just a joke to Phil. Tiny Phil. You see how small he is next to a regular-sized rack tom? You think it's a trick of perspective or some 80s bluescreen wizardry until Phil playfully knocks his floor tom at 21" to prove it's no lie. He doesn't care. It's all a joke to Phil. (Except homelessness.)

Dear James,

Good to have you back. I thought you were going to post a Lamb Lies Down on Broadway clip there. Should've known with you. I would've thought Little Phil would call it work more than the other two. Probably because the other two now have real day jobs to support their post-Genesis poverty. How do you know he doesn't use special extra-large toms? Can you imagine if other bands' singers had left and the drummers had taken over lead vocals? Roger Taylor? Lars Ulrich? It would've been carnage.

Oh, sweet bass playing, Mr. Mechanics. (Is he Mr Mechanics or is the other one?)

By the way, you can reply to the other posts below by logging in and clicking on that little pencil. Yesterday my co-writer Pablo told me he'd been listening to ACDC and Flash and the Pan for years and never knew they were related. The power of this blog! Of course, I told him that trivia junket myself. He doesn't read this blog.

Hallelujah

Dear James,

There was an uproar on one of the blog pages of The Guardian about an X Factor contestant covering Hallelujah. Or they did a Leonard Cohen day on X Factor. Or something. Anyway, everyone was very tetchy about the king of grumpiness being bastardised in such a callous and commercial way. Then there was an argument about Jeff Buckley's version being better. Then someone said it had 14 verses. Then someone said Jeff Buckley was a whining girl. The thread of the original argument was lost shortly after.

I don't think it's such a bad thing that X Factor warblers do Hallelujah. As you can see from this appearance on a Japanese chat show, Leonard Cohen isn't that arsed either. I think the thrust of the argument on the Guardian blog was down to the old chestnut of people wanting to protect the secret songs that are special to them and unknown to the masses. If you're mum starts buying Leonard Cohen compilations to go alongside her James Blunt and that David chap who did very well a few years ago, you have to leave Lenny behind and find some other musical curmudgeon. And that means getting into Nick Cave.

Why is that we stop listening to stuff we like when everyone else starts liking it? Are we snobs? Are we music Nazis? Does the music get devalued? Would you still be listening to Oasis if no one else had bought Definitely Maybe? And how come this doesn´t apply to older bands like The Beatles and Billy Joel? Eh?

Motorcycle Emptiness

Dear James,

Did you see the obituaries for Richey James yesterday? Of course you did, you're a journalist. It reminded me of the first year of university when he went missing and wondered if the announcement of his presumed death means we're no longer young. Or did we stop being young many years ago? Or is this all fanciful rubbish to delay going to work?

You can tell this song's from the early 90s by the double snare beat. They almost sound like James (the band, not you).

Nightmare

Dear James,

Here's a good 'un, recommended by Ian. I'm not sure if he reads the blog or just had a fit of recommending far-out jives from the late sixtees. This is the most passable of his recommendations. He's very eclectic. He enjoys modern jazz and everything.

With this video I've finally resolved my Arthur confusion, to wit:

1. Arthur Brown was not the singer from Love.
2. Neither was Arthur Lowe
3. It was Arthur Lee.
4. I should stop watching Dad's Army in the hope that they'll play something from "Forever Changes".

This clip is taken from Peter Sykes' 1968 film "The Committee", which also featured music by The Pink Floyd.

Note the limited pyrotechnics of the era, so Mr Brown's flaming horns go out 33 seconds in; the organist's dad looking on proudly at (1:18); a young Cher dancing at (2:31); and that's not a real drummer, or indeed, a real cigarette. Arthur Brown was from Whitby. What is about Whitby, eh?

White Winter Hymnal

Dear James,
Back in August I told you you'd like Fleet Foxes and you took offense and asked me why, as if it was so easy to read you. Here are ten reasons why:

1. They have an animal in their name. Like The High Llamas. And other bands you like with animal names.
2. Stop-motion video. Duels do this all the time. So do Tool. That´s probably who you got it off.
3. Nice clean harmonies. Like the Beach Boys.
4. Moderate tambourine use. Like the Beach Boys.
5. Suprising chord change at (0:33). Like the Beach Boys.
6. That electric guitar sound that always reminds me of Hank Marvin but which seems to be awfully popular these days.
7. They've only released one album and thus have yet to disappoint with their second.
8. Audible breathing (2:10). Like Elliott Smith. And the Beach Boys.
9. "The quintet describe their music as "baroque harmonic pop jams"", it says here. Nothing says James more than baroque harmonic pop jam. In fact, that's probably an anagram of your name.
10. The Daily Telegraph called their debut album "pretty but almost pathologically unobtrusive". Just like you, again.

Sing Sing Sing

Dear reader,
James is moving house and using this as an excuse not to do anything else.
Dear James,
Not the Carpenters song. Or the Travis song. Sorry. This Benny Goodman 1936 piece is one we're using in the opening sequence to episode one, though we still need to find out if the copyright has expired and we can use it for free. Otherwise I'll just compose a similar work myself, but we'd rather use this one.

I like this because Keith Moon's granddad plays drums on it. It's also very amusing to watch with the sound turned off. It all goes very nicely up until (3:22) and the vibraphone kicks in and we have ourselves an entirely different animal. They say the piano solo is very special too. It's a "four chorus, highly chromatic masterpiece". What does that mean, James?

This song featured in three Woody Allen films. Can you name them without looking at the wikipedia page? More importantly, can you tell me which British ice dancers used this for their winning 1981 routine?

There's also an even longer version but without the piano solo, notable for the looks on the audience's faces, as if Carnegie Hall were Benny Goodman's Free Trade Hall moment. There's also a woman at (0:49 who appears to have eaten her husband.

Oxford Comma

Dear James,
Yesterday I was reading about this blog called stuffwhitepeoplelike.com (don't even think about clicking on that link, it's far too entertaining and you'll never come back again) and it said something about how one of the things that white people like the very very most is Vampire Weekend. You can see why: the nice sweaters, the university education, the neat haircuts and the overwhelming sensation that at no time are they likely to board your super long tanker and hold all your crew to ransom.

Another thing white people like is clever pop videos which try to look like fillums. Pop videos are for stupid kids, but if you divide them into chapters and shoot them with a single camera shot it's almost the same kudos as sitting through Bergman's The Seventh Seal and in a fraction of the time.

See that guy who falls over at the end? I bet he did it on purpose. And is the last line "Littlejohn he always tells the truth"? Is this a reference to forthright Daily Heil hack Richard Littlejohn? If so, can I think of a pay off for this post after looking at Littlejohn's Wikipedia page? No.

Sweet Home Alabama

Dear James,
Is this the worst song ever?
This was on VH1 right before the Hey Saint Peter video, and was no doubt instrumental in heightening my appreciation of the latter. This video has so many things to dislike:
-the barrels under the drum-riser (0:30). Why? Do they have a constant supply of Jack Daniels fed intravenously into every one in the audience so they'll holler more? Are Lynyrd Skynyrd vintners?
- the double bass drum (0:31). Why again? Are they going to launch into a Slayer cover? Or does the drummer have a small penis?
-the futility of having a keyboard player (0:41) with two keyboards for a song that consists of the same three chords over and over again. Is the keyboard pink as well? Does the keyboard player have a small etc and so on?
-all these references to the south (0:59). Can you imagine if there was a war between north and south England, the north lost and Stuart Maconie was left wandering the theatres of West Yorks. with an obsolete flag singing "Sweet Home Wakefield Westgate"? I bet you can.
-there are at least 9 people on stage to perform a song that could easily be done by 4. Are Lynyrd Skynyrd the new GNR? Do they run some kind of musicians' cooperative? Is it so that half the musicians can play interminable solos? Ah.
-the hair. Can't the ageing backing singers share their conditioner around? Sadly, Lynyrd Skynyrd got their name from gym teacher Leonard Skinner, who enforced the school's anti-long hair policy. I suppose once you've made that kind of statement, the barber shop's kind of out.
- I think this is where GNR got their inspiration for their 10-minute version of Knockin on Heaven's Door hey hey hey hey hey yay.

Charlie Garcia, Argentinian nutjob and occasional musician, did a cover of this called Sweet Home Buenos Aires. You don't really want to click on that link.

Alternatively you can watch Free Bird and tell me whether that slide guitar is out of tune or not.

Hey Saint Peter

Hey Saint James,
Ever heard of these people? Australian twosome Flash and the Pan (George Young and Harry Vanda) and 1983 one-hit wonders with "Waiting for a Train". George Young was the elder brother of the Angus and Malcolm Young, which may explain the penchant for playing the guitar while wearing shorts. Never a good look. Not even that nice boy in Vampire Weekend pulled it off at Leeds.

Young and Vanda played in the Easybeats, who had a big hit with "Friday on my Mind", which David Bowie covered on Pin-Ups. Another of there songs "Good Times" featured Steve Marriot on backing vocals and was later covered by INXS, featuring on The Lost Boys soundtrack. They wrote and produced John Paul Young's "Love is in the Air". They also wrote Meatloaf's "Running the Red Light". I'm scraping the barrel there, I know.

I like how this song combines the better elements of late 70's rock, namely The Motors' "Airport" and ELO. Is sounding like ELO a good thing? I'm no longer sure. They spoil the effect slightly with their attempts at comedy (the cork hat, the hitting the tall man with a hard hat, the skeleton producer) but at least no one dresses up as a schoolboy for the best part of 30 years.