Mustapha

Dear James,

Well here's odd. Not to mention, here's Queen again, sadly for everyone else. I was "researching" my reinvented novel with added Queen (researching being drinking vodka and reading stuff that probably isn't true on Wikipedia) when I discovered that this album track from Queen's 1978 album track had been released as a single in 1979 in, quoting Wikipedia, "Germany, Spain, Yugoslavia and Bolivia". Yes, Bolivia. Who releases singles in Bolivia and ignores the rest of the continent? What is this Arabesque Queen fan club movement in Upper Peru? Or is Wikipedia just making stuff up? Should I edit their post on, say, Don't Lose Your Head, and state authoritatively that it was released as a single in Belize in 1988, with New York, New York on the b-side? Or should I just get back to the novel and stop being distracted? Right then.

As if that wasn't enough, my neighbours have started listening to very cheap 80s Spanish-language music and singing along to it. It's only 7.15pm, what do they think they're doing? My mistake, that's actually Cristina Aguilera. And then some fireworks went off down the road, for no apparent reason. The church down the road was putting on a bit of a rock concert earlier, maybe it was them.

Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingest

Dear James,

So, I was reading this article about the loudest band in the world and was going to post this video by experimental metal band Sunn 0))). However, they are very dull. And they're not even the loudest band in the world, the Jesus and Mary chain are. Kaiser Chiefs come seventh in the list, just behind, er, MC Hammer.

But then seeing that the Sunn 0))) video was from Germany I remembered this song by Marlene Dietrich which I'd forgotten to post. This came to me via a search for more Bacharach stuff, he conducted some Dietrich recordings in the early 60s, though not the one in this video. The song in English is "Falling in Love Again" and, it turns out, has been covered by everyone from Bryan Ferry to Cristina Aguilera. That is literally everyone.

Written by Friedrich Hollaender, the English lyrics were written by Sammy Lerner, who went on to write Betty Boop's "Don't Take My Boop Oop-a-Doop Away" and Popeye's "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man". Seriously.

Dear Daniel,

Your last sentence tests the theory that ignorance is bliss. Shall I find out whether you are being entirely truthful? I could risk finding out it's not entirely true. No, I'm happier believing something which sounds like claptrap is the unequivocal truth...

I'm going to lose my hearing. I've spent too long going to very loud gigs, playing directly in front of a stupidlly loud amp and now I spend the whole day with headphones on, listening to the sound of my own voice way too loudly. Imagine being a drummer. No, just imagine it. Awful isn't it? AND you just have to listen to the horrible smacking of drums and cymbals all the time.

Dear James,

And you'd only get to bathe once a week. Anyway, it's true about Popeye, I read it on Wikipedia, so it must be.