Snapshots #408: CRAZY Songs!

Here are fifteen songs featuring madness... in one form or another.

You don't have to be mad to enjoy Snapshots, but it helps...

15. Your Country Needs You.

Not the same Lord Kitchener who was on the recruitment posters. I'd like to have seen him turn his hand to a bit of calypso.

Lord Kitchener - Batty Mamselle

14. And so, we had a cuppa tea...

Lyrics, of course, courtesy of Bernard Cribbins...

Right Said Fred - Deeply Dippy

13. Take a crowbar to the stool.

Jimmy the buffet!

Jimmy Buffett - Fruitcakes

12. Legendary, according to Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins.

Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins starred together in a film called Legends of the Fall. Sadly Brad did not play Mark E. Smith. And neither did Sir Anthony.

The Fall - Barmy

11. Not a fan of clubbing.

Seal - Crazy

10. Comes before Ann and somewhere in between Jim, Andre, Lloyd and Barry.

Barbara comes before Ann. Jim, Andre, Lloyd and Barry.

Barbara Mandrell - Crackers

9. That's not how I'd spell a saffron producer.

Saffron is found in croci. Or crocuses, if you prefer. 

Krokus - Out To Lunch

8. Give a feline a home!

And it will no longer be a Stray Cat...

Brian Setzer - Off Your Rocker

7. Offensive to Native Americans.

The Redskins - Bring It Down (This Insane Thing)

6. Recently deceased moving bard.

I missed the news that the Poetry In Motion man died earlier this year. Here's another one by him...

Johnny Tillotson - Out Of My Mind

5. A bloke in a German forest finds a child's house.

Wald means "forest" in German. A child's house might be a Wendy house.

Wendy Waldman - Mad Mad Me

4. Lonely, Mountain, Mop, Ten.

It's lonely on top. Mountain top. Mop top. Top Ten!

The Four Tops - Going Loco Down In Acapulco

3. Infant escapades. 

The Adventure Babies - Barking Mad

2. Tommy Roe's Scallywag.

Tommy Roe sang Dizzy. A scallywag is a rascal.

Dizzee Rascal - Bonkers

1. Mixing his food, Andrew ate a clever, clever Eric.

"Andrew ate a clever, clever Eric" was a lengthy anagram...

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Up Around The Bend

You'd be BONKERS not to come back for more Snapshots next Saturday...

My Top Ten Caravan Songs

Apologies for the dearth of Top Tens over the last couple of weeks. May is the busiest month in teaching - the GCSE English exam is just over a week away as I type this and so things have been pretty hectic for me (not that my students seem unduly concerned by its imminence).

Anyway, it's a Bank Holiday Weekend here in the UK, and across the country folk are dusting down their caravans and heading off to seek the sun. Here's ten songs they might play on the way.

Special mentions to Caravan*  and the mighty, mighty Camper Van Beethoven.

(*A curious psych-folk band with a very dubious taste in album titles: Cunning Stunts, For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night and If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You. Ah, the 70s. Different times.)



10. Blur - Caravan

I'm glad Blur finally got their act together and brought out a new album this year. I've only listened to it a few times, but I already know it's better than their last, Graham Coxon-less, effort, 2003's Think Tank. Caravan comes from that record, and like most of the rest of the album, it sorely misses Coxo's guitar.

9. Black Sabbath - Planet Caravan

Normally, if you went on holiday and ended up parking your caravan next to Ozzy & co., you'd very quickly move somewhere quieter. However, you might stick around if all they played was this trippy psychedelic number. Not at all what you expect from the BS Boys...

8. Courtney Barnett - Kim's Caravan

A haunting, mesmeric ode to our dying world from the Australian wunderkind's debut album, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit. (Great title.)

7. The Adventure Babies - Camper Van

A lost indie gem from the last band to sign to Factory records before they went bust in the early 90s. The EP this came from is available to download free from the band's website.

6. Ella Fitzgerald & The Duke Ellington Orchestra - Caravan

Wow.

5. Van Morrison - Caravan

Van The Man and his Caravan. CaraVan The Man. Etc.

Timeless.

4. The Doors - Spanish Caravan

See, the Doors weren't all portentous doom, Oedipal urges and Viet Nam. They liked to travel round Europe in a caravan with a flamenco guitar too.

3. Jim White - If Jesus Drove A Motor Home

If Jesus drove a motor home,
And he come to your town,
Would you try to talk to him?
Would you follow him around?
Honking horns at the drive thru.
Double-parking at the mall.
Midnight at the Waffle House...
Jesus eating eggs with ya'll.

Well, would you?

2. Inspiral Carpets - Caravan

Can't go wrong with a bit of Clint Boon's majestic organ.

1. The Housemartins - Caravan of Love

Christmas 1986, and fourteen year old Rol stands on the edge of the dancefloor at the school disco wondering if anyone will ever slow dance with him to the Housemartins' a capella cover of the Isley Jasper Isley song Caravan of Love.

No one ever did.





So... which one will you get stuck behind on the motorway?