Emergency Questions #11: Heavenly Age

Blink 182 - What's My Age Again?

Summer's over and the time is right to bring back some of the ongoing series I abandoned just prior to my holiday from teaching (aka the Exhaustion Weeks). It's a cliché that I go back to work for a rest, but... 

Kevin Rowland - Age Can't Wither You

As usual, I'm stealing another query from Richard Herring's book EMERGENCY QUESTIONS and trying to answer it with added songs. Here's today's question...

What age would you like to be when you get to heaven, presuming there is a heaven and you get to choose what age you'll be when you're up there?

Ernest Tubb - It's The Age That Makes The Difference

Putting aside whether or not we believe in any kind of afterlife, this is a thought-provoking question. If we're lucky enough to live to an old age, we wouldn't want to be stuck at that age, for eternity, with all the frailties, disabilities and marble loss that might come with it. We'd want to be young and strong and ready to take best advantage of our nirvana...

New Order - Age Of Consent

Would we want then to spend immortality reliving the "best years of our lives"? Oh, to be 16 again...  

Hello Saferide - X Telling Me About The Loss Of Something Dear, At Age 16

No thank you very much. I wouldn't mind going back and reliving a good day of my adolescence, safe in the knowledge that I could return to where I am right now before the bad days kick in. Because I did have a good many bad days as a teenager, days of self-doubt, embarrassment, humiliation days and crushing loneliness. 

Joe Jackson - Awkward Age

Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag

What about my twenties then? When I was a bit more grown up? And even more messed up...

Pet Shop Boys - Twenty Something

Taylor Swift - 22

Probably not. 

In my thirties, maybe then I finally got a handle on this thing called life... though I still didn't feel like a proper grown-up. (Still don't.) 

Aimee Man - 31 Today

In answer to Rich's question then, I'd probably choose to be mid-30s. Some time just before I fell down the stairs and broke my arm, also causing a slipped disc in my back which still bothers me today. Some time before the aches and pains set in... 

Willie Nelson - Don't Be Ashamed Of Your Age

Department S - Age Concern

I realise I'm a bit unusual though. Maybe you would choose to be 16 forever... or 21... or even 7?

What age would you pick to live out the hereafter?

Bertie Fridays #6: Albert Hammond

We're back to flipping through Bertie The Dog's record collection. He only buys discs by people with Bert in their name...

My father is a doctor, he's a family man

My mother works for charity whenever she can

And they're both good clean Americans who abide by the law

And they both stick up for liberty and they both support the war

My happiness was paid for when they laid their money down

For summers in a summer camp and winters in the town

My future in the system was talked about and planned

But I gave it up for music and The Free Electric Band

Despite the lyrics of his only UK hit, Albert Hammond was born in London in 1944, shortly after his parents had been evacuated from Gibraltar.

Albert began his musical career aged just 16 with Gibraltarian band The Diamond Boys, but his first chart success came 6 years later, in 1966, with a Top Ten hit as part of...

The Family Dogg - A Way Of Life

He went on to enjoy a successful career as a solo musician, but I'm guessing he made most of his money as a songwriter. He's the writer or co-writer of a surprising range of hits from across the decades...

The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe

The Pipkins - Gimme Dat Ding

Blue Mink - Good Morning Freedom

The Fortunes - Freedom Come, Freedom Go

Leo Sayer - When I Need You

Starship - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now

Whitney Houston - One Moment In Time

Willie Nelson & Julio Iglesias - To All The Girls I've Loved Before

Diana Ross - When You Tell Me That You Love Me

Quite a list. A great songwriter... though I'd argue he's not much cop as a weather man...

This Bertie's got an OBE, an Emmy, an Ivor Novello award and he's been inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. Though surely his greatest claim to fame is being mentioned in a Half Man Half Biscuit song...

Dragging my guitar round maternity ward

I was in search of the umbilical chord

But it was all in vain so I jumped on a train

And when I reached my home the kids were on the patio

Looking quite upset, so I asked them what was wrong

And they said: “Beware, there’s an Albert Hammond bootleg in the house in there

An Albert Hammond bootleg in the house

Some man who introduced himself as Stanley Rous came in

And left this Albert Hammond bootleg in the house”

No clues as to next week's Bertie. Those of you who are paying attention should be able to guess him.

My Top 24 of 2024 (#6 - 4)

Wolves of Glendale - Loud Ass Car

More aurally pulchritudinous delights from the year they insisted on naming after Jack Bauer's missions...

6. Orville Peck - Stampede

He dresses like the Lone Ranger and has the singing chops of Johnny Cash and Chris Isaak. But who is that masked man?

South African (now living in the US) alt-country star Orville Peck is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a pair of cowboy boots. He's not afraid to push boundaries and buttons, sometimes using country music to champion gay rights (pretty ballsy considering America's current swing back to conservatism, as mentioned by John Grant earlier in this list), but he's equally good at playing it "straight" musically, in terms of genre. His third album is a collaborative duets effort, on which Orville manages to drag in an impressive array of confederates, from Willie Nelson, Margo Price and Beck to Elton and Kylie, making each artists' contribution true to their own musical background. Or, as he puts it...

"I wanted to make sure that every single song on the album felt like a true 50/50 collaboration of me and the other artists' style and sound and genre. I didn't want to just feel like a bunch of Orville Peck songs that feature verses from other artists. I wanted each one to be an actual collaboration. Every single song on the album is entirely its own thing, dependent on who the artist is. It's a really fun journey. It's definitely the most adventurous I've ever been in terms of genre. It's some of the most country songs I've ever done on this album and some of the least country songs I've ever done on this album."

A large number of these tracks have become essential companions this year (even the more obvious covers like Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting and Rhinestone Cowboy), but the record's so diverse I'm struggling to choose the best song... or even most representative. 

This?

Orville Peck & Willie Nelson - Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other

Or this?

Orville Peck & Kylie Minogue - Midnight Ride

Or this?

Look, I don't care if it was forty years ago
When you won high school spelling bee
What are you even talking about?
Not everybody can spell hippopotamus
And that's at least something you can hang on to
I can't even understand you with that thing on your face
Margo, you sure take the O out of country
And you put the L in stupid

Orville Peck & Margo Price - You're an Asshole, I Can't Stand You (and I Want a Divorce)

In the end, I'm settling for this purely on the basis of the video...

5. English Teacher - This Could Be Texas

The last time I included a Mercury Prize winner in my personal list of the year's best albums was way back in 2011 (PJ Harvey, to save you the googling). That's how unhip I am. And yet, for some strange reason, I was ahead of the curve when it came to English Teacher. Could be that I was simply taken by the band name? Or the fact that they hail from my neck of the woods (lead singer Lily Fontaine was born in Huddersfield and grew up just over the Pennines in Colne, and the record made waves for being the first Mercury winner in 9 years not to come from London)?

Musically, the indie-art-punk twanging isn't a million miles away from Florence Shaw and Dry Cleaning, but the lyrics are much more personal, dealing with questions of cultural identity in a touching, honest and humorous fashion.  

I am the world's biggest paving slab
But no one can walk over me
I am the Pendle Witches, John Simm
And I am Lee Ingleby
I am the Bank of Dave, Golden Postbox
And the festival of R&B
I'm not the terrorist of Talbot Street
But I have apocalyptic dreams

You should see my armoury

4. Wolves Of Glendale - Wolves Of Glendale

From the sublime then, to the ridiculous. I challenge you to scour the whole of the blogosphere and find anyone else who has included Wolves of Glendale in their year end countdown. 

I offer no defence except that this record made me grin like nothing else this year, and I listened to it for far longer than I probably should have...

If you're in any way appreciative of that, it might be worth pointing you towards a new song they put out a little while back... hopefully a taster for album 2.

Wolves of Glendale - Ricky

 

The Best Of 2024 (Part 2)

I've been walking these street so long, singing the same old song, that I've grown mighty tired of writing year end reviews. It feels like an obligation now, so to spice up this year's offering, I decided to throw some random lyrics into the mix and see if anyone can identify them. Google has made lyric quizzes much less fun, but if you're not sure which the lyrics are... maybe that'll make it less of a chore. Or maybe I'm a lonely man who's in the middle of something that he doesn't really understand. Who can say?

Speaking of lonely men, and I'm not one to point fingers, but San Francisco's Glenn Donaldson doesn't appear to have much of a social life. Not if the amount of songs he writes, records and puts out on that bandcamp is anything to go by. I've only really listened to one of them - Unwishing Well - but he's put out another four since that one dropped in April this year. Sha-na na-na, sha-na na-na na, get a job, Glenn! Anyway, here's a nice description of that collection which saves me the trouble... 

"Crystalizing the tragic self-celebrating kingdoms of fortunate failures, false heroes, music press deities of limitless deceit, hometown dive gods and humanity in the grips of all its romanticized wonder and woe..."

Someone who's giving Glenn a run for his money in the prolific stakes is Willie Nelson who, at 91, seems to be averaging two albums a year. Makes me glad we help the aged and don't just put them in a home. Can't have much fun when they're all on their own... and Willie still seems to be having lots of fun, even if he does feel like the last leaf on the tree...

A couple more old-timers from the country scene are Dave Alvin & Jimmy Dale Gilmore, who put out their second collaborative collection earlier this year. I've been a fan of Jimmy Dale since his foot slipped over the line while he was bowling in The Big Lebowski...

He certainly entered a world of pain that day. Fortunately, he survived, and a quarter of a century later, he's still here...

I had a dream last night, but I forget what it was. Fortunately, I didn't forget to include this little ditty from Brooklyn's Bad Mary in my year end review. It's like a song of love that clings to me...

There's a voice that keeps on calling me. Down the road, that's where I'll always be. So if you want to join me for a while, you'll be glad to know more great songs from 2024 will appear here soon. How soon?

Kris

I had a different post to run today, but as I came to post it, I saw the news about Kris Kristofferson taking his Last Ride. 

Time was, I'd have tried to cobble together a decent eulogy, but the words aren't coming too easy these days, so here are some of his finest moments...

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose

And there's nothin' short a' dyin'

That's half as lonesome as the sound

Of the sleepin' city sidewalk

And Sunday mornin' comin' down

I was a sailor

I was born upon the tide

And with the sea I did abide

I sailed a schooner around the Horn to Mexico

I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow

And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed

But I am living still

Self-Help For Cynics #39: Test Subject

Beastie Boys - Just A Test

I did an online test via Psychology Today to see just how angry I am - and here are the results...

You may have problems managing your anger

Your score indicates that you likely struggle to recognize triggers, calm down, communicate with others, and process your emotions in a healthy way; your anger may sometimes turn into aggression.

High Vis - Morality Test

Well, I mean, I guess that's not telling me anything I didn't already know... but it's still scary to see it written down. (I thought I'd been quite moderate in my responses too.) 

Still, my overall score was 71 out of 100, which means I'm just dipping a toe into You may have problems managing your anger and I've only just risen above Could do better. I'm not sure that's cause for huge celebration (especially as I took care to moderate my responses) but you know me - I'm a glass half full kind of guy...

Declan McKenna - Honest Test

Oh, but the boffins at Psych Today weren't finished yet. They had advice too - lots of it!

It’s important to learn how to manage anger, because continual anger, and the stress hormones that accompany it, can harm your physical health. Unmitigated anger can also lead to problems in one’s career, finances, and relationships.

Miles Hunt & Erics Nockalls - The Test

This started me wondering just how my physical health might be affected, and I realised the main thing is: I'm knackered. Partly that's the long commute and the hectic business of being a parent and a home-owner... but could it be related to my anger as well? 

Yes, according to a report I found by some more boffins, this time from Kent State University...

Too much adrenaline can exhaust the capacity of the brain to manage stress. Fatigue, illness, and chronic pain can follow.

It makes me tired, just thinking about that. 

Willie Nelson - Tired

What else did the Psych Today computer have to tell me?

Anger or aggression plays a role in several mental health disorders, such as intermittent explosive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and borderline personality disorder. It may also be involved in manic episodes, ADHD, and narcissism.

Well, I've ruled out the last three, but the rest are distinct possibilities. I like the sound of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Isn't that just refusing to be part of the crowd?

REM - New Test Leper

Certain personality traits are linked to the tendency to become angry, research suggests. These include high neuroticism and low agreeableness.

✔️✔️

Anger tends to result from a combination of three factors: the trigger event, the personality of the individual, and the individual's appraisal of the situation.

This is the kind of sentence that makes me just go: No shit, Sherlock.

The Sports - So Obvious

Anger can be directed outward or inward. Anger expressed outwardly may take the form of yelling, meanness, or physical aggression. Anger expressed inwardly may take the form of suppression, withdrawal, and self-criticism.

So I'm mostly an inwardly angry person, unless I'm confronted by an Audi driver.

I See Hawks In L.A - Stop Driving like an Asshole

There are many avenues to improve anger management, including therapy, support groups, and individual coping skills.

Which is this series in a nutshell! Welcome to my individual coping skills blog. More next week...

Title Fight #10: Lesbian Seagull

Engelbert Humperdinck vs. Muhammad Ali... who would your money be on? Well, in the Title Fight, Cassius Clay may well float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, but Arnold George Dorsey has a Lesbian Seagull in his corner.

Lesbian Seagull was written by songwriter and gay rights activist Tom Wilson Weinberg in 1979 in response to a university study of long term monogamous lesbian behaviour in seagulls on Santa Barbara Island, USA. Engelbert's version later featured in the movie Beavis And Butt-Head Do America and was released as a double A side single with The Red Hot Chilli Peppers version of Love Rollercoaster.

"Beat that!" I hear you cry. I'll be Damned if I can't...

Captain Sensible -  The 4 Marys Go Go Dance All Night at the Groovy Cellar

That was the Captain's 1984 b-side of There's More Snakes Than Ladders (as almost featured in this week's Saturday Snapshots). They should both have been hits, if you ask me.

Here's one that Ben suggested. He describes Alpha Male Tea Party as a Maths/Post Rock band. Make of that what you will. I'd be more impressed if they could afford a singer. Still, this one did make me think of George...

Alpha Male Tea Party - You Eat Houmous, Of Course You Listen To Genesis

Speaking of George, here's some Julie Andrews-influenced prog...

Atomic Rooster - A Spoonful Of Bromide (Helps The Pulse Rate Go Down)

And how could I follow that but with a classy slice of soul from 1980? No sniggering on the back row, please... 

Joyce Lawson - Stop Dogging Me

Almost at the end. Just time to squeeze in a 1987 song celebrating the joy of taping your favourite songs off the wireless...

This Poison! - Poised Over The Pause Button

We started today with a Lesbian Seagull. I was going to close with a Canadian Woodpigeon... that just can't get out of bed.

Woodpigeon - In The Battle of Sun vs. Curtains, Sun Loses and We All Sleep Until Noon

However, then I heard this... from gay country star Orville Peck - you know, the guy who wears a mask and loves rattling cages and challenging redneck prejudices. And guess what? He's only roped Willie Nelson to help chuck his latest brickbat... and it's a doozy. Willie, of course, has never been one to shy away from ruffling a few feathers... and at 90, I guess he's long past worrying about upsetting the more conservative members of his fanbase. (UPDATE: Ernie kindly informed me this is a cover version, previously done by Willie, but originally recorded by Ned Sublette back in 1981... when I'm guessing it would have been a lot more controversial.)

Orville Peck & Willie Nelson - Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other  

Snapshots #304: A Top Ten Shirt Songs

OK, keep your shirt on - the answers are here!

Ten songs to get shirty about...

10. Any owl can get mixed up with a dying salesman.

"Any owl" is an anagram of Waylon. Willie Loman is the protagonist of Death Of A Salesman.

Waylon & Willie - If I Can Find a Clean Shirt

9. How Freddie Mercury got his mail delivered.

Quicksilver Messenger Company - Edward, The Mad Shirt Grinder

8. Rogue traders.

The Charlatans - White Shirt

7. Dispose of your oracle.

Chuck your prophet.

Chuck Prophet - Best Shirt On

6. Jocko Jeans.

Anagram!

Joe Jackson - The Band Wore Blue Shirts

5. Madonna's only just begun to feel W.O.L.D.

Mary was the Madonna. The Carpenters had Only Just Begun. Harry Chapin sang W.O.L.D.

Mary Chapin Carpenter - This Shirt 

4. Plane company I don't want to fly with.

Plummet Airlines - Silver Shirt

3. Sounds like what happens when the king's daughter gets involved with some old punk.

Elvis's daughter was Lisa Marie (this isn't her though).

Malcolm McLaren & The Bootzilla Orchestra featuring Lisa Marie - Something's Jumpin' in Your Shirt

2. Archer, Model, Soldier...

My Aim Is True. This Year's Model. Armed Forces.

Elvis Costello - Green Shirt

1. Bob, Buzz and Bowl + 97.

Three haircuts plus another 97 equals...

1. Haircut 100 - Favourite Shirts

Collar more Snapshots next Saturday...

Mid-Life Crisis Songs #97: Live Forever

When you're young, you think you'll live forever. At some point, you realise that's not the case and the end is approaching faster than you'd like. I guess this realisation hits us all at some point, but clearly it's hit me very hard since turning 50 and losing my dad. This blog has become my therapist's couch. It's not answers I'm hoping for, it's acceptance. 

Immortality is craved by many, but I don't think I ever wanted to live forever. I'm already sick of the selfish, self-destructive tendencies of the human race, so the idea of sticking around and watching folk devise new ways to screw up society does not appeal at all. In fact, I'd readily welcome the apocalypse... were it not that I have a son. Sam is my reason for not giving up on the world, or wishing it to end. Because I'd like him to have a good life, to grow old without too much strife, to do his bit to keep the dance alive. That's the immortality I crave right now.

I'm Gonna Live Forever was written by country artist Billy Joe Shaver, with his son Eddy, who recorded together as the eponymous group Shaver back in the 90s. Clearly, Billy Joe sought immortality through art...

Nobody here will ever find me
But I will always be around
Just like the songs I leave behind me
I'm gonna live forever now

Eddy Shaver died of a heroin overdose in the year 2000. Billy Joe lived another 20 years, but I'm guessing with a broken heart.

You fathers and you mothers
Be good to one another
Please try to raise your children right
Don't let the darkness take 'em
Don't make 'em feel forsakеn
Just lead them safely to thе light

I'm Gonna Live Forever was also performed by Robert Duvall in the excellent movie Crazy Heart. And last year, it was covered by Willie Nelson and Lucinda Williams on a Billy Joe Shaver tribute album. So that's a kind of immortality right there.

Snapshots #269: A Top Ten Growing Up Songs

I'm too excited by the new Indiana Jones trailer to write a proper introduction this morning.

Some of us will never grow up...

10. A Spider, sounds like he’s got a Death Wish.

A Spider from Mars, who sounds a bit like (Charles) Bronson.

Mick Ronson - Growing Up And I'm Fine

9. Dylan is an Idol in towns with a rose between them.

Billy Idol and Bob Dylan; a rose between two thorns...

Billy Bob Thornton - I Gotta Grow Up

8. Sick nun.

Twisted Sister - I'll Never Grow Up

7. Good ol' boys.

Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson - Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys

6. Exciting to a Monster Muppet.

Cookie Monster!

The Cookies ~ Girls Grow Up Faster Than Boys

5. The jets are down.

The Blue Aeroplanes - Growing Up, Growing Down

4. What a waste!

Garbage - When I Grow Up

3. Found floating off Brighton, Bondi and Miami.

Bouys floating in the sea off three famous beaches.

The Beach Boys - When I Grow Up To Be A Man

2. Cram one sugarcube inside.

Cram one sugarcube inside.

The Ramones - I Don't Wanna Grow Up

1.  2 Bs become 1.

The above picture might look like Harry Styles... but it's actually a computerised merging of the two photos below...

Because here's a song they both recorded. Written by Bruce, recorded not long after by Bowie... though his version wasn't released until the 90s.

If you promise not to grow up between now and next Saturday, Snapshots will return...

Snapshots #253: A Top Ten Stranger Songs

If you've spent the weekend looking for Stranger Things... let me take away some of the mystery.

Here are ten Stranger songs... 

10. Add cola to the temple.

Pepsi Cola and a Shirley Temple.

Pepsi & Shirley - Goodbye, Stranger

9. Mixture's Sister.

Specifically, a Dolly Mixture's Sister.

Stella Parton - The Danger of a Stranger

8. German invader.

The Saxons were a North Germanic people who invaded Britain a long time ago.

Saxon - 747 (Strangers In The Night)

7. If uneven, sue the council.

Don't trip on the uneven pavement.

Pavement - Spit On A Stranger

6. We Need To Talk About... Rock.

We Need To Talk About Kevin... and Ayers Rock.

Kevin Ayers - Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes

5. Brick lake.

Anagram!

Acker Bilk - Stranger On The Shore

4. Pitchfork brandishers.

Villagers brandish pitchforks.

Villagers - Twenty Seven Strangers

3. John Thomas Horatio.

John Thomas is a euphemism for Willie + Admiral Horatio Nelson.

Willie Nelson - Red-Headed Stranger

2. Myth Cruise.

Anagram!

Eurythmics - Love Is A Stranger

1. Mr. Benn meets Gordon.

Tony Benn + Gordon Bennett.

Tony Bennett - Stranger In Paradise

Don't be a stranger - come back next Saturday for more.