Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

The series now hits 1980, which was a pretty good year for pop music. Good enough to warrant four instalments, I think. It was the year in which I turned 14.

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Cheap Trick – Dream Police.mp3
This was the first record I bought in 1980. Cheap Trick probably were the first hair metal band. I didn”t really dig them very much, but I did like Dream Police, even if I had no idea what the song was about. It had a good guitar riff, a catchy chorus and some amusing sound effects. The term “dream police” has been used to describe a state on an LSD trip when the brain figures out that it”s not in charge anymore (or something like it; what the hell do I know about LSD trips?). But I think the lyrics are far better applied to describe a state of schizophrenia, with its paranoia and controlling inner voices.  The half-minute interlude at 2:50 certainly sounds like mental illness. Or, indeed, an alarming drugs trip.

Electric Light Orchestra ““ Confusion
And this was my second record of 1980. As with Cheap Trick, I”d never been much of an ELO fan. Don”t Bring Me Down changed that, and I liked Confusion even better (and perhaps still do; I prefer whichever of the two I’m presently hearing). Strangely, I didn”t buy the LP the songs were from. Later I discovered, as it were, that it”s a pretty good album. The purists don”t like it, I believe, because they thought that Jeff Lynne had sold ELO out to disco. Funny enough, disco often incorporated strings, which Lynne mostly dropped for the Discovery album. I”ll grant that Shine A Little Love and Last Train To London are a nod to disco, but for the most part it”s a wonderful pop album (Horace Wimple excepted).

Cherie & Marie Currie – Since You’ve Been Gone.mp3
In later 1979 and early 1980 there were two versions of the Russ Ballard-penned Since You Been Gone (or Since You”ve Been Gone, as some have rendered it. You can get Ballard”s original here). The excellent Rainbow version was the more successful, and apparently South African popsters Clout had a single of it out as well. I bought this single, by former Runaways singer Cherie Currie with her sister Marie (whom you will remember if you saw the recent biopic of the Runaways). I think the Curries” cover can just about compete with the Rainbow record. I”m not sure why I bought this single though. In the face of compertition by Rainbow, who were huge in West Germany, it wasn”t a big hit. Perhaps I saw it on the Musikladen TV show on which the sisters appeared in December 1979; but if I liked it, I”d have bought it right then, not in January (somehow I always had money for a single). Perhaps I bought it on strength of Cherie Currie, seeing as I liked The Runaways back in the day. Maybe I just like the cover”¦

AC/DC – Touch Too Much.mp3
Bon Scott was my first rock death as a fan. Of course, people whose music I had known had died before. Elvis, of course. Marc Bolan of T. Rex. Keith Moon of The Who. I had known their music, but I wasn”t a fan at the time. However, when Bon Scott died on 19 February 1980, I was something of an AC/DC fan. When the others died, I had no interest in their next record, but I was very much looking forward to the next AC/DC record, with Bon Scott on vocals, maybe featuring as great a song as Ride On from Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. When the next album came out, with undue haste later that year, I had mixed emotions. The songs ““ Hells Bells, title track Back In Black, and especially You Shook Me All Night Long ““ were great, but to my mind new singer Brian Johnson was a pale imitation of the great Scott. I still think he is. So I started 1980 mourning the death of a favourite singer. I”d end the year in mourning an even more favourite singer.

Marianne Faithfull – The Ballad of Lucy Jordan.mp3
Like Since You Been Gone, The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan was a cover version, in this case of Dr Hook and the Medicine Show”s original penned by Shel Silverstein. Marianne Faithfull”s version is beautifully arranged, and the melody is lovely, but it was, of course, that broken voice which raised the song to another level. At the time I hadn”t heard of Faithfull”s history with the Stones. When I did, I went off Mars chocolate bars for a bit. Faithfull insists that the story is an untruth spreads by the London narcs after they raided Keef”s Redlands mansion. The singer says she is far too prudish to do that. In her biography she wrote: “It”s a dirty old man’s fantasy… a cop”s idea of what people do on acid!” Anyway, at the age of 13, Faithfull seemed to me so ancient as probably being close to death”s door from natural causes (of course, her drug use might have killed her). She was only 33, four years younger than Lucy Jordan”¦

Kenny Rogers – Coward Of The County.mp3
I never bought the single, though the chorus was pretty catchy. But buying a country record? Not very likely. It”s a jaunty little number that rather cloaks the disturbing lyrics. You don”t get many pop hits about gang rape. And that”s what happens in the song to poor Becky at the hands of the ghastly Gatlin boys. Trouble is, Coward of the County”s dad was a bit of a troublemaker in his time and on his deathbed extracted from CotC an oath of rigorous pacifism, with Uncle Ken serving as a witness to the pledge. So what does a pacifist do when the Gatlin boys violate his girl? Ah, I shall not spoil the ending for you, but it does not involve a visit to the local police station followed by a judicial process. We are not told whether Coward ensured that Becky would receive appropriate counselling.

Georg Danzer – Zehn kleine Fixer.mp3
I was a year late with this one, but what a good song it is. Danzer was an Austrian singer-songwriter ““ or Liedermacher (song-maker), as they say in German ““ who had a good reputation for producing accessible songs with sophisticated, sometimes funny and often socially conscious lyrics. He died of lung cancer in 2007 at the age of 50, having been a heavy smoker for years. In Zehn kleiner Fixer he sings about “ten little junkies” who die one by one. His tone is sardonic: while he shows little compassion for the junkies, but blames the ills of society for their condition.

Here”s my clumsy translation of the lyrics:

Ten little junkies sat in a boat. Ocean Desperation, homeport Death.One of them jumped overboard and sank like a stone. “Shit” was his final word; then there were only nine.

Nine little junkies; among them were girls. One was just 13, couldn’t break free.Went out on the corner, froze to death, then there were only eight.

Eight little junkies, one just out of jail. Parole officer let him down, no money for rehab, parents written off; he saw no other way out, then there were only seven.

Seven little junkies were so fed up with their lonely desert in the high-rise ghetto. One, they say, suffocated on wine and biscuits and indifference; then there were only six.

Six little junkies, one ended it with a golden fixall on the station toilet. Some tramp who found him took his shoes and socks, then there were only five.

Five little junkies, left all on their own, had neither hope nor money. One walked into a bank and “asked” the cashier who didn’t hesitate; then there were only four.

Four little junkies sat in a boat. Ocean Desperation, homeport Death. One reported a dealer to the police; when he was released again there were only three.

Three little junkies on the final tour; among them they had just one more fix. Oh, the heroin ran out and they capsized the boat.
Love was never their home, and now they were all dead.

Ten little junkies were now gone. Clearance sale, urban garbage, just lowly filth. But how long do we want to sweep them under the carpet? One day, when they rise again, they will strike back.

The Nolan Sisters ““ I”m In The Mood For Dancing.mp3
Now here”s a record I most definitely didn”t buy. I didn”t particularly like or dislike the song it was a hymn to my indifference. And yet the song stuck in my head for years. It was one of those earworms I found myself inexplicably singing at random moments. That kind of song. Some 11 years after this was a hit, I met my future wife. One day she randomly sang I”m In The Mood For Dancing. Then, a while later, she did so again. As it turned out, we had a shared permanent earworm of the random-singing variety (I don”t know the technical Greco-Latin terms for the phenomenon, I”m afraid). I”d like to say that I knew at that point that we would grow old together, but there were other, much better clues which did not involve the Nolan Sisters. Truth be told, I quite like the song now, in as far as inoffensive pop music from that era goes.

Peter Gabriel – Games Without Frontiers.mp3
Peter Gabriel – Spiel ohne Grenzen.mp3
This was my 100^th single. Now, that doesn”t mean it was the 100^th single I had ever owned or bought. But when I bought it, it was the 100^th single in my possession. Before that I had frequently swapped singles with friends (who exploited me; I gave away some really good records. So after that, I stopped trading). Others I had discarded for being too embarrassing to own, such as my Bay City Rollers records. But when I bought Games Without Frontiers in March 1980, it was single #100, a milestone. Within a year I would almost stop buying singles in favour of albums (though I”d rediscover the joy of the single when I lived in London in the mid-“80s).

Games Without Frontiers refers to an game show that was popular throughout Europe at the time in which village teams representing different countries were pitched against one another in bizarre action games, usually dressed in silly costumes. In French the show was called Jeux sans Frontiers and in German Spiele ohne Grenzen (both mean Games Without Frontiers); in England it was It”s A Knock-Out. Gabriel re-recorded his entire 1980 album, which also included the anti-apartheid song Biko, entirely in German. Hence the second file: the German version of Games Without Frontiers.

Tim Curry – I Do The Rock.mp3
When I bought this, I was blissfully unaware of that overhyped cult twaddle that is The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Indeed, I remained so until the late “80s. So when Tim Curry visited a restaurant in London where I worked as a waiter in 1985, my excitement was based on my love for I Do The Rock. The 80-year-old owner of the restaurant, an old Australian whom we had nicknamed Mr Magoo, was dining on Table 15 at the same time, and somebody advised him that a celebrity was at Table 8. Mr Magoo moseyed over, stood before Mr Curry and his lovely companion, stared at them for a bit while pushing his rolled-up tongue back and forth through his fleshy and disconcertingly moist lips, as he habitually did, and then blurted out in an accusatory manner: “So, you”re famous!” Mr Curry responded gracefully that he was an indeed an ac-tor. Thus informed, Mr Magoo grunted, turned and waddled back to Table 15 to complete his meal.

The song itself was one of thise that referenced the celebs of the day ““ from Solzhenitzin and Sadat to O.J. Simpson and Virginia Wade to Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger, Liza Minelli and Charlie’s Angels ““ and a few characters from the past, including Joe DiMaggio and former English cricket captain Colin Cowdrey. I Do The Rock also acquainted me with The Dakota as the New York residence of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, a piece of information that would become relevant later in the year.

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More Stepping Back

Following the slightly spooky Halloween mix posted on Monday, this one comprises songs mostly of less serious tone, setting what I hope is a bit of a party atmosphere, with a bit of rock, rock & roll and downright silly novelty numbers, including one by Soupy Sales, who died last week. The sense of levity this mix aims at is not of the literal variety.

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TRACKLISTING
1. Tim Curry – Anything Can Happen On Halloween (1986)
2. Golden Earring – The Devil Made Me Do It (1982)
3. Morgus & the Ghouls – Morgus The Magnificent (1958)
4. The Tarantulas – Black Widow (1961)
5. Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs – Haunted House (1964)
6. Big Bopper – Purple People Eater Meets The Witch Doctor (1958)
7. The Kingsmen – Haunted Castle (1963)
8. The Five Blobs – The Blob (1958)
9. The Fifth Estate – The Witch Is Dead (1967)
10. Bobby Bare – Vampira (1958)
11. Johnny Cash – Ghost Riders In The Sky (1978)
12. R Dean Taylor – There’s A Ghost In My House (1967)
13. Alice Cooper – Feed My Frankenstein (1992)
14. Rob Zombie feat. The Ghastly Ones – Halloween (1998)
15. Medeski, Martin & Wood – End Of The World Party (2004)
16. The Pogues – Turkish Song Of The Damned (1988)
17. The Specials – Ghost Town (1981)
18. Jimmy Buffett – Halloween In Tijuana (1985)
19. Soupy Sales – My Baby’s Got A Crush On Frankenstein (1962)
20. France Gall – Frankenstein (1972)
21. Danny Elfman – This Is Halloween (1993)
22. David Seville – Witch Doctor (1958)
23. Bobby Rydell – That Old Black Magic (1961)
24. The Moontrekkers – Night Of The Vampire (1961)
25. Allan Sherman – I See Bones (1963)
26. Lord Melody – The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1957)
27. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross – Halloween Spooks (1960)

DOWNLOAD

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And to bring the mood down a bit again, here is a track sent to me by a friend, whose knowledge in music in encyclopedic. He points out that the artist, folk singer Jackson C Frank, is “ the single unluckiest man in music history”. Read this to find that this is most probably so.

Jackson C. Frank – Halloween Is Black As Night.mp3 (reuploaded)

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More Mixes

I am feeling a little guilty: among the many nice comments I”ve received over the past week was one expressing regret that I don”t update this blog more frequently. I think the average rate is a new post every 3-4 days; but just this past week I have been unusually busy at work trying to squeeze into one week what I normally do in three or four (and next week looks no better). So, after a little of what Germans would call Funkstille, here”s the second volume of singing actors.

Tim Curry – I Do The Rock
Tim Curry was the first non-footballing famous person I had ever met when in 1985 he patronised a restaurant I was working in on Fulham Road in Chelsea, London. Somebody alerted the owner, an overweight 80-year-old Australian queen whom we nicknamed Mr Magoo on account of his obliviousness to everything. So Mr Magoo waddled over to Mr Curry”s table, stared at him for a bit while visible rolling his tongue, and then observed: “So, you are famous, eh.” Mr Curry with much grace acknowledged that he indeed had a certain celebrity status. Mr Magoo then turned on his heels and walked away. After that, I was too embarrassed to tell Mr Curry that “I Do The Rock” was a favourite song of mine when I was 13. Which I probably wouldn’t have done anyway.

Lee Marvin – Wandrin’ Star
Clint Eastwood – I Talk To The Trees
Both songs come from the same Western-Musical, 1969″s Paint Your Wagon. The movie was an adaptation from the 1950s musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, who probably did not have Lee Marvin in mind when they wrote the songs. Marvin”s deep growl, now iconic, served to make Wandrin” Star a massive hit. I suspect that if you played the single on LP speed, Wandrin” Star would sound positively satanic.

Knowing Clint Eastwood and his superglued teeth (he always speaks through clenched jaws, doesn’t he? Has anyone ever seen his tongue?), one might expect his showpiece to be as rough as Lee Marvin’s. Clint, however, was quite a decent singer with a light touch. Indeed, when he was a cowboy in the TV series Rawhide, he cashed in on his celebrity by releasing an album of country songs. Eastwood turned 78 yesterday, incidentally.

Lorne Greene ““ Ringo
Just as Clint took inspiration from his Western TV show, so did Lorne Greene from his. Greene, of course, presided over the Ponderosa as the Dad in Bonanza (in real life, Greene was just 13 years older than Hoss and Adam). Some songs, like Ringo (not an ode to the drummer), were cowboy stuff, but Greene also tried his hands at the standards (his take on As Time Goes By was an alternate contender for this slot). Apparently it was Lorne Greene who, as an announcer on Canadian state radio, announced to his compatriots that their country had just entered World War II, earning him the nickname “The Voice of Doom”.

Yves Montand – Les Feuilles Mortes
Is Yves Montand known better as an actor or as a singer? Perhaps how one regards Montand”s primary field of artistry depends on how much classic French cinema one watches. Certainly, Montand was a singer first, during his affair with Edith Piaf. Les Feuilles Mortes is the original of the standard known in the anglophone world as Autumn Leaves. Originally it was a poem by Jacques Prévert, the Parisian pal of Sartre and de Beauvoir. The composer Joseph Kosma later added the intricate melody. It was used in Yves Montand”s debut movie, though he didn”t sing it. Montand nevertheless would include it in his repertoire, and it became his most popular song — and, indeed, his song. Listen to this version to hear all that which was excised by those who turned the song into Autumn Leaves.

Telly Savalas ““ If
There is a series of albums that came out in the ’80s and ’90s called Golden Throats. Kojak features on one of them with a version of Johnny Cash”s I Walk The Line. The same album kicks off with Leonard Nimoy”s version, as if to set up a duel of horribleness. Nimoy does not stand a chance as Savalas rapes and pillages the song. He obviously didn”t love it, baby. Much better then to include Telly”s chart-topping cover version of the Bread hit, in which (unlike I Walk The Line) he actually speaks. I must confess that here I prefer Savalas” take over the original.

Rick Moranis & Ellen Greene – Suddenly, Seymour
It may be cheating to include in this series a performance from a movie, but a few call for inclusion. Rick Moranis ““ whatever happened to him anyway? ““ shows in this showstopper from the criminally underrated Little Shop Of Horrors (1986) that he is a pretty good singer. Ellen Greene starts off singing in her breathy, lispy Audrey voice before hitting the big notes like the star of stage she is. Attentive TV viewers will know that Greene now appears on TV, in the rather sweet series Pushing Daisies.

Mandy Patinkin – Me And My Shadow
Another star better known for his work on the boards than on celluloid. This song combines two of my favourite moments in popular culture: the song which in its version by Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr features in my list of great cheer-up music, and Mandy Patinkin”s turn in The Princess Bride (in which he looks like he modelled himself on Arpad the gypsy from the popular 1970s TV series on German TV) in which he uttered the immortal line: “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father; prepare to die” before he kills the six-fingered Count Rugen.

Christopher Walker & John Travolta – (You’re) Timeless To Me
While we know that the smug Scientologist has dabbled in singing (who can forget that weird note he strikes at the end of Summer Nights), but one does not immediately associate the stock villain Christopher Walken with exploits of the larynx. Yet here he is in this showstopper from Hairspray. What is not widely known is that Walken was a child star who appeared on 1950s US television variety shows. He is also a very good dancer, as he has occasionally proved in films (and on that astonishing Fat Boy Slim video). That knowledge rather diminishes the menace he can so convincingly convey when cast as the bad guy.

Betty Hutton – Blow A Fuse (It’s Oh So Quiet)
Hands up those who thought Bjork”s It”s Oh So Quiet was an original composition. It was in fact first recorded under the title Blow A Fuse by Betty Hutton in 1948. Hutton, who died a year or so ago, had a crazy singing style anyway (listen to her as Annie Oakley proclaiming that you can”t get a man with a gun, which are indeed wise words). Bjork did not inject much cookiness into her version which Hutton hadn”t already displayed in the original.

Danny Aiello & Bruce Willis – Side By Side
A few years ago, Aiello released an album of Big Band type standards. On evidence of this song from the megaflop movie Hudson Hawk, it probably was quite good. Our man, a very fine actor, can sing. Unfortunately, Bruce Willis can neither act nor sing, but has persuaded himself that he”s a deft hand in both disciplines ““ and the stupid record buyers of the 1980s even handed him a couple of hits which now presumably are used on Gitmo as a means of aural torture. While Aiello is sure footed in this swing number, Willis approaches it as a karaoke singer who has consumed an excess of Rat Pack recordings. Aiello may be no Frank Sinatra, but Willis is not even a Robbie Williams.

George Burns – Fixing A Hole
I had hoped to locate Burns” fabled version of With A Little Help From My Friends (which features on a Golden Throats album I don”t have). Instead, here the old coot is doing injury to another song from Sgt Pepper”s, from the ill-advised movie by that name featuring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. Having heard the assault on the Beatles conducted by the cast of Across The Universe (and contributors like bloody Bono; singing, obviously, I Am The Walrus), it must be regarded as axiomatic that nobody should ever cover Beatles songs unless they are as talented as the Fab Four. On the Sgt Pepper”s soundtrack, there is the glorious exception of Earth, Wind & Fire”s cover of Got To Get You Into My Life, which eclipses the original (a bit like Stevie Wonder”s We Can Work It Out is better than the Beatles” version). George Burns, on the other hand, proves that even with 100 years of showbiz experience, you can still fuck it up big-time.

Mae West – Twist And Shout
Like Burns, so did Mae West try her hands at covering the Beatles and other rock stars in old age. On her superbly titled but awfully conceived Way Out West album, Mae has lots of fun. She changes lyrics when she can”t be bothered to remember them, she misses the right pitch in a bid do outdo the legendary Mrs Miller. West”s version of Twist And Shout is”¦remarkable (I was going to post her take on Light My Fire, but then decided to include a real jawdropper). At first the actress, then a sprightly 73, warbles the tune in a brave bid to hit the higher notes. At one point you can almost hear her groovin” to the beat. Still, she doesn”t attempt the ah-aaah-aaah-aaaah part, instead simulating what appears to be an orgasm. Which may be appealing if you”re a gerontophile. Come up and see me some time? Only if you don”t sing, ducky.

Steve Martin – King Tut
I thought of including Martin”s star turn in Little Shop Of Horrors as the dentist, but that works better if one watches his kerrazy moves as the dementedly sadist mama”s boy. Besides, that fine film already has featured here. So instead, here”s the man”s kerrazy song from his 1978 comedy album A Wild And Crazy Guy (or, indeed, kerrazy guy). King Tut could have won a Grammy, apparently. At what point did Steve Martin take the turn down the Robin Williams Avenue of Sentimentality? I think it was when he played the fireman with the long nose in the American adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, which was quite good, but made Martin realise his soppy side.

Pam Grier – Long Time Woman
Back to the serious stuff. Pam Grier made something of a comeback as a headliner when she appeared as the eponymous Jackie Brown in Tarantino”s 1997 movie. In the 70s she was the queen of blaxploitation movies, most notably as Foxy Brown and Coffy. Lately she has appeared on TV in The L-Word. Long Time Woman featured in 1971″s The Doll House, in which Grier played a prisoner. As in all her films, she was out for revenge, like a prettier and certainly sexier version of Charles Bronson. “My name is Coffy, you killed my husband; prepare to die.”

Nicolas Cage – Love Me Tender
Nicolas Cage has two things going for himself: his career has been a zillion times more successful than his modest talent should have allowed for, and as a huge Elvis fan, he acquired the ultimate Presley memorabilia when he married Lisa-Marie (you won”t believe this, but the marriage didn”t last). Before getting close and sweaty with 50% pure Elvis genes, Nic had to do with just crooning his idol”s hits. He did so with Love Me Tender in Wild At Heart, a rare thing in that it is a movie starring Nicolas Cage which can be described as both quite good and not destroyed by its lead actor”s one-dimensional mediocrity. Unlike his rendition of Love Me Tender.

30 Odd Foot Of Grunt (ft Russell Crowe) – What You Want Me To Forget
Russell Crowe, eh? Better actor than Nicolas Cage and sings his own material. Which does not mean you actually want to see his movies (they tend to be cheerless affairs) or listen to his music. Crowe certainly channels Michael Hutchence, yet the title of this song just teases you to offer the most obvious response.

Robert Downey Jr. – Your Move
The man could have been Cary Grant reincarnated as Johnny Depp. Charm, cool, style, a prodigious talent. And he fucked it all up. He got himself fired from Ally McBeal, for crying out loud, a show which required its actors to teeter on the verge of insanity to make it possible for them to act out those stupid storylines. Remember The Biscuit? Most annoying TV character ever. But now Downey is back, a hot cult property, the man who survived heroin hell and incarceration with coolness intact et cetera. Give it a couple of years, and Oscar presenters will point to Downey, flanked by Clooney and Nicholson, trading in hilarious one-liner as our hero gurns, wiggles his sunglasses and gives a saluting wave. This song comes from Bob Junior”s 2004 album, The Futurist. On evidence of this song, it is almost sad to observe that the album must have been an unremarkable middle of the road affair, proving that Downey is no Crispin Glover.

Minnie Driver – Hungry Heart
Minnie Driver”s version of Hungry Heart is her 2004 album”s most memorable song. But only because we already knew it. And because Minnie Driver forgot to change the reference to having “a wife and kid in Baltimore, Jack”. So bereft of energy is Minnie Driver”s rendition, by that point Jack had already drifted off.

Catherine Deneuve – Overseas Telegram
I got this from Jack S, and to him you”ll owe this very fine Serge Gainsbourg song (if you download this mix, obviously). In Volume 1 I included the Je”taime”¦ sexual intercourse soundtrack number which was originally recorded by Brigitte Bardot, and then covered by Jane Birkin. Guess what: two years after Overseas Telegram appeared on what I think is Deneuve”s only album, it was recorded by”¦Jane Birkin.

Goldie Hawn – I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
A real WTF moment here. In 1972 Goldie Hawn recorded an album of country music, titled simply Goldie (for that”s her name. Not a stage name. Her birth name actually is Goldie Jean Hawn). She got some of the greats working with her: Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton, Buck Owens, Nick De Caro. And when you are backed by such a class of musicians, and by the Buckaroos, you might fancy the odds of conquering a Bob Dylan track, especially since it is as country a song as Dylan ever wrote. Goldie, looking like Brigitte Bardot on the cover, gets through the first verse fairly unscathed. She starts to struggle with the chorus, then evidently downs a few bottles of cheap bourbon to muster courage (and perhaps do a little method acting to suit the lyrics), and sounds sloshed for the rest of the song. The diction goes, the voice falters and rises, the emotions are in all the wrong places”¦

Rowan Atkinson & Kate Bush – Do Bears
Long before he became insufferable as Mr Bean, Atkinson was one of the funniest men around. For the Comic Relief shows in London in April 1986, Atkinson went into slimeball Vegas star mode, persuasively so with big glasses and barstool. He was joined in his duet by the lovely Kate Bush. On the Comic Relief video it is apparent that Rowan & Kate were miming the song when Atkinson forgets to “sing” the falsetto “sha-la-la-la-la-la..”. A raised eyebrow of acknowledgment communicates the hope that nobody noticed. Two decades later, the lapse is still being discussed on blogs. Forgive the clicks and pops on this version: I”ve tried to clean it up as much as I could”¦

Merv Griffin – Tumbling Tumbleweeds
It amazes me that anyone thought it was a good idea to release atonal aural assault. The saxophone riff makes the listener dizzy, the backing vocals make the listener nauseous, and Merv’s off-pitch singing will drive the listener to the bottle (at which point the listener might join Goldie Hawn in a rendition of a Bob Dylan medley).

William Shatner – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
We began this two-parter with Shatner speaking a song, and we might as well use Capt”n Kirk as a handy bookend. His interpretation of the Beatles track is an all-time novelty classic, though it is doubtful that Shatner intended it as such (his Mr Tambourine Man certainly suggests that he was dead serious in his artistry. Find that and listen to his closing scream for the titular character). But, my, what a wondrous journey Shatner guides us through. The highlights are many, but I particularly like the way he first unaccountably shouts the word “girl” and later moans it. The album this comes from, 1968’s The Transformed Man, is often derided as some sort of unlistenable wreck. It is actually quite engaging. On six tracks, Shatner soliloquises dramatically from Shakespeare before launching into pop hits of the day. The combination of technical excellence, pompous artistry and crazy audacity (or audacious craziness, as on Lucy) is impressive.

TRACKLISTING
1. Tim Curry – I Do The Rock
2. Lee Marvin – Wandrin’ Star
3. Clint Eastwood – I Talk To The Trees
4. Lorne Greene – Ringo
5. Yves Montand – Les Feuilles Mortes
6. Telly Savalas – If
7. Rick Moranis & Ellen Greene – Suddenly, Seymour
8. Mandy Patinkin – Me And My Shadow
9. Christopher Walker & John Travolta – (You’re) Timeless to Me
10. Betty Hutton – Blow A Fuse (It’s Oh So Quiet)
11. Danny Aiello & Bruce Willis – Side By Side
12. George Burns – Fixing A Hole
13. Mae West – Twist And Shout
14. Steve Martin – King Tut
15. Pam Grier – Long Time Woman
16. Nicolas Cage – Love Me Tender
17. 30 Odd Foot Of Grunt (ft Russell Crowe) – What You Want Me To Forget
18. Robert Downey Jr. – Your Move
19. Minnie Driver – Hungry Heart
20. Catherine Deneuve – Overseas Telegram
21. Goldie Hawn – I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
22. Rowan Atkinson & Kate Bush – Do Bears…
23. Merv Griffin – Tumbling Tumbleweeds
24. William Shatner – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

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Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run (live) (1975)
From the Live At The Hammersmith Odeon ’75 recording which was released on DVD released. One of the ultimate live songs. Who’s Wendy?

Johnny Cash – Ring Of Fire (1968)
Bonus track on the re-released CD of Live at St Quentin. As a kid in Germany, Cash was always on the radio in a context with whoever was uncool. So I grew up thinking the Man In Black was not cool. Lesson: Don’t look at the people listening to the music but listen to the music.

Dexys Midnight Runners – Geno (1980)
Dexys Midnight Runners – Until I Believe In My Soul (1982)
Every two years or so I go on my Dexys trip. In 2005, I revisited the young soul rebel to observe his 25th birthday and that of my weeks-long obsession with “Geno”; in July I shall celebrate the silver jubilee of the most wonderful Too-Rye-Ay. “Until You Believe In My Soul”, from which that twat Sting stole the idea for a jazz solo interlude, features Kevin Rowlands sneering the immortal line: “You have to be fuckin‘ joking”, at a time when swearing still meant something.

Tim Curry – I Do The Rock (1979)
The song from which I learned that John and Yoko lived at a place called The Dakota. Prescient Tim. This song made me into a Curry fan before I knew about that overhyped Rocky Twaddle Picture Show. One day in 1985 he came into a restaurant in London where I worked. Lovely, shy chap. The 80-year-old owner heard that someone famous was at Table 9, so he waddled over, stood for a minute at the table staring at Curry and female companion while rolling his tongue over his open mouth, and the blurted out: “So, you’re famous?” I caught a glimpse of Curry’s totally bemused look before I dashed to the kitchen where I ROTFLed.

Ram Jam – Black Betty (1977)
Those was mentioned on my favourite forum, populated by very clever people who know their music. One confessed that he had heard “Black Betty” for the first time today, on the radio. I associate this, and Bowie’s “Starman“, with the first club I frequented (without mother’s knowledge) as a 15-year-old.

Sweet – The Six Teens (1974)
Too easily derided as bubble-gum glam rockers, the Sweet had some killer tunes. “The Six Teens” had the group all grown up since their “Little Willie” days, borrowing a bit from prog, foreshadowing Meat Loaf’s operatic rock drama, and still sounding incredibly fun! R.I.P. Messrs Connolly and Tucker.

Immaculate Fools – Immaculate Fools (1984)
December 1984 in London: my favourite pub in Notting Hill had a video juke box (ooooh!). This was on constant rotation. In Blighty these soft rockers (think China Crisis) were a one-hit wonder. Google tells me that the Fools became so big in Spain that they over there.

Prince – Starfish And Coffee (1987)
From Sign O’ The Times. How was this, one of Prince’s three greatest songs, never a single? The alarm clock at the beginning always gives me a fright. To recreate that effect upon others, I like to put this track first on mix-tapes (well, CDs, these days) for others.

The Stranglers – Nice ‘n’ Sleazy (1977)
This might have been my first “punk” single. This or Sham 69’s “Angels With Dirty Faces”. Other punk rock acts of the time included the Boomtown Rats, Ultravoxx and Elvis Costello, who were to punk what Tony Blair is to socialism. Still, “Nice ‘n’ Sleazy”, with its sneering riff and insolent vocals is a great, great song.