I had a friend, was a big baseball player
Back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool
Bruce Springsteen, Glory Days.
Back in high school: musical genius or arrogant laziness? I'd like to think the former. Either way, a fabulous track.
I find it odd that the musical chromatic scale is made up of twelve notes, the thirteenth repeating the starting note an octave higher. And that the major and minor scales are made up of seven notes each. I'm not suggesting that any other numbers would be any more logical; merely that having any number higher than two play such a pivotal role in something as fundamental as music seems bizarre.
I wonder whether relative pitch resonates (in the mind sense of the word) with us as humans more than it does with other animals. And would we find it musically odd our scale were broken into any number other than twelve intervals? After all, pitch is a continuous scale (ask anyone who listened to me play the violin), so have we artificially manufactured the notes that we know and love? (I'm guessing that there is something inherently significant about two notes an octave apart, given the way they resonate with one another.)
The controversy should not be over Jay-Z headlining Glastonbury. The controversy should be over the fact that Westwood is there to represent him from a reporting perspective.
As far as I'm aware, there are few songs whose titles are a non-finite clause including a gerund. (Surprised no one else has writen about this very subject.) The only two I can think of are Squeeze's Pulling Mussels from a Shell and Shed Seven's Chasing Rainbows. The only such band is Counting Crows, although not sure whether this is acting as a present participle.
That is all.
Now that R. Kelly has been acquitted, is it OK to listen to his music again? (I completely understand that an embargo of the music of Gary Glitter is a given.)
I used to estimate that the average shirt took five minutes to iron. Tonight, I added some science and accuracy to this. Below are the results.
Dress-down Fridays meant that tonight's quota of creased-up shirts totalled four. And tonight I decided to iron to music (iPod and earphones), something I rarely do but something which brings with it a mechanism for time-based accuracy.
For the first shirt, an easy-iron, blue-check number, the end of its ironing coincided beautifully with the end of The Libertines' Can't Stand Me Now, a song that's bugged me for a few days now, in none other than good ways. So shirt one: 3m 27s.Shirt two was a cerise, difficult-to-iron item, the ironing of which took exactly the same length of time as the first: the first 3m 27s of 4Hero/Minnie Riperton's Les Fleur. Third up was a very simple purple-check number, complete in a lightning 2m 44s, accompanied by Dolly Parton's 9 to 5. And the blue shirt that used to have a twin came last, reverting to the three and a half minute standard, this time to The Human League's Together In Electric Dreams.
I think the 2m 44s shirt was a freak, and I'll probably find out in the week that one of its sleeves remains unironed. So the verdict is 3m 30s for a shirt, 30% quicker than the original estimate.
For the last hour or so before leaving work yesterday, I was longing to leave the building, plug in my new in-ear earphones (in-earphones?) and blast The Libertines' Can't Stand Me Now into my head while walking along sun-drenched Whitehall. I have no idea why. But I was. And I did. And I loved it.
Pretty shit day in the office today. Some of which has been offset by listening to Take That's Shine on the bus. Oh. The Ramones' Baby I Love You has just kicked in. All is forgotten.
This morning's random ordering of my five-starred tunes on my iPod started as follows:
Not a pup among them. ;-) On which note, I've now responded to my previous post about embarrassing iPod tunes.
What's the most embarrassing song on your portable music player of choice that you feel compelled to listen to in its entirety upon hearing its introductory bars?
A story about the BBC's decision (and subsequent reversal) to silence out slut and faggot from the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl's fabulous track Fairy Tale of New York.
And they're perhaps the most fabulous set of Christmas lyrics on offer, from what is perhaps the most wonderful Christmas song:
You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last
May the track rocket to number one in the Hit Parade as a result of the controversy. (It's currently number two in the iTunes download chart behind Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You, both of which have been boosted by my good self.)
If two guys share a single pair of earphones (one ear each), does it automatically mean that they're gay, in additon to being ignorant of the importance of stereo? I'm not sure, but would like your views. For the record, I'm pretty sure the same is not true for women, lesbianism that it, not stereo-heathenry.
I challenge you to sing the lead and nothing else while listening to the Mamas and the Papas' California Dreaming. To all knowledge, it's impossible without singing the refrain each time. I believe at the time of recording, the two parts of the song had to be recorded separately because of the lead singer's unstoppable urge to join in.
rickroll (v. tr.) [rik-rohl]: to post a link to a video that itself looks appealing, but which actually links to something dull like Rick Astley's hit single Never Gonna Give You Up.
Shortly after my daughter was born, I made up a little tune that I sang to her. Actually, tune is flattery; ditty would be better. It consists of a mere two bars (or measures, as I just found out they're called in the US), and if sung in D major, would read as follows:
(My lack of perfect pitch means that I don't know whether I'm singing it in D major, and indeed the key probably changes from one rendition to the next.)
For some unknown reason, no matter what's upsetting her, singing this ditty to her over and over again seems to mesmerise her, and her tears always turn to smiles immediately. The more tearful she is, the faster I sing it. And it never fails to work.
Give it a go on your own children, and let me know whether it's my dulcet voice or the tune itself thats working miracles. Or my easily-pleased daughter.
Thanks to Ben for introducing me to Belle and Sebastian, and to John Peel, whose tribute album contains their track Lazy Line Painter Jane. Fabulous track culminating at 5:25 with a rapturous Hammond crescendo to beat all others, leaving only 22 seconds to bring us all back down to earth. Truly marvellous. Its two playings filled 11m 34s of my journey to work this morning. Apologies if my enjoyment of the track freaked out any of my fellow 87 bus passengers.
There are three lines in Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson for which my ears can hardly wait. They're crying out for the lines to arrive, each of which brings unbridled, somewhat inexplicable joy. They are, in playing order:
I hope the lines are similarly enjoyable for others.
The happiest song moment is in Squeeze's Up The Junction, the line "With little kicks inside her" at 1m25s. Perhaps the saddest song moment is in Squeeze's Up The Junction, "She left me when my drinking became a proper stinging", a mere 19 seconds (or two years) later.
Neither ever fails to spark an emotion in me.
The first two tracks that presented themselves to my ears this Monday morning were The Libertines' Time For Heroes followed by The Undertones' Teenage Kicks. For the record, these were followed by Van Halen's Jump. Oh, and the bus arrived straight away.
It's gonna be a good week
Yesterday, Anna defined the seven types of Tube/train smile. I experienced two further types on my southbound Northern Line journey home tonight, taking the total to nine.
The "Ah, finally! smile"
This is usually a reciprocal smile given after an event has taken place before which there was an inordinate delay. This could be an announcement about the reason for a delay, or as in today's scenario, the Tube train finally moving after being stuck mid-tunnel for ten minutes or so. Myself and a female commuter gave each other a wry smile which said "ah, finally".
The "I'm listening to a great track, outward enjoyment" smile.
This smile, sported by myself, lasted four minutes and six seconds this evening, the entire duration of Dexy's Midnight Runners' Come On Eileen. I think I'm quite rare in my outward display of musical enjoyment.
It seems that Mr. Jobs is listening to me.
I've had a bit of a traumatic weekend on the iPod sync. front. Before we headed to the US in 2004, I copied all of our music on to my old laptop and then on to our two iPods. Since then, we have gone through four life events:
In the meantime, I've downloaded a bunch of music (completely above board through iTunes, I hasten to add), and my wife has done the same. Different tunes of course, but tunes nonetheless.
All of this has meant that our three music collections (what should be the 'master' on my laptop, my iPod and that of my wife) have got out of sync.
Even more frustrating is that in the intervening two and a half years, Gracenote's database entries for old stuff have changed slightly. Typos have been corrected, ands have changed to ampersands, regular parentheses (Disc 1) have become square [Disc 1] and so on. And not as rarely as you might think.
The net outcome of this is that I'm finding it very difficult to reconcile any two music sources. I've got spreadsheets into which I've copied library listings (one tab called "Old iPod", one called "New iPod" etc.) and I've created artificial unique names for each entry, stringing together song title with artist and album name. VLOOKUP shows me the songs that don't match, but it doesn't tell me whether this is because the track's genuinely missing on one source, or whether Cigarettes and Alcohol is now Cigarettes & Alcohol.
Now I'm down to a list of 672 mis-matching tunes (were on old iPod, haven't found their way to new iPod) from 119 CDs, 522 of which come from 50 albums. So I think I'll target these and call it a day.
There are two big issues with iTunes.
Firstly, the DRM stuff is really frustrating. I own the tunes (either through download from iTunes or buying CDs), yet I am not allowed to copy them from one hard disk (the iPod) to another (the 'puter).
And secondly, even if song details aren't necessarily the same throughout their life due to the issues highlighted above, please give them unique reference numbers that stay constant. That way, I can easily and confidently establish the mis-match between two music sources, thus saving a whole day's effort. Amazon uses (invented?) the ASIN (American Standard Identification Number) which sits at the product level. String a three-digit number on to the end of this, and you're sorted.
Soul II Soul's Get A Life. Made me smile outwardly on my belated journey to work.
I don't think we've had this one. But possibly the worst moment in any song is Paul McCartney's vocal noodling in Hey Jude.
Any other contenders?
It's early days, what with it being the 8th day of the calendar year. But we already have a contender for purchase of the year.
On Friday, I bought a "line-out to RCA cable". Basically, it goes from my iPod cradle to the back of my amplifier to provide me with uninterrupted music while cooking.
I've thought about buying one for a while, particularly since my FM transmitter no longer fits my upgraded iPod. But I've just never got around to it. £3.99 well spent.
Credit to Gavin (who doesn't have a blog and therefore cannot be linked to) for pointing out the correct cable to buy.
I am absulutely dumbfounded that Ian 'H' Watkins from Steps came out yesterday before going into the Celebrity Big Brother house. I thought this had happened years ago.
I don't have perfect pitch. I have relative pitch. That means that if you give me an A, I can sing you an F (for instance), but if you ask me to sing an F without prompting, I might give it a go, but would have no idea whether I was right.
For some reason, however, I can sing the first note of the This LIfe theme without a prompt. Slightly odd. I don't know what note that is (I'd guess F#), but I can sing it.
2006 saw a total of 413 posts, an average of 1.13 per day, or 34.4 per month. 2005's equivalent numbers were 224, 0.61 and 18.7 respectively.
During 204,647 visits, 796,922 pages were loaded (an average of 3.9 pages per visit) accounting for 18.4Gb of tat.
The queries Brooklyn Beckham and Beckham generated the most traffic (3,902 and 2,914 referrals respectively, presumably due to some spam doobery). The highest-placed proper queries were:
The drum break between nine and ten seconds into Squeeze's Up The Junction needs to be added to my original list of best moments in songs.
I have a couple of playlists that I tend to wear out on my iPod: 4+ stars and 5 stars. These contain the best (483 and 83 tracks respectively) of my 3,415 tracks.
However it's often nice to resort to my 3+ playlist, which contains those tracks that didn't quite make the cut, but which are worthwhile nonetheless. I did this today, and was grinning my way through Covent Garden this lunchtime. Macy Gray's I Try succeeded in upping my step (complete with my mis-heard lyric of "I wore goggles when you were not here") as did Kylie's Keith Washington duet If You Were With Me Now.
I was chatting with my wife this morning. We were talking generally about creativity, in particular how (and whether) musical artists maintain quality over time, during which we compared the artistic process with that required to write books. The conversation was sparked by Noel Gallagher's interview in the Guardian yesterday. (A funnier interview with NG from the Observer in June 2005 can be found here, complete with a priceless moment between Peter Kay and Liam.)
Within our conversation came the following snippet.
Wife: Everyone's got a book in them.
Me: Would you buy mine?
Wife: No.
I laughed.
My brother highlighted a neat little application. It's called TuneGlue, and essentially, it finds music similar to artists that you already like.
It's Flash-based, and I'm thinking that its user interface is more impressive than its business value. But nonetheless, it's worth checking out.
Just heard Lily Allen perform an acapella version of her new single on the Jonathan Ross show. Absolutely beautiful! iTunes here we come.
I thought that I was over you,
But it's true so true.
Next, a short note to share my view that Sleeper were lyrical geniuses. Sleeper were lyrical geniuses.
Fucking shit day. 'xcuse the language. A double bill of The Libertines' Time for Heroes on coming out of Clapham Common tube (with a bit of joyful singing from myself), followed by Otis Redding's That's How Strong My Love Is and Squeeze's Up The Junction put pay to that.
I wonder if people's setting their iPod/alternative MP3 player to Shuffle as a matter of course is a strong psychological indicator. I would have thought so.
My wife questioned tonight how many people besides herself had Boston's More than a Feeling and Bell Biv DeVoe's Poison on their iPods. Anyone?
My Grandpa John used to have disdain for the human voice in the musical context, arguing that it wasn't an instrument and should be banned from music altogether. (I'll always remember that one of his favourite pieces of music was Johann Strauss's vocally bereft Blue Danube.)
I have to disagree, although he's no longer around to defend his stance. I love vocals in music, and they often make an otherwise conformist piece of music come alive.
On a related point, my housemate Glen used to harp on about the qualities of Bruce Springsteen, and this argument fell on my deaf ears for our three in east London. After over seven years with my wife, similarly obsessed by the man from New Jersey, I'm coming around to the argument. He's done some gems, and his vocal style certainly lends credence to my side of the vocals argument above.
Today, I destroyed someone's world. That someone is Rusty, a friend of Ben's. Here's the story.
Rusty is a music aficionado. His musical knowledge seems to be on a par with that of Steve, and indeed that of my wife. While he doesn't know the surname of Charles, nor that of Eddie, he is confident that Nu Shooz' I Can't Wait topped out at Number 3 in August 1986, a fact that I have neither the will nor inclination to challenge.
Tonight, however, I destroyed his world, in claiming that the UK Singles chart was not based on sales for that specific week, but was instead based upon the total sales to date divided by the number of weeks for which the single had been available. This explains why singles don't drop straight out of the charts; instead they gradually fall down the rankings.
For someone who prides himself on knowing chart facts, this came as a body-blow. The whole foundation of his knowledge came into question. I am struggling to find evidence of the fact, but I firmly believe it to be true. It's now 12.45am, and I'm getting up at 6am, so the research will have to come later.
My prediction a little over a month ago that Paris Bennett would win this year's American Idol was proven wrong last week when she was voted off. I don't think anyone could argue with her talent. But when not singing, she became annoying, and while singing, she became arrogant.
Tonight saw a much greater shock: the demise of Chris Daughtry. As a result, the final three will be Taylor, Kat and Elliott. Elliott produced a sterling performance last night to earn his place in the last three, as did Taylor. Kat was dreadful, and I am astounded that she survived the vote. I have no doubt that Chris will become successful despite not making the top three, but this was a real shock.
Allegedly, you can't eat a Rowntrees Fruit Pastille without chewing. And I would argue that you can't hit the next button on your iPod while the Undertones' Teenage Kicks is playing.
As an aside, Rowntrees is currently running a Pastille Idol-type competition on its website, in which you can vote out either the Lemon or Pineapple flavour. It took quite some deliberation before I opted to boot out pineapple. Pineapple's nice and all, but it's more suited to the Pineapple Chunk than the Rowntrees Fruit Pastille. As for RFPs, I'll always be seen going for the citrus flavours rather than the berries.
The Faces' Stay With Me. Any advance?
I've never been a big one for lyrics. I love music, but many songs pass me by without me noticing the message behind the song.
Only when I come to really like a song do I bother with its lyrics, one notable exception being the works of Mike Skinner.
Recently, U2's One was deemed to contain the UK's favourite lyric, beating Nirvana and The Smiths. (As an aside, I've always thought of The Smiths purely as a band name; I've never until today thought about the name itself being the plural of Smith.)
The lyric: One life, with each other, sisters, brothers.
I
have a playlist on my iPod containing nothing but tracks that have
earned five stars, according to the Danometer, a subjective, yet
frighteningly accurate scale. As you can imagine, it's saved for the
best of the best, currently 83 of the 3,433 tracks to choose from
(2.5%). (A further 393 tracks earn themselves four stars, btw.) I
wonder if anyone has a playlist called Five Star's Five Stars, dedicated to the best of Five Star?
To give you a flavour of the five star playlist's contents, below is a taster: the first three tracks when sorting by each of the primary iTunes columns. (At the time of writing this, I don't know what will pop up, so I'm opening myself to potential/probable ridicule.)
Song name
- (Come Up And See Me) Make Me Smile, Steve Harley and Cockney
Rebel. Ah, the beauty of the parenthesis in getting you to the top of
a list
- 9 to 5/Eple, 2 Many DJs. Credit here must go to Dolly Parton for the fantastic sample
- Alright, Supergrass
Artist
- 9 to 5/Eple, 2 Many DJs (as above)
- I Say A Little Prayer, Aretha Franklin
- Complicated, Avril Lavigne (that will be the ridicule kicking in)
Album
- Don't Look Back In Anger, Oasis ((What's The Story) Morning Glory?)
- Eleanor Rigby, The Beatles (1)
- Lady Madonna, The Beatles (1)
Track length
- Eleanor Rigby, The Beatles (2:06)
- Blister In The Sun, Violent Femmes (2:08)
- Molly's Chambers, Kings of Leon (2:15)
Play count (descending)
- Ever Fallen in Love (The Buzzcocks)
- Mr. Raffles (Man It Was Mean), Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel - great track, btw
- Parklife, Blur
I regularly play both the 5 stars and 4+ stars playlists, which has meant me becoming much more familiar with their tracks' lyrics.
Billy Bragg is quoted a few times in the BBC article, which reminded me of a wonderful lyric that I've only recently appreciated from his wonderfully simple track A New England: I was 21 years when I wrote this song, I'm 22 now but I won't be for long.
That's all. I'm not sure what the post was about, but I enjoyed writing it.
I had a documentary on in the background this evening entitled Imagine: John Lennon. You can probably guess the subject matter.
Anyway, it signed off with the version of Imagine in which Lennon, wearing white, sits at a white piano in an otherwise empty white room with floor-to-ceiling windows.
I have to say, the song can only be described as foundering. Maybe this post will become a Googlewhack, through the words imagine and foundering.
Tomorrow, I will begin critiquing Michelangelo's Creation of Man.
I should've said this when I first heard her in the first round, but Paris Bennett will be this year's American Idol.
She's yet to sing tonight, but she is an absolute phenomenon. The only other real contenders are Taylor Hicks, Lisa Tucker and Chris Daughtry.
There have been a few posts about musical superlatives, including best starting lyrics to a song (along with part 2) and best moments in songs. There was even a best 'proud to be British while walking in New York' song post. This evening I was inspired to open up the competition for best rhyming lyrics ever, listening to Perry Como's Magic Moments. Below are a couple of starters for ten.
Perry Como, Magic Moments
- The way that we cheered whenever our team was scoring a touchdown
- The time that the floor fell out on my car when I put the clutch down
Burt Bacharach, I'll Never Fall in Love Again
- What do you get when you kiss a girl, you get enough germs to catch pneumonia
- After you do, she'll never phone you
I'm sure some more will come up in iPod listening, but as I say, it's a start. Please feel free to add through the comments feature.
It's only a matter of time before we see Pete Doherty's obituary. (For some bizarre reason, I woke up yesterday with the premonition that the Queen had died, but if she had, it wasn't considered newsworthy.) I suppose that's the case with all of us, but it seems that he's in self-destruct mode. Here's a guide to his 27 years on the planet.
On 8 February, he was convicted for possessing class A drugs, receiving a twelve month community order. Yesterday (less than three weeks later), he was arrested again, this time on suspicion of stealing a car and possessing class A drugs. He almost warrants his own item in the BBC's left-hand navigation.
While I don't doubt his talent, his news appeal is waning, for me at least.
As an aside, one thing that is lacking on the BBC's magnificent offering is an obituaries section.
Back in November 2004, we had the best starting lyrics to a song thread, hotly contested between the Monkees, the Beach Boys, the Brand New Heavies, Simon and Garfunkel, and Talking Heads.
Now it's time for the best moment in a song. Here are some contenders to start the ball rolling.
- The Buzzcocks, Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've): the guitar changing down following "a-fallen in love with" 2:27 into the track
- Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sweet Home Alabama: the tiny piano riff 30 seconds in
- Billy Bragg, A New England: the break in the guitar after 44 seconds.
The timings may be a little off, depending on the version you may be listening to, but it shouldn't be difficult to identify the glorious moments.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, merely a placeholder for me (and hopefully others) to contribute as and when moments make them smile.
Thanks to Joost for introducing me to the Libertines' Time for Heroes from the Up the Bracket album. Had a great morning walk to work today listening to the My Top Rated playlist. The Kings of Leon's Happy Alone has just kicked in. Just as some people try to eat Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles without chewing, try and listen to that track without moving your head - you just can't.
Someone has probably already thought of (and made lots of money out of) this idea, but I thought I'd share. Given the simplicity of the iPod user experience, wouldn't it be good if you could download skins for your player via iTunes. You could configure the function of each of the buttons and have a different display than the standard. Particularly appealing with the new photo-versions given the colour display. Thoughts?
Oh, another lyrical grammatical faux-pas for you from Madness's Embarrassment: I'm feeling twice as older.
The words from The Beatles' All You Need Is Love have been voted the greatest words of all time. I mean, please!
First of all, while I love words, it's a rather farcical competition. Secondly, the song starts with:
- Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
And this is the chorus:
- All you need is love, all you need is love,
- All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
So OK, the interim verses are a little better, e.g.:
- There's nothing you can do that can't be done,
- Nothing you can sing that can't be sung,
- Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game,
- It's easy.
...and admittedly, it beats the trite that is Imagine, but is this really the best of the best of the best? We're not talking songs here, we're talking words. To put this into perspective, Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream" came tenth. Churchill's "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few" came fourth. Shania Twain's "That Don't Impress me Much" seventh.
(That last entry was artistic licence on my part. Her lyrics were not included in the competition, although I'm sure that if they had, they would have stormed it.)
We often like a track, either for its melody or its lyrics, and we may buy said track or its associated album. But often, I think we overlook the unbelievable talent that it takes to put it together.
If you think about the starting lyrics of any of the four tracks I highlight in the post below, they are truly magical. They flow effortlessly, both rhythmically and syntactically, yet more to the point, they embrace the English language in a way I could only dream of.
Mike Skinner has won critical acclaim (I hate that phrase, but I'll use it anyway) of late for the way in which he brings everyday thoughts and feelings to life in his songs. The first time I heard The Streets' Dry Your Eyes, I had to stop the car (I was driving at the time), such was the power, truth and meaning behind the lyrics.
Similarly, composers' talents often get overlooked, as the listener's focus is on a great tune rather than the brilliance behind it. The fact that the brilliance is hidden is possibly an indicator of greatness - no analysis necessary. I listened to Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill earlier this evening, and the fact that the entire song is written in 7/4 without any effort whatsoever required from the listener is poetry. (I selected this from iTunes alphabetically by track-name, the following track being The Smiths' Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others. The line "Some Girls' Mothers are Bigger than Other Girls' Mothers" possibly puts pay to my previous sentiment on lyrics. Some would counter this.)
I remember watching a documentary about Jamiroquai. During the footage, he was in a studio listening to an incomplete version of what I think was Virtual Insanity. He said that it needed some strings over the top, despite me fawning over the quality of the track as it sounded there and then. He could hear stuff that I could only imagine - Ben's a bit like that.
In summary (or as Americans say, "In summarization"), I get writing (writing English that is - words on paper/screen not meant for singing). I'm not a great writer, but I can hold my own (as it were). However, composing is a different kettle of fish. I "composed" an orchestral symphony when I was 15 (for my GCSE exam), but it was very formulaic, and apart from a few ditties that were repeated and played with throughout, I would argue that there was little artistic flair in there. To be able to write a song that touches people, whether through its melodies or its lyrics, must invoke a pretty special feeling.
Lyrics are funny though. I've never been a big listener when it comes to lyrics. My focus always goes to the melody and harmonies rather than the message that a song is giving. It's only when I give dedicated time to a song that I listen to, and try to fathom, the lyrics. Most of the time, they just pass me by, although I can quote them, more as a string of words than an understood sentence.
That's all. Sorry - rather a rambling post, but such is the title of the 'blog itself. If you've got this far, then please read the post below - much more brief and probably worthwhile.
Back on 18 November, I hypothesised that the best starting lyrics to a song had to be from one of the following:
- Daydream Believer (The Monkees)
- Good Vibrations (The Beachboys)
- Stay This Way (The Brand New Heavies).
In true "Best Album in the World, Ever (part 2)" style, I've come up with another hot contender. The following intro is from Talking Heads' And She Was:
And she was lying in the grass
And she could hear the highway breathing
And she could see a nearby factory
She's making sure she is not dreaming
See the lights of a neighbour's house
Now she's starting to rise
Take a minute to concentrate
And she opens up her eyes
Thoughts?
There are three candidates that I am aware of:
Oh, I could hide
'neath the wings
Of the bluebird as she sings
The six o-clock alarm would never ring
But it rings, and I rise
Wipe the sleep out of my eyes
My shavin' razor's cold, and it stings
Ah! I love the colourful clothes she wears
And the way the sunlight plays upon her hair
Ah! I hear the sound of a gentle word
On the wind that lifts her perfume through the air.
Living with you in my life
Is like feeling the whole world's on my side
Putting a smile in the place
Where a tear used to run down my face
Feeling the sun on my head
Where a cloud used to follow instead
Singing a song in my heart
In a place where all my troubles depart
The songs shouldn't be difficult to name, but I'd be interested in your votes...
