Emerging from her blog-hibernation, Lianne has reassured the world that her radio silence wasn’t due to bad stuff (which is good to hear), and as if to prove it she’s thrown a ‘meme’ towards seven people, myself included. It goes like this:
“List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to”.
It’s my first time being tagged in this way (though there’s another similar post which I’ve been meaning to do for a few weeks, and hopefully which will surface in the next couple of days), so please be gentle with me if I make a fool of myself, but my answers are…
1. ‘November’ by Steven Lindsay – From the album Exit Music, which (along with his more recent album Kite) was looping as I did a lot of writing last week. It’s a beautiful song – very melancholy, but Lindsay’s voice is great, and the arrangement is perfect for the overall feel of the song. To my mild amusement, it reminds me of the U2 song ‘October’, and I was wondering if it was possible to create a playlist of songs with months in their titles, but I ran pretty dry after these two. Any suggestions? Please let me know.
2. ‘Alive’ by Meat Loaf – From the not really very good Bat Out Of Hell III, this is probably the only decent track on it that’s not written by Jim Steinman; in these apparently-sensitive times, I’m impressed by the use of the couplet ‘I’m a runway train on a broken track / I’m a ticker on a bomb that you can’t turn back’, and there’s a nice breakdown bit towards the end. It’s as ridiculous and overblown as you’d expect from a Meat Loaf song, of course, but I like it.
3. ‘Join With Us’ by The Feeling – I feel a combination of surprise and disappointment that this is being used in a car advert, as it struck me as an obvious choice for a single, but I guess in these downloadin’ days the idea of single releases is kind of limited to the songs they make a video for, and maybe they see the advert as a similar promotional tool? I dunno, but I’ve thought this was the best song on the album of the same name, mainly because of the frankly ludicrous lyric ‘Ring Ring, beep beep, ah-ha’, which I think is delightfully stupid, though of course it does rather invite criticism for being, well, nonsense. But I like it.
4. ‘The Beat that my Heart Skipped’ by Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip – This is a strange one. This song was one listed as part of the soundtrack for the latest issue of the comic Casanova (first issue to read free online here – fourth row down), suggested by the rather talented writer, Matt Fraction. It’s a pacey little number, awash with lyrics, and my first hearing of it made me think it was kind of positive and romantic, and the title inevitably made me think of m’lady. However, having looked at the lyrics, I have to say that it’s far more ambivalent about the object of his affection. Oop. Anyway, I think it’s a good song regardless of this.
5. ‘Foux du Fafa’ by Flight of The Conchords – Is stuck in my head a lot at the moment, mainly because of the utterly ridiculous lyrics. I love the exchange ‘Ou est le discotheque?’ ‘C’est ici, bebe!’ but that may be because I am little more than a child. I genuinely urge you to listen to the whole album, it’s a great deal of fun – even if the impressive sales of it do rather undermine the joke that the ‘Chords (as they’re known by, er, nobody but me) are a failure as a group. Though for me, that makes it even funnier.
6. ‘True Faith’ by New Order – I used to share a house with a chap who was a huge fan of New Order, and the following dialogue took place more than once:
Me: Come on Jason, you must know the one I mean.
He: No, I don’t.
Me: You MUST. It goes ‘de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-dee-dee-dee, something-something-something, rising sun’
He: No, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop going on about this.
…After I found out what the song actually is, I discover it’s one of New Order’s bigger hits. Makes me wonder if he was a fan at all. Anyway, I think it’s a really strong song (in either its original or its 1994 remixed version), and if I get another tune stuck in my head – an irritating one, I mean – I tend to focus on this one and push the unwanted one out. Might sound mad, but it works for me, probably something to do with the drums at the start. Oh, the sound of drums…
7. ‘Only Myself To Blame’ by Scott Walker – I was reminded of this song after hearing the similarly-titled ‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’ by Beth Rowley (which is also rather good), and it’s a smashing recent re-discovery. I’ve heard Mr Walker referred to as ‘God’s Tonsils’, and the sheer breadth of his voice on this song shows why. Oddly enough, this song is from the soundtrack to the Bond film ‘The World Is Not Enough’, but I’m not quite sure how it’s supposed to fit in with the theme of the film, as it’s brimful with regret and melancholy, and not so much about boat chases down the Thames. Not that it really matters; the song’s fab, in my opinion.
… so, then, those are my (currently) magnificent seven. I think they should all be easy enough to find and download through the wonders of the internet, so you can always make up a mixtape or playlist and give it some witty variation on my name like ‘Danger Soanes’. Oh all right then, don’t. Suit yerself.
Now, I’m supposed to tag seven people with this, so I will – lord only knows if they’ll even see this or respond, but I want to do my bit for the spread of the meme, since I was amused and slightly touched to be tagged in the first place. And so I hereby tag M’colleague, Steve, Fwengebola, Marie, Angie, Elinor, and lastly but not leastly Jon (this last is a thinly-veiled attempt to check Jon’s all right, as he seems – as Lianne recently was – to be blog-hibernating. See how I returned to the opening theme there? Ah, life and its cycles…).
