"5-4-3-2-1" - manfred mann

"5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1. 54321 54321 54321 54321 ...."


its 12:11:10 09/08/07

i noticed

i cared

need i say more?

"august 8th" - nofx

"the air is sweet, the summer flowers blooming. nowhere in sight is there anything grey. feelings of joy are filling the street. yeah, august 8th is a beautiful day"



just noticed what the date was, and instantly thought of this song. because i'm so obvious and painfully cliche. maybe i will never have an original thought again.

i wonder what happened to my copy of eating lamb though.

"dedication" - roy castle

"dedication, dedication, dedication - that's what you need"



if you need dedication to succeed in the vaguely impressive but ultimately pointless field of being a record breaker, imagine how much more dedication you need to do anything actually worthwhile.
there are some things i'm pretty dedicated to, but only in a worryingly passive kind of way - and i'm not sure if that counts. i'm certainly not dedicated to doing much, but can fool myself comforted with my dedication to abstract concepts.

"one way or another" - blondie

"lead you to the supermarket checkout. some specials and rat food get lost in the crowd"



it's all emma kennedy's fault. she's been writing in her blog, which i always read, about having to sing this song for an audition, and after reading it i've spent literally hours poring over how i would sing it in such a situation.
and the most annoying thing is i wouldn't.
i can't act and i hate actors so i would never audition for a musical (though if anyone were to offer me a part in a production of return to the forbidden planet i might just die of excitement).
and even if i did i wouldn't sing a blondie song (although i have done so at karaoke more than once - its part of my only doing songs by female singers rule)
and even if i had to it wouldn't be this one (probably in the flesh since you ask)

so all i've done is waste a lot of time and thought on the artistic decision i would make were i to be in a situation i know - for a fact - i am so unlikely to be in that the probability is negligible.

"street spirit" - the darkness

"fade out again"



sitting in a pub in the countryside on a sunny afternoon, eating a moderately generous amount of reasonably pleasant food, and gently despairing at the choices of piped music at barely audible volume - an inoffensive-as-possible mix of 70s "classics" and modern ballads - when jamie cullum's smug little cover of high and dry came on. with my mind wandering away from the conversation in hand i was thinking of the folly of doing a radiohead cover when i remembered this one. it was one of the first darkness tracks i heard and at the time it raised my opinion of them beyond being a one trick novelty act - though i have since returned to the one-trick-novelty-act theory. but this reinvention of the song as a huge screaming rock song was invigourating and my mind kept returning to it throughout the afternoon - until the conversation turned to slagging off my ex which held my attention somewhat more

"ask" - the smiths

"spending warm summer days indoors"


i hate the sun.

obviously i am grateful for its life- and light-giving properties and recognise we'd be pretty stuck without it so i should clarify that i hate the sun as a weather condition rather than as an astronomical entity. in fairness to it, there are many weather conditions i hate more, but on a hot summer day everything i do seems to be tempered by avoiding pain.
firstly, bright lights hurt my eyes, and in the sunshine everything vaguely reflective, or even just very white, becomes a potential bright light, thus leaving me incapable of looking at anything without pain [although mild discomfort might be a more accurate term, i prefer the drama of pain].
secondly, the hot rays hurt my skin. i hate the feeling of sunlight on my bare flesh - the prickly frying sensation that imperceptibly slowly develops into the redrawness of searing flesh. i spend all my time wearing long-sleeved clothes and ridiculous hats and clinging to the patches of shade i can fit myself in. plus i really hate the way tanned skin looks. that's not a racist comment, by the way - there are some stunningly beautiful people of ethnicities different to my own - but porcelain whiteness is much more aesthetic than the blotchy honey-smeared look of the person whose body has just experienced hot sun for the first time in months.



later i put this song on in the car. i told my daughter that she had to be able to sing along to every song on louder than bombs by the time she is 10. my wife didn't seem to think this was a good plan - but i don't think it's much to ask. when i was a kid i knew pretty much all the words to any album of my parents' that i liked - and even many i didn't much - by the end of the third or fourth listen. i wish things came that easily to me now - i cant even remember all the lyrics to most songs i've written at the moment

"sumer of rock n roll" - outl4w

"don't wanna drive a bus or train catch a thief or fly a plane - i only wanna rock n roll"




what is it about the summer that makes people more willing to forgive inanity?
this song is sheer unadulterated drivel. even considering the fact i was written by small children, it is unbearably infantile. its even less clever than their stupid extraneous number in the band name [did someone just call me a hypocrite?].
the original remit for the competition on xfm that this song won was that it had to include the words "summer" and "beergarden". so there i was sitting in a beergarden in the summer and the train of thought left me thoroughly earwormed with this.

now, i want to rock n roll at least as much as the next man, but i don't want to do so soundtracked by a bunch of pre-pubescent punk-wannabes

"flicker" - kathryn williams

"but you sit there for hours watching programmes you don't plan to watch they just come on"



i made a decision this evening that i wasn't going to turn the tv on. this was mostly because i worry about the detrimental effect it has on my daughter's brain development (and mine for that matter) and because i wanted to get on with my plan to play her as wide a range of albums as possible. i started off with the angelou album because of how much it had been in my head earlier and them we moved on to this album.

i bought this record purely on the basis of seeing her perform one track on the mercury awards show and for the most part was not disappointed. it's pretty and witty and thoughtful and immaculately scored (though i'd like to hear the bass do more than plonk) and, even though its a bit too folky for me to listen to often, i enjoy it when i'm in the mood.

so in the middle of spooning yoghurt in the vague direction of a baby's face these lines jumped out at me and knocked me back. maybe it was just a guily conscience on this matter - but it felt like she was levelling this accusation straight at me. oh but its true. there are so many things i want to do, things my wife wants me to do and things i really should do that i just never get around to doing. and theres noone to blame but me. theres not enough time, but theres a lot more than im using - even on nights like this when the tv stays off.

"bitter honey" - angelou

"i am drunk on you"



first up, where did this blog go? i decided to have a couple of weeks off and it just somehow turned into 4 months. i really am pathetic.

secondly, who would have thought the first band i've not been a member of to have two songs mentioned in this blog would be angelou? but all through the last few hours i've had this song all over my mind so much it's made me want to get this blog back out.

and what a track to come back with. haunting, soft, beautiful, full of metaphor, ever so slightly strange, powerful at just the right moment, just enough of a twist of sadness - it is a love song that is so much like being in love. a song that makes you want to be in love. a song that celebrates love. love is the healthiest addiction i can think of.
go, take the one you love in your arms and get drunk on them.