Earworms 24 September 2018

Greetings all, don’t forget to check your horoscopes – here are your songs about signs of the zodiac. Special starry welcome this week to Shiv Sidecar, and thanks to Sev for bullying him into it. Not quite a full house, but Scorpio, Aries, Libra and Aquarius are all mentioned by Curtis Mayfield, so that’s all right. If you have an Earworm you would like to share, please send a link or an .mp3 to earworm@tincanland.com, with a few lines about why you’ve chosen it. Next week’s theme will be timepieces.

Curtis Mayfield – Readings In Astrology – tincanman: I’ve almost sent in Curtis Mayfield songs twice recently but I guess the stars weren’t aligned correctly until now.

Nat Adderley Sextet – Taurus – Ravi Raman: From their Soul Zodiac album. I thought I would learn something about myself as it’s my sign. It just reminded me of what an awesome person I am.

Big Bill Broonzy – Bull Cow Blues – severin: Taurus. And my name is Big Bill. Or rather his is. This is my favourite kind of blues. Nothing wrong with the electric stuff but this deceptively raggedy acoustic music is what I love about the genre.

Kevin Ayers – Gemini Child – Shiv Sidecar: I’m sending you a contribution for the next Earworms – because, er, severin told me to… I posted “Gemini Child” by Kevin Ayers & the Whole World on the current Song Bar topic, and he drew my attention to this week’s Zodiac theme. So here it is. I’m not sure that this heralds a bright new dawn of me as a ‘Spill regular, but you never know. And I will definitely find time to listen to this week’s Worms…

The Unthanks – Soft Shelled Crabs – AliM: From their recent album, “The Songs and Poems of Molly Drake”. For the Cancerians.

Youssou N’Dour – The Lion (Gaiende) – severin: The online translated lyric seems to have little to do with Leo the Lion, being more concerned with ideas like “You don’t have to do what your mother has done, This is your life, this new life has begun. It’s your day – a woman’s day”. Maybe it should be called The Lioness. Anyway it sounds so good it deserves a place in the musical zodiac I reckon.

Alex Niggemann – Virgo – AliM: Alex Niggemann is a German music producer and DJ, he is also a classically trained pianist, also an audio engineer. Here is something to dance to.

Sidney Torch and his Orchestra – The Archers (theme) – AliM: Here’s one for the Sagittarians, “Barwick Green”. It reminds me of when my granddad lived with us, he would listen to The Archers over lunch (cockles (not crabs) were one of his favourite lunches).

Kris Kristofferson – Jesus Was A Capricorn – Ravi Raman: My first thought after reading the topic. A firm favourite with many singers in Chennai back in the day (is that the correct term?) (Yes – Ed.).

Steve Hillage – Salmon Song – AliM: One of my favourite Steve Hillage tracks, from the album “Fish Rising”, which is appropriate for a Piscean like me.

DR. OLIVER SACHS, an appreciation.

There’s something I’ve wanted to introduce to the Spill audience for quite a long time but I’ve kept prevaricating. It’s radio, does anyone listen to radio anymore? I’ve spent my life listening to radio almost daily, delete that ‘almost’, I listen to radio every day and have done so for as long as I can remember, it started in about 1940. I’m not talking about pop music radio, I don’t think I’ve listened to that in about 50 plus years, I’m talking about what I consider to be ‘serious’ radio, non commercial interesting adult stuff, you know, arts, culture, politics, music, that sort of thing.

Ten Titles – Joan Armatrading

It doesn’t look like anyone else has a list planned for this week so here’s a quick one without any helpful accompanying notes. Still, you will probably know most of these already. They’re not in chronological order. Like in a set-list I saved the big hits until the end.

 

Baby Blue Eyes

It Could Have Been Better

Loving What You Hate

Somebody Who Loves You

Steppin’ Out

What Do You Want?

Into the Blues

Willow

Drop the Pilot

Love and Affection

Earworms 17 September 2018

Monday’s child is fair of face / Tuesday’s child is full of grace / Wednesday’s child is full of woe / Thursday’s child has far to go / Friday’s child is loving and giving / Saturday’s child works hard for a living / And the child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe, and good and gay. Here are your songs about days of the week. If you have an Earworm you’d like to share, please send an .mp3 or a link to earworm@tincanland.com, together with a few words about why you’ve chosen it. Next week’s theme will be signs of the zodiac – feel free to widen this, e.g. if you can’t find a song about “Libra”, find a song about scales. Or diplomacy. Or something relevant. Many thanks to all contributors. (Me? I was born on a Wednesday, natch.)

Lau – Saint Monday – AliM: Saint Monday is the tradition of absenteeism on a Monday, dating back to times when the working week was Monday to Saturday. Pay day was often Saturday, so workers had a little left-over money and food to tide them over till Tuesday. But in this case, the industry is long gone.

Smithereens – Groovy Tuesday – tincanman: I have no idea what a groovy Tuesday is, but I do know a Smithereens’ Earworm when I hear one. (Which is pretty much any of them).

This Is The Kit – Wednesday – AliM: I went to see TITK a few weeks ago, and very good they were too, in a laid-back trippy sort of way. Not music to dance around the kitchen to, but music to snuggle up with someone / something of your choice to. Which was unfortunate as I was (a) driving and (b) with someone un-snuggly. Hey ho.

John Lee Hooker – Wednesday Evening Blues – glassarfemptee: Classic John Lee Hooker with a familiar riff and a song of falling out of love.

Sam Baker – Thursday – tincanman: Sam Baker’s quiet lamentations on life could be as morose as fellow Texas troubadours past and present, but usually at least offer a hint at hope no matter how dire his characters’ circumstances. His rewriting of Mother Goose at the end seems fitting this week

New Orleans Nightcrawlers – Thursday Morning Revival – Ravi Raman: Picked this up during RRSA New Orleans week. Not sure what the revival stands for though. Lovely album.

JJ Cale – Friday – Ravi Raman: A thank god it’s Friday song in his inimitable style. Yet to get him zedded. (It will happen. It will happen. It will happen.)

Glen Richardson – Dress Down Friday – glassarfemptee: From Brighton-based Glen Richardson, a juicy pop ditty about redundancy making it Dress Down Friday every day.

King Crimson – Book of Saturday – AliM: No doubt familiar to many but a true Earworm for me, one of the first King Crimson songs I ever heard, usually followed by it’s Larks Tongues in Aspic bedfellow, “Exiles”.

Pyotr Leschenko – Mratschnoje Woskresenje (Gloomy Sunday) – severin:  The “king of Russian tango” forsook the dance floor for this version of the notoriously cursed Hungarian song/dirge. You probably recognise the tune from many other recordings but, be fair, in Russian? Possibly the language barrier helps in this case. Whether he includes the “I was only dreaming” Hollywood ending of most English versions I really couldn’t say.

Elvis Costello – Seven Day Weekend – severin: I suppose that’s what I have since I took the redundancy money, asked for early retirement and ran like hell. I think the bloke in the song is just dreaming of such a thing. “You say Monday’s long enough, but this is just the start. Tuesday’s just the same as Monday without the surprising part”.

A BLAST FROM THE PAST

Since nothing seems to be happening here I’m going to pop this one in. I just had an email dialogue with Chris which prompted me to search my last 5 years posts. I happened on this one, it’s from 4-5 years ago and I opened it, it was fascinating in view of our current ’10 bests’ etc. Warning –  If you open it you might be there a while.

https://readersrecommend.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/a-favorite-dozen-albums/

A LIST OF 10: 1960’s – 70’s FAVORITES.

Some time back I created, for my own entertainment, a list of songs from the 60’s-70’s that I’d enjoyed at the time, the list ran close to a hundred. I’ve just edited it down to 10. Ten favorites that you probably all know but perhaps haven’t heard for some time. They don’t get played much any more so here’s a chance to enjoy ’em again.

Ten Tracks

 

I’m not sure who, if anyone, is going to do the next “Ten Tracks” slot. So, following on from one of GF’s comments, here are ten excellent tracks featuring music from Africa – Malian, Congolese, Mozambican, South African, Mauritanian, Nigerian, Cameroonian, Senegalese, Ethiopian and the Ivory Coast. All very different, probably very familiar. Feel free to widen our listening pleasure by suggesting others.

DISCLAIMER:
This in no way prevents anyone else from going ahead with their own Ten Tracks feature!! Or any other feature!!