Right, stop whatever you’re doing and have a listen to this – Earworms interruptus. 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, should you choose to accept it, will be buildings and construction. Many thanks to all contributors.
Alasdair Roberts & Olivia Chaney – OK, I’ll Count to 8 – severin: Not so much a song about interruptions as a song with interruptions. A brief, daft song from the Concerto Caledonia compilation “Revenge of the Folksingers”.
Jack White – Love Interruption – AliM: from his first studio album, Blunderbuss (2012), with Ruby Amanfu providing additional vocal.
Long John Baldry – Everything Stops For Tea – Ravi Raman: Apparently there are two different songs with this title. Title track of an actually pretty good album.
Interrupted – Twilight Sad – vanwolf: No idea why it’s called this but it’s a great song.
Joni Mitchell – Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow – severin: From The Hissing of Summer Lawns, of course. Described in the sleeve notes as a “poem” rather than a song. The sorrow in the title seems to refer to living (and boozing) with an unfaithful bloke. Unless I’ve got that all wrong. Which I often do. Anyway, I think she was definitely intending to interrupt it.
Paint Work – The Fall – vanwolf: One of my favourites of theirs – featuring a few interruptions to the song flow. Just felt something fantastic about this from the first time I heard it seemingly eons ago (or, in reality, the mid 1980s).
Sorry the worms are a little late. I am having a Person from Porlock day, and now it is a beautiful evening, after what has been a glorious day. It was all too good to miss. Now I’m settling down with a little snackeroo – not one of those mentioned here, but very good, all the same. If you have an Earworm you would like to share, please send it to earworm@tincanland.com, together with a few lines about why you’ve chosen it. Next week’s theme is interruption – musical or otherwise. Many thanks to all contributors.
The Chefs – Food – severin: Brief and to the point. Snacks and meals rather blend together in this song by the punky/indie Brighton band. The song was first featured on a sampler called Vaultage 79 which was (amazingly) the follow up to Vaultage 78. That series (of two) also introduced the world to Wyngate’s favourite R/R nominees Peter and the Test Tube Babies and pop chart sensations The Piranhas.
Nina Simone – Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer – tfd: In spite of the fact that I live mostly among vegans these days (or perhaps because of it) it was the word ‘pigfoot’ that first came to mind.
Chet Atkins: Nut Sundae– Ravi Raman: From his covers of Grammy winners. Here with Jerry Reed Hubbard who composed the number.
Royal Crown Revue – Salt Peanuts – Ravi Raman: boiled or roasted I need salt for my peanuts. And my favourite snack as well. It’s from their 1998 album The Contender.
The Monkees – You Bring The Summer – severin: “I’ll bring the chips and the dips and root beer / Even though dark purple rain clouds are near. When you come around you bring the Summer.” OK, it’s only the opening lines but it’s kind of topical as summer seems to be starting again. I think, maybe.
The Wolfhounds – Cut the Cake – vanwolf: A nice slice of ‘80s indie to have with a cup of tea.
NRBQ – RC Cola And A Moon Pie – tincanman: A bipolar icon of American rock, the band has in their 50 years together both been lauded by legends like McCartney and Dylan and been the house band on The Simpsons for two years. This is one of their songs.
Camper Van Beethoven – Ice Cream Every Day – vanwolf: I’m not sure it’s a particularly healthy snack but at least it’s sweet.
Anthony Weis – Bright Crisp Morning – AliM: OK, it’s a shoe-in. But most mornings (aside from this one, which was glorious), can be improved by the addition of a marmite with cheese’n’onion crisp sandwich.
Sorry it’s late, a combination of Internet failure and unexpectedly beautiful weather. If the picture makes you cringe, you can blame vanwolf, whose blurb: ‘an anthem you could imagine the rebellious youth of the daleks boppingto‘, lead me to a fruitless search for downloadable pictures of baby daleks, dancing. I failed, but found this instead. Anyway, stop wittering, Ali … 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 lines about why you’ve chosen it. Many thanks to all contributors. Next week’s theme will be Snacks. This is a wide field as one person’s ‘snack’ may be another person’s dinner. Or worst nightmare (horseradish and marmite sandwich, anyone)?
Clocker Redbury and Dusty Slosinger – I Can See Clearly Now – tfd: I hope I won’t be bursting anyone’s bubble by revealing that Clocker Redbury and Dusty Slosinger do not exist … or rather that they do exist but are both incorporated in the body of one Jimmy Smith, formerly of the Gourds. And here we have Jimmy playing all the instruments – including what sounds like a car horn but is, I believe, an accordion – and doing all the vocals on this well-known classic. (Come to think of it, though, Dusty Slosinger has a Facebook account, so perhaps I’m wrong.)
Dandylion – Never Look Down – severin: This was Marianne Sveen’s other band. I’m not sure if they still exist in some form or whether she will just continue to record under her own name. Anyway, it’s from 2012 and has the word “look” in it.
Isobel Anderson – Watch You Leave – AliM: From her fourth album Chalk / Flint, which I may have mentioned before. It’s rather good.
Adverts – I Looked At The Sun – severin: The wordiest of punk lyricists went for a rant here about rejecting technology and civilisation (I think) based around the image in the title. Then again it may have been a government health warning. It was produced by one of the blokes who co-produced Tubular Bells.
The Jeff Healey Band – See The Light – Ravi Raman: Title track of their debut album. Another name that seems to have fallen into disuse.
Tom Russell – The Last Time I Saw Hank – tincanman: A mystic saga that intertwines a vision Tom had in a dream with the last time he saw his father alive and all the emotions they awoke.
Black Crowes – Seeing Things – Ravi Raman: Is he singing to a woman or about an hallucinogen?
Hothouse Flowers – I Can See Clearly Now – Carraval: From their 1990 album Home, another cover of the Johnny Nash song.
Faraquet – The View From This Tower – vanwolf: Nice slice of math rock. doesn’t mention vision much but it’s all in the title. (A long one – enjoy – Ed.)
Last time out I did a pretty good electronica set.
The time before that I was with my good friend David. And we were a total shambles. In fact, I didn’t even know we’d made a recording of the night until two weeks ago. Finally, it’s time to destroy any street cred I ever had.
Listen to the sounds of intermittent silence broken by the terrifying sounds of Tiger Feet.
Shelter from a sudden blast of The Ballroom Blitz.
That silence is the sound of us searching to intialise the sound card, frantically plugging and unplugging cables like mad boppingboffin scientists wondering which connection is correct.
Say, “Eh up! What the fuck!” As I decide I don’t wanna hear T-Rex, reblast a second of Queen and then settle into a Rolling Stones grooving on a Rollator sixties’ set.
Follow the bell curve of the evening as we become progressively more disinterested and the curve falls off the chart and starts digging us a hole we happily wallow in as we play with shite.
Be amazed as disco starts to play cos the night was advertised as a rock disco and some punters think that means we should be playing D.I.S.C.O.
Cup your ears or cover your ears and think, “Why the fuck did they bother?” as the evening descends into Smokie darkness as Bad Boys Blue play.
Marvel as Teenage Fanclub suddenly start to play cos the bloke getting ready for his paper round requests it. Be stunned to find that I actually do have Kula Shaker in the library.
Ponder whether or not we are trolling the crowd by playing Gerry Rafferty album tracks. (Rafferty is big in the Waterloo – we kid ye not.)
Feel for the men who are prepared to put aside their pride for a couple of pints of Guinness and cos the owner’s a mate.
This post won’t be here long. Get it while it’s still beating; before it rots into digital decay.
The eardrum torture starts at 3 mins in. You have been warned.
Here we are, inching our way towards Summer, yet rough winds do shake the darling buds of … errm, April, actually. Anyway, here are some splendid Earworms about measurement. If you have an Earworm you’d like to share, please send it to earworm@tincanland.com, together with a few words about why you’ve chosen it. Next week’s theme will be Vision. Many thanks to all contributors.
The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness – Nanci Griffith – Magicman: from the pen of John Prine and the voice of Nanci.
The Ozark Mountain Daredevils – Jackie Blue – AliM:You like your life in a free-form style / You’ll take an inch but you’d love a mile – the words popped into my head but it took another 3 days to remember where they were from. Much speculation about the meaning of the song, my favourite is: The song is about a baseball pitcher for the Texas rangers named Jackie Brown who was secretly dating OMDD’s drummer. From their excellent second album It’ll Shine When It Shines (1974).
Merle Travis – Sixteen Tons- Ravi Raman: It may say ‘various’ but it is definitely Merle Travis good naturedly giving Ernie Ford credit for boosting his song.
Annette Hanshaw – Six Feet of Papa – severin: And five feet of mama apparently. Which apparently equals heaven. They never taught me that in my A-level maths class. Probably why I failed the exam.
Susanne Sundfor – Mantra – severin: ‘I’m as empty as the earth, An insignificant birth, Stardust in a universe, That’s all that I am worth’… Large and small? Measuring yourself against the really big stuff? This might possibly be a shoehorn but I like it.
Rory Gallagher – A Million Miles Away – Ravi Raman: from the 2005 compilation album Big Guns. Always a joy to listen to him.
Half Japanese – Attack of the Giant Leeches – vanwolf: How big? We don’t really know, but what started off as a harmless prank has now put everyone in danger. No one is safe.
Plague Vendor – Anchor to Ankles – vanwolf: The treasure is only 6 feet deep. The singer knows it and appears intent on telling the whole f*king world about it.
The Who – I Can See For Miles – tincanman: Because… Keith Moon. (Here’s a YouTube link http://bit.ly/2r3h4bS so you can watch him. For bonus fun you can try and guess what song the people are dancing to, because it doesn’t seem to be this one).
STOP PRESS:
Gomez – Get Miles – Sarah: Seeing them this week on their 20th anniversary of Bring it On tour.
I’ve just finished a stint on RR. The topic was writing. It nearly tipped me over the edge. This isn’t about that though. There were lots of nominations about letter writing and sending. I always listen to possible tracks at least twice if I can, and pay attention to the lyrics. A couple of the songs had great titles or lines that triggered a thought fox (my latest favourite phrase).
The title of Wilco’s song A Box Full of Letters reminded me of my own box of letters (also has a great hook though, that I can completely relate to “I just can’t find the time, To write my mind, The way I want it to read).
PJ Harvey’s typically sexy The Letter can be interpreted in a couple of ways I reckon, but on face value it was this line that took me back to my letter writing days “Who is left that
Writes these days?” – she’s referring to letters of course.
I went away to school. It was a necessity due to my father’s job which moved us around a lot. I went at 11 in 1983 and after my A levels worked as an Au Pair in Munich for 9 months and went straight to university after that. So from the age of 11, I’ve pretty much only gone home during academic holidays. As a result, letters formed a huge part of my life. I wrote a letter several times a week; to my parents, to my grandparents, to cousins, to my brother (who was at an all boys school). When I came home in the holidays, I would spend a lot of time writing to my friends, widely dispersed around the UK and all in the same boat – back at home where we knew very few other kids…
When my parents moved to their current house, they insisted the 3 of us finally remove all our crap from their loft, they didn’t want to cart it yet again. Amongst my detritus were all of the letters I had ever received, bound by sender in colourful ribbons. The addresses on the envelopes tracing the many places I’d lived over the years. There was no way I could store all of them myself. My mother and I began a day of wading through and re-reading her letters to me. They formed a fascinating personal and social history of banalities, family news and stories that place the letters in time. I remember one where she described in great detail the number and types of shops that had closed on our high street and the rising cost of essential items. It was the 1980s.
I culled so many of these letters, but I wanted to keep the essential ones. There were some in the pile from people I didn’t remember. There were letters from old boyfriends that made me blush. There were letters about not very much, but knowing someone had taken the time to write always made me feel important. I remember long summer holidays desperately waiting for the post, and then the 2nd post (remember that?).
The upshot is, I went into my eaves storage this morning. There amongst the old paint pots and dust sheets sat my current box of letters. The ones I saved from my mother’s fire. I couldn’t quite get it out unfortunately.
I also found a mini trunk I’d forgotten about, where there were more letters and postcards. I also found 3 excruciating volumes of diaries I wrote in my A Level years. The pink one pictured is stuffed with more letters and notes handed between school desks – the precursor to snapchat.
I think letter writing is a dying art. What do we need letters for nowadays when we can get hold of each other 24/7? I miss the thrill of receiving real mail. About 6 or 7 years ago I invested in a fountain pen and started writing to my mother again. We would still speak on the phone, see each other, text regularly, but the letters were about random stuff that had happened that day – funny things I’d forgotten about by the time I spoke to her next; a disastrous attempt to dye my hair, the colour of my new nail polish, how brilliant it was that I could pick sweetcorn at the local PYO farm. I didn’t tell her any family news – it was all about me. She would respond similarly and it became a way of reconnecting with her on a level we had somehow lost over the years. It lasted for some time, until we felt we didn’t need it any more. Give it a go and surprise someone – writing a note is a joyous thing.
So anyway – back to those songs that were nominated. Here’s the letters list:
Well here’s a how-do-you-do, I’ve been rushing around, trying to get this done, think I need another cuppa. Anyway, many thanks for all your caffeine Earworms, take a break, chill, give them a listen. 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 measurement. Feet and inches, pounds and kilos, big and small. No need to be exact, size is not important. Apparently.
Ella Mae Morse – 40 Cups of Coffee – glassarfempty: I’ve cut down from this level of coffee, but Ella Mae Morse needed something to keep her awake waiting for her man to come home. She has been called the first rock and roll singer. Hmm.
Aesop Rock and John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats – Coffee – saneshane: I first heard this Aesop Rock and John Darnielle track when it had a bonus track that came along after it on None Shall Pass (Bonus Track Version) – having the silence causing me distress when I listened in the car and made me skip it a lot… I dislike bonus tracks. I love the track though – so when I found the Coffee 12” – life was good again… “ this is what they make you take, the medication for”.
Humble Pie – Black Coffee – Ravi Raman: not the Ella Fitzgerald song but the Ike & Tina Turner one. From their Eat It album.
Joe Bonamassa – Tea For One (Zeppelin cover) – AliM: We seem to be slightly over-hyped with coffee this week, so here is a genteel pot of tea for one to slow things down a bit. Seems appropriate for St George’s Day.
Justin Rutledge – Kapuskasing Coffee – tincanman: Hits home for anyone from a small town in Canada, or anywhere for that matter. (What would have made this perfect is if fellow Canadian Kathleen Edwards had done a song about quitting music and opening a coffee shop in a small town outside Ottawa, which she did a few years ago. She was behind the counter when I was passing through one day last winter but I didn’t bother her. Had a great lunch and bought a t-shirt though.)
Philip Catherine – Coffee Groove – Ravi Raman: an instrumental by a jazz guitarist though this one has got oodles of trumpet.
Emile Vacher – Sporting Java – severin: Well, it’s on a compilation CD I bought years ago, called Café de Paris and the tune’s title is Sporting Java. So, despite it being an instrumental I’m certain its got something to do with coffee. And I rather like it which sort of matters too.
Ella Fitzgerald – Forty Cups of Coffee – severin: Two cups a day is more than enough for me. I’m more of a tea drinker really. Forty would just about finish me off I think. You’d come home and find me on the ceiling. Still Ella makes anything sound good I reckon. (Compare and contrast the Ella Mae Morse version – Ed.).
