Category Archives: Songs You Should Rediscover Today Because They Are Awesome

Album: Wonderful Life, 1987

Justification: I remember when I was first learning music theory that the difference between a major and a minor key was explained to me as the difference between happy and sad. That semitone change in the third made all the difference (well, also the 7th, but that isn’t nearly so important).

Hey, let’s spin this platter – looks like toe-tapping good times!

It’s what makes ‘Wonderful Life’ so marvellously effective, with its at-first-glance upbeat lyrics about sunshine and wind in the hair and self-reliance, undercut by the melancholy melody and minor key (E minor, to be specific. Incidentally, if you’re the sort of person who ever wonders what instrument someone writes on, the key of the song is a good clue: despite the fact that it’s almost entirely played on keyboards, I’m betting Colin Vearncombe wrote ‘Wonderful Life’ on guitar). The grainy black and white video hammers the discrepancy between the lyrics and the meaning of the song home pretty relentlessly, just in case anyone missed it. That said, there have been several inexplicably upbeat club anthem covers of this which seem to miss the point somewhat. It’s found a recent second life as an anthem for refugee advocacy, though, which is perfect.

I loved this song madly at the time (though the rest of the album’s a bit patchy: his subsequent album Comedy is far better) but Vearncombe’s been off my radar for a long time – however, he’s still making music as Black and under his own name, which I should probably do something about hunting down.

And that chorus is going to be in your head for the rest of the day. Just accept it.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2012: Cracker were showing that Dave Lowery had a life beyond Camper Van Beethoven with ‘Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now)’. 

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

523. Space and Cerys Matthews: The Ballad of Tom Jones (30 Jan)

524. Flight of the Conchords: Carol Brown (8 Feb)

525. The Cure: A Night Like This (1 Mar)

526. The Pogues: If I Should Fall from Grace with God (15 Mar)

527. Hefner: The Day that Thatcher Dies (9 Apr)

Album: We Love The City, 2000

Justification: If you’ve read this site for more than a couple of minuntes, you know what my politics. I’m a big ol’ lefty, and I will happily go on record as saying that Margaret Thatcher destroyed Conservative politics. There was a strain of small-c conservatism that was all about being economically cautious and socially responsible, but the Reagan/Thatcher double-hit killed that notion stone dead, leading to the adherence to free market dogma, economics-as-religion, the abdication of community responsibility in favour of some nebulous idea of the individual being entirely responsible for their lot in life, and so on. It’s evil, it’s venal, and it’s demonstrably dangerous. And the world is the better for her absence.

Thwack! Take THAT, right-wing politics!

There’s a myth that the Thatcher years inspired great music, mainly by people that don’t realise that the punk explosion of 1976-79 occured during the ineffectual Labour government of James Callaghan. And sure, there were some great tunes, but frankly this is the best one: the closing track of We Love The City is a brass-driven stomper, a celebration of mean-spirited hatred ending with a children’s choir singing  ”ding dong, the witch is dead”. And if there’s a better mixing the political and the personal than “she wrapped an ankle chain ’round my left-wing heart”, I can’t think of it at the moment.

Genius.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Flowers – or Icehouse – were being awesome with ‘We Can Get Together’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

522. Gene: Be My Light, Be My Guide (25 Jan)

523. Space and Cerys Matthews: The Ballad of Tom Jones (30 Jan)

524. Flight of the Conchords: Carol Brown (8 Feb)

525. The Cure: A Night Like This (1 Mar)

526. The Pogues: If I Should Fall from Grace with God (15 Mar)

Album: If I Should Fall from Grace with God, 1988

Justification: Happy nearly St Patrick’s Day!

My, don’t they look smart!

The Pogues have a very special place in my heart not because I like a drink or because I have any particular fondness for Celtic folkery, but because they were about the only band that my cousins and I could agree on. The tastes of the Adelaide- and Sydney-based Streets were very different but we all found common ground with the London-based Irish punk-folkers, and I was absolutely going to see the band at the Hordern with my cousins last year but it clashed with something else I went to instead. Damned if I can remember what, mind. 

This is also the first album without bassist Cait O’Riordan, who had quit to work with her new husband Elvis Costello (who she’d met when he was producing the Pogues’ 1985 album Rum, Sodomy & the Lash).

She’s missed, but the band regrouped and expanded for what is probably their masterpiece – bringing in a bunch of new worldish musicish influences to their standard frenetic folk. However, the title track is heartland Poguery and proves that there’s more to them than the (admittedly brilliant) perennial number-one-song-in-heaven that is ‘Fairytale of New York’, which was also on this disc. And while you’re here, click through to this song by the late, great Kirsty MacColl, who was the duettist on that track.

And then when you get maudlin, come back to this – a truly rollicking celebration of damnation.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: The most underrated Pixies song ever: ‘Dig for Fire’.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: The Hold Steady’s jubilant ode to problem gambling: ‘Chips Ahoy!’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

521. The Stone Roses: Elephant Stone (7 Dec)

522. Gene: Be My Light, Be My Guide (25 Jan)

523. Space and Cerys Matthews: The Ballad of Tom Jones (30 Jan)

524. Flight of the Conchords: Carol Brown (8 Feb)

525. The Cure: A Night Like This (1 Mar)

Album: The Head on the Door, 1985

Justification: Before you say the obvious, shut up.

Yes, I wasn’t a very happy teenager – and, periodically, I’m a not terribly happy adult. This is not where I spin off into the obligatory wah-wah-wah-depression-wah-grief confessional that is oh so popular in these R U OK times, but where I accept that when my father was sick and especially after he died, the Cure and the Smiths were sometimes the only thing standing between me and a noose (which I’ve written about before, unsurprisingly). This song in particular punched me right in the feelings, mainly because of those slashing bottom string guitar slides.

Still their best album cover, if you ask me. Which you did, admit it.

However, there is something about this song that is significant to anyone who knows me well, and it is this: it has a saxophone solo, and I have been very, very vocal about how saxophone solos are the red wine spills on the carpet of music: sometimes they’re a disaster, sometimes they don’t really matter that much, but they’re only beneficial under a vanishingly small number of situations.

I’m not sure if this was actually a single in some parts of the world, if they just shot a video. I think it’s the latter.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: Peter, Bjorn & John were making whistling ubiquitous with the infernally catchy ‘Young Folks’.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2012: You lasted far too short a time, Luscious Jackson, but at least we got ‘Naked Eye’ out of you.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

520. The Birthday Party: Nick the Stripper (22 Nov)

521. The Stone Roses: Elephant Stone (7 Dec)

522. Gene: Be My Light, Be My Guide (25 Jan)

523. Space and Cerys Matthews: The Ballad of Tom Jones (30 Jan)

524. Flight of the Conchords: Carol Brown (8 Feb)

Album: I Told You I Was Freaky, 2009

Justification: I wasn’t sold on the second series of Flight of the Conchords at first. All my favourite songs were in series one, I fel like they were reaching in a few episodes, I’d already experienced the giddy thrill of discovering them for the first time and one can’t fall in love twice, etcetera. And this seemed cutesy but slight, little more than a wry retelling of Paul Simon’s ‘Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover’ (which it references in the lyrics).

Yes,apparently the cover was deliberately meant to look like a 70s soft rock LP.

However: my beloved pal Sarah loved this song. LOVED. IT. And so every time I heard it, it made me think of her and I’d grin from ear to ear. And then when I saw the Conchords live (with Sarah and her equally-awesome chap Tristan) and they started playing this, I knew Sarah would be getting her mad boogie on. And then it dawned on me just how clever – not to mention catchy – this song actually is.

Lyrically it has rhymes worthy of Carter USM (I think my favourite is “Felicity said there was no electricity / Emily, no chemistry”) while getting all meta and self-referential in the chorus – and I defy anyone not to laugh out loud at Jermaine’s soulful “mmmmm, shut up.” Also, as someone with more than a few exes, the nightmare scenario of them forming a choir does instill a certain degree of existential terror. Although to be fair, a couple of them do have excellent singing voices.

This entire episode was directed by Michel Gondry, so it’s no surprise the clip’s so damn good.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: Big Audio Dynamite attempt to escape the shadow of the Clash with ‘The Bottom Line’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

519. Elliot Smith: Son of Sam (8 Nov)

520. The Birthday Party: Nick the Stripper (22 Nov)

521. The Stone Roses: Elephant Stone (7 Dec)

522. Gene: Be My Light, Be My Guide (25 Jan)

523. Space and Cerys Matthews: The Ballad of Tom Jones (30 Jan)

Album: Tin Planet, 1998

Justification: OK, this is going to sound like some weird and sinister foreshadowing, but it’s not, honest: this song was a regular karaoke showstopper when performed by my ex-wife and I in the late ’90s.

Still kind of sucks as a cover, you know. Nostalgia, you’ve failed me.

And sure, you could say “really, Andrew? You and your ex-wife used to duet on a song all about a couple trying to murder each other? No longer together, you say? Wow. Your life is the most badly-written dramedy ever.” And I’d definitely agree with the last bit – I’m pretty sure my life is just one diamond heist or kooky neighbour away from  turning into a 80s straight-to-video effort at the best of times – but the fact remains that we did a killer version of it, despite the fact that Lara is more or less tone-deaf. That’s the beauty of singing Cerys Matthews vocal lines: husk it up enough and the notes don’t really matter.

Space lasted longer than you remember: they didn’t split until 2005, despite all the hits you remember (this, ‘Avenging Angels’, ‘Neighbourhood’, ‘Female of the Species’) being released between 1996 and 1998 – and they reformed in 2011 and are still technically active, though guitarist Jamie Murphy quit in 2012 and original drummer Andy Parle died in weird, collapsing-in-the-middle-of-the-road circumstances in 2009.

I was never a fan of the band, and nor was I especially fond of Catatonia (Matthews’ band, which you are about to curse me for since you now have ‘Mulder and Scully’ going through your head). But I can still remember Lara and I grinning broadly at each other, mic in one hand and beer in the other, as we declared “You stopped us from killing each other / You’ll never know, but you saved our lives”.

Good times.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2012: Jellyfish made their one and only bid for relevance with the mighty, poptacular ‘The King is Half Undressed’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

518. Beastie Boys: Hey Ladies (26 Oct)

519. Elliot Smith: Son of Sam (8 Nov)

520. The Birthday Party: Nick the Stripper (22 Nov)

521. The Stone Roses: Elephant Stone (7 Dec)

522. Gene: Be My Light, Be My Guide (25 Jan)

Album: single, 1995; To See The Lights, 1999

Justification: Yes, it’s been a while and this is my first SYSRTBIIA for 2013. Sorry for the delay. It’s been too long, I know.

Ahhh, remember when bands had all their single covers thematically linked? Good times.

Gene were easily stereotyped as Britpop’s premier Smiths tribute act at the time, principally because Martin Rossiter sounds a bit like Morrissey. It’s not the most unfair comparison, mind, though the main thing that the bands had in common was a firm commitment to not including previous singles on their albums and packing those singles with b-sides that were as good as the A-sides (‘I Can’t Decide If She Really Loves Me’ and ‘Sick, Sober and Sorry’ are hands-down classics). This was their second single and first sort-of hit and appeared to herald a jump from the Britpop third tier (Thurman, Marion) to the second (Echobelly,  Sleeper) that never really came.

It was yet another of the regular favourites at Space Capsule and other clubs at which my sister and then-girlfriend-now-ex-wife used to DJ together, and there’s an automatic physical impulse to pull an indie layback the second those palmed opening chords start up.

Gene never got their due, but it’s been nearly 20 years and I still think this ode to late night cab drivers is one of the best songs of the 90s – not least for Rossiter’s airy, mocking (and yes, Morrissey-like) “…and tell me more about women“. This still runs through my head every time I catch a cab after a big night out.

And yes, normally I’ve been waiting a LONG time.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE DISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2012: Celebrate the late, great Grant McLennan with ‘Easy Come, Easy Go’.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE DISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: LCD Soundsystem make a good case for having created the best song in the entire world with #200, ‘All My Friends’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

517. The Fauves: Self Abuser (8 Oct)

518. Beastie Boys: Hey Ladies (26 Oct)

519. Elliot Smith: Son of Sam (8 Nov)

520. The Birthday Party: Nick the Stripper (22 Nov)

521. The Stone Roses: Elephant Stone (7 Dec)

Album: single, 1988; The Stone Roses (CD version only) 1989

Justification: This was the first “proper” Stone Roses single (it’s easy to ignore their actual debut ‘So Young’ because a) Mani wasn’t in the band, b) it sounds nothing like what was to come, and c) it’s shit), and that rollicking wah-wah driven chug is just catchy as all get out. Sure, they were to go on to do better songs – ‘Made of Stone’, ‘She Bangs the Drums’, and obviously ‘Fools Gold’ – but this has a special place in my heart because it reminds me of an absent friend.

Jo Robinson was a pal of mine in Adelaide in the 90s: small, gothy, Kewpie-doll cute and boasting a wicked sense of humour and impeccable taste in music. She also loved this song and would always emerge from whatever corner of the Procenium or whichever club we were all haunting at the time to dance to this, usually with a cigarette in one hand and a Ventolin inhaler in the other. She also had a magnificent mondegreen for the chorus hook, since she thought it was “It seems like there’s a hole in my jeans / I sew the seams”. When corrected, she scowled for a second, thought, then shrugged and replied “My version is better.”

And you know what? I think she had a point.

We drifted apart over the years as narcotics came into her life, and when I got the call that she’d overdosed it was as heartbreaking as it was predictable. But I still remember her in lace gloves and black dress, gothic two-stepping to this under crappy indie-club lights.

She left a tiny daughter behind, who it just dawned on me would be almost ten now. My god.

You’re missed, Jo.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Look, just because it was obvious didn’t mean that it shouldn’t have been Franz Ferdinand and Take Me Out.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: The sole real hit for Michael Pen, the still-awesome No Myth.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

516: Sandie Shaw & the Smiths: Hand in Glove (2 Oct)

517. The Fauves: Self Abuser (8 Oct)

518. Beastie Boys: Hey Ladies (26 Oct)

519. Elliot Smith: Son of Sam (8 Nov)

520. The Birthday Party: Nick the Stripper (22 Nov)

Album: Prayers on Fire, 1981

Justification: It’s weird, you know: my best friend Adam and I used to violently hate this song when we were in early high school. I think we’d seen it on Rage or something, and whenever we wanted to indicate that a song or a band we were watching was shit we’d start going “Niiiiiiiiiick the striiiiiiippeeeeeeerrrrrrr! Hideous to the eye!” in stentorian tones. And then Ads would start singing Scritti Politti‘s ‘Asylums in Jerusalem’, which I loved, and then I’d get all shitty and he’d laugh at me.

So he’d probably laugh at me now, because some years later – with my tastes someone more mature – I heard this again and went “…the HELL? This is amazing!” Tracy Pew’s filthy bass lines, the slashing guitar/brass line, Cave’s demented vocal: it’s got pretty much everything that I was to want from music for the next decade or so. And has there ever been a more contemptuous insult than “he’s a fat little insect”? Nope. There’s not.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Matthew Sweet was making his brief yet indelible mark with the mighty ‘Girlfriend’.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2011: Ah, the sweet and yet wonderfully bitter sounds of the Sundays and the glorious ‘Here’s Where The Story Ends’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

515: Jonathan Richman: Since She Started To Ride (24 Sep)

516: Sandie Shaw & the Smiths: Hand in Glove (2 Oct)

517. The Fauves: Self Abuser (8 Oct)

518. Beastie Boys: Hey Ladies (26 Oct)

519. Elliot Smith: Son of Sam (8 Nov)

Album: Figure 8, 2000

Justification: At the time this album was released I felt like getting into Elliot Smith was kind of a cliché. He was the archetype of the sensitive singer-songwriter that equally sensitive men were into, and I was already rocking a whole lot of that (Joe Pernice before and Smog, Goldenboy and Sparklehorse after). And then, of course, there was his suicide in 2003 which cast a pall over everything he did, reminding us – as with Mark Linkous not quite a decade later – that sometimes searching for something in the darkness just means finding more darkness.

‘Son of Sam’ isn’t, supposedly, about the titular killer (David Berkowitz, depending on whether you subscribe to police investigations or internet conspiracy theories) but a jaunty little ode to mental instability generally. And the video is based on the 1956 French featurette The Red Balloon, although I still always think of the Mr Show sketch when I see it. YouTube it. Go on.

Anyway, enough time has passed that I can accept that this is a hell of a song, and only feel a little bit like the abyss is calling when I hear it.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: PiL were insisting that ‘This Is Not A Love Song’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

514. Cibo Matto: Sugar Water (14 Sep)

515: Jonathan Richman: Since She Started To Ride (24 Sep)

516: Sandie Shaw & the Smiths: Hand in Glove (2 Oct)

517. The Fauves: Self Abuser (8 Oct)

518. Beastie Boys: Hey Ladies (26 Oct)