Lunchtime Round Up

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

1/ Last night on my iPod on came Fat Bob with "In Between Days". This got me thinking. Once I made a special "BREAK GLASS IN EMERGENCY" wedding disco CD with songs I did not especially adore but knew would DO A JOB on the floor. I wonder if for future Poptimisms, should they occur, I should have a similar CD to guarantee me some LiveJournal GothXoR Dance Action. And if so - here's where you come in - what should be on it?? Obviously the Cure but what else?

2/ From my country CD box set I give you Daddy's Hands (lyrics only you'll be sorry to hear), this is one song whose downhome sentiment I fear does not travel!

3/ Oh I don't know, grumble about the Arctic Monkeys or something.

let's start a band/collective and book some gigs

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

Inspired by katie singing in yet more nindie. We can have as many ppl as want doing anything. i wanna sing. a bit.

we need a band name.

we need someone to book some (free) gigs

maybe we need some songs too, hmm?

The 70s: Threat Or Menace

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

When I got married I was given a CD-R by NED RAGGETT!! of Rhino Record's Super Hits Of The 70s compilation, a collection of, essentially, mostly US pop chaff from the 1970s. The rule seemed to be that nobody with more than two hits or with a famous album to their name was allowed through the door so what you get is about 150 songs worth of purest 70s pop sensibility. And what I learn is that the 70s were bonkers, about half the songs are these stately pop/rock songs about DEATH - why?? Was it something in the water?? Also it is really really hard to listen to this stuff and work out even where it came from - how exactly did the dots join between the music being made in the 60s and this odd overwrought kind of pop. The ones that aren't about death are either:

- weird nursery rhyme shit about smiling
- songs about how the man can't cut our hair & other vague 'social comment'
- tubthumpers about how good rock n roll is.

NB none of this is meant as disparaging, half these records are terrific and all of them are strangely addictive.

Anyway the record that tipped my balance from 'cool' to 'WTF' was "Wildfire", the chorus of which goes wildfire oh wildfire and the verses of which go as follows:

verse 1: singer sings of a girl he luvved who owned a pony called Wildfire. Wildfire oh Wildfire etc.
verse 2: there is a terrible storm and the pony escapes and DIES and the girl follows and tries to rescue him, also DIES. Wildfire oh Wildfire.
verse 3: another storm leaves the singer starving to death and he can hear the hooves of the GHOST PONY approaching!!!!! WILDFIRE OH WILDFIRE.

The entire thing is incredibly drippily performed. WHAT ON EARTH was going on with all this 'death of Little Nell' stuff being not even a fringe but a completely core part of pop???