Sulci Collective: Girls' Names Songs

Saturday, 4 February 2012

Girls' Names Songs

1. Christine - Siouxie and the Banshees

There were two Siouxie And The Banshees, the hard-edged guitar and drums of Kenny Morris & John McKay suggestive of a mix between the Velvet Underground and Can and the poppier-Gothic version with Budgie on drums and a whole host of guitarists including the Cure's Robert Smith. This is from the latter incarnation and is one of the better songs from a patchy ouevre.

2. Mary Anne - Spacemen 3

One of my favourite bands even if they did sing about drug trips all the time. Not quite sure why this has been uploaded with a picture of marianne faithful, as the song isn't about her.

3. Alison - Elvis Costello

This came out in the middle of Elvis' punk stage and maybe signalled the softer direction his music was to take. However it does contain some of his killer lines, "like those other sticky valentines". Great stuff.

4. Delilah - Tom Jones

Um quite simply a classic. Even the football fans of Stoke City belting this out from the terraces can't harm it.

5. Geraldine - Glasvegas

Fuzz guitar pop that sounds a bit like Jesus & Marychain, must be something in the Glasgow water.

6. Polly - Nirvana

I was never a huge Nirvana fan, but maybe of all music acts during my 20 year stint working in a record store, we followed the daily gossip of this band more keenly than any other band. My boss had tickets to see them in Paris, a gig that got cancelled because of a likely suicide attempt. But no one seemed able to put all the facts together and prevent the inevitable. perhaps that simply wasn't possible.

7. Samantha - Hole

And not to be undone by her other half, Courtney Love's Hole offer this ditty. I always preferred Hole to Nirvana, but this isn't one of their better numbers. "Violet" is a hugely better song, but although Violet is a girl's name, that particular song isn't really a paean to the female of the species.

8. Josephine - Ghostface Killah

Wu Tang member Killah shows his sensitive side (sort of).

9. Deanna - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

How many of Cave's songs are about girls? Bad girls or girls he'd like to kill? Most one way or another I'd say. "We discuss murder and the murder act" - see, told you so!

10. Kitty - The Pogues

Slowing it right down now with Irish ballad Kitty. And a rather lovely lament it is too. Shane Macgowan actually wrote rather touching love ballads, such as Rainy Night In Soho and of course A Fairytale Of new York. Did you know Pogues bassist Cait O'Riordan married Elvis Costello. For a while anyway.