War songs - 15 songs with a war theme

1) Pere Ubu - "30 Seconds Over Tokyo"
A song about the dropping of a nuclear bomb, even though neither of the two that were dropped were over Tokyo. Still, unnerving sounds for an uncomfortable track.



2) Mickey Dread - "World War Three"
I grew up in an era when we did talk about the possibility of a third world war with due seriousness and dread. But somehow, when transposed in a reggae idiom, it doesn't quite seem as apocalyptic.



3) DOA - "War In The East"
White man reggae, so yes the threat and menace are back in it. Still I like the almost jaunty rise in timbre of the line "War only brings destruction".



4) Dead Kennedys - "Chemical Warfare"
So you steal some chemical agent and who do you target with it? Only the Country Club Sunday golfers!



5) Minutemen - "Dream Told By Moto"
Yes we really did think about what would you do with the 4 minutes left of life before the bombs hit. And this seemed to be the unfailing response. Typical male perspective, 4 minutes being sufficient.



6) The Pogues - "The Battle Of Brisbane"
In which Shane Macgowan accompanies himself by beating a tin tray against his head.



7) The Clash - "Washington Bullets"
The Clash sing about Latin American politics, of the American government's interdiction against anything faintly Marxist on the continent and the murky world of drugs, guns and money deals.



8) Fund-a-mental - "Sbrebrenica Massacre"
From an album called "All is War", one of the angriest albums you will ever hear as they catalogue the West's campaigns against Muslim states. This is haunting.



9) Black Sabbath - "War Pigs"
Ozzy and Co po-faced for once rather than camping it up.



10) Flipper - "Sacrifice"
There is something primal and primeval about Flipper's basic sound and that seems to fit perfectly for this song.




11) Rage Against The Machine - "Killing In The Name Of"
I was never really into them, so this is about the only one of their songs I know and that really only from the crowdbombing campaign to get it to the Christmas Number One instead of some TV Talent show dreck.



12) Gang Of Four - "Armalite Rifle"
This was only ever a B-Side on a single, but demonstrates their political aesthetic which informed all their early songs.



13) Stiff Little Fingers - "Wasted Life"
The band from which I was the most spoiled for choice for songs about war, hardly surprising that they came from Belfast, but they managed throughout it all to remain pretty non-aligned, quite an achievement in that community torn by strife.



14) Ian Brown - "Illegal Attacks"
Ian Brown the spokesman for Britain's illegal invasion of Iraq with America, based on a fictitious report into Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons capability. It's a long way from Madchester's non-stop party vibe.



15) Discharge - "Visions of War"
Discharge, the band that would be invited to soundtrack the apocalypse.

The Eyes Have it - 10 songs about the eyes

He gazes into her eyes and she into his and they burst into rapturous song about each other. Or something like that anyway...

Here's 10 songs extolling the eyes, or otherwise.


1) "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes"
I first heard this original version on the soundtrack for Dennis Potter's TV drama "Pennies From Heaven" and although Big Band music isn't really my thing, I bought the soundtrack. There's something really fragile about this version.



2) "A Pair Of Brown Eyes" - The Pogues
When the Pogues first happened along, everyone thought they were just Plastic Paddies from the local pub, but in time Shane MacGowan showed what a fabulous songwriter he was. This song may have signalled the public recognition of that fact.



3) "Dry Your Eyes" - The Streets
Cheeky Brummie chappy Mick Skinner pulls off the not inconsiderable feat of writing a song about heartbreak and even tries singing it rather than his usual rap patter. Well the chorus at least.



4) "Gypsy Eyes" - Jimi Hendrix

How good is this? Nothing more to say really.



5) "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" - The Adverts
Probably the most disconcerting song in this list, a mental patient projects himself into looking through the eyes of death row inmate Gary Gilmore as he is strapped in for his execution. Wonderful stuff.



6) "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" - Crystal Gayle
As with Big Band music, I really don't go for Country & western, but this is saved by not having that Southern twang that to me always seems to undermine any sincerity or intensity. This was a song from my childhood that always seemed to be on the radio, but I never owned it.



7) "She's Got Dickie Davies' Eyes" - Half Man Half Biscuit
Oh those comedy punsters with their then pop cultural references. if you didn't know, Dickie Davis was a TV sports presenter, with a bouffant, two-toned hair style that seemed to put him a world apart from the oafs and lumps he was fronting live coverage of. This is spoofing the Kim Carnes song "She's Got Bette Davis' Eyes". Ah simpler times...



8) "H Eyes" - The Ruts
Malcolm Owen the lead singer died of a heroin overdose. His songs veered from an extolling of the drug, to a total antipathy as here. Sadly missed, though this isn't one of his best creations (for that I suggest you check out "Love In Vain")



9) "Junior's Eyes" - Black Sabbath
Yep, suitably over the top as per usual with the Sab, but just about manages to preserve its dignity without sniggering.



10) "In Your Eyes" - Peter Gabriel
I am so relieved that Gabriel still has a career and Phil Collins doesn't. What the latter did to Genesis was a travesty!



And what do eyes do, or sad eyes anyway? Why, they cry tears of course. Here's a mini chart of songs about crying.

11) "Boys Don't Cry" - The Cure
Proof that The Cure were a pop band before they became a pseudo Goth pop band if you see what I mean. And that they didn't take themselves too seriously as shown by the substitution of lookalike kids for the band members in this vid. Love it.



12) "Cry Me A River" - Julie London
Now this, rather than a C&W singer is more my idea of a chanteuse. Sorry Crystal



13) "So Many Tears" - Tupac Shakur
Not just a thug living a Thug's Life, but there is genuine sentiment in this song. Sounds like az man who knew it was only a question of time before he joined the list of fatalities.



14) "None A Jah's Children No Cry" - Ras Michael & The Sons Of Negus
What a voice! Man I wish I'd been at that concert.



15) "96 Tears" - Question Marks & The Mysterians
Hey I'm a sucker for hammy hammond organ chops

States Of Mind - Songs about mental states

The music that was birthed by "The Blues", personal laments of woe, depression and the like, mental states have always been present in rock music. So here's 15 songs around the theme of mental states.


No prizes for guessing the first one-
1) Black Sabbath - "Paranoid"

I was never a fan of Heavy Metal, but this song broke through my natural resistance and affords the grudging acknowledgement that it is undoubtedly a classic. Doesn't excuse hair and clothes though as demonstrated on this video. I own a pair of Ozzy Osbourne style slippers by the way. Oh what has become of Heavy metal? it's become merchandised into asininity like every other music style.



2) Jimi Hendrix - "Manic Depression"
Not great quality I'm afraid, but in a way it only lends to the unsettling nature of its subject matter. Of course mental health experts would insist on the track being renamed Bi-Polar disorder. My father suffered it under its old guise. Not easy to live with, not knowing if he would be bouncing off the ceiling one day, and refusing to get out of bed to go to work the next.



3) Clipse - "Ego"
The heart of it all if you're a Freudian. In an industry dominated by the exaggerated projection of the ego, perhaps Rap projects it the furthest. In this particular case, Clipse's album tracks are littered with song titles drawn from therapy such as "Counselling" and "Life Change" as they struggle with the trappings of their success.



4) Talking Heads - "Psychokiller"
David Byrne is a curious egg, (though not as odd as David "Behemoth" Thomas from Pere Ubu, must have been something in the New York water in the late 1970s) but I've just bought his learned tome "How Music Works" which I'm looking forward to reading.



5) Rolling Stones - "19th Nervous Breakdown"
Not one of my fave tracks of theirs, I prefer "Paint It Black" to be honest and it's such a strong song it even survived a murdering by the band The Mo-dettes.



6) Pink Floyd - "Comfortably Numb"
The shadow of founding member Syd Barret who succumbed to mental illness possibly brought about by drug use, sits large over Roger Waters' composition with other titles such as "Brain Damage" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".



7) King Crimson - "21st Century Schizoid Man"



8) The Kinks - "Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues"
Ray Davies was known to have the odd quirk or two wan't he?



9) Cypress Hill - "Insane In The Brain"
Or kids, don't do drugs...
I recently tracked down a book called "Whispers -  The Voices Of Paranoia" for some research, but was very disappointed that although the case studies were interesting stories, most were prompted by drug abuse which wasn't quite what I was after. The author did that to me deliberately...



10) Coil - "Panic"
Coil were a band who actively pursued the lesser known regions & emotions of the human mind in their music. Partly through drugs and also through the occult, myth and ritual. Big Alastair Crowley fans. Still, I don't hold that against them.



11) Sonic Youth - "Schizophrenia"
Their best ever song was called "Expressway To Yr Skull" which I saw them play live and was blown away by and couldn't wait to own on the forthcoming album. And when the record came out, they'd renamed the track "Madonna, Sean & Me" which doesn't quite carry the same impact somehow...



12) Suicidal Tendencies - "Institutionalized"
I first came across this song on the movie "Repo Man" and what a great song it is. But then the band went all stupid skate rock and that was that.



13) Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - "She's Cracked"
Trouble with Jonathan Richman is that you can't really take any of his songs too seriously with his droll delivery. Still can't disguise how great some of his songs were though.



14) Breeders - "Happiness Is a Warm Gun"
Yeah I know it's a Beatles song but I infinitely prefer this version. So shoot me. Mind you even the Beatles' original is better than U2's version.



15) Nirvana - "Lithium"
The fact that Kurt Cobain put a shotgun to his head probably suggests her knew what he was singing about in songs like this one. My father was prescribed lithium; imagine putting a metal into your bloodstream, well that's what lithium treatment is.

About The Weather - 10 songs on a climate theme

With the barometer bouncing up and down like a fairground "Try Your Strength" machine, I thought it was maybe time for  or a weather themed chart. Here's ten different weather systems honoured in song to warm the cockles of your heart. Don't forget your umbrella!

1) "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" - Creedence Clearwater Revival

One of the main differences between rock music and literature, is that rock musicians are way more upfront about tipping their hat to their influences. Of course it;s easier to record a cover version of somebody else's song than to reproduce someone else's text and pass it off as your own, though there are some existing stories retold anew by writers and William Burroughs did take other writers' texts and incorporate them in his cut up technique... Anyhoo, Creedence Clearwater revival were a band I only came to after the fact, because their songs were covered by the likes of Sonic Youth, Minutemen, REM and the like. And this one is really rather beautiful.



2) "Set Your Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" - Pink Floyd

Early Pink Floyd and the continued interest in all things interstellar, although this was recorded around the time when David Gilmour came in to replace the ailing Syd Barrett (and doesn't Gilmour look terrified in this video?) This song has a real menace to it even if that was never its intent. But then I guess if you're piloting straight for the hottest star in our system...



3) "Riders On The Storm" - The Doors

Don't know what it is about the 1960s that brought out all these great songs about the weather. There again the weather was intimately associated with man's early knowledge, spirituality and superstitions, so what better subject for the Hippy decade? Another unnerving song, with possible some of the greatest blending of music and sound effect committed to vinyl.



4) "Like Calling Up Thunder" - Gun Club

And so to the 1980s, though Gun Club were a band obsessed with a swampy blues rock that harked back to the 1960s and themes of voodoo and devils in the wood. Not one of their better tracks to be honest, but their relatively short discography has many gems in it and I recommend you track them down as a band if you haven't encountered them before.



5) "Snowblind" - Black Sabbath

Um Ozzy Osborne & Co doing what they do best. I think.



6) "Butterflies And Hurricanes" - Muse

And talking of over the top, Muse actually downscale their usual ambitions of all things cosmic and content themselves with the more earthly scale of the elemental force of a hurricane. Why is it that the guys who sing of elemental forces are always so skinny?



7) "Blowin In The Wind" - Peter, Paul & Mary

Talking of 60s icons and all things meteorological, can you believe there isn't a decent Bob Dylan version of this on You Tube? So the next best thing, though it still lacks Dylan's plaintive vocal urgency methinks. It's weird, as a child of punk I shunned all things Hippy, but actually this particular chart demonstrates to me that there were some rather nifty tunes that emerged from that sordid music decade! Must be losing my edge...



8) "Little Fluffy Clouds" - The Orb

And so to dance music whose light shows often reproduced a microclimate live on stage, to obscure the fact that there wasn't much in the way to look at the musicians dwarfed behind their banks of keyboards.



9) "Crying Lightning" - Arctic Monkeys

Remember when Arctic Monkeys were supposed to be the band that emerged from the internet world to save us all from the dross of TV Talent show music production? What ever happened to that I wonder? Their career took an arctic tern for the worse it appears (did you see what I did there?)



10) "Misty Mountain Hop" - Led Zeppelin

The one depressing aspect of this chart, is not the preponderance of inclement weather, but how many members of these bands are now dead. 6 of these 10 artists have lost band members to the great rock and roll smoke machine clouds in the sky.

My Jukebox

My dream (fantasy) of having made it as a world famous author and therefore with some disposable income, was that I would buy myself an original jukebox and stock it with some of my choice 7" singles that I have been unable to play for about 15 years now for want of Hi-Fi.

Of course, though my fantasy has long since gone West, you can just type the band into YouTube and pretty much unless they're really obscure, there will be some version of your holy song. Maybe even an early live performance of it to boot.

So here's my virtual jukebox, transposed to a blog. It was always a tough job deciding which tunes would go on, but here's my top 10. Welcome your suggestions, but it must exist on 7" vinyl - no 12" DJ remixes!

10) "(Looking Through) Gary Gilmore's Eyes" - The Adverts.

There was punk, three chord thrash, but pretty quickly there was also a slightly more musically accomplished and lyrically interesting New Wave. Here the Adverts made a generation of Brit youth aware of who Gary Gilmore was and where Utah was too.

9) "Alphaville" - The Monochrome Set

The beauty of 7" vinyl is that you have B-sides, of which this was one, with the inferior "He's Frank" being the A-side release. I never saw The Monochrome Set live, but was told I didn't miss much as they stood stock still while screens played projections of them. So I don't feel bad that there's no visuals to this, just enjoy the song, it's a bit of a gem.

8) "Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have Fallen In Love With?)" - Buzzcocks

They all look a bit older and fatter in this recent vid, but there's no disguising the greatness of this song. One of the few I've got from that period without any kind of picture sleeve.

7)"Where's Captain Kirk?" - Spizz Energy

Nutty as a box of frogs, the band changed their name every few months and used to advertise gigs by saying 'see them before they change their name'. This is a classic song by any standards, frivolous, lo-fi and yet strained through the muslin of utter genius.

6)"Totally Wired" - The Fall

Great video for this song replete with drummer dropping a stick in the drum intro! When Mark e Smith & Marc Riley were still prepared to share a stage.

5)"Paranoid" - Black Sabbath

I'm not saying the vinyl I've got for this is an original, since I would have been about 6 years old on first release, but I am happy enough to own this. Despite my punk & new wave leanings, this is a seminal track from a band that influenced so many of the likes of Butthole Surfers and Ministry. Respec'

4) "My Perfect Cousin" - The Undertones

It was a close call between this and "Teenage Kicks" which after all also has the marvellous "Emergency Cases" on the B-side, but to me this is the perfect pop-punk song, just check out those snide lyrics and with it's glorious Subbuteo sleeve, what could be better? Of course with a jukebox only requiring the vinly and not the sleeve, I'd have to mount the vacant sleeves up on the wall in the Rough Trade West stylee...

3)"You Got Good Taste" - The Cramps

I've got this in see through green vinyl (remember that?) We were always warned such vinyl was inferior and not good for one's hi-fi. Screw it, it's going in my Wurlitzer cos I've got such good taste... Lux Interior RIP

2) "Holiday In Cambodia" - Dead Kennedys

Just to get the jukebox party going into overdrive you understand... B-Side "Police Truck" a much underrated gem.

1) "Money" - The Flying Lizards

I love this deconstruction of Barrett Strong's original so much I've bought it twice after playing it so much in my youth scratched up my original copy. Man tracking down a replacement was hard work and yes it's also got a small scratch, but I had to own this again.