Songs About Actors

Songs about actors, who could have imagined it would produce such a rich vein? And none of includes songs about ex-actor Ronald Reagan since they tend to address his post-actor career in the White House. Sadly no songs either by the wonderfully named band JFA, as in "Jodie Foster's Army". Still, no shortage of ditties devoted to thesps.


1) Julian Cope - "Robert Mitchum"
Only Julian Cope could pull off something so twee as this. Imagine it as the soundtrack to "Night Of The Hunter"? Nope, me neither.




2) Kim Carnes - "Betty Davis' Eyes"
Not to be confused with The Adverts' "Gary Gilmore's Eyes", or Half Man Hal;f Biscuit's spoof on this "Dickie Davis' Eyes". Which is a pity as I prefer both of those infinitely to this pop pap, even if in the video people beat out a rhythm on the floor with their hands. Too much of that and they'll have Betty Davis' hands.



3) Lee Perry & The Upsetters - "Clint Eastwood Rides Again"
But Marc I hear you cry, this is basically an instrumental, so what has it got to do with Clint? Other than the ridin' along on ma horse rhythm and the increasing insinuation of gun shots you mean? Reggae artists love cowboys and spaghetti Westerns, honouring them in many a song and even artists taken the names of cowboys, such as well Clint Eastwood and Dillinger (all right he was more 20s bankrobber than cowboy). My chart, my rules.



4) Angel Corpus Christi - "John Cassavetes"
Try tracking this obscure album down... Amazed it's on YouTube to be honest. John Cassavetes, actor and film director. His work was talked about in hushed tones with great reverance, I saw one called I think "Husbands". It was fairly turgid. I wonder if he's still so highly regarded now that he's been dead for so long? The movie world can be as unforgiving as the music biz if you don't put out new product. Anyone remember Alex Cox these days? Thought not.



5) Bauhaus - "Bela Lugosi's Dead"
True story this. After my university finals but before we graduated we had a lot of time to kill. So we decided to play a gig outside the halls of residence. Plugged into the basement and off we went. Only the bassist could actually play, I was hitting a beer barrel with a sledgehammer for percussion (I was heavily influenced by Test Department at the time). And the song the bassist could really play well was this. The singer knew the lyrics. He was very active in the Animal liberation movement, hardly what one associates with the Goth revival as typified by this song. Funny world.



6) Billy Bragg - "Ingrid Bergman"
In which Billy punctuates his stand up repartee with a song 6 minutes into this video. Sorry about that.



7) Beastie Boys - "Lee Majors Come Again"
Let's crank it up with some noise. Lee Majors played the 6 Million Dollar Man on TV. As an actor you might not have given him more than 6 dollars. I think the Beasties may have drawn similar conclusions as the connection to lee Majors is tangential at best.



8) Nirvana - "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle"
KK was obviously much taken with Ms Farmer since he named his only daughter after her. I was never a great Nirvana fan, actually preferring the work of his Mrs, Courtney Love's "Hole". You want to make sure you put the speech marks round that or it takes on a whole different meaning. This song is even more dirgey than the usual Nirvana output. The name "Nirvana" was ironic right?



9) The Clash - "The Right Profile"
The Clash were always dropping references to real people in their songs. This checks the name of Montgomery Clift, actor in the classic "From Here To Eternity". Another actor who suffered a serious car crash, although he managed to eke out a tad more of his career after that. Now we've covered that, I don't have to post The Eagles' song "James Dean". What? If this was a chart for songs about actors involved in car crashes, then maybe...



10) MDC - "John Wayne Was A Nazi"
I don't feel I have to add anything to the song itself.



11) Natalie Merchant - "Lulu"
Okay let's take it down a notch or two. Merchant's paean to silent actress Louise Brooks, she of the famous hair do. What I called in one of my novels, the 'Roman helmet' cut.



12) Banarama - "Robert De Niro's Waiting"
God I hated this song when it came out. Still do. See, this is how generous I am posting songs I can't stand.



13) Madness - "Michael Caine"
This song was rubbish too. I'm beginning to think actors make lousy subjects for pop songs.



14) Sonic Youth - "Madonna, Sean And Me"
Bit of a cheat this one because everyone knows the song as "Expressway To Yr Skull", but for some reason when the album was released, this was the name they gave the track. Still, this revives my faith in the concept of the actor themed song, cos it is epic! Was lucky enough to hear them play it live a couple of times, walk off the stage at the end of their set and the guitar feedback was still squealing through the amps for a good few minutes later.



15) Serge Gainsbourg - "The Initials BB"
A song about his sometime collaborator on songs Bridget Bardo". Unless you speak french, you'll just have to take my word for it. I think Bardo has gone on to become the ultimate cat lady in her dotage.



16) Roxy Music - "2HB"
No, not a song devoted to the middle of the road in pencils, but extolling Humphrey Bogart. Bryan ferry sounds even more drawly than normal in this.



Just In From our NRA correspondent"
17) Stump - "Charlton Heston (Put His Vest On)"
God knows which bit of my deep-lying memory I dragged this one from, but a day after compiling the chart, this came to me.

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.

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.

Special Bonus Track

11. Julie's Been Working For The Drug Squad - The Clash

There's something modern music hall about this song, but I love its knockabout flippancy.