Extra-Mural Studies - Flash Fiction

It was old-style graffiti. Before it became an art form. If you can call a canvas solely consisting of the artist’s signature, his brand, his logo, his spoor, ’art’. This was spray painting as a tool of communication. Mural messaging. Words rather than calligraphy. Plaintive or outlandish. 

Walls have always provided a surface begging inscription. Whether thrown up to keep others out, keep your own in, or just to hoist up numinous edifices inviting God in. In the atrium to God’s chamber, Jews write their messages and prayers on paper, rolling them up and inserting them into the mortar of the Wailing Wall rather than profaning it directly. The Wailing Wall, one of just four retaining walls retained. A remnant. Yet each ersatz prayer scroll mulcts a wisp of that mortar, so that at some point of critical mass of the entreaties of a people, the Wall will collapse. Not from weight, but from lack of coherence.

Closer to home is another wall, that is currently being dismantled brick by brick beneath sledgehammers brought from home. A people united. Families gleefully repatriating themselves into the bosom of loved ones not seen for a couple of generations. One side of this wall was directly graved upon by ink and the blood of those shot trying to scale it. The other was inscribed with graffiti, an expression of freedom of speech and a plaintive plea against conflict, division and injustice. After the initial flurry, I returned nightly to secrete away a couple of the bricks and add to my burgeoning collection. Only those with graffiti on, hopefully none with captioning blood. Few of the bricks were intact. Words sawn off by a hammer blow. 

Du kannst den Bruder nicht vom Bruder teilen. Es macht uns mehr entschlossen zu arbeiten, um diese Mauer zu zerreißen. Um unsere Brüder frei zu machen. (You cannot divide brother from brother. It makes us more resolved to work to tear down this wall. To set our brothers free).

I moved around the pieces in my collection. Trying to form new words from the serrated letters. Coalescing new slogans. Reminded of my toy letter bricks as a child. Though there, each brick was only stamped with a single letter per face. Multiple bricks stacked in order to construct a word. A word that could be subverted, simply but turning another face of the brick to face front. Surprising words when the edifice was read as an acrostic. But these fragments were not hewn smooth enough to sit on top of one another without cascading back down. 

I made mosaics of the bricks. Moved them around one another to form blotches of colour. My wall was spelling out the new freedoms. Or perhaps the new repressions. When a dividing wall comes down, somewhere on the earth another one goes up. I hear Mexico is to have one. And of course, the Wailing Wall has its modern accompaniment all around the biblical borders of the nation that last existed when the Wailing Wall was intact. Strange geographies. Anomalous echoes from history.

arbeit macht frei

For every wall, there always have to be wall builders. 

*

Some wall themed songs

Pink Floyd - "Another Brick In The Wall"

Mickey Dread - "Break Down The Walls" 

The Style Council - "Walls Come Tumbling Down"

Tom Robinson Band - "Up Against The Wall"

From the Berlin Wall

War! What Is It Good For? (A Music chart at least0

For my first themed music chart of 2016 I thought I'd reflect the world situation and offer you songs about war, armies and soldiers. I'd done an earlier chart about weapons which can be viewed here. So put on your tin hats and ATTENTION!

1) Jona Lewie - "Stop The Cavalry"
An anti-war song for Christmas that went to Number one. Juxtaposes the subject of war with an upbeat brass section. Whatever happened to Jonah Lewie I wonder?



2) XTC - "Generals And Majors"
XTC were an interesting band who tried to forge a British rock sound that wasn't based around US blues. They had lots of reasonably placed records in the singles chart, and I used to own all their albums, but there was always something just a bit brittle and light about their sound to my ear.



3) Angelic Upstarts - "Last Night Another Soldier"
Punk rock  was of course very anti-war and with the ongoing 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland until the new millennium, there were plenty of songs of protest about the military. I wonder in the current climate of terrorist threat whether you could still pen such songs? Lead singer Thomas 'Mensi' Mensforth was an ex-soldier (citation needed). As was Billy Bragg. So I guess they know of what they sing



4) Gang of Four - "He'd Send In The Army"
You can sing directly about war and its abominations, or you can use war itself as an oblique metaphor for all human relationships and conflict at its heart. Like Gang Of Four do.



5) Killing Joke - "Wardance"
Killing Joke landed on the scene at punk and new wave were on their last legs and brought us a tribal electronic throb. Lead singer Jaz Coleman was very interested in paganism and this song brings all that together.



6) Abba - "Super Trooper"
and by way of complete contrast... You couldn't get a less warlike song. From the group that brought you the blood and guts of "Waterloo"



7) White Stripes - "Seven Nation Army"
A song immune fro ruin despite being appropriated by football crowds into their terrace chants. For a duo, they sure made a racket.



8) Massive (Attack) - "Five Man Army"
From the band who dropped the 'Attack' part of their own name in deference for Britain going to war in Gulf. Still, singer/rapper Tricky made recompense by producing a brilliant cover version of Public Enemy's track "Black Steel in The Hour Of Chaos" about Afro-Americans being  disproportionately conscripted.



9) Spizz Energi - "Soldier Soldier"
Always a bit of a joke band, not least because they kept changing their name, this was one of their more forceful numbers, even if the video is throwaway campery.



10) Elvis Costello And The Attraction - "Oliver's Army"
Not the official military, but a song about mercenary fighters, broadened out for an overview of world geopolitics. From someone looking so young in this video too!



11) Stiff Little Fingers - "Tin Soldier"
Well SLF were from Ulster, so I guess they were entitled to ding about 'The Troubles' since they were living right in the middle of it. Until presumably they moved to London to have music careers... I do however remember singing along to this and punching my hand in the air to the chorus.



12) Pink Floyd - "Corporal Clegg"
An hallucinogenic take on the military, from the UK, why not?



13) Minutemen - "Just Another Soldier"
Was there ever a political protest band as committed as the Minutemen? Many of their songs were anti-war, replacing indignation with the Vietnam campaign of their musical influences, with those of the goings on under Reagan in Central America.



14) Ramones - "Bliztkrieg Bop"
Blitzkrieg was an apt description of the Ramones' attack on their instruments. Sadly this song has been appropriated by a UK home delivery service. One without drones.




15) The Jam - "Little Boy Soldiers"
Colonialism causes war, Paul Weller said so. And yet all his stage and album imagery embraced the nationalism of the Union Jack...

If Food Be The Music Of Love, Play On - 15 food songs

Food in songs, what could be more tasty a nugget than the 3-minute pop song to chew on? Sadly there doesn't seem to be any video of Cornershop's "Chicken In A Basket" as even they on their blog say they don't have the rights to the video, but we press on with other munchable classics. The Stranglers' "Peaches" doesn't count. Wrong sort of peaches...



1) "American Pie" - Don McLean
We'll start with the obvious one, the one that everyone could instantly come up with. Although the actual reference to the food item is pretty tenuous.





2) "Roast Fish And Cornbread" - Lee Scratch Perry
Sounds like it's been recorded in somebody's echoey bathroom, but that's perhaps it's genius.




3) "Cheeseburger" - Gang Of Four
I always thought this song was all over the place musically, not one of their best.




4) "Hot Burrito #1" - Flying Burrito Brothers
I'm not a fan of Country and Western, but let's face it, what other music genre is going to pen an ode to the mighty burrito? Certainly not Death metal that's for sure. And Wall of Voodoo wrote "Mexican Radio" but nothing to foodstuffs of the region...





5) Apples And Oranges" - Pink Floyd
Syd Barret Floyd with that delicious mix of pop sensibility with psychedelic off key distortion. Fruit loops.




6) "Eggs For Rib" - Cop Shoot Cop
And on the other end of the spectrum, post-punk/industrial bass heavy noise makers from New York. Don't be fooled by the quiet intro.




7) "Jumbalaya" - Carpenters
I dunno, something poignant about anorexic victim Karen Carpenter singing about a food dish.




8) "Fish Fry" - Big Black
Okay so the song doesn't really have much to do with the food, but then I don't eat fish fried or otherwise. You don't know where it's been. Well you do obviously, the sea, but I mean you don't know what's been in the sea.

   
9) "Toast" - Streetband
Do Americans have these one-off novelty hits in their music charts? Now it's all ringtones I suppose, so you don't get any of this nonsense, just "Crazy Frog".



10) "Hot Dog" - Led Zeppelin 
Call it heavy rock, call it rock and roll, this song quite clearly shows them to be 12 Bar Blues and Boogie. From the bayous of West Bromwich. Fancy that.


11) "Sixteen Saltines" - Jack White
Being British I didn't actually know what saltines were until I looked them up. What we call 'crackers' but that means something completely different in the U.S of A. This video is vaguely disturbing on a couple of levels. 



12) "Jerk Ribs" - Kelis
The bass is very catchy, more interesting than the song. Just my opinion like.



13) "Life Is A Minestrone" - 10 CC
Ah the 70s... Now you appreciate why punk had to come along and shake things up a bit. Life in London in 1977 was not a bowl of minestrone I can tell you...


14) "Beef" - Gary Clail and The On-U Sound System
Love this song although the remix isn't as sharp and tight a tune as the original album track, but you can't seem to track that original down any more.


15) "Pulling Mussels From A Shell"
Ah Squeeze, great subversive pop songs that ascended the charts, but yet responsible for unleashing Jools Holland on the world. Wins some lose some I guess. 

Men's Names Songs

There are so many songs penned to the muse or a lost lover as I covered in a previous music chart, but maybe not quite so many for men's names. Here's a chart to partially redress the balance. As you'll see, these are songs mainly by men and male bands, unlike the many paeans to women made by men.

1) Department S - "Is Vic There"?
A John Peel favourite and very hip post-punk band to like, although I can't actually remember any of their other songs.

2) Au Pairs - "Dear John"
The only females to appear in this whole chart. There are a few Country & Western female singers bemoaning their men by name, but I can't stand C&W so none of it gets in here I'm afraid. My blog, my rules!

3) Stiff Little Fingers - "Johnny Was"
Cover version of a Bob Marley song. I've never actually heard the original. Always a favourite at their live shows for me.

4) Undertones - "Jimmy Jimmy"
Classic pop-punk. They also had a song called "What's With Terry" and another called "There Goes Norman" and when you see singer Feargal Sharkey's coat you realise this was the original boy band singing about boys' problems, not what we mean when we utter the dread phrase Boy band these days.

5) Sham 69 ' "Hurry Up Harry"
Less classic yet strangely more successful pop-punk in terms of chart placing. Harry doesn't go down the pub these days, can't afford the prices. So in the video, you've got the guitarist wearing a Union Jack t-shirt, but the drummer sports a backward facing baseball cap, some identity confusion in evidence there.

6) XTC - "Making Plans For Nigel"
Another unexpected chart hit, but not really representative of a band who desperately tried to forge a British rock/pop sound that didn't really on the Blues influence on rock and roll.

7) Smiths - "William It Was Really Nothing"
As I don't like the Smiths, this is here grudgingly. My blog, my rules. Oh no wait... 

8) Jimi Hendrix - "Hey Joe"
Classic song about a man who feels his woman done him wrong.

9) T-Rex - "Telegram Sam"
Not quite "Ride A Swan", but one of the few acceptable glam artists before punk tried to sweep all that away.

10) Elvis Costello - "Oliver's Army"
Elvis Costello started out as a punk, but like so many eventually moved into where his true musical roots, somewhere between the balladeer and country and western. Punk rock gave a leg up to many artists who were dubbed punk but in retrospect never were really.

11) Tom Robinson Band - "Martin"
Aw, sweet sentiment, a criminal big brother who tries to do right by his baby brother.

12) Monochrome Set - "He's Frank"
This was an A-Side single that had the far superior "Alphaville" backing it. They were a band who when they played live stood stock still on stage while a screen had film projections of them moving. Odd.

13) Birthday Party - "Nick The Stripper"
I love the video for this, that lifting of the tent flap inviting you to come in to the strange carney world beyond. 

14) Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - "Box For Black Paul"
When Nick Cave left the Birthday Party for a solo career, this was one of the songs from his debut album. It evidenced his tendency for literary writing in his lyrics, or perhaps over-writing, but I do love this song.

15) Pink Floyd - "Careful With That Axe Eugene"
And did Eugene listen? Not to judge by the screams towards the end of the song.

16) Lemonheads - "It's A Shame About Ray"
Never was much of a Lemonheads fan, but many were.

17) Black Flag - "Louie Louie"
Cover version of the classic Kingsmen song. Only when singer Henry Rollins says he's going on a killing spree, you believe him.

18) The Specials - "Message To Rudy"
Another cover version, this time of a song by Dandy Livingstone. As with everything the Specials touched, this was pure gold.

19) Eminem - "Stan"
Not a paean to Stan Collymore, just one of Eminem's intricately created characters in song.

20) REM - "What's The Frequency Kenneth"?
Again, not a band I was overly a fan of, but I did remember liking this title when it came out.



Bonus Track:

The Who - "Boris The Spider"
Only the anachronistic dates prevent this being an ode penned to the departing Mayor of London... This is what happens when you let the bassist in the band pen a song.

Weaponised Songs - 16 songs about weapons

Even Wham had a song called "Young Guns" although that was used of people rather than weapons of death. from shotgun weddings to protest songs at war and nuclear arms, music has been full of references to weapons. Here's a sprinkling for your listening pleasure.


1) "Mack The Knife" - Lotte Lenya & Louis Armstrong
Brecht, Weill, Lenya & Armstrong, does it get any better than this? You really can see that Weill was influenced by Armstrong in this.



2) "Poison Arrow" - ABC
Don't think ABC have ever turned up in any chart of mine. The 1980s really was the death of music. While you lot were liberally applying blusher and hairspray, a few of us were turning our battered eardrums to New York City and the grimy industrial brutalism of bands like Swans and Sonic Youth. Time has not mellowed me as to which was the more worthwhile... Everything about this song grates me, the 'Eastenders' drum sound, the cheesey organ sound, the feeble slap bass...



3) "Burning Spear" - Sonic Youth
See a man playing his guitar with drumsticks, now that's what I'm talking about! Currently I'm trying to decide whether to buy Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon's biography "Girl In The Band" or not. She was a tad more than just the guitarist's girlfriend, she was his wife! But they recently got divorced and I think the book's going to be pretty ugly on that score...



4) "Swords Of A Thousand Men" - Tenpole Tudor
I never quite got Eddie Tenpole's schtick. I think I'm right in saying he was in the sex Pistol's movie "The Great Rock And Roll Swindle" and then seems to have had a chip on his shoulder that he never made it to the big time. Except for a brief stint with this knockabout campery.



5) "Eton Rifles" - The Jam
The Jam were really quite subversive. They had so many Top ten chart singles, including this, appeared on mainstream pop shows constantly and all the while not pulling any political punches in many of those chart hits.



6) "Bazooka Joe" - Big Black
So there were these three bands who resolutely refused to have a drummer, but worked with a drum machine and all the performers were out at the front of the stage. One was Carter The Unstoppable sex Machine with their cheeky South London puns. The next was Three Johns with their Yorkshire political fist pumping. And then there was Steve Albini's Big Black who just out-powered them and went for the noise and the dark side of US life. I liked all three in point of fact, but now in my dotage Big Black have way outlasted the other two in my affections, even though they were the only one of the three I never saw live.



7) "Armalite Rifle" - Gang of Four
A throw-away B-Side really, but there's something about its stripped down almost football chant simplicity that sets off the significance of what they're singing about.



8) "6" Gold Blade" - Birthday Party
Well Nick Cave is forever singing about knives and killing isn't he? Always seems to be women on the receiving end of his knives as well...



9) "Love Missile X-111" - Sigue Sigue Sputnik
The debut single of the first manufactured rock band and they disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Named after a real US military weapon, I however am grateful since I initially used it for a title of a stage play of mine. When I rewrote it as a novel I changed the title for another song, Cindy Lauper's "Time After Time". See, I have mellowed... But not in my opinion of this song which is cack.



10) "Careful With That Axe Eugene" - Pink Floyd
It's not like Roger Waters hadn't served you all good notice with this long before "The "Wall" and "Dark Side Of The Moon'. Madness is an ever-present theme in his work. Is that mad grin just a by-=product of his vocal or is it for real? You decide.



10) "Mi Uzi Weighs A Ton" - Public Enemy
Wait, we've got to number ten before mentioning a Rap band with their loves for all things semi-automatic and drive-bys and tings? This was the song that really introduced UK audiences to PE I think. Even though they quickly moved away from this kind of gangster posturing and left that to the West Coast rappers like Ice-T. the beat on this really does seem to weigh a ton.



11) "Tommy gun" - The Clash
We say that about Rap, but every other song by the Clash seemed to contain a weapon or two; "Guns Of Brixton", "Washington Bullets", "Drug Stabbing Time", "sten Guns In Knightsbride". But then they were fighting the revolution I suppose...



12) "Yankee Bayonet" - The Decembrists
The Decembrists have pretty much passed me by. Sound like second rate REM to my ears




13) "Ten percent Pistol" - Black keys
Earnest musos or smash up your guitars as you cavort around the stage lost in the trance of your own thrash trance. Know which I'd rather have...




For which I give you -

14) "Little Man With A Gun In his Hand" - Minutemen
If you think these guys were just a thrash punk band making a noise as in this terrible recording ion a boat, then check out the acoustic version's musical complexity in the video after





15) "My 9mm Goes Bang" - Boogie Down Productions
And we're back with rap's fetishisation of the gun



16) "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" - Breeders
And bringing some calm to proceedings, we all prefer this to the Beatles original right? What do you mean no!!!

Money Money, Cash Cash - songs about currency

So we here in the UK have just had the annual budget and I can't really remember much about it. But I do know quite a lot of songs about money, so here you go.

1) Pink Floyd - "Money"
That most rare of beasts, a 7" single by pink floyd who are the quintessential 'albums' band, doing concept albums like "The Wall", "Animals" and of course "Dark Side Of The moon" where this song ended up on.



2) The Jam - "Pretty Green"
For such an accomplished lyricist as Paul Weller, this is pretty dire. Probably signalled the beginning of the end for The Jam creatively, a band that don't forget, had lots of Number 1 and Top 10 singles.



3) Nas - "Money Over Bullshit"
You might not be surprised to know that any chart with a money theme will be overwhelmed by Rap and Hip-Hop song titles. This is one of the better ones, from what I take to be Nas' best album "Hip Hop is Dead" though most will tell you it was his debut "Ilmatic"



4) Mickey Dread - "Money Dread"
From the brilliant album "World War 3", Mickey Dread collaborated a lot with The Clash, but his own work is cruelly overlooked.



5) Swans - "Time Is Money (Bastard)"
Well they released an album called "Greed/Holy Money" where the songs explore the naked power relations of work/bosses, money, power, exploitation and religion. This one is about how the human body can be purchased.



6) The O'Jays - "For The Love Of Money"
Funky!



7) Hope Of The States - "Black Dollar Bills"
Had high hopes of this band to do what Radiohead did and do it way better, but a band member's suicide put the kybosh on that hope.



8) The Skids - "Working For The Yankee Dollar"
I liked the Skids, or at least I thought I did. But their stuff hasn't aged well and is pretty unlistenable now. Lead singer Richard Jobson left to become a male model, says it all really.



9) World Domination Enterprises - "Blue Money"
Drugs, dub heavy bass and an unholy mess of a band, but boy were they loud!



11) Flying Lizards - "Money (That's What I Want)"
Better than the Beatles' original. No more needs to be said. Other than they used to employ all sorts of found objects for their music.



12) Mos Def - " Sex, Love & Money"
Did you know Mos Def had a cameo in "Talladega Nights"?



13) Cop Shoot Cop - "10 Dollar Bill"
One of the more disturbing videos and a riff ripped off from The Stranglers but what's not to like huh?



14) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Easy Money"
As Nick says/ I agree with Nick... remember how that dominated the televised political leaders debates last time round? Wonder how that will go for Nick Clegg this time?

Music For The Eclipse - Songs about the sun and the moon

There was an eclipse today. Being this was my day off work, I slept through it, although most commentators in the UK said it just became a bit more cloudy and overcast so it was hard to tell the difference.

Nevertheless, since this event isn't due to happen for another eleven years, I thought I'd honour it with a themed chart that is out of this world (but not out of our solar system).


1) Creedance Clearwater Revival - "Bad Moon Rising"
Jaunty country inflected song about ecological disaster, who'd have thunk it?



2) New Order - "Sunrise"
You say New Order and immediately think of synth club dance anthems, but they could also rock out with guitars as this suggests



3) Grinderman - "Man In The Moon"
Nick Cave's offshoot project Grinderman put the rock and roll back into the music whereas his solo stuff was far more ballad based, yet this one could have been from either version.



4) Gun Club - "Give Up the Sun"
A bit more lyrically complex than most of their swamp rock bluesy stuff.



5) Jimi Hendrix - "Moon Turn Tides Gently Gently Away"
Hippyish title, but what the heck, once the song gets out of its psychedelic intro it ain't quite so serene



6) Pink Floyd - "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun"
Could have been "Dark Side Of The Moon" but I went for the slightly happier if still unsettling sunnyside up.



if you'd prefer the longer but more wonderful version Live from Pompeii - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIYvkHg114M

7) The Police - Walking On the Moon"
It's not often anything Sting related gets into one of my charts, but this is an okay song even if they do look like idiots in the video, but that was the 80s for you I suppose



8) Wu Tang Clan - "Sunlight"
Wu Tang get all spiritual and not even the metaphysics of drugs either.



9) The Ramones - "Howling At the Moon (Sha La La)"
This almost seems like the Ramones were pastiching themselves. Having string orchestras for songs works, having an organ in the band doesn't.



10) Royal Trux - "Sun on the Run"
US noise merchants down it down from 11 to 10.



13) "Roll Along Prairie Moon"
From the TV drama "Pennies From Heaven" with the inestimable late Bob Hoskins.



12) Arctic Monkeys - "When The Sun Goes Down"
When they were still Northern and good. Alex Turner has gone very Queen's English these days.



13) Neil Young - "Harvest Moon"
Never much of a Neil Young fan, (his voice always too reedy for my tastes), I find it interesting that most of the songs here about the Moon are 60s and early 70s, whereas the Sun songs range from all over. Something to do with The Age Of Aquarius I imagine.



14) Fat Boy Slim - "Sunset (Bird Of Prey)"
Fat Boy Slim produces mighty tunea, or at least half-tunes. When he has a good riff or diddle, he never revels in constantly reprising it, which is to be respected, but also means none of his songs quite hang together imho.



15) Violent Femmes - "Blister In the Sun"
I loved this band when they were around, but now find their music hasn't aged terribly well. Don't know what you think?



16) Dead Kennedys - "Moon Over Marin"
This is the final track on an album of unrelenting US hardcore punk and is a bit of a stand out oddity for its wistfulness.

If Music Be The Food Of Love - Songs about food

American Pie, songs about women called Candy, bubblegum pop... food is meat for coverage in music. So feast your senses on this cornucopia of nourishment, or not as we tuck into a chart of ten songs about grub. Enjoy!


1) Lee Scratch Perry - "Roast Fish & Cornbread"
Traditional Caribbean repast, traditional (ie pre-commercial) reggae. If you listen to some of the songs of this era, you can hear the water background as befits an island culture. Moreish.



2) Gary Clail - "Beef"
A song lacerating the treatment and slaughter of cattle for our consumption of meat. People preferred Morrisey's reedy exhortation that "Meat is Murder". I know which one gets my vote. Juicy.



3) The Undertones - "Mars Bars"
Throwaway song on the B-Side of the "Jimmy Jimmy" 4-track 7" single, but it grew a life of its own. More boyish than laddish which encapsulates the band. Toothsome.



4) Pink Floyd - "Apples And Oranges"
One of Syd Barrett Floyd's last offerings, this is a curious mix of the Beatlesque and psychedelic. it almost seems that the vocals are trying to catch up with the instrumentation, or that there are too many words to deliver and fit into the rhythm. Very odd. Tart.



5) Gang Of Four - "Cheesburger"
I love Go4 but they really seemed to have lost it by the time of their fourth album "Hard" where this track came from. Maybe they'd just sung all their protest lyrics that they had and run out of ideas, while the punk-funk vibe jarred with the critical nature of their lyrics. Since their recent return however, they seem to have rediscovered their mojo and their first album in years isn't half bad. Gristle.




6) Cop Shoot Cop - "Eggs For Rib"
If you want a bit of beef in your music, or even a bit of full English behind it, takes a bunch of Americans to deliver this glorious greasy spoon fry up of a song. No idea what the lyrics are on about, but love it all the same. Calorific.



7) The Carpenters - "Jambalaya"
Carpenters do Cajun, who knew? Hey it's the Carpenters, so what could be bad right? Is it in bad taste to include anorexia sufferer Karen Carpenter in a food-themed music chart? Piquant.



8) Jack White - "Sixteen Saltines"
Do the English have saltines? I love my crackers, Ritz, Water Biscuits etc, but can't say I've ever knowingly bitten into a salteen. To me it sounds like a dried fish or something like anchovies. Still it's a good riff and a half decent song. Seasoned.



9) Squeeze - "Pulling Mussels From The Shell"
A classic. I myself don't trust seafood as to its healthiness given the pollutants pumped or jettisoned in the seas, so don't indulge. But then I guess this song warns against trusting too much as well so I seem to be in step with its sentiments. Squeeze were one of those bands who you were glad populated the charts with a level of edge and quality that kept the bland pap music in check, but you never actually went out and owned any of their records yourself... Brackish.



10) Portishead - "Biscuit"
Not sure what this has to do with biscuits, but oh my what a voice dripping emotion. Savory.

60s Music - A barren decade

Until the dawn of the 21st century, the 1960s was my least favourite decade for music. I wasn't sure if I could even scrape together ten tunes to form one of my customary themed charts. And yet it was a highly political decade with youth at its head, so could have been more crucial musically than it turned out to be, although to be fair at least by the decade's end we no longer had to watch our beat combo groups performing on TV still wearing suits. Anyway, here are my top 10 tunes from the 60s.

1) The Doors - "Light My Fire"
To me Doors were the quintessential sound of the 60s. A bit political, a bit rebel, a bit hippy, a touch literary and a lot druggy. Having said that they along with Hendrix are perhaps the only two artists who would have more than a handful of songs in my collection. And Coppola's use of "The End" to bookend his movie "Apocalypse Now" is a perfect artistic synthesis.



2) MC5 -  "Kick Out The Jams"
Now here were a political group who brought a whole heap of trouble down on their heads because of their incendiary music. I met Fred Sonic Smith once, and he looked very burned out. that's what oppositional politics can do for you I guess.



3) Shangri-Las - "Leader Of The Pack"
Girl groups were a staple of the pop charts, but the Shangri-Las turned up to inject a touch of edge, cynicism and put the 'bad' into the bad boy they always seemed to yearn for.



4) Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child"
Never been bettered, nuff said. In my contemporary record collection there are bands with maybe two top guitar riffs at best. Hendrix had albums chockfull of them.



5) Creedance Clearwater Revival" - "Have You Ever Sen The Rain"
This is one of those bands I wouldn't have come across were they not referenced and covered heavily by bands I like such as Sonic Youth and Minutemen. But and this is a big but, as great as the songs they wrote were, there is the question, as with Neil Young, of whether you can stand John Fogerty's reedy and frankly weedy vocals. That is the limiting factor for me.



6) Julie London - "Cry Me A River"
There will always be a place for female crooners and this stands the test of time. Will Adele? We will have to wait and see.



7) The Guess Who - "American Woman"
Don't know any other of their songs and again I came to this via a modern cover version, but this is great.



8) Jefferson Starship - "White Rabbit"
Those of you who know me will recall that I am very anti-drug use. And yet in a demonstration of cognitive dissonance, I acknowledge there has been some great music (but probably not great literature) made while under the influence. This is the grand-daddy of them all, or maybe the grand-mommy since Grace Slick's vocal style takes this song beyond the stratosphere.



9) Don Drummond - "The Man In The Street"
At least the 60s brought us Studio One label and the opening up of Jamaican reggae. So it wasn't all bad as a decade then...



10) Pink Floyd - "Lucifer Sam"
The great unsolvable question, what would Pink Floyd have been like if Syd Barett hadn't destroyed his brain cells and been forced to hand the group over to Roger Waters that helped usher in the bloated supergroups of the 1970s like Floyd, Led Zep, Yes, Supertramp, Steeley Dan et al.

Stellar Songs - Music of the spheres

Gustav Holst's "Planets Suite", the music of the spheres, the harmony of the cosmos, music has always had an association with the stars. We even call our heroes 'rock stars', that is something out of this world. So here are ten songs about the solar system. Rock(et) on!

1) The Rezillos - "Destination Venus"
The Rezillos were a touch under-appreciated punk/art school band from Scotland. With great song titles such as "My Baby Does Good Sculptures" and "Someone's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight". Perhaps they never made it because they were so bad at miming for 'live' TV pop shows



2) The Cure - "Jupiter Crash"
I'd totally lost interest in The Cure once they turned from indie new wavers into silly Goths chasing invisible rabbits down unseen holes. So I was totally unaware of this song from their ouevre. It's odd to think how different a persona guitarist Robert Smith presented when he played in Siouxie And the Banshees when he was no longer the main man and didn't have to adopt all the teased hair and smudged make-up as he did with the Cure.



3) Jimi Hendrix - "South Saturn Delta"
From the man who invented the out of this world "Acid Rock" this song shows just how much Hendrix drew on Southern Delta Blues for his style. Since there are no words to this, not sure what Saturn has to do with it exactly, but any excuse to include Jimi is alright by me to be honest.



4) David Bowie - "Life On Mars"
Considering the whole Ziggy Stardust album could have made this list, it's perhaps surprising that this song actually appeared on the Hunky Dory album. Bowie was best when he was obsessed with spacemen and he and guitarist Mick Ronson wore shiny space age clothes on stage. Just my two cents.



5) B52s - "Planet Claire"
From a band who took their name from the stratospheric carpet bomber the B-52, they made some really knock-about music such as "Rock Lobster" and "Strobelight". Here the professed love object is utterly out of this world.



6) Rush - "Cygnus X-1"
A song about one of the earliest discovered black holes, taken from an album "A Farewell To Kings" that also flirted with the radical ideas of author Ayn Rand, while the album "Hemispheres" contained a track "Trouble With The Trees" which saw the band accused of having fascist leanings. My jury's out on that one, but I just fixate on the bloated size of that drumkit, it resembles a solar system in its own right.



7) The Carpenters - "Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft"
And breathe.... Calming it all back down, here we have Karen sending out a beauteous plaint into space. I'd answer if I were an extra-terrestrial wouldn't you? Imagine the heartbreak of landing to meet this siren's call, only to discover she'd died from the very sustenance that is supposed to keep her species alive...



8) Husker Du - "Books About UFOs"
And cranking it back up again, the finest 3-piece power trio introduce some plinky-plonk piano against their wall of noise. Delicious stuff.



9) Pink Floyd - "Astronomy Dominé"
It could have been "Interstellar Overdrive" or "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun", but this track from the Syd Barrett days namechecks more planetary bodies and besides, shows just how heavy and dissonant sounding a band they were in those days. Also some rare archival footage of Roger Waters being quite polite.



10) Grinderman - "Honey Bee Let's Fly To Mars"
Glorious inchoate noise that was Grinderman's debut LP. Then they cut their second one and all that was lost... Also note to Nick, excessive facial hair is not rock 'n roll unless you're ZZ Top.



11) Only Ones - "Another Girl Another Planet"
Shame frontman Peter Perrett was lost on another planet most of the time with his heroin addiction, cos they were a great pop-punk band who could have produced so much more.

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.

School's Out For Half-Term - 10 songs about school

Since my kids are about to have a week off for half-term, thought I'd do a school-themed music chart in honour of having to cook two meals a day for them instead of just the usual one. But as they've got older, this half-term they're going to have to revise for their first serious external exams.

1) "Mary Of The 4th Form" - Boomtown Rats
Before he became beatified for shouty importuning on behalf of starving Ethiopians, Sir Robert of Geldof was the frontman of Irish punk band Boomtown Rats who to my mind didn't quite get punk rock. But that was okay, they knocked out a few half-decent singles that saw them regularly on our TV screens in the Pop Charts. Like Clockwork really...



2) "High School" - MC5
Remember when Bands were so politically dangerous the US authorities chased them from pillar to post, harassed them, arrested band members etc? No? Well Bobo & Simon Cowell could hardly prompt such fears now could they? Admittedly this is not one of their best tracks, but I love the band and this track is about school, so there! Kicks Out The Jams MFs!



3) "School's Out" - Alice Cooper
And though from a similar part of the post-industrial US decline in Michigan, Alice Cooper was non-political and just aimed to put on a good show. I was never a fan, but this is still a great anthemic song.



4) "Art School" - The Jam
The Jam always came in for a lot of stick form their contemporaries because they wore suits and looked
more like Mods and covered Who and Wilson Pickett songs. I always wondered whether this was partly their riposte to that wing of British punk that emerged from Art Schools such as Adam Ant and the Malcolm McLaren/Jamie Reid influence on the Sex Pistols.



5) "Headmaster Ritual" - The Smiths
Arggghh! Anyone who follows me online knows I really don't like The Smiths and yet here is the second recent one of my charts in which they appear. Guitarist Johnny Marr may well have been a fretboard wonder, but I always found his jangly sound reedy and thin. And yes Morrisey's reedy and thin vocal probably did compliment the guitar wonderfully well, but I just found it equally irritating. Still loads of people loved them so what do I know?



6) "I Don't Wanna Be Learned" - The Ramones
You gotta love The Ramones right? Millions of songs played very fast lasting no  more than two minutes and then all sounding exactly the same! Sort of Status Quo but played faster. And then they go and play a goofy love song with a string orchestra backing them - genius! ("Baby I Love You")



7) "Playground Twist" - Siouxie And The Banshees
It's funny, those first two Siousxie And The Banshees' albums were really a cutting edge of punk, taking it away from being dumb one-chord thrash (take a bow The Damned) and into a really quite arty precursor of New Wave and yet Siouxie is never mentioned in the same breath as the New Wave bands like Gang of Four, Joy Division, Magazine et al. Partly because she went Poppy quite quickly, quite Gothy soon after that and because the two musical masters behind that early Banshee sound, Kenny Morris and John McKay departed the band after those two albums. What might have been eh? Instead Siouxie released "Hong Kong Garden" and "Israel".



8) "Another Brick In The Wall Part 2" - Pink Floyd
'But Marc' this has no mention of school in the title' I hear you cry. True, but it has the inimitable refrain "We don't need no education". Lead singer Roger Waters was thrown out of the same school I ended up attending and has said in interviews that it was his experiences at school that lie behind the whole concept of "The Wall" album. There, that's my shared claim to fame! I too was scarred by attendance of such a school! Though I failed to be expelled. Didn't even get a detention, ever.



9) "School Spirit" - Kayne West
With albums called "The College Dropout",  "Graduation" and "Late Registration" Mr West takes this education thing very seriously. Still, the usual cussing and bad mouthing of rap, plus the ridiculous vocal manipulation makes this sound more like David Bowie's "Laughing Gnome". Ergo hard to take seriously...



10) "School Mam" - The Stranglers
The dirtiest bass intro in rock gives way to um a real smutty fantasy. I'm just going to leave it there...

Best SciFi Theme Music

Never mind the quality of the programme, these are my favourite theme tunes from TV SciFi progs
Click on programme names to bring up the theme tune on YouTube

1: 28 Days Later So atmospheric of that London emptied of people opening shot. The slow gathering menace as the arrangement builds. Now used for a cider advert, so it must be good!
2: Twilight Zone Come on admit it, when you're having a conversation and you make a remark that something spooky is like an event on The Twilight Zone, you accentuate it by singing the music!
3: Stingray  I love the urgent tempo of this. I wonder if it was ever so slightly speeded up? The drum intro is wonderful, its tone is on the verge of announcing something camp nightclubby, you know like a dancer in a hula dress or something!
4: Joe 90 Love all the FX in the intro to this, what we all imagined futuristic technology would sound like, then lurches over into a very 60s Surfer melody!
5: The Prisoner Just oozes class from the first tom tom beat and the changes in the music suggest the narrative of those opening titles wonderfully well. 3 & 1/2 minutes of opening titles, you couldn't get away with that on TV today
6: X-Files Evocative, that synth whistling refrain is shaped like a question itself. But yes, synth heavy beloved of the 1990s
7: Bladerunner Vangelis, so it's pucker music right! Funnily enough its synth opening chords remind me of "Apocalypse Now", the bits that got left out of the original movie & reappeared in the "Redux" version. But once the tempo of this steps up, you know you're in for a thriller chase in the rain type of movie
8: Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea Just love how they weave in the sonar blips into a classical music strings arrangement
9: Attack The Block And finally we reach the 21st Century with this unnerving, sound affect heavy piece of dubstep. Vocals buried in the mix and muffled, the sound of an urban community under siege crying for help and no one's listening. If you've seen the movie you'll know it fits perfectly, like a bandana!
10: Spiderman Suitably hammy, narrowly pips Batman for me because I've heard better versions of Batman theme by bands which were never used for the TV series or films.


What are your favs?


Here are a few scifi songs by bands unrelated to TV or films

B52s - "Planet Claire"


Muse - "Supermassive Blackholes"


David Bowie - "Starman"


Pink Floyd - "Interstellar Overdrive"


Afrika Bambaata - "Planet Rock 1982"


Only Ones - "Another Girl, Another Planet"


Parliament - "Mothership Connection"


Grinderman - "Honeybee Let's Fly to Mars"


The Rezillos - "Destination Venus"


Sonic Youth - "Silver Rocket"



Husker Du - "Books About UFOs"

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.

10 Songs About Time

My new novel "Time After Time" already has its own playlist of songs that soundtrack the action. But here is a chart of songs directly about time for your delectation:

1) Pink Floyd - "Time"
Possibly the most famous song about time, from the meg-selling "Dark Side Of The Moon" album. Pink Floyd were the first ban i properly got into in the sense of wanting to chase down every single recording they had ever made. That sort of collector-worship boys are eminently susceptible to. However, once punk rock came along, the tempo of Floyd's music was just to slow for my ears craving souped up rhythms. So this was time undermined by too slow a passage of time in the end...



2) The Doors - "Love Me Two Times"
The Doors were one of the few 60s band I can listen to.  I don't particularly buy into the Jim Morrison mythic status thing, and in this video it's a tad irritating that you have to wait until he stops burbling about a minute and a half in before the song starts, but it's a good'un when it does arrive.



3) MGMT - "Time To Pretend"
It's perhaps ironic that the vocal and music of this song actually do suggest the 1960s in a song full of yearning and hearking back to a more innocent age.  When this song came out in the Noughties, it was heard absolutely everywhere. But with good reason I feel.



4) Beastie Boys - "Time For Livin'"
It's not quite the momentous act of Bob Dylan plugging his guitar into an amp, but when the Beastie Boys didn't rely on samples quite as much and picked up their own instruments and returned to their punk roots, it gave all their subsequent albums a huge diversity of punk, hip-hop, rap and reggae. And I loved them for that.



5) Depeche Mode - "Question Of Time"
I was never a big fan of Depeche Mode, but the music in my novel covers virtually every style, so continuing that here in my "Time" chart, I give this a platform and let you dear reader/listener decide.



6) MosDef - "Life In Marvellous Times"
This is just such a superior song, that builds and builds and has unbelievable tension that never quite peaks. Masterful.



7) Cyndi Lauper - "Time After Time"
I've never been a fan of chart pop tunes, but while I was writing the novel and I'm not sure how, but this song presented itself to me. Of course I recognised it from the dim and distant past, because that's how ubiquitous chart songs are, you just can't avoid hearing them and how insidiously they permeate our brains. But as it goes, this song not only fitted my novel, but the fit was so perfect that it went on to become its title. And I seem to remember we always accredited Cindi Lauper some credit for being slightly subversive in her attack on pop music. maybe we were fooling ourselves. A bit light for my tastes, but I can see it's a well crafted song.



8) Funkadelic - "Everybody's Going To Make It This Time"
I do love my funk and George Clinton's cosmic madness. Yet this is a rather wistful political song about past failures and a hope that this time round there will be no casualties in the various fights for rights and freedoms.



9) Portishead - "Sour Times"
I suppose songs about time that either look back or look ahead, are prone to being melancholic, chockfull of regret or despairing hope. And this is one of those as Beth Gibbons puts a whole lifetime of emotion into her singing, while the arrangement rattles along reedily as if to suggest time's flimsiness itself. There's a different Portishead song referred to in the novel.



10) Misty In Roots - "How Long Jah"
Roots reggae's gorgeous, simple appeal to how long must they wait for the Messiah? An eternity it seems. An eternity of pain and suffering...

10 Devilish Songs

They say the Devil has all the best tunes. Judge for yourself with these ten diabolic ditties. So many top tunes in fact that Cliff Richard's "Devil Woman" doesn't quite sneak in...

1) Robert Johnson - "Me And The Devil Blues"
From the original Grandaddy of all things devilish and selling your soul for the gift, comes this song from the crossroads where only the unholy got buried...



2) Pink Floyd - "Lucifer Sam"
A bit 60s psychedelic, but dem were the times. Animal familiar of the Devil rather than Old Nick himself, still that's hippies for you...



3) Laibach - "Sympathy For The Devil"
A Rolling Stones cover version, made suitably diabolic by the totalitarian posturing of this group from war-torn Yugoslavia. The Stones' song had a film dedicated to it made by Jean Luc Godard "One Plus One" when people really did think the Devil was about to inherit his realm with all the revolutionary upheaval of the late 1960s.



4) Daniel Johnston - "Don't Play Cards With Satan"
Daniel Johnston's mental disorders (schizophrenia and bi-polar) lend his art a heart-wrenching intensity (think of a musical version of Van Gough maybe). Just listen to his voice in this track and you have to credit that Daniel really, really believes in the Devil. Even the guitar strumming sounds possessed.



5) Funkadelic - "Miss Lucifer's Love"
Funky devils and why not? The devil in this case is almost certainly human and mortal, but when it's George Clinton you're talking about, that can be pretty other-worldly anyway! Groovy little devil.



6) Beck - "Devil's Haircut"
Beck doing what Beck does best and with the usual impermeability of his lyrics. Just a good song really...



7) Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "Up Jumped The Devil"
Seeped in Southern Gothic as Nick Cave is, Old (horned) Nick was going to make an appearance sooner or later in his music.



8) Big L - "Devil's Son"
Rappers are often portrayed as Folk Devils threatening the moral fibre of society. Here's a song that certainly had its fair share of trouble because of its extreme subject matter and kept getting pulled from release. Big L imagines that he is indeed Satan's offspring and goes on the rampage against Satan's enemies; er that would be Christians...



9) B52s - "Devil In My Car"
Just to lighten the mood a touch, the B52s bubble-gum rock camp it up when they discover that the devil has hitched a lift with them...



10) Butthole Surfers - "Sweatloaf"
The Devil always pops up in heavy metal music, but I'm not a metalhead really. But the Butthole Surfers always wanted to be Black Sabbath and this song is as funny as hell. Literally. Its starts quietly, so give it a chance. It was always great live, when lead vocalist Gibby Haynes ad libbed the intro with his insane mental jottings. Great fun.



11) Max Romeo - "Chase The Devil"
If Heavy Metal pays lugubrious homage to all things satanic, you'd imagine Reggae would play it for real as the enemy of their beliefs. And Max Romeo here does exactly that to fine effect.