Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Sometime last week, littleonions tagged me for a music meme. I don’t do memes as a rule, though I did have a go at the LJ Dungeon game. Anyway, largely because I am a contrary swine, I am not going to do the meme Ms Onions tagged me for, but I am going to ramble about something similar.

Over the weekend, I dug out and listened to a couple of albums that I rather enjoy but which for one reason or another, I haven’t listened to for ages. This started me thinking about songs, which I always enjoy listening to, but which never pop into my head when I am compiling one of my occasional "favourites of the day" lists, or which haven’t popped up on random play on my network Walkman for as long as I can remember. In no particular order, then:

"Maybe I’m Amazed" – Paul McCartney. From his first solo album, "McCartney" released in 1970. This is the Beatles song that never was, and though recorded solo (Macca played every instrument on the track), it was clearly run past Lennon at some point in its gestation as it shows every sign of the quality control that has often been lacking from McCartney’s solo work.

"And You Need Me" – Sandy Denny and the Strawbs. From the album, "All Our Own Work" (1973) by Sandy Denny and the Strawbs, and itself an edited re-release of an earlier, eponymous LP. In some ways a superior demo version of a track which was to be re-recorded a number of times, notably by Fairport Convention, there is a rawness and clarity about this version sung by a 19 year old Denny that I like, and which never quite comes across in later recordings.

"Year of the Cat" – Al Stewart. From the album of the same name. One of those albums and one of those tracks I have owned on vinyl, cassette tape and CD. A prog pop masterpiece.

"Mr Bojangles" – Sammy Davis Jr. From any number of live compilations. This had passed me by until a couple or three years ago, being a sort of lounge-country-folk-jazz melange. rumfuddle has a copy on a CD he put together for listening to on the road, and we have given this full lung and vocal chord a number of times whilst we got lost driving in Norfolk at the end of a November.

"Stranger on the Shore" – Acker Bilk. The first British recording to reach the number one spot on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1961. Smooth clarinet piece written for his daughter, I am lead to understand. Always reminds me of Sunday lunchtimes when I was a little kid.

"Wheels On Fire" – Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity. You probably know it best as the theme to Absolutely Fabulous, which is an odd fate for a classic soft jazz treatment of a Bob Dylan song. Not really much to say about the track itself other than I love it, and recommend this version from 1968, not any of those mangled for the TV show at Jennifer Saunders’ instigation.

I seem to have run out of steam on this.

Time to do something else.

As done from time-to-time, six songs played at random by my Network Walkman:

Stay Up Late: Talking Heads – classic New Wave goodness

Help Me: Joan Osborne – surprisingly bluesy number from one-hit wonder. This was not the hit (points if you can remember what it was without Googling).

Two Young Lovers (live): Dire Straits – straight forward Rock’n’Roll by now unfashionable 80s masters. Featuring the sublime Mel Collins on Sax.

First Breath: Richard Thompson - taken from his incredible The Old Kit Bag CD. The Times (I think) said that folk music is just not big enough for Richard Thompson. They were right.

Lost in Space: The Lighthouse Family - undemanding mellow pop tunefully sung, pretending to be contemporary soul.

Three of a Perfect Pair: The Crimson Jazz Trio - interesting jazz interpretation of (in my opinion) a lesser King Crimson track. Better than the sub-Talking Heads original, lacking the early Belew touch and all the better for it. Takes time to get into, but worth the effort.

The doubters out there should note that not a single one of these pieces is a prog arrangement, though the last one started life in that genre before Ian Wallace and chums launched into it.

I have been listening to a compilation of old (or should that be classic) Motown¹ hits recently covering the period around 1962 to about 1970. Quite apart from the sheer out put from the label in that period, it is also remarkable how many songs were written by the same team. They tend to be forgotten in the popular consciousness because few if any, were singer/songwriters, they were just jobbing songwriters. People tend to assume these days that artistes write and perform their own material, but in fact, it was comparatively rare prior to Dylan and the Beatles².

Motown in particular, and soul music in general is something I wouldn’t have gone near or admitted to going near when I was a kid; you weren’t allowed diverse musical tastes at school. Peer pressure couldn’t cope with it, and the system would break down if anybody was caught enjoying both ELP and Martha Reeves (not that I think any of the oiks at school knew who Martha Reeves was in the early to mid 1970s; she was last week’s music). It was harder to disguise your musical tastes in the pre-MP3 world and carrying a stack of LPs around was a sure-fire way of advertising your preferences. These days you can slip the Birdie Song onto your i-Pod if you want, surround it with Sigue Sigue Sputnik) and no-one will be any the wiser³.

These days, of course, I couldn’t give a damn. There’s plenty of room for anything from Hard Rock to Classical as far as I’m concerned, with much of the stuff in between though I continue to favour Prog, 60s R&B and certain aspects of the New Wave before it got beached. I do draw the line at Rap⁴ and I’ve never been very keen on Reggae beyond the occasional effort by Bob Marley.

Before you ask, Hip-Hop, Trip-Hop, Pit-Stop, Blip-Blop⁵ and the popular stuff currently posing as R&B are probably not music though they are often quite clever pieces of noise production and marketing.

Anyway, that was the mother of all digressions. It occurred to me while I was listening to some old Supremes songs that in that brief period between servicing Berry Gordy in an attempt to promote her career and her subsequent rise to head-up-her-own-arse Divadom, Diana Ross had a voice very much like a clarinet.

And very pleasant it was, too.

¹No doubt to the horror of telemeister, unbending musical reactionary that he is.

²Name a song written or co-written by Elvis. I can’t.

³If you are tempted to listen to a mix of stuff like that, I suggest that you turn the volume RIGHT up and ruin your hearing. It will be just retribution.

⁴Although I do allow that some of the lyrics are very clever.

⁵Yes, most of that is made up in the tradition that the word barbarian is supposed to have originated as an onomatopoeic sound representing foreign and uncivilised tongues.

My network walkman is sitting in front of me on my desk just begging to be used. The trouble is, it acts like a magnet; I can go for hours without anyone needing to talk to me, or the phone ringing, but as soon as I get comfy with the earphones, especially if the music is a particular favourite, then some odd psychic signal summons half the office to my desk.

This leaves me in something of a quandary. I am enjoying the relative isolation of not being bothered by colleagues, but I really want to listen to some music. It is unlikely that I can do both.

Decisions, decisions.

Never mind. I have booked tomorrow and Friday off so that I can lounge around while the world works. Some uncharitable souls might point that I do that anyway, but I respond with the observation that my modification to the process involves lying in for a couple of hours and then having a leisurely breakfast rather than pounding down the Northern Line with or without the severe delays.

Still no sign of elderly maiden aunts with stacks of cash and a dickey heart; neither am I any closer to winning the lottery (not any further away, either, mind), so I can only lounge for four days, including the weekend.

I know nothing about them, their website is impenetrable (maybe it’s just the office server acting the slippery eel), and I think they only have the one album out, but I quite like The Arcade Fire. I bought the album some time ago, having seen them on Later with Jools Holland, I added it to my Walkman, but only really gave it a single listen. Since the Walkman is generally on shuffle, I haven’t listened to them since.

So today I set the play mode to normal and shuffled through to deliberately listen to stuff that rarely slides through the cans. Funeral became that album, and I am enjoying it immensely.

The band remind me of someone, but I’m damned if I can recall who, but it’s more than one band, that’s for sure. Here and there, there are snatches that could be British Sea Power, but then they veer off on some other tack.

Who would have thought that I might like something produced by a bunch of Québecois? Well, Quebec residents, at least.

I am 'down' with the Montreal Indie scene. Who’da thunk?