This week’s FR5 presents songs and trivia, all from my own encyclopedic memory.
But first, let’s just gaze for a moment at the cover of the new Björk album, Volta.
Well, that’s a relief. For a little while there, I thought it was going to be something weird.
I’m gearing up for a performance of Fauré’s Requiem I’m doing on Sunday, so I’m not listening to any popular music this week. Well, maybe Cibo Matto. And the following Random Five.
I’d Like to Walk Around in Your Mind by Lush
Album: Topolino
- This is a sweet little guitar song that conceals a bitter little core, which means that it’s a perfect Lush song.
- The song is credited to ‘unknown’, but it would appear to have been an early Vashti Bunyan song.
- She describes how she’d like to get inside the head of someone who hasn’t been particularly kind to her. Most unsettling lyric: But most of all I’d like you to be unaware / And then just wander away, dragging palm leaves behind me, so you don’t even know that I’ve been there.
12 Hours by The Whitlams
Album: Little Cloud
- This album was produced by J. Walker of Machine Translations, and as a result, the album is about nine times more interesting than a typical Whitlams album.
- It’s a spare piano song about post-seduction regret.
- The Whitlams were named after an Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. He was famously dismissed by the Governor General, which is sort of like being fired by the Queen. Since then, Prime Ministers have selected GG’s for their timidity.
- Best lyric: ‘Some may drown their sorrows; mine, they like to swim.’ Too bad it’s a U2 lyric.
Get Off the Stage by Morrissey
Album: Piccadilly Palare (Single)
- This song was written and played on by Andy Rourke, Morrissey’s former Smiths bandmate.
- This song is a relentless self-parody. He taunts himself as an aging pop star and mocks his misguided trousers, his… mascara? Fender guitar?
- Silly me. It’s a dig at Mick Jagger.
Special by Garbage
Album: Version 2.0
- Three of the members of Garbage are producers, including Butch Vig of Nirvana fame.
- Garbage is the worst name for a band. You have to be a really good band to have a name like Garbage.
- They got that name because one of their friends heard an early demo, and said, “This shit sounds like garbage!”
- This song appeared in a hallway shot in an episode of Dawson’s Creek. Remember Dawson’s Creek?
- The theme of the song is a fairly involved three-part harmony. Fortunately, they drop the instrumentation around it for a while so it can be heard properly.
Lithium (live) by Nirvana
Album: Nirvana Live Vol. 1
- This is a really crappy bootleg.
- The songs appear on the disc as one long track. I had to cut the songs into tracks myself. How crap is that?
- Pretty crap.
- I remember that the video for this song had the Nirvana guys apearing in Beatle outfits, interspersed with them in dresses. There were two endings, one for each outfit. MTV tended to play the non-dress-ending one more.
- I never got to see Nirvana live. The SLC show in 1994 sold out too quickly.
- That sucks.
And the increasingly likely Bonus Sixth:
Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles
Album: The Age of Plastic
- The Buggles featured brilliant Art of Noise producer Trevor Horn.
- This song was the very first song ever played on MTV.
- The Presidents of the USA covered it once.
- I still think it’s a good song.
- Trevor Horn compiled the soundtrack to the movie Coyote Ugly. He used music from the early nineties, which made me think that his musical knowledge stopped there.
- But then he did produce The Life Pursuit by Belle and Sebastian, which means he’s still relevant, and we owe him something after all.
25 May 2007 at 3:22 pm
Excellent music. Especially the Whitlams. I love Tim Freedman’s voice and the lyrics he comes up with sometimes. And he’s great to see live. He always has a bottle of red next to his keyboard/piano.
Concert on Sunday hey? Drat. That means no WAYO concert for you. However {PLUG}, PUCS is doing a concert on Saturday night at St Joseph’s church in Subiaco of Vivaldi’s Gloria and Mozart’s Solemn Vespers with an orchestra. I should be singing but I chose to get paid to do the concert on the violin instead.
Great rehearsal tonight. I’m still on a high from it. I love music!!
25 May 2007 at 11:32 pm
Video Killed the Radio Star is the track that my children have inherited from their father. It’s a fantastic song. I can remember a time when they were quite small and I was driving a friend somewhere and this came on the radio and my children got excited and sang along. My friend was amazed.
25 May 2007 at 11:33 pm
oh the verification word for the next comment is
zowdreh
That *has* to mean something
26 May 2007 at 12:56 am
Isn’t a ‘zowdreh’ a kind of saddle for a camel?
27 May 2007 at 2:05 pm
hmm i think trevor horn actually produced ‘Dear Catastrophe Waitress’, and not the life pursuit.
We also have him to thank for the sickly sweet soviet-pop licks of T.A.T.U.
God bless.
oh yeah.. you know stuff. What is an arab strap?
28 May 2007 at 12:50 am
Here’s an interesting fact about Bjork: I love her. Its really not that interesting.
Anyway, what I meant to say was there was a rumour in Philly way back that Nirvana played a gig @ Nicks Roast Beef and there were still supposed to be Grohl stick marks behind the drum area. Turned out to be false, people just wanted to have an “I was there” moment. I did however see Tricky throw up there once. Bad roast beef.
Since we’ve just gone past 10 years without Jeff Buckley, thought I’d share an “I wasn’t there” moment. I turned down free tix to Jeff’s last Philly show because I had already gone to Julianna Hatfield on Thurs night, Throwing Muses on Friday night, and had tix for Belly on Sunday night. “He’ll be back around” I said. Sniff.
28 May 2007 at 5:31 am
I thought I knew what an Arab Strap was. I googled it, and found I was right.
I think I would feel silly trying to use one.
hmm i think trevor horn actually produced ‘Dear Catastrophe Waitress’, and not the life pursuit.
Damnation. Memory going. Thanks.
People who are massively into Björk are interesting. I have to say that I’ve never ‘gotten’ Björk, although I like bits of Medulla. I think I approve of Björk more than I like Björk. That I don’t like her more is probably a personal failing. I also don’t like watermelon very much, and I sort of wish I did. Björk is like watermelon.
Life is uncertain. But at least you got to see Throwing Muses.