Warning: self-indulgent
I made a basic schoolboy error a while ago - it's in the archive, if you need to check for some reason - by moaning that no-one had tagged me for the four favourite things meme. I just fancied the questions. Silly. It was noted, out there in blogland. And now Just Jane has tagged me for a meme.
I feel like the dickhead in the town centre - you know the bloke, unemployed and a sad act but full of himself, who deliberately lurks around when the market researchers are wandering the precincts with fixed unamused smiles, laminated name badges, clipboards of unanswerable questions ("how do you rate the local authority sewerage provision? Are you (a) extremely satisfied; (b) very satisfied ..."). He waits and lurks and wanders back and forth until finally a fixed unamused smile sighs and approaches him: "Excuse me sir, can you spare five minutes ..." and then of course he marches off quickly throwing an "I'm far too busy, sorry" over his shoulder as he goes.
I feel a bit like that with the meme - I feel like saying "I know I've been tagged but I really don't do memes, sorry" (subtext: because I'm far too important) and then go off and ramble and wibble incoherently and ungrammatically about telly last night or something.
But I went and said I would do it, so I will. A warning, though: if you don't share my taste in music you'll probably get bored at some point. I don't mind, feel free to skip bits. I have done in the past when people crap on about life-changing music, because it's so personal to them and sooo important but to everyone else it's a track they haven't heard by a band they haven't heard of. Though I have to say that Jane's answers were good 'uns; certainly interesting enough for me to read the lot. 'Ride on time', Jane? Damn that takes me back. I once won a pub quiz by knowing it was by Black Box and that they were Italian.
So, enough dicking around:
1: Name a track from your early childhood. Mum and Dad only play classical, so about the first I can remember is Going To Barbados by Typically Tropical. Awful. Whoa! We're going to Barbados! Precursor to those shits with the Agadoo bollocks. Black Lace, that's them. Wankers. My big brother bought it on vinyl single.
2: Track you associate with your first love: Madonna's Like A Virgin. Cos she used to play it all the time, and did that dance with her arms over her head, wearing fishnet gloves. This was my first proper love, obviously, not the ones that I used to fall over in front of 'by mistake' playing kiss chase.
3: Track that reminds you of a holiday trip: could have put loads for this, but went in the end with I Predict A Riot by Kaiser Chiefs. Last summer, scorching hot, beer in hand, campsite, deck chair, kids in swimming pool, listening to the Ashes on the car radio with Marcus the Worm Farmer. We won the Test, and then Mrs Marcus brought out this as his birthday present. Danced about the field making an exhibition of ourselves.
4: Track I like but wouldn't want to be associated with in public: anything off James Blunt's album Back To Bedlam. Er, not You're Beautiful, that's been done to death, what's the most untrendy? Got to be Goodbye My Lover. It seems to be trendy to knock it at the moment (even in my comments box, Surly, ahem. I have seen Maiden about five times, though, does that make up?) but shit, I like it. I must like whiny male vocalists; I've got all of Coldplay's albums too.
5: Track that accompanied you when you were lovesick: Have You Ever Loved A Woman? by Derek and the Dominoes, which means of course that it's essentially Eric Clapton. I was madly in love with a girl that I was at sixth form college with, but she was going out with someone (not 'my very best friend' like the lyrics say; life didn't imitate art to that extent). I sat in my bedroom and played this on tape over and over and over until the tape stretched. They split up and I shagged her a few months later, of course. It wasn't as great as I'd imagined, and we parted after a few weeks. (Oh come on, grow up, I was 18 and randy. 18 year old boys are allowed to be insensitive bastards). She's slightly famous in the music industry now, as it happens.
6: Track you've probably listened to most often. I wanted this to be something desperately trendy, but it's almost certainly Comfortably Numb, by, of course, Pink Floyd. I was going through the teenage angst thing and it seemed to fit. I just had it on repeat for about three mothths. I still know all the words now.
7: Favourite instrumental: damn, that's hard. I've got rucks and rucks of guitar band CDs, but a pure instrumental? Tell you what, I'll nick Jane's idea of a TV theme: how about the theme to Jonathan Creek? It's that brilliant minor key thing based on a piece of music called Danse Macabre, which I must find out more about and buy.
8: Track which represents one of your favourite bands: La Grange by ZZTop. It was back in their grungy, dirty heydey before they got all polished with Legs and Sharp Dressed Man and such. It's got a really good driving guitar which my kids keep making me play over and over on the car CD. Oh, and it's about a brothel. It's on an old album called Tres Hombres (1973: I just checked) and I recommend it most highly. Not a duff track on it.
9: Track which represents yourself best. Mmmm. If I'm honest? It's Been A While by Staind. "It's been a while/Since I've gone and fucked things up/Just like I always do/But all that shit seems to disappear/ When I'm with you." Nuff said, really.
10: Track which reminds you of a special occasion:Going Underground by The Jam. The LOML's a massive fan, and I first noticed her dancing to this in herringbone mod suit in Ritzy's nightclub in Tottenham in 1988. I walked her home six miles across London and she wouldn't even invite me in for coffee. I walked another three miles home without my feet touching the ground. After you with that bucket.
11: Track you can relax to: Turn Me On by Norah Jones. It's the CD that gets put on late at night in the car. I stop at the services and get a take out latte, and put this on to cruise home down the motorway.
12: Track that stands for a really good time in your life: can't think of many, to be honest, which sounds terribly bleak. I don't have a track which I associate with our wedding, or the birth of either of our kids; I wonder why not? Don't know the answer to that. I'll go for a couple of years ago: self employment going well, enjoying my work for the first time in maybe 15 years, summertime with the office window to the garden open, and Joss Stone and Super Duper Love on the CD.
13: Track which is currently your favourite. This one needs to stand the test of time a bit - sometimes I really like a current song for a few weeks and then get annoyed with it. I'll go for K T Tunstall and Black Horse And The Cherry Tree. Love the album, often play it in the kitchen late at night while I'm doing the dishes after the LOML has gone to bed. Relaxing and uplifting at once.
14: Track to dedicate to your best friend: this is a bit girly. Reeeeally not sure. The LOML's my best friend; trite but true. I can't stand him, but the LOML likes him, so something by Jean Michel Jarre? Because she's my Oxygene? Bleugh. Didn't like doing that. *shivers and moves on*
15: Track you think that no-one but you likes: Johnny Cash and Hurt. I saw the vid for this on telly: it was all filmed in the closed down Johnny Cash Museum, with the man sitting among the dustsheets in his own epitaph singing how he hurt himself just to see if he still feels. It's a cover of Trent Reznor of the Nine Inch Nails's song. I think it's genius, but everyone I know can't see past the cun-ter-ee yee-haw thang, which it's so not. I went and found it and there's a whole album of it called American IV: The Man Comes Around and it includes stuff like Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus. Excellent, excellent, excellent.
16: Track you like especially for its lyrics: almost any of the above, for a short list. Plus loads of others. I've settled in the end for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' Perfect Skin. Could quote the whole song, but "She's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin/and she's sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan/and when she smiles my way my eyes go out in vain/for her perfect skin ... strikes me the moral of this song must be there never has been one" will do. Just perfect. Whatever happened to Lloyd Cole? I liked him.
17: Track you like, in neither English nor German: I'm not going to stoop to putting Nessun Dorma. Son Of A Preacher Man, by Aretha Franklin. That's definitely in American. And therefore so not in English. Two countries divided by a common language? What a voice, though, what a voice.
18: Track which best lets you release tension: odd one this. Susan's House by Eels. It was a minor hit in about 1996. I heard them on the radio doing it acoustically and fell in love with it - I can even remember where I heard the session. (In the car park at my old work, if you must know). It's just so quirky and has a real difference to it, and there's a message in there too. Gets you out of yourself. Good one.
19: Track you want played at your funeral: Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I just wish I had been, sometimes.
20: Track to nominate for "the best of all times" category. Easy: The Great Gig In The Sky, by Pink Floyd. I've loved it since I first heard it as a teenager. It has a soaring, orchestral quality to it, and then the vocal goes just a bit screamy shouty and just a bit out of control and it's all just a bit trippy. I last listened to this on the Shuffle while I was running across the middle of a massive flat stubble field under a massive flat grey sky, and it was nearly mind altering. Nearly. I slipped over, which brought me back down to earth, pun absolutely intentional.
Wow. There you go, then. Bit of an epic, so if you're still reading: gold star. Comment, criticise, empathise, take the piss if you will. Maybe, maybe, someone even agrees with me.
I've actually revealed more of myself than I thought I would doing that, which is good and pretty much the point, I suppose.
Oh, and I am just so going to take the tag cop-out and just tag anyone who fancies doing it. I'm still quite new to this and I'm not quite sure of all the etiquette yet. Have a go, it's cathartic. A bit.
I feel like the dickhead in the town centre - you know the bloke, unemployed and a sad act but full of himself, who deliberately lurks around when the market researchers are wandering the precincts with fixed unamused smiles, laminated name badges, clipboards of unanswerable questions ("how do you rate the local authority sewerage provision? Are you (a) extremely satisfied; (b) very satisfied ..."). He waits and lurks and wanders back and forth until finally a fixed unamused smile sighs and approaches him: "Excuse me sir, can you spare five minutes ..." and then of course he marches off quickly throwing an "I'm far too busy, sorry" over his shoulder as he goes.
I feel a bit like that with the meme - I feel like saying "I know I've been tagged but I really don't do memes, sorry" (subtext: because I'm far too important) and then go off and ramble and wibble incoherently and ungrammatically about telly last night or something.
But I went and said I would do it, so I will. A warning, though: if you don't share my taste in music you'll probably get bored at some point. I don't mind, feel free to skip bits. I have done in the past when people crap on about life-changing music, because it's so personal to them and sooo important but to everyone else it's a track they haven't heard by a band they haven't heard of. Though I have to say that Jane's answers were good 'uns; certainly interesting enough for me to read the lot. 'Ride on time', Jane? Damn that takes me back. I once won a pub quiz by knowing it was by Black Box and that they were Italian.
So, enough dicking around:
1: Name a track from your early childhood. Mum and Dad only play classical, so about the first I can remember is Going To Barbados by Typically Tropical. Awful. Whoa! We're going to Barbados! Precursor to those shits with the Agadoo bollocks. Black Lace, that's them. Wankers. My big brother bought it on vinyl single.
2: Track you associate with your first love: Madonna's Like A Virgin. Cos she used to play it all the time, and did that dance with her arms over her head, wearing fishnet gloves. This was my first proper love, obviously, not the ones that I used to fall over in front of 'by mistake' playing kiss chase.
3: Track that reminds you of a holiday trip: could have put loads for this, but went in the end with I Predict A Riot by Kaiser Chiefs. Last summer, scorching hot, beer in hand, campsite, deck chair, kids in swimming pool, listening to the Ashes on the car radio with Marcus the Worm Farmer. We won the Test, and then Mrs Marcus brought out this as his birthday present. Danced about the field making an exhibition of ourselves.
4: Track I like but wouldn't want to be associated with in public: anything off James Blunt's album Back To Bedlam. Er, not You're Beautiful, that's been done to death, what's the most untrendy? Got to be Goodbye My Lover. It seems to be trendy to knock it at the moment (even in my comments box, Surly, ahem. I have seen Maiden about five times, though, does that make up?) but shit, I like it. I must like whiny male vocalists; I've got all of Coldplay's albums too.
5: Track that accompanied you when you were lovesick: Have You Ever Loved A Woman? by Derek and the Dominoes, which means of course that it's essentially Eric Clapton. I was madly in love with a girl that I was at sixth form college with, but she was going out with someone (not 'my very best friend' like the lyrics say; life didn't imitate art to that extent). I sat in my bedroom and played this on tape over and over and over until the tape stretched. They split up and I shagged her a few months later, of course. It wasn't as great as I'd imagined, and we parted after a few weeks. (Oh come on, grow up, I was 18 and randy. 18 year old boys are allowed to be insensitive bastards). She's slightly famous in the music industry now, as it happens.
6: Track you've probably listened to most often. I wanted this to be something desperately trendy, but it's almost certainly Comfortably Numb, by, of course, Pink Floyd. I was going through the teenage angst thing and it seemed to fit. I just had it on repeat for about three mothths. I still know all the words now.
7: Favourite instrumental: damn, that's hard. I've got rucks and rucks of guitar band CDs, but a pure instrumental? Tell you what, I'll nick Jane's idea of a TV theme: how about the theme to Jonathan Creek? It's that brilliant minor key thing based on a piece of music called Danse Macabre, which I must find out more about and buy.
8: Track which represents one of your favourite bands: La Grange by ZZTop. It was back in their grungy, dirty heydey before they got all polished with Legs and Sharp Dressed Man and such. It's got a really good driving guitar which my kids keep making me play over and over on the car CD. Oh, and it's about a brothel. It's on an old album called Tres Hombres (1973: I just checked) and I recommend it most highly. Not a duff track on it.
9: Track which represents yourself best. Mmmm. If I'm honest? It's Been A While by Staind. "It's been a while/Since I've gone and fucked things up/Just like I always do/But all that shit seems to disappear/ When I'm with you." Nuff said, really.
10: Track which reminds you of a special occasion:Going Underground by The Jam. The LOML's a massive fan, and I first noticed her dancing to this in herringbone mod suit in Ritzy's nightclub in Tottenham in 1988. I walked her home six miles across London and she wouldn't even invite me in for coffee. I walked another three miles home without my feet touching the ground. After you with that bucket.
11: Track you can relax to: Turn Me On by Norah Jones. It's the CD that gets put on late at night in the car. I stop at the services and get a take out latte, and put this on to cruise home down the motorway.
12: Track that stands for a really good time in your life: can't think of many, to be honest, which sounds terribly bleak. I don't have a track which I associate with our wedding, or the birth of either of our kids; I wonder why not? Don't know the answer to that. I'll go for a couple of years ago: self employment going well, enjoying my work for the first time in maybe 15 years, summertime with the office window to the garden open, and Joss Stone and Super Duper Love on the CD.
13: Track which is currently your favourite. This one needs to stand the test of time a bit - sometimes I really like a current song for a few weeks and then get annoyed with it. I'll go for K T Tunstall and Black Horse And The Cherry Tree. Love the album, often play it in the kitchen late at night while I'm doing the dishes after the LOML has gone to bed. Relaxing and uplifting at once.
14: Track to dedicate to your best friend: this is a bit girly. Reeeeally not sure. The LOML's my best friend; trite but true. I can't stand him, but the LOML likes him, so something by Jean Michel Jarre? Because she's my Oxygene? Bleugh. Didn't like doing that. *shivers and moves on*
15: Track you think that no-one but you likes: Johnny Cash and Hurt. I saw the vid for this on telly: it was all filmed in the closed down Johnny Cash Museum, with the man sitting among the dustsheets in his own epitaph singing how he hurt himself just to see if he still feels. It's a cover of Trent Reznor of the Nine Inch Nails's song. I think it's genius, but everyone I know can't see past the cun-ter-ee yee-haw thang, which it's so not. I went and found it and there's a whole album of it called American IV: The Man Comes Around and it includes stuff like Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus. Excellent, excellent, excellent.
16: Track you like especially for its lyrics: almost any of the above, for a short list. Plus loads of others. I've settled in the end for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' Perfect Skin. Could quote the whole song, but "She's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin/and she's sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan/and when she smiles my way my eyes go out in vain/for her perfect skin ... strikes me the moral of this song must be there never has been one" will do. Just perfect. Whatever happened to Lloyd Cole? I liked him.
17: Track you like, in neither English nor German: I'm not going to stoop to putting Nessun Dorma. Son Of A Preacher Man, by Aretha Franklin. That's definitely in American. And therefore so not in English. Two countries divided by a common language? What a voice, though, what a voice.
18: Track which best lets you release tension: odd one this. Susan's House by Eels. It was a minor hit in about 1996. I heard them on the radio doing it acoustically and fell in love with it - I can even remember where I heard the session. (In the car park at my old work, if you must know). It's just so quirky and has a real difference to it, and there's a message in there too. Gets you out of yourself. Good one.
19: Track you want played at your funeral: Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I just wish I had been, sometimes.
20: Track to nominate for "the best of all times" category. Easy: The Great Gig In The Sky, by Pink Floyd. I've loved it since I first heard it as a teenager. It has a soaring, orchestral quality to it, and then the vocal goes just a bit screamy shouty and just a bit out of control and it's all just a bit trippy. I last listened to this on the Shuffle while I was running across the middle of a massive flat stubble field under a massive flat grey sky, and it was nearly mind altering. Nearly. I slipped over, which brought me back down to earth, pun absolutely intentional.
Wow. There you go, then. Bit of an epic, so if you're still reading: gold star. Comment, criticise, empathise, take the piss if you will. Maybe, maybe, someone even agrees with me.
I've actually revealed more of myself than I thought I would doing that, which is good and pretty much the point, I suppose.
Oh, and I am just so going to take the tag cop-out and just tag anyone who fancies doing it. I'm still quite new to this and I'm not quite sure of all the etiquette yet. Have a go, it's cathartic. A bit.
posted by crisiswhatcrisis at
8:16 pm
4 Comments:
blunt? hmm.
letting you off tho, because of Susan's House by eels. i love that track.
and do you know, if you'd tagged me properly i might have done this one.
yeah, right.
By
surly girl, at 10:43 am
Surly: I know, I know. Can't help it tho.
DCI: What a great idea. I'm afraid I don't have the unlimited time it would take me as I'm not even close to that clever with the html.
By
crisiswhatcrisis, at 10:59 am
Ah now, that wasn't so bad was it??? Kaiser Chiefs, the Eels, the Jam and 'Son of a Prreacher man'..excellent, and great explanations too. I was in Tottenham in the late 80's..the Ritzy brings back some memories.
By
J.J, at 8:11 am
Wow, Ritzy's: how scary was that? Student night on Wednesdays, all drinks 50p. I recall a mate walking in with a twenty and saying right, forty vodka and oranges and no-one's going dancing until we've drunk them all. There were three of us. (Ref Little Voices, above. Ah well, I was young).
By
crisiswhatcrisis, at 11:03 am
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