Sad Songs Say So Much

Often we are sad. Things don't work out or we feel nostalgic for a past that was probably every bit as melancholy. So, what music to play? To feel sad? To get music to match the melancholic mood? Classical? Rock? Pop? Bossanova? Well, all of the above.

Debussy - The girl with the Flaxen Hair. Beautiful, sad, melancholic. Fading beauty, pale shadows, misty memories, dawn tears. I love this piece.

The Smiths - Please, please, please let me get what I want. The Smiths. Morrissey. Hero of many a lonely bedsit. The first and the best Smiths miserable songs. Oh how I used to put this on repeat!

Guns n Roses - November Rain - Sad. Sad. The shining flame that was GnR came up with a handful of classics but this one... Man... I remember 1991/2. I lived it. Everything was raw. Real. First time. Beautiful song.

Blur - Miss America. My secret. 1994. That was a year!

A-ha - You'll Never Get Over Me. From their flawless comeback album - Major Sky, Minor Earth. Beautiful. From the masters of melancholy a late career fightback. Check out the counterpoint melody.

Abba - The Winner Takes it All. Fuck this is sad. The best Abba song for sadness. The way Agneta says 'but you see' and then holds that high note on the last chorus just breaks your heart. One of my top ten records ever.

Van Morrison - Beside You. Well, I've mentioned this already. Just perfect. Fucking perfect. If you want to blub and think about what might have been and what used to be, then this is your song. Perfection.

The Eurythmics - Savage. I've written a full blog post on this song. It breaths. Annie is always the master of melancholy. But the guitar solo! Less is more. Stunning.... Yeah... Let's move on!

Elgar - Nimrod. Yeah, I've already mentioned this but, when I'm feeling sad - the power, the majesty and uplift of this piece always makes me feel better. Shake the house with this one and shake away the blues!

Everything but the Girl - On My Mind. Before they were famous... Private. Memories... A story told a thousand times but never with a happy ending. A different era. Different times. See the video below.

Elton John - Sad Songs. Not his best song but - hell - Bernie describes this feeling of sadness so perfectly! A more authentic song would be Sacrifice. I used to play this in a studio only group in 1994. Happy memories. Things mattered. Ultimately, we didn't.

Dry your tears. Tomorrow can always be better!

Tim

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Between West Street and Bleecker Street

“I saw a shadow touch a shadow’s hand. On Bleecker Street.”

— Paul Simon - Bleecker Street

When I first went to New York, American Express put me up at The Marriott on West Street. After a hard day in the office I would ask my colleagues out for a beer. And sometimes they would oblige... For a beer. One beer. Before departing for New Jersey. Leaving me alone in New York.

The Marriott on West Street is down at the bottom of Manhattan Island, all skyscrapers, bustling with life during the day but dead after work. What to do? On my first trip to New York?

Letting art be my guide, I summoned a yellow taxi and told the cabbie to take me to Bleecker Street. Due to the Simon and Garfunkel song, it was the only uptown street I knew. So he took me - circuitously I found later - up to Greenwich Village.

And so I wandered around. Had some beers in 'coffee shops' where I had to get used to putting dollars on the bar before ordering my drink. Lighting up a Marlboro I thought - hey! - this is living. All my idols - Neil Diamond, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, had walked these very streets. All I lacked was my own Suzi Rotolo immortalised on The Freewheeling Bob Dylan:-

Now that image is well known. Less well known is the cover of The Paul Simon Songbook where Paul poses (influenced by Dylan, no doubt) with his then girlfriend Kathy Chitty (of Kathy's Song fame):-

The album cover above is framed and hung in my lounge.

So what does this show? Not much, in the receding view of history. A first time visitor to a great city goes somewhere mentioned in a song. But to me it was real. It was living art. All of my life - then - seemed to be an unwritten novel, a poem - a song, awaiting to be sung.

I suppose life is an ever diminishing version of that little story: The search for the new, the openness of naivety, the finding of oneself, wherever that may be. I suppose we all search for the thrill and expectation I felt during that first taxi ride between West Street and Bleecker Street.

And sometimes we find that feeling. But usually we don't. We all live in between.

Tim

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A Little Bit of Folk

When I was in service in Rosemary Lane

Other than the homegrown Lisa Stansfield concerts I went to in the mid 80's - about which I've written before - Steeleye Span at the Manchester Apollo was one of my first ever 'gigs'. Young Tim loved the folkie sound! Simon and Garkunkel have to be top five for me. I love British / American folk music. It often gets characterised as twats with beards, beer bellies, fingers in their ears singing about sailors and shady ladies!

Which is basically what Rosemary Lane is about. Actually, I had the privilege of seeing the late, great, Bert Jansch live in concert in Brighton in 1990's. He didn't do Rosemary Lane. Bastard.

I've often thought that it would make a great book or film to depict the British folk scene in the mid-60's. The scene that created Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Pentangle, John Renbourne, Jackson C Frank, Simon and Garfunkel, and loads of others. They all knew each other, played in the same places, did versions of the same songs. Nicked each other's guitar style.

So let me be your guide though some the highlights of the great folk boom of the 60's / 70's - which probably reached its apogee with Sandy Denny duetting with Led Zeppelin on The Battle of Evermore - a crossover folk rock song like no other. The mighty Zep did what they did with the blues - amped up the power, took what's best in the genre, co-opted the best female folk voice ever, and created the folk hammer of the gods.

Anyway - here's Tim's top 10 acoustic / folkie / whatever list.

Top Ten Folkie / Acoustic Music

1) Bert Jansch - Rosemary Lane (1971)

2) Fairport Convention - Who Knows Where the Time Goes

3) Steeleye Span - All Around my Hat

4) Martin Carthy - Scarborough Fair

5) Simon & Garfunkel - Bleecker Street

6) Van Morrison - Beside You

7) Gordon Lightfoot - In the Early Morning Rain

8) Pentangle - Light Flight

9) Renaissance - The Northern Lights

10) Jackson C Frank - Blues Run the Game

Number 6 also appears on my top ten songs ever. I could pick half a dozen Paul Simon songs for this list but I limited myself to one.

Extra Waffle about Bert Jansch

One of the most influential guitarists ever to come out of Britain. Solo artist, part of the folk supergroup Pentangle and then back to solo again. Jansch seems a genuinely nice, self-effacing guy, as I can recall when I saw him back in the 90's. Needle of Death, from his first album, is such a sad song, tear-jerking even now, and as empathetic a song as I've ever heard. It Don't Bother Me, from his second album, is classic Bert - folkie, intricate guitar figures, detailing love's woes. But I'll plump for Rosemary Lane. Traditional song, rendered traditionally, this was the first folk song - after Steeleye Span - to really get to me. It details the seduction of an innocent servant girl by a travelling sailor. He loves and then leaves. Jansch's version - like Dylan's House of the Rising Sun - reverses the sexes, he sings from a female point of view. Love this song. Bert Jansch - a great soul who died in 2011 - the guitarist's guitar player.

From the BBC special c.'70. Enjoy.

Renbourne left and Jansch right. Scat singing. A bit of jazz, a bit of blues, some folk and a whole lot of soul. 

Defer, Delay and Enjoy!

Owlsey and Charlie, twins of the trade // come to the Poet's room.

Back in the 1980's (or was it the 1880's, seems a long time ago) we practised what is known in economic parlance as 'deferred gratification'. Some of you older readers will remember that; some of my younger readers will be scratching their heads and asking 'wot's that? lol!!'

Mainly it manifest itself by saving up money for something, taking a half an hour bus trip into Rochdale town centre, buying a single or computer game, getting the bus back again and sitting and listening to said record or load said computer game (to find it didn't work).

It was an interesting system of meeting wants; making the buyer wait for a period of time before certain wants were met. The theory goes that, by making the end-user wait, they put more value on the goods or services eventually purchased.

Well that was the theory anyway. 

Now, with the internet, most wants can be met instantaneously or much more quickly than previously. If I want a track or a book or want to read about the Battle of Zama or The Franco-Prussian War, I can do so with just a few mouse clicks. It would have amazed my younger self, and it's still pretty revolutionary to my older self.

But what does it do for the soul? If your wants are met so easily? No waiting. Often no saving. Just click, click, move on? Do we value things less?

Deep questions. Sort of pint three philosophical ramblings before ordering a whiskey and going off on a rant about Southern Rail or broadband speeds.

So, do I value music less now than I did in 1984 when I'd make that bus journey into Rochdale, buy Lionel Ritchie's 'Hello', take the bus back and put it on the turntable, play it eight times in a row and realise it wasn't that great after-all (sorry - Lionel, it's not that bad actually. Just making a point. Could have picked Nena - 99 Red Balloons, but you came to mind first)?

I think that residual value might have something to do with when it was bought. Extraneous factors. When you're sixteen, pretty much everything is new, everything is the first, everything marks the way to a whole series of other choices. At 48, although I like new tracks, none of them will ever have the impact on my brain as the first time I heard Jumping Jack Flash or The Battle of Evermore.

On my itunes, I have more or less everything from my past I like, filling in the gaps and buying stuff I've never heard is the nature of the game. Most of the hard-to-get tracks have been found (thanks Jay).

One eluded me for years. Jefferson Airplane's Mexico. A single without an album. A musical orphan, hard to find. Well, I found it today. As my original copy was on a long deleted 80's compilation Best of Jefferson Airplane cassette, I hadn't heard the track for, I dunno, fifteen years.

And I still like it. For it's lyricism, it's musicality but also because I remember Tim took the bus to Rochdale town centre, went to the library, hired the cassette, took the bus back, thought most of the tracks crap but loved this, the last track on the album.

Interestingly, I thought the track dealt with some 19th century Mexican revolution, perhaps involving Napoleon III and Maximilian. A romantic, nobel interpretation. Now - thanks to Wiki and online lyric sheets - I know it's actually about cannabis smuggling and Richard Nixon. FFS. I could have done without that unasked for want - curiosity - being met. Deferred or not.

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I Love The Way You Walk...

Spring has hit the UK! London (and Sussex) is warm and cheerful with daffs handing the baton over to bluebells before the grinning faces of Marguerites sprint down the back straight and breast the tape of summer. Girls are wearing summer dresses and I've even put away my John Lewis mac. At least for this week (though, perversely, it's now raining in London).

I was dancing around in the kitchen the other night making a curry and playing some decent tunes. When I dance, I dance. When I rock, I roll. When I cook, I dance. And so the circle turns. There is nothing new under the sun. For everything there is a season. Anyway, I was blasting out The Crystals 'Da Do Ron Ron' which is one of the best feel-good songs ever. But - sorry Phil - not great in the lyrics department. So I thought I'd do a quick article on crap lyrics, starting with:-

The Crystals - Da Do Ron Ron (1963)

"Yeah my heart stood still. Yeah, his name was Bill."  

Nuff said. Great song (BTW - I think the last 20 seconds of this song,  a classic anyway, when Spectre goes into overdrive, is possibly one of the finest moments of pop - ever!). Barmy lyrics though.

Cast - Sandstorm (1995)  (who? Yeah, I know. Scouse group. Bass player of the La's. Briefly famous.)

If there was a list of books that will never be written 'The wit and wisdom of Cast's lyrics' must be, unlike their records, Top 3. John Power writes the shittiest lyrics. He can't see a lady without discussing how she 'walks' and, yes, this leads inevitably to a comment on how she 'talks'. Searing insight mate.

The true awfulness of his lyrics come in the following double couplet with a happy ending:-

Let me take you by the hand
Try to understand, walk me to a land, try to understand
I ain't nothing but a man

Neil Diamond - I Am, I Said (1971)

As is well known, I am Neil's biggest fan. The moody man in black of the 60's, to the long hair denim Live At the Greek incarnation through his later years as Mr Sparkly Shirt... He's my guy. So this one hurts.

I Am, I Said is one of my favourite songs. About his sense of disenchantment at the false promise of fame, his relocation from New York to LA, his disintegrating marriage; this is the ultimate facing yourself in the mirror and telling it as it is song. The lyrics are actually very good, but Neil drops the world's biggest clanger in the chorus:-

I am I said, to no one there // And no-one heard, not even the chair.

Not known for their listening skills chairs, usually Neil. I can't defend this lazy writing.

Rhythm is a Dancer - Snap! (1992)

This one is suggested my good friend and ex-colleague Glenna. I actually quite like the lyric for its ridiculousness and Euro-babble nonsense. It's hard-hitting, uncompromising and plainly daft.

"I'm as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer"

Yeah, mate. Did Goethe or Hegel write that, first? Bollox it may be but, it can't be denied, it's a great dance tune. 

Billy Bragg / Kirsty McColl - New England (1983/4)

I was 21 years when I wrote this song // I'm 22 now but I won't be for long.

Huh? They're good lyrics, surely Tim? Yes, actually they are, I agree. But compare and contrast to Simon and Garfunkel's 'Leaves That Are Green' from 1965:-

I was 21 years when I wrote this song // I'm 22 now but I won't be for long.

Eh? How's that happen? Pure laziness and, er, theft. It's not as though Billy's usually crap at lyrics (even if his politics are shit). Even New England has some of the sharpest lines from a pop song ever. Poor, very poor. But I do have a good idea for the opening of this novel I'm writing:-

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Sounds good, yeah? 

And now, as I have to complete a new short story inspired partially by the literary conceit adopted by  Thomas Hardy in The Well Beloved, I must leave you.

From Battersea, good night

Tim 

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Purple Rain.... RIP

The news came through, in ripples, in shocked voices, that Prince was dead as I wrote my economics article below. No, surely not. Too young! But no, it's true. FFS.

I'm not gonna be some obituary service (Christ 2016 is such a shit year) but Prince. Prince!! Only ten years older than me. Such a talent. So cool. Such integrity. 

I grew up in the 80's. No more to be said. If you were there, you knew what Prince meant.

What I'm really glad about is that - well annoyed by some no-mark singing Purple Rain on the Voice a couple of weeks ago - I made my kids watch the below video of Prince battling and beating the elements at the Super Bowl in 2007. They know he's brilliant. All this week, spookily, I've been listening to Purple Rain on my way to work. Eights minutes of brilliance - that guitar solo!

Lots of Purple Rain, Kiss, Sign o' the Times and, my own fav, I Could Never Take the Place of your man, being played at my house tonight.

RIP Prince. 

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1993 seems to have been a good year...

I was halfway through a blogpost on great gigs from history that I didn’t go to but wish I had. But I ran out of steam chugging through some old familiars - Elvis, Beatles, Stones. Yeah, yeah yeah. Whatever granddad. I've saved the draft so it will doubtless appear on these pages one spring morn when I'm short of ideas about urban architecture or obscure ancient philosophy.

I decided a more interesting, truthful and insightful article might be to record some decent gigs I actually did see. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen, I lived once and have the stolen set-lists to prove it! Whilst Taylor Swift puts on a helluva show, and Sam Smith has a high voice, I have been in the mosh pit a few times in the past and have worn the spilt lager with pride. So let's sift the memory for musical gold and share some nuggets with you.

Teenage Fanclub / Julianna Hatfield Trio - Brighton Event 1993

The Fannies were touring their album Thirteen which, although containing the classic homage to the late great Gene Clark - called imaginatively 'Gene Clark' - was a bit shit and a let down after Bandwagonesque. But they're good live and played The Concept and Everything Flows and were generally loose and in what you could term 'high spirits'. What was a revelation however was the undercard, Julianna Hatfield. I knew her not before that cold night on Brighton seafront. She was great! I've been a fan ever since. The Trio was loud, heavy and just right in those dancing days of grunge before Kurt chewed on a shotgun and blasted us into Britpop. And she played one of my - now - all time favourites - I Got No Idols (guitar version). So, a special night all round. Not sure I got laid later on but it feels like I did. In my memory.

Probably didn't though.

Rod Stewart - Hyde Park 2011

Always loved Mr Stewart but bollox'd on free corporate VIP booze I farkin' luv'd the Rod! Ronnie Wood was there, Stevie Nicks did that floaty thing, Adam Ant reminded us it was an awfully long time ago since he was famous. I was around the back in the VIP area, artfully smoking cafe cremes and drinking Gin and Tonics, laconically watching the backstage live video monitor and soaking up the atmosphere of a corporate fat cat. Then, before I knew it, I was mingling with the plebs in the crowd yelling my head off with Rod for 90 minutes. I remember a phone message I left someone from the gig - hoarse, drunken, shouting along to Sailing or Baby Jane or Hot Legs... Happy Times.

Lisa Stansfield and Blue Zone - Rochdale Football Club 1986

Musically, a bit of a bore, frankly. I was there because I did Classical Studies with Lisa's then musical, and now real-life, partner Ian Devaney. I knew Lisa from years before when we were both in the school play together. Oh the stories I could tell! But on that night I was not there for the music (not really my scene). No, young be-mulleted Tim was mainly trying to chat up girls from my sixth form. I was about as successful at this as Blue Zone was storming the charts. But I remember Lisa providing me with a live personal soundtrack as I cranked out those mid-80s chat up lines to young girls with big hair and shoulder pads. 

Blur – Reading Festival 1993

This has gone down in history as the day Blur re-invented themselves and played a storming set on the second stage that ushered in Britpop. Yes, they did premier quite a bit of Parklife and yes they played most of my personal favourite, Modern Life is Rubbish. I hate festivals usually so what the hell was I doing there? Wish I knew. Glad I did but no idea.  In retrospect the music at the festival was mainly shit – the headliners were The The FFS – so you can see why Blur caused all those writers of NME to mythologise their set as year zero for a British fightback. Seen Blur many times before and since but this was the best gig I have ever seen them play. Interestingly enough, Radiohead were on before Blur and I probably saw them for a couple of minutes dashing back from Eddie Izzard. But who knows - they were shit in those days.

More tales from 1993 (and other years) another time. Won;t be talking about my experiences watching New Model Army, Dr and The Medics, Tanita Takarum, Sleeper, Alexander O'Neil (why oh why oh why)....

Laters, potatas

Tim

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Maybe, Maybe, Maple Ladies...

It was only recently that I realised that a great many of the female singers of my favourite songs were all from Canada. I've spoken in the past about my conversion, slowly like Constantine and Christianity, towards female music. It was a process that could never be pinned down to a specific date but, as in The Battles of The Milvian Bridge or Frigidus, it's only later that the real significance can be discerned (or imputed retrospectively).

Canada has produced some pretty damn fine female singers. Let's take them in chronological order, as they appeared to me, shall we? And give them a song each.

Alanis Morrisette - Head over Heels

Anyone who doesn't like Jagged Little Pill (1995) is a fucking idiot. There aren't many perfect albums out there. The odd Beatles long player, Astral Weeks - Van Morrison, Achtung Baby - U2, The Byrds first album, but Alanis delivers HUGH on her third album. It's funny, provocative, and the music is as tight as it gets. I picked Head Over Heels because I think it's the most complete song on the album, musically and lyrically. It's optimistic and happy, a honeymoon period song. The sort of song you'd always hope someone would write about you before they find you out.

It was, of course, the high water mark of Alanis. A bat-shit crazy hippy, she'd delivered her one stab at posterity before disappearing up her own backside. She's still there allowing her to hand over to her fellow compatriots...

Celine Dion - Think Twice (1994)

Okay, so she's like your mum and hogs the middle of the road like some corporate VP asked to comment on anything controversial at a staff meeting. And seriously, what was the point of General Wolfe dying folks? Vous avez un fucking rire. True but no one denies that the girl can sing and sometimes, given serendipity and the right song, she's queen of the last dance, erection section. I always liked 'Falling into You' which is dreamy and fluid, and shows off Celine's beautiful tone. But recently I've been drawn towards Think Twice. She floats in this song, serenely sailing towards the island of beautiful melodies, thousands of waving lighters marking the way. Noodling heavy guitar and treated drum 90's beats, provide the requisite soft-rock back drop to this classic. And that high sustained note! You go girl!

Fun fact; Think Twice was written by British song writer Andy Hill, who, if he did nothing else, is famous for writing all my favourite Bucks Fizz songs including the 80's pop masterwork that is Piece of the Action.

Well I know it sounds funny but I don't wanna be in love // I just want a piece of the action.

Another unsung British hero.

Shania Twain - You're Still The One

I had a view about Shania Twain for years - namely that she was sexy and sassy and the singer of comedy lightweight country songs that had punning titles - step forward, Man, I Feel Like A Woman. And then I came across this song. A totally different vein. There's a vulnerability about her voice, it sounds raw, late night, cracked; honest. No jokes, no routines, just a sincere acoustic strum you could image down The Bluebird Cafe (yes, I watch Nashville). I love the backing vocals and the way they anticipate Shania's lead on the chorus by half a bar - "You're still the one..." The tune is special but the way she delivers it. Man, I Feel That Woman's Power.

Shania's got a very devoted fanbase and reading their comments about the behaviour of her erstwhile husband, Mutt Lange, who's the subject of this song, is instructive. Apparently Mutt thought it good idea to cheat on the beautiful Shania with her best friend. Classy mate. Real classy. I guess Mutt's no longer the one.

Avril Lavigne - Take Me Away

She's like so, whatever // And you could do so much better

Sure she's a brat and - like Pink - if her lyrics are anything like her real personality, she's probably really hard to be with... But. But. I love her shouty grungy guitar driven sound, even if she is, in her own words 'A motherfucking princess'. I first got into Avril around 2003, about the same time as Lucie Silvas. I'd play her album 'Let Go' constantly - getting down to Sk8ter Boi, Complicated, chuckling to the smut of Things I'll Never Say. But the apogee of Avril, for me, was her second album, Under My Skin, where the guitars are ramped up to eleven, the vocals still crystal clear, the harmonies challenging, not smooth. This is RAWK album, sung by a teenage girl backed by some severe amplification. Hell yeah! I could pick any of the songs on this album - Together, Forgotten, My Happy Ending - but Take Me Away is probably the most representative - borrowing grunge trick number 1 (this is the quiet bit / this is the loud bit), angsty lyrics, great singing, great harmonies.

I can't handle this confusion / I'm unable... // Come and take me away,

Footnote to the Avril story. My girls have graduated a little away from Taylor Swift and into shouty arms of Avril. I'm cool with that. I'm down with the kids, yeah. I was there first! Now I just await their conversion into Beatles fans. Elvis fans. Stones fans. I'll save The Smiths for myself!

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Classical Britain

My British soundtrack... 

Let's start with classical first. I'll return to rock, pop and folk later... I'm not exactly breaking any barriers with my selections here. They are all rather safe and well known. But, that doesn't stop them from being damn fine tunes and each in their own way, evocative of Britain. 

Elgar - Nimrod, from the Enigma Variations

Majestic and stately, respectful and slow to anger but shaking the earth with its wrath when roused, Nimrod is England in musical form. Or at least, my England. A lot of people go with Pomp and Circumstance as the patriotic high point of Elgar and I agree that Land of Hope and Glory is a perfect, end of the proms, flag waving, ditty. But Nimrod... Swelling is the description I would go with. Building and building until it's power dominates the room but then, fading just as swiftly as it has come. Along with Vivaldi's Winter (Largo) this is one of two essential classical pieces for me. And to me - it is England - not boastful nor proud but solid, right and beautiful. 

Parry / Blake - Jerusalem

There's a recording of me and my mate Stephen singing this in 1986 accompanied by my drunken Casio keyboard playing (with clap-clap drumbeat). Not my greatest recording ever. I only say this as an illustration that it's always been a favourite of mine. Based on a poem by William Blake (written whilst in West Sussex - green and pleasant land, indeed), the musical setting was provided by Hubert Parry in 1916. Rightly Jerusalem has come back recently as an anthem for everyone (the Suffragettes used to use it with Parry's permission) and not just the Tory Party. If England needs a national anthem, this is it. 

And did those feet in ancient time, walk upon England's mountains green

Anonymous (but let's go with the Vaughn Williams setting) - Greensleeves

One from Tim's Desert Island Discs circa 1975. Who could not like this medieval song from the 16th century? Probably not written by Henry VIII, it is nethertheless a window into Tudor times when so much of our national story was forged (Church of England, the break with Rome, religious tolerance, Shakespeare, the first colonies, a powerful queen, the successful defence of the realm by the nascent royal navy). I particularly like the interpretation of the lyrics that suggests that the Lady Greensleeves was a whore because whores' dresses were green from lying in the grass so much! No, let's give the lady a little more class than that, shall we?  I like the Vaughn Williams orchestral fantasia version because it seemed to summarise Merrie Olde England as characterised by, say, the Carry On Films. There's something very English about the tune and something very post-war about the WIlliams' setting (even if he did write it in the 30's).

Yeah, I know. All three are very English. Sorry about that Celtic fringes. Occasionally England needs to be heard too!

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George Martin

Okay - The Clash had it right. "No Elvis, Beatles, Rolling Stones."

Because they're the big three, right? The Crassus, Caesar and Pompey of rock. And I agree. I remember being sad in 1977 at The King's death. I was fucking angry when Lennon was shot in 1980. I loved it when Travis performed a George Harrison tribute at The Brits in 2001 to kids too stupid, too gauche, to understand the death that had just happened.

And so George Martin passes away.

He would be famous for many things but his decision to sign The Beatles has to rank as one of the cleverest, smartest, most profitable decisions ever made. He auditioned the Beatles in June 1962. In March 1964 the Beatles were numbers 1-5 in America.

Let me just say that again in case any of you younger people don't get it.

In March 1964 The Beatles were numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 in the American charts. So fuck off any One DIrections out there. You are literally shit under McCartney's shoe. And John Lennon? Seriously ladies, go and get another tattoo and fuck the Queen of Chavs. Leave the music to George Martin and the Beatles. You are, quite simply, nothing.

Because behind The Beatles was always George Martin. The Beatles would still have been The Beatles without him (see She's Leaving Home and, shamefully those twats on Newsnight who highlighted The Long and Winding Road - a Phil Spectre orchestration)...  But in a million ways he pushed and facilitated The Fab Four.

- Can't But Me Love starts with the chorus because of him

- Sgt Pepper was all about George Martin

- He invented ADT (automatic Double Tracking)

- He scored Yesterday for strings 

- He made I Am Walrus the kick-ass proto-type Oasis it is

- He made Strawberry Fields Forever from pieces of Lennon brilliance.

- He came up with idea for Please Please Me - an album in a day. He also speeded the single up to give the Beatles their first hit.

- He does a mean rock n roll piano. Check out Rock N Roll Music - that's George rocking out on the ivories.

- He went independent from EMI in 1967 and so broke the monopoly of the record companies on how their artists sound

- A million, billion things large and small that created the greatest rock and pop group ever. My views on this are not sanguine, nor debatable. 

And on top of everything he was a genuine English gent who fought in the war, the sort we seem in short supply of these days - restrained, decent, modest and competent. A good bloke.

Sorry this is so inadequate George; you deserve much better from me.

RIP

Tim

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The Contrast Between Harmony and Invention

Although I'm best known for my rock criticisms, for my long and extended discussions of the might and majesty of I think I Love You by the Partridge Family or the soft rock velvety fist of The Carpenters' Goodbye to Love, in reality, I actually spend most of my time listening to Vivaldi.

When? Well, when I write. When I commute. When I eat. Always Vivaldi. Now there's a joke (not that funny but I'll repeat it) that says that Vivaldi didn't write 500 concertos but one concerto 500 times. While there are recurring motifs and musical cycles in his music, to dismiss the Venetian maestro as a one trick pony is to underestimate him hugely. And you'd also miss out on some great music.

I would argue - and do! - that the mathematical precision creates a comforting level of expectation and familiarity in the listener. I love hearing him follow the rules of a musical spine. So that he can then, like a great Blues artist, use this solid platform for all manner of interpretation and invention. 

I'll pick three Vivaldi pieces that I rate above most. And I'll start with something well known:-

Winter - The Four Seasons (Largo)

For years I hummed this tune unknowing of what it was until an Italian colleague placed it for me - no, not within The Four Seasons - but in the larger parent movement - Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione. Or Opus 8. If there is a more beautiful tune in the world, I don't know it. This melody, so fluent and so evocative, is framed against the tick tock of pizzicato strings. The flowing lines and rise and fall of the melody, against the mechanical sawing of the backing strings, creates magic. Every time! Straight to Number One!

Mandolin Concerto - RV 134 (Allegro)

Dig those power chords! This is classical music delivering the ferocity and riffology of Led Zeppelin, 250 years before Jimmy Page plugged his Gibson into a Marshall stack. Feel the full force of this baroque wall of sound. Showing that classical music can provide depth and power 100 years before Beethoven smashed it all the way to 11 in his 5&9, this is head banging stuff. If you like classical with attitude, this is your track!

Concerto for 2 Oboes - RV 535 (Largo)

The Vivaldi lover's Vivaldi. Interweaving and delicate oboe lines cross and uncross, creating peace, magic and love. This is probably the piece I'd pick for 'and I listen to classical too' slot on Desert Island Disc. Less well known that the Winter piece, it shares with it a dignified beauty. It's so stately you want to salute it as it flows past you graceful and serious. Music for grown ups.

* * *

There's more. So much more. Vivaldi didn't restrict himself to an album every two years with a couple of singles in between. No, the red headed Venice boy, cloistered with his orphans in the Ospedale della Pietà churned them out for years. La Stravaganza, L'Estro Armonico, the hits just kept coming. And then stopped, abruptly and he lay completely forgotten for two hundred years.

As we know though, he came back in a big way. Adverts, films, best ofs; he's now up there with the classical big boys. Seek him out. 

Or don't. I don't care. But if you see me on a train this is what I'm listening to. 

s-ciào su bitches

Tim

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Hit & Run Lover : Gigging in the 90's

Who knows? Memory is a fickle thing. Like making a film, we choose what to remember, what to recall, what to forget. So the story below may have been unintentionally changed during the intervening years. Like all good history, a certain judicious editing and some appropriate embellishing helps it pack a more meaningful punch. But - hey! - enough of my yacking!

So, back to summer 1995: Oasis and Blur were duking it out in the charts. Brit Pop was in the air and we all thought it was the mid 60’s once again. Down on the South Coast my group, Shambolic, was on the much ignored at the time, but now completely forgotten, Still Hazy After All These Beers tour which consisted of a gig in Worthing Battle of the Bands (we lost), one free festival at Sussex University and two painful gigs in dreadful Brighton pubs for no money.

Our very badly photocopied poster with which we promoted the tour in Brighton laundrette windows reads as if I was trying to provoke an audience rather than attract one. Underneath the group’s name was the motto, or threat, “We flip you over and play your b side”. A little further down, and against a backdrop of three silhouetted figures, the following quotes were helpfully italicised:

Adrian (drums): Actually I’m a chartered surveyor.

Roger (bass): I don’t worry about rhythm or notes that much. It’s more instinctive than that.

Tim (guitar and horn): I tend to get the girls.

Down at the bottom the blurb painfully suggested three chords, two haircuts, one pound entry fee; zero talent.

And if you had paid that one pound, what would you have got? There’s a live tape out there which includes a performance of my song (and later book) Hit and Run Lover at one of the larger gigs on the Beers Tour of 1995. ‘Out there’ in this case means there’s a tape in my kitchen drawer and probably Roger the bassist’s got a copy too. So about as out there as a gay sixteen year old in China.

Anyway, the ‘limited edition’ tape contains the full performance of Shambolic playing the ‘anti racism and transgender awareness’ free festival at Sussex University in 1995. It wasn’t quite Woodstock. There was stage mounted behind East Slope and so, from this height, the sound could be heard right across campus. Various local bands were interspersed with humourless harangues by po-faced left-wing student politicians who all seemed to be bearded ex public school boys called Josh talking shite about the working class. Despite this, it was a lovely early June evening and there was a large and mellow crowd. Roger handed the guy on the sound deck, a stoned student, a C90 tape of Gerry Rafferty to record over. And so Shambolic at Sussex University has been preserved for posterity with occasional leaks from Baker Street in the quiet bits where the roar of the crowd should have won the audio scrap with 70’s AOR. But the quality of what’s committed to that tape? Need it be said? It’s not quite the Who Live at Leeds. 

It starts with a voice shouting out: “Get off you wankers,” as I drunkenly try to tune up before petulantly demanding another beer. Denied, I ask the audience to raise their hand when they think I’m in tune. The mike picks up mild derision from the massed ranks of not too interested students who - to be fair - had just suffered a twenty minute oration from the co-chair of the Sussex University Revolutionary Communist Party on the subject of, oh I forget. I don’t think even he knew what he was banging on about. Leftie bollocks anyway. I was pissed so I wasn’t really listening. Roger, bored of my tuning and trying to move things along, stormed up to the mike and yelled like a smacked arse, “Okay you might recognise the start of this one, the rest of it is called Hit and Run Lover.”

Sadly, Roger forgot that he had a bass strapped to him and so clumsily smashed the neck of it against the mike stand as he turned to go back to stage left. BOOM! Cue much hilarity amongst the audience at our expense. Actually at Roger’s expense because I can remember joining in the derision, curling my fist and shaking it rhythmically in his direction. Wanker! Good start. Good band harmony.

So how should the song have started? Well I used to graft the chord sequence from Nirvana’s Smell’s Like Teen Spirit to cheaply liven up the beginning of Hit and Run Lover. It confused people long enough into listening before I lurched into my own song. It was a musical amuse-bouche. However, at this gig, on this recording, shall we say I adopted a more 'freestyle' approach?

I hit one or two stray chords shockingly out of tune before crashing into Smells Like Teen Spirit. The thing is though, being pissed, even I was confused as to what I was supposed to be playing. Random chord followed random chord as I thrashed the guitar desperately trying to find my way back to the tune. Roger, never quick in these matters, frantically tried to work out what I was up to and, not surprisingly, failed. His bass is mostly quiet in this introductory period except at those key points where a wrong note might be exposed most mercilessly. At those points he plucked his thick strings as hard as he fucking could. TWANG! Meanwhile Adrian delayed his entry until he thought he knew the beat. And then changed it four times in the opening ten seconds. For some reason he threw in an epileptic drum roll just as I was quieting down for the verse. Absolute anarchy. This wasn’t freeform jazz – it was a haphazard shambles without even the excuse of deliberate dissonance to redeem itself. Crap, in fact.

My voice comes in, hoarse, drunken and out of tune. Words are stumbled over, ad lib asides offered between lines; solos are fluffed. The tape records the band sticking shakily to the predefined structure of verse-chorus, verse-chorus, before I go rogue by forgetting the middle eight - brazenly yelling into the mike, “Don’t worry, they won’t notice, carry on”. I then proceed to ruin this by standing on my guitar lead pulling it noisily out onto the stage floor cutting off what was already shaping up to be a pitiful and painfully out of tune axe-man solo. Adrian stops drumming, Roger continues his bass and, sans guitar, I rap some observational bollocks about some bloke in the audience’s mother giving a crap hand job for a tenner. Roger stops in disgust just as Adrian comes flying in on the crash symbol like he was providing the soundtrack to the second coming. And so Hit and Run Lover ends on a fluffed and out of place drum solo accompanied by a barely heard, and off mike, ‘wanker’ from yours truly directed at who knows who.

A pensive, almost shocked, silence greets the end of this master class in mediocrity. Bring back the commie guy for some serious hard line Marxist shit! Anything but this!

“Can I have a hot dog?” I bellow drunkenly into the mike. This probably made more sense at the time and yet now serves as a fittingly appropriate coda to the song, the band and the era. 

***

And yet I can't remember a time when I was happier.

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What else for a cold January night? Xmas music, of course!

Well - that's Xmas 2015 finished. Flushed away around the U bend of history. The tree is packed up, the lights stuffed in boxes, baubles awaiting their mid-year dropping and natural selection. My cat turns over and yawns. It rains.

But what I want to talk to you about - obviously being as it's January - is Xmas music. I know, Tim the contrarian strikes again. I could argue that I've had a month of listening and sifting my favourite Christmas songs but, I won't. I just like to swim against the tide. Nob.

Christmas music, can be divided into five categories. Yes, this is like, the law, so I will abide by the categorisation:

1. Carols
2. Hollywood type Christmas songs (roughly 40's to the 60's)
3. Cheesy Christmas pop songs (roughly 70's to the 90's)
4. Folky / ethnic type Christmas songs
5. Miscellaneous

I'll be posting the results of these hotly fought contests over the next few hours / days / whatever. An agog nation holds its collective breath.

Merry Christmas

Tim

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The Best Beatles Album Tracks

The Best Beatle Album Tracks

A companion bookend to my August 25th piece on the worse Beatles album tracks. A much harder prospect than the previous article, sifting the best will be difficult but – hey! – that’s why I get paid the big bucks. Only rule is that (UK) singles are not permissible, other than that, let’s get down to it!

Please Please Me – There’s a Place

Already I’m in trouble. Some of my very favourite Beatles tracks are on this one album. The winner could have been Baby It’s You, I Saw Her Standing There, Twist and Shout or Anna (Go to him)… But on reflection, I’ll go with this introspective Lennon song. Used to play it with my group in the mid-90’s. No one cared (though the photo above is me playing the song in London).

With The Beatles – You Really Got a Hold On Me

The Beatles go Smokey Robinson. Supercharges the original, great arrangement, powerful vocals by Lennon. Edges out Money and Devil In Her Heart.

Hard Day’s Night – I’ll Be Back

Had the most trouble with this album. There’s five John songs on the album that I could have picked. He was undisputed leader of the group in all senses at this period in time. I’ll Be Back is an understated, but more powerful for it, acoustic ballad that showcases John’s early song writing.

Beatles for Sale – Baby’s In Black

Baby’s in Black is part of the strongest trio of songs ever to start off an album (No Reply and I’m a Loser being the other two). Only the Beatles could have written and performed this crazy, swinging, blues, country song. Weird but oh so right. Brilliant guitar solo from George.

Help! – You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away

Lennon does Dylan. The result is pure Beatles, pure John. Acoustic, hypnotic, great tune, ambiguous lyrics and, yes I keep saying it, great Lennon vocals. Number one busker’s song.

Rubber Soul – Norwegian Wood

Acoustic guitars, sitar, understated, epic. A classic from a classic album. Nuff said.

 Revolver – She Said She Said

“She said, I know what it’s like to be dead” lyrically is a million miles away from the boy meets girl constructs of previous Beatle songs. Great stinging lead guitar from George (who also played bass as Paul threw a wobbly and walked out of the session).

Sgt Pepper – Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds

I not a big subscriber to the view this is the Beatles best album. It seems to me the production overshadows the actual songs. Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds contains some of Lennon’s best images and has a cracking chorus to boot. From its haunting keyboard opening, Paul’s intelligent bass, this is the standout track.

The Beatles (White Album) – Back in The USSR

An erratic album but with some absolute gems. This McCartney rocker kicks off the album. It’s wild, badly mixed, recorded without Ringo, but it takes on the Beach Boys at their own game and gives them a beating!

Magical Mystery Tour – I Am The Walrus

Lennon snarls his way through four and a half minutes of invective, which provided the whole basis for Liam Gallagher’s career. A song only Lennon could have written. The production is amazing but what holds it together, as usual, is John’s vocal.

Abbey Road – Here Comes The Sun

Harrison’s unstoppable juggernaut takes over the Beatles and flattens Lennon and McCartney. George writes the album’s two best songs. Something could equally have been in this position but as it was the single I’ll go for Here Comes The Sun. Anyone who grew up in the 70’s would be familiar with the guitar figure as it used to the theme tune of the Holiday programme. Beautiful song.

Let It Be – I’ve Got A Feeling

The Beatles as garage band. Live and unadorned, the Beatles rock out. Appropriate that this is a Paul/John combination song showing how great they could be together (check out the version on Anthology 3 to see how John could inspire Paul). Hypnotic riff, powerful harmonies, the song gets better with age.

Who knows? I'll probably change my mind on all of these tomorrow. Or later today. That's the beauty of it, I guess.

Cheers

Tim

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Hip Tunes for Hep Cats!

This week I’m mostly listening to Stan Getz in his early 1960's bossanova phase. I’m a hip cat, daddy-o. Black polo neck sweater, natty goaty beard, copy of On the Road in my trench coat. Oh yeah, Peter Sellers, Princess Margaret, Profumo, Harold Macmillan. Cool beans, man.

Stan Getz – The Girl From Ipanema

Yeah, okay, so I’ve picked the Beethoven’s Fifth of bossanova. I know other stuff too – and can pick a passable Desafinado on the guitar when the mood takes me – but if I want to get into a beat-poet/ hipster mood, The Girl From Ipanema does it for me. I listen to the long version with both Joao Gilberto and Astrud Gilberto trading verses.

The story of how a gorgeous 19-year-old girl would wander past a coffee shop in Rio de Janeiro and by doing so inspired songwriter Vinicius de Moraes to pen this classic is well known. It’s a touching and lasting tribute to the temporary and fleeting virtues of beauty. A bit lechy too, of course. Add some cool bossanova chords from Antônio Carlos Jobim, some breathy sax from Getz and Gilberto’s restrained vocals and we have a jazz classic.

Madonna – Sorry

Dance floor stomper from Madge (did I mention we’ve met? I should tell you about it sometime). Always partial to a decent dance song with a hummable tune, this hit from 2006 (who knew?) helps pass four minutes whilst doing the washing up.

Shelby Lynne – Leavin’

This moody, confessional, telling it how it is, men are bastards, country tune, starts with our Shelby talking into the mike about some useless tosser of a boyfriend before blossoming out into a fully fledge ‘I Will Survive’ self empowerment affirmation of womanly strength.

Barely there acoustic guitar, hypnotic beat, great harmonies. It’s a late night conversation over the phone with someone who finally has the courage to leave. You go girl!

A mere three this week but a sturdy selection I think you’ll find. Now back to the black coffee and the thinly disguised diary dressed up as fiction I’m writing this week. Ho-hum.

DJ Tim

The Worst Beatles Tracks

A pretty routine observation I make is that, unlike most artists, you can take any Beatles album and find an abundance of classic songs not released as a single. The sort of songs lesser artists would kill to have. Such was the embarrassment of riches within the Beatles, songs would just stack up and be used as album fodder. Which is why listening to any Beatles album is also such a joy. It’s never a couple of hits bulked out with fillers. With very few exceptions, all of the Beatles output is a consistently high standard, even when they were innovating.

So I thought, I'd compile a list of The Beatles' stinkers. There aren't many. One per album.

The Worst Beatles Tracks

Abbey Road – Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. Sorry Paul, it’s drivel.

*Beatles For Sale – Honey Don't. The Ringo badge of quality is added to this borefest. Carl Perkins also managed to write the second worst song too - Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby.

Hard Day’s Night – I’m Happy Just to Dance With You.  Paul and John did George no favours here by writing this dirge for him. Bizarrely, I covered this in my infamous Great Eastern solo gig in 1992. Knickers were not thrown.

Help! – You Like Me Too Much. Not a classic. George also wrote I Need You on the same album. Also crap.

Let It Be – For You Blue. George donated this derivative toss off to the Get Back project to protect better songs – Something, Here Comes The Sun – from a substandard album. Wise move.

Magical Mystery Tour – Yes, I know not a proper album. Flying, obviously. The Beatles do lounge music for the MMT film. Aural wallpaper.

Please Please Me – Boys. A Ringo filler. Pair an average singer with an average song and you get a sub average track. Probably worked better live at The Cavern. Or at weddings.

Revolver – Love You To. George and Indian music. Mordant vocals and cod philosophical lyrics to a raga beat. Same album as his fiery and brilliant Taxman.

Rubber Soul – What Goes On. Ringo got a writing credit for this Country and Western song. He should have held out and asked for the rights to Paperback Writer instead.

Sgt Pepper – Within In Without You. Yeah. I don’t really like George’s Indian influenced songs. This one goes on for over five minutes. It feels like it.

White Album – Revolution 9. Of course. John and Yoko's avant garde crap. Unlistenable.

With The Beatles. No weak tracks. Not one.

Yellow Submarine – Only A Northern Song. Sorry George, you again. Trying too hard to be different it just comes across as gauche and dissonant.

[Looking through the list now, it appears I’m overly critical of some of George Harrison’s contributions. Of all the Beatles, it was fair to say he got better as he got older. His voice, monosyllabic and nasal in 1963, matured by 1969 into a fine instrument. His song writing talents, sometimes okay, sometimes poor, had developed so much that by 1969 that he was able to go toe to toe with John and Paul. And win.]

Dirty work but someone's got to do it. Best album tracks next to cheer me up.

Cheers

Tim

*Beatles For Sale - Most critics say 'Mr Moonlight' is not only the worst song on the album but in the Beatles entire recording career. A bit harsh, I think. It's not a classic admittedly and the cheesy organ that George Martin adds doesn't help, and yet, and yet, I'm a fan of John Lennon's shouty voice going for big notes (Anna, Baby It's You, Happiness is a Warm Gun). Ironically Lennon's vocals were best demonstrated on the track they left off Beatles For Sale 'Leave My Kitten Alone' - now available on Anthology 1.

This week's Top Ten

First in an occasional series of what I'm listening to. Of course, I'm influenced by my girls so the odd tween anthem may slip through - some would say it's merely nudging at an open door. After some frankly shocking mishaps with the latest Apple upgrade (losing music / playlists / visibility, grrrrr) I quite like their radio / playlists. That and Shazam have allowed me to cast the net wider than Beatles bootlegs or Stones concerts 1969/72. So here goes.

Random Obscure Oldie

Dion - My Girl The Month of May.  Swinging 60's sub Beach boys / Carnaby Street / chuck in the kitchen sink type song from Dion. Didn't sell. Shock. Ties should be kipper. Clothes colourful.

Tim's hip. Tim's now. Daddy dancing spot.

David Guetta - Dangerous (Robin Shultz remix). Personally I don't go a bundle on remixes but this one really adds to the, er, mix. Floaty violins break into this club stomper. Light and shade.

Blonde (with Melissa Steel) - I Loved You. Took me yonks to track this down. Briefly kissed the charts last year. A 90's style club throwback. Where's my handbag? I need to dance around it.

Obligatory Stones live track

Stones - Street Fighting Man. Live at Leeds University 1971. Turn it up! Stones in their absolute pomp with Mick Taylor providing magical fluid guitar flourishes to complement Keith's relentless riffs. So good my girls wait at least ten seconds before replacing with Taylor Swift.

Country

Clare Bowen - Black Roses. From the soundtrack to the Nashville TV series. A slow builder which ends in Clare (Scarlett in the series) repeating, declaring, affirming 'I'm not under your spell'.  Spell binding.

Kids Choice

Nick Jonas - Chains. This week, my kids are mostly listening to this ditty, currently in the charts.

More next week pop pickers. 

DJ Tim

Taylor Swift Review at Hyde Park

TAYLOR SWIFT – HYDE PARK 27th June 2015

And it came to pass; Taytay hit the London BST festival in Hyde Park. I was there, the sun was there, my two pre-teen daughters were there and, er, 64,997 others.

Yes that white dot is Taylor. She couldn't see me very well, either.

Taylor Swift has re-invented herself in the last few years from curly haired country singer doing spots in the Hannah Montana movie, to a global, all conquering pop princess.

Now I have a confession; this isn’t the first time I’ve seen Ms. Swift perform. I went along to the O2 last Feb to see the tail end of her Red Tour. My house and car – if my daughters have anything to do with it, and they do - reverb to the sounds of Taylor 24/7. I’ve become a Swiftie by osmosis. Perhaps there’s an element of Stockholm syndrome…

We got to Hyde Park early, just as the gates opened. I’d bought premium view tickets, an exclusive enclosure in front of the sweating hordes pressed against the barriers. Got some laminates with a map and timings to hang around our necks. Pint of cider and two J2Os secured, we settled down to watch the support acts.

Newbie Rae Morris started things off, she was good though she did sometimes waver out of tune. I’m glad she played her hit Under The Shadows (though inexplicably not Cold) and so escaping the curse of the under card. Riptide bloke played Riptide. We were out in the park getting Rendang at the time and so missed all of it apart from the last chorus. I feel okay about that. John Newman, doing some nifty dance moves, was somewhat miffed the crowd wasn’t noisier for him. Well mate, write some better songs and have a few more hits and you’ll get the accolade you feel you deserve. Case in point; his one decent hit – Love me again – was well received. Rightly. Ellie Goulding, on the other hand, was simply great throughout. I thought she’d be all fey and fairy voiced but she belted out the hits and jumped around like an excited kid. A major artist in her own right, she knew her subsidiary place in this park of Swifties and so worked the crowd. We enjoyed her….

By now it was nudging eight o’ clock, it was as busy as hell and, even in the Premium area, viewing the stage was difficult. No sitting down and casually watching anymore. And then there she was – in one scream of adolescent hi-octane rush, Taylor came out fifteen minutes early and went all Welcome to New York on our asses.

Now, if you want a review about the costume changes, the stage backdrops, the dancers, you’re in the wrong place, as I don’t especially give a toss. Sorry. I liked the catwalk, I liked it even better when it took off into the air and Taylor floated above us (camera ready kids!). Her ‘celeb’ friends – couldn’t name them, no idea who they are – came on during Style. Whatever. The scene that celebrates itself.

Taylor.

But to the music… Well, I was worried because at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Norwich a month ago, Taylor seemed a little underpowered and her voice, never especially strong, was weaker than ever. Well, not last night and not in Hyde Park. She carried the show with her musical chops (some guitar, some piano, lots of dancing, plenty of face voguing to the camera). She was on fine form.

No review of a Taylor Swift gig would be complete without mentioning Taylor’s ramblings. Yes, she likes to talk to her audience. A lot. She speaks with the certainty and earnestness of youth about friendship, boyfriends, female empowerment, Instagram, cats; that sort of thing. I thought she pushed this soliloquising about as far as it could go last night. If it weren’t so crowded that would have been my cue for a toilet break or beer run. Her legion of young fans seem to like it though. She speaks to them.

The set list was principally from her latest album 1989 with a few – a very few – vintage hits for us older folk who remember all the way back to 2012. I Knew You Were Trouble was slowed down for the first half before speeding up. It didn’t work for me; you don’t mess with class lightly. A much better reinvention was We Are Never Getting Back Together, which saw a leather clad Taylor grunge up her breakthrough hit. She powered out chunky chords like Pete Townsend in a bad mood. She didn’t windmill the guitar but she snarled through this teeny tale as though she was the Who roaring through My Generation. One for the dads. Love Story was the reworked version which me and the kids – being Swifties – have seen endless times on YouTube. But it was good to have her floating above us as she sang.

Taylor on the elevated walkway.

Of the newer stuff, Blank Space, Bad Blood, Out of the Woods, all rocked. Two hours in and an extended Shake It Off, officially now a classic, had 65,000 people, word perfect, chanting along to THIS…SICK… BEAT. Are you paying attention John Newman? You earn your applause. Taylor’s got the songs, the attitude and, despite being ridiculously young, has religiously worked herself up to this high plateau. As Taylor said, amongst many other things, she will remember this night for the rest of her life.

Thing is, will it be to remember the moment when she was on top of the mountain or, has she hills yet to climb?

I’m so profound sometimes it literally hurts. It really does.

RANDOM SNAPSHOTS

1)   Food. Street food, of course; lots of pulled this and wood fired that. I had a vegan rendang. The rendang stall woman being surprised my kids not only wanted, but loved, rendang. Used to it. Fav dish. I cook! I score!

2)   Great weather. A sun-cream day for the balding pate.

3)   The two for one provision of female:male toilets being buggered up by a whole block of female loos being out of action most of the day. Epic fail, organisers!

4)   The drunken girl honking up on the floor as 65,000 people passed her on the way out. Pull yourself together woman – this is a Taylor Swift gig FFS.

5)   The flashing wristbands we all wore. Given out free at the gate. We all glowed in synchronised unity during Taylor's set. 

6)   My knowledge of Belgravia helping the kids and me get to and from Hyde Park in record time. I am my own hero.

7)   The look on my youngest child’s face when she realised she was actually seeing Taylor Swift in the flesh. Yes, Taylor Swift! She really exists.

8)   My kids liked it when Taylor’s mum ran past us a couple of times. Ah, our so close brush with celebrity! (Did I tell you I once bumped into Madonna in Cipriani’s?)

9)   Two songs into Taylor’s set, re-affirming the old truth, retreat and see more! The back of our exclusive enclosure was sparsely populated. Much better views. Certainly much better than the crowds penned in behind us.

10) My kids posting their pictures on Instagram. The concert now ‘officially’ exists.

The Franco's Fiesta fans are held back by security and a well placed barrier.

Butterflies, Elvis, Yohanna, Iceland and me.

What a good title for this blog post. Sounds like a folk song or a country music thigh slapper.

Today I posted my critique of Yohanna's Funny Thing Is which is Number 5 on my occasional series of Tim's favourite songs. Yohanna is a young singer from Iceland who specialises in power ballads. She has a great voice and has released some special songs. Funny Thing Is, happens to be my favourite.

As always in this series, I tend to waffle around the subject a bit. My views on small countries, my time as a high flying business exec and female diva / torch songs are explored as well as Yohanna's oeuvre. It's an exciting mix, a real roller coaster of a ride and I enjoyed putting together these 2000 words.

Listen, enjoy. Read, laugh.

CLICK HERE

Cheers ears

Tim

New Song Review To Follow Soon - Funny Thing Is

Spent the last couple of days writing and polishing a song critique of 'Funny Thing Is' by Icelandic singer Yohanna. It's number 5 in my occasional series of my favourite songs. Yes, I'm up my own arse. No, I don't care.

It's nearly finished. The piece has been aided by help from Yohanna herself as she graciously answered some questions I threw at her on Facebook. 

If you don't know Yohanna yet, check her out. My song critique in the next couple of days will explain why in much more detail.

Speak soon...

Tim