SOTD #183
Today’s song is Lost Weekend by Lloyd Cole & The Commotions
It took a lost weekend in a hotel in Amsterdam
And double pneumonia in a single room
And the sickest joke was the price of the medicine
Are you laughing at me now?
May I please laugh along with you?
I was never a big fan of Lloyd Cole, but I’ve always been a big fan of a clever lyric, and Lost Weekend opens with perhaps the best of all.
Listening to it now, I realise that it’s also brings back memories of the time when it was on the radio all the time and I can’t believe how long ago that was.
Brief Notes
A few items from the “oh, please, get over yourselves” files today:
1. Nurses can’t offer to say a prayer for patients, apparently. And if they do, then everyone has a go at them. Personally, I don’t believe (I may have mentioned this before) but if you do, that’s fine. If I’m sick and you want to pray for my recovery, please go ahead – just don’t expect me to join in with you.
Atheist groups seem to have elevated not believing in God into a religion all of its own and are just as set in their views and gung-ho as any other religion as you might care to name. I thought the idea was to live in peace with your fellow man?
Or did I dream it?
2. We can all rest easy in our beds, as Titian’s Diana and Actaeon has been saved for the nation. Yes, the £50 million demanded by the current owner – the Duke of Sutherland – has been stumped up by various groups, including a number of Government-funded agencies.
I’m not a big fan of art, I don’t know anything about Titian and whether this is an important artwork or not. What I do know amounts to three things:
- I don’t like the painting and certainly don’t think it’s worth £50 million
- The country has been held to ransom by the Duke who must be laughing his arse off, now that he’s £50 million better off. Basically, he seems to have said to the Government, “Buy this one, or I’ll sell the whole collection outside the country”.
- There are a whole heck of a lot better uses for £50 million than one old painting and I think the message that it sends to most of the country is “Fuck you, chavs. We’ve got our painting so we don’t give a toss about the rest of you”
3. Carol Thatcher has been barred from BBC’s The One Show because she apparently made a racist remark backstage during filming. She supposedly made a comparison between a tennis player and the golliwog figure from the jam pots, in private, and got reported to the powers that be. Who promptly had a PC overdose and kicked her out.
So far, no-one has reported exactly what she said (probably too worried about being sacked themselves) but isn’t this yet another case of over-reacting? After all, Carol Thatcher is of an age where she grew up in an era when morals were different, when attitudes were different.
And, at the end of the day, what does it matter? If we weren’t all so paranoid about offending everyone (oh, except for straight white people that is – you can say what you like about those fuckers) then perhaps we could all just get on and get things done, rather than be in the royally fucked up state we are now?
4. In that vein, could I just say that no-one really gives a damn if the flag is the wrong way up. Until you pointed it out, Mr Flag Institute Spokesman, I didn’t even know it could be hung upside down. Perhaps if it didn’t look the same both ways up, someone might have noticed?
And, really, aren’t there more important things to report on when Gordon Brown is meeting with the leader of China? I think there probably are.
5. Our compensation culture is getting out of hand, as this story proves. A friend of mine was on one of the trains that got hit yet as far as I know he hasn’t been given any compensation, so why should this guy get any?
But if his case is valid, then I’d like to make my application for compensation now please; I was severely traumatised by worry over whether my friend was OK and the mental scars still haven’t healed.
6. Oh, on the snow thing from yesterday? Collin says it much better than I can.
Unbelievable
You may have heard there’s been a bit of snow overnight. Not much – at least not round this neck of the woods – but a little bit; looking out my window, I can see what might be called a light dusting on the gardens and verges. The road is clear.
Apparently, though, even this small amount is enough to bring the entire county to a standstill – no buses, no trains, all the schools are closed and Sussex Police are, as always, advising people to only travel if absolutely necessary and, if you do travel, to make sure you’ve got warm clothes, Thermos, spade, torch, eight-man bearer team and so on.
Is it just me that finds all this panic and chaos a bit ridiculous? It’s only snow. We’ve had it before. We’re supposedly an advanced technological society – why does a little bit of snow throw us back to our caveman days? It’s crazy, and I imagine that our European neighbours are just laughing their asses off at our stupidity.
SOTD #182
Today’s song is Love And Death And An American Guitar by Jim Steinman
I remember everything!
I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday. I was barely 17 and I once killed a boy with a fender guitar.
I don’t remember if it was a Telecaster or a Stratocaster, but I do remember that it had a heart of chrome and a voice like a horny angel.
I don’t remember if it was a Telecaster or a Stratocaster, but I do remember that it wasn’t at all easy.
It required the perfect combination of the right power chords and the precise angle from which to strike.
The guitar bled for about a week afterwards and the blood was ooh… dark and rich like wild berries.
The blood of the guitar was Chuck Berry red!
The guitar bled for about a week afterwards but it rung out beautifully, and I was able to play notes that I had never even heard before.
So I took my guitar and I smashed it against the wall.
I smashed it against the floor.
I smashed it against the body of a varsity cheerleader.
I smashed it against the hood of a car.
I smashed it agianst a 1981-Harley Davidson.
The Harley howled in pain, the guitar howled in heat
And I ran up the stairs to my parents bedroom
Mommy and Daddy were sleeping in the moonlight
Slowly I opened the door, creeping in the shadows right up to the foot of their bed
I raised the guitar high above my head and just as I was about to bring the guitar crashing down upon the center of the bed my father woke up screaming
“Stop!
“Wait a minute.
“Stop it, boy
“What do you think you’re doing?
“That’s no way to treat an expensive musical instrument”
And I said “God damn it, Daddy!
“You know I love you,
“BUT YOU GOT A HELL OF A LOT TO LEARN ABOUT ROCK AND ROLL!”
OK, so perhaps it’s not really a song as such – it’s more a monologue – but it is still one of my favourite Steinman tracks. You can find it on his Bad For Good album, where it precedes Stark Raving Love or on Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell II, where it’s been renamed Wasted Youth and acts as a very good opening to the track Everything Louder Than Everything Else.
It’s one of those little curiosity tracks that pop up every now and then and put the cherry on the icing of an excellent album.
Wolfs Helpers
