I was never born with the face of a movie star
I was never blessed with an easy load along the way
I have taken the wrong turning
So many times I can’t remember
But one thing I have for sure
I can always smile and say

God gave me an angel with a smiling face
God gave me an angel this I know
My churches are all empty and I’m guilty every day
But God gave me an angel anyway

Hadn’t heard this for quite a while when it popped up iTunes. I really listened to the words for the first time in I can’t remember how long, and realised that I, too, have been blessed with an angel.

[You Tube]

Oh – thinking about all our younger years
There was only you and me
We were young and wild and free

Now nothing can take you away from me
We’ve been down that road before
But that’s over now
You keep me coming back for more

Baby you’re all that I want
When you’re lying here in my arms
I’m finding it hard to believe
We’re in heaven

And love is all that I need
And I found it there in your heart
It isn’t too hard to see
We’re in heaven

Oh – once in your life you find someone
Who will turn your world around
Bring you up when you’re feeling down

Ya – nothing could change what you mean to me
Oh there’s lots that I could say
But just hold me now
Cause our love will light the way

Baby you’re all that I want
When you’re lying here in my arms
I’m finding it hard to believe
We’re in heaven

And love is all that I need
And I found it there in your heart
It isn’t too hard to see
We’re in heaven

I’ve been waiting for so long
For something to arrive
For love to come along

Now our dreams are coming true
Through the good times and the bad
Ya – I’ll be standing there by you

Anyone watching BBC TV last night would have seen John Barrowman turning this Bryan Adams classic into just another piece of elevator muzak; while the words were still as meaningful as ever, the vocal emotion and power had gone. So I thought I’d post the original so you can find out how it’s supposed to sound.

[Amazon download]

Now one day while in a hurry
He missed a lady’s bin
He hadn’t gone but a few yards
When she chased after him
“What game do you think you’re playing?”
She cried right from the heart
“You’ve missed me. Am I too late?”
“Nah, jump up on the cart!”

Oh, my old man’s a dustman
He wears a dustman’s hat
He wears cor blimey trousers
And he lives in a council flat

I say, I say, I say (Not you again!)
My dustbin’s absolutely full with toadstools
(How do you know it’s full?)
‘Cos there’s not mushroom inside!

This was always one of my favourite songs when I was growing up; it seems like it was on Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewarts Junior choice every week. And I was reminded of it today, reading about the shenanigans happening in Brighton. Oh, how things have changed since Lonnie’s day.

[Amazon download]

Sun is shining in the sky
There ain’t a cloud in sight
Its stopped raining everybody’s in their play
And don’t you know
It’s a beautiful new day hey,hey

Running down the avenue
See how the sun shines brightly in the city
On the streets where once was pity
Mr Blue Sky is living here today hey, hey

Mr Blue Sky, please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long
Where did we go wrong?

Hey you, with the pretty face
Welcome to the human race
A celebration, Mr Blue Sky’s up there waiting
And today is the day we’ve waited for.

Just because it’s a really sunny day, and just because this is a real feelgood song that makes me happy, I’ve dusted down the Song Of The Day after a period of hibernation.

If it’s sunny where you are and you’re not already outside, then – to paraphrase kids TV from the 70s – why don’t you just switch off your computer screen and go out and do something less boring instead?

[Amazon download]

Met myself a comin’ county welfare line.
I was feelin’ strung out, Hung out on the line.
Saw myself a goin’, down to war in June.
All I want, All I want is to write myself a tune.

Wrote a song for everyone,
Wrote a song for truth.
Wrote a song for everyone,
When I couldn’t even talk to you.

Got myself arrested, Wound me up in jail.
Richmond ’bout to blow up, Communication failed.
If you see the answer, now’s the time to say.
All I want, All I want is to get you down to pray.

Wrote a song for everyone,
Wrote a song for truth.
Wrote a song for everyone,
When I couldn’t even talk to you.

Saw the people standin’ thousand years in chains.
Somebody said it’s diff’rent now, look, it’s just the same.
Pharoahs spin the message, round and round the truth.
They could have saved a million people, How can I tell you?

Wrote a song for everyone,
Wrote a song for truth.
Wrote a song for everyone,
When I couldn’t even talk to you.

The wonderful CCR, and yet another classic song from John Fogarty and co.

[Amazon download]

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.

[Amazon download]

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.

[Amazon download]

Well one of these nights bout 12 o’clock
This old world is gonna rock
Pharaoh’s army got drownded
O Mary don’t you weep

Well Moses stood on the Red Sea shore
Smote’ the water with a two by four
Pharaoh’s army got drownded
O Mary don’t you weep

O Mary don’t you weep, don’t you mourn
O Mary don’t you weep, don’t you mourn
Pharaoh’s army got drownded
O Mary don’t you weep

The Seeger Sessions album – from which this jolly little track comes – is quite possibly my favourite Springsteen album. Don’t get me wrong, Born To Run and the other classics are good, but none of them give you the good time feeling that the Seeger Sessions album does. Even though some of this music was born out of the Great Depression it is wonderfully uplifting. The band, too, are quite obviously having a great time recording it and that really comes through.

If you’re in the UK and have access to the BBC iPlayer, keep an eye out for the BBC Four Session that features music from this album. Alternatively, check out the live DVD.

[Amazon download]

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya’
‘Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away;
Half a crate of whiskey every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: “I drink, therefore I am”

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he’s pissed!

I absolutely love this song; it’s a little throwaway thing, but the lyric is amazingly clever and the team sing it perfectly. It always brings a smile to my face when I hear it – especially that last couplet!

[Amazon download]

Oh, it came out of the sky, landed just a little south of Moline.
Jody fell out of his tractor, couldn’t believe what he seen.
Laid on the ground and shook, fearing for his life.
Then he ran all the way to town screaming “It came out of the sky”

Well, a crowd gathered round and a scientist said it was marsh gas.
Spiro came and made a speech about raising the Mars tax.
The Vatican said, “Woe, the Lord has come.”
Hollywood rushed out an epic film.
And Ronnie the Popular said it was a communist plot.

Oh, the newspapers came and made Jody a national hero.
Walter and Eric said they’d put him on a network TV show.
The White House said “Put the thing in the blue room”
The Vatican said “No, it belongs in Rome”
And Jody said “Ain’t mine but you can have it for seventeen million”

Creedence were, simply, one of the best guitar-based bands ever to come out the US. Their distinct sound – I’ve heard it referred to as swamp rock – and their short, pulsating songs marked them out as all-time greats from the beginning. Sadly, their career was short – only about four years at the end of the 60s, beginning of the 70s – and many people won’t know who they are any more.

Thankfully, we still have their legacy of great songs like this one, a pounding sub-three minute classic that is one of my favourites.

[Amazon download]