Well we promised you some Christmas surprises, and here is the first of those, a wonderful yuletide message from the rather awesome and incredibly talented the Last Of The Fallen Angels. We loved their massively successful “Phase IV” earlier this year! They have recorded a great little Christmas tune and I am honoured to say that With Just A Hint Of Mayhem has been given an exclusive first airing, yes dear readers, you get to see and hear it first!
The band have a message for you too;
Wishing all With Just A Hint of Mayhem readers a very Merry Christmas from The Last of the Fallen Angels
Day 4 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem, mostly, punk themed 12 days of Christmas series. Yuletide is so close now I can almost smell the Turkey and the sprouts and of course the nut roast if you’re veggie! Todays offering is a 1977 track by a band called the Ravers, who I know next to nothing about, with a song called “Punk Rock Christmas”. Apparently a lot of people thought this sounded like the Sex Pistols all those years ago, personally I don’t see it, but a fun tune nonetheless!
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Another day closer to the annual visit from the bearded weirdy in red and With Just A Hint Of Mayhem continues with a, mostly, punk themed 12 days of Christmas series up until Christmas Eve to take your mind off Covid, Brexshit and anything else that is vexing you! Day 3 brings you Set It Off who formed 12 years ago in Tampa, Florida. This is a rather chirpy ditty, despite the negative title; “This Christmas (I’ll Burn It To The Ground)”
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It’s even closer to Chrimbo now and With Just A Hint Of Mayhem continues with a, mostly, punk themed 12 days of Christmas series up until Christmas Eve to take your mind off the mind fuck that 2020 has been! Today it is Fall Out Boy. These Illinois noisemakers and Pop Punk pioneers took there name from a comic in the Simpsons, that earns loads of cool Yule points in my opinion. This is the band with an excellently titled song for Christmas, “Yule Shoot Your Eye Out”. Enjoy!
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It’s nearly Chrimbo folks and With Just A Hint Of Mayhem is doing a, mostly, punk themed 12 days of Christmas series from now until Christmas Eve to get you all properly ready for Yuletide at the end of perhaps the strangest year in history! Let’s kick off with Bowling For Soup’s take on “Bobby Wants A Puppy Dog For Christmas”. It is a copy of a country Christmas song written by the legendary Merle Haggard. The Wichita Falls punk funsters sound like they are having great fun with this tune, I love it! The cover was originally released on an album called ‘Merry Flippin’ Christmas’ back in 2011. I am already starting to get my Santa groove on with this! Watch out for the next 11 of these cracking tunes and more Christmas surprises from With Just A Hint Of Mayhem!
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This is it Christmas Eve, day 12 of my 12 days to Christmas series of posts. The final one that brings you famous people from history featured in a song, obviously they have all been real and today is no exception. I bring you the bearded weirdy, the fat bloke in the red coat, yes old saint Nick or as I prefer to call him, Father Christmas. He is real ok, don’t let anyone hear you say otherwise! Father Christmas first appeared in the 17th century and until the Victorian age he was seen as a symbol of adult merry-making and feasting. It was around then that he became the bearer of yuletide gifts, especially to children. Santa Claus is an American traditional name for the Christmas figure. Father Christmas’ coat was depicted as green, brown and even blue. It was a big advertising campaign by Coca Cola in 1931 that switched to the now far more common red robes. As it’s Christmas I won’t be focusing on any particular artist today, but I have selected a diverse set of Father Christmas and Santa Claus songs. Finally I would like to wish all of my readers a very happy Christmas, or happy holiday, or a happy life, whatever floats your boat. Just be happy! If you would like to track Father Christmas’ progress in your area click here.
This is the penultimate twelve days to Christmas post for the blog and we are clearly on day 11. Who is the famous character from history that is the subject of today’s song? well it’s the Russian mad, mystic monk known as Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. He was born in January 1869 into a peasant family in Siberia and was assassinated by a group of disgruntled noblemen in 1916 aged 47 who were a tad unhappy with his close relationship with Tsar Nicholas II. This was not the first time someone had attempted to assassinate Grigori, a peasant woman tried to kill him with a knife in 1914, but he survived after surgery. In the early 1900’s he effectively became the leader of a small, but growing, religious cult. It is alleged that this is how he came to the attention of the Russian Royal Family. The Royals believed that Rasputin had healing powers which he practised on the Tsar. Rasputin’s daughter Maria once worked as a lion tamer in the USA. In one X-Men story Rasputin was revealed to be an ancestor of Russian mutant Colossus.
Mastodon had a song about Rasputin on their ‘Crack The Skye‘ album from 2009. He was also depicted on the cover of albums by Electronic and the Smashing Pumpkins among others. But none of those are the source of todays song, for that we are going back to 1978 with Boney M; a classic, kitsch Euro Disco band. The single “Rasputin” went to number one in the charts in Germany, Austria, Belgium, France and Australia. It made it to number 2 in the UK. I don’t know if it ever made the Russian charts. Bobby Farrell the male member of the Boney M four piece has a strange and coincidental link with Rasputin. Bobby’s death occurred on the anniversary of, and in the same city, St. Petersburg as, the death of the mad monk, albeit 94 years later. German music artist Frank Farian effectively manufactured Boney M after he began to have some success with his own recordings under that name. He put the band together to front his songs. They went on to become mega successful hitting number one in album and singles charts across the world from 1976 to 1979. The song was included on the band’s 1978 album ‘Nightflight To Venus’.
This is the 12 days to Christmas countdown with a series of twelve posts that I confess are not particularly Christmas related. More an opportunity to fill a stocking with plenty of songs about famous people from history. Today is day 10, so only two more to go after this. Day 10 is the turn of Andy Warhol to be represented in song. His real name was Andrew Warhola and he was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 6th August 1928. He died in February 1987, wow where did that 30 years go? In the 1950s Warhol worked as a shoe designer and became a very early adopted of the silk screen process for printmaking. Many of his subjects were American icons, either people or things; Campbell’s Soup Can, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and the mushroom cloud, which technically is a kind of icon of America right? Andy Warhol was gay but in a 1980 interview he suggested that he was still a virgin. A 52 year old virgin? Wow! Many of you who read this blog may well have some Warhol art in your homes. Do you have a copy of the first Velvet Underground album, or the Rolling Stones ‘Sticky Fingers’? well he designed both of those.
So on to the Song about this iconic and talented artist and it is actually performed by someone many also see as a talented and iconic artist, David Bowie. Come on you didn’t think I would miss the opportunity for some Bowie did you? The song is “Andy Warhol” from Bowie’s 1971 album ‘Hunky Dory’. Bowie met Warhol a few times, apparently the first time was a strange encounter with not much being said other than Warhol remarking on Bowie’s bright yellow shoes. Later, in 1996 David Bowie played Warhol in the film ‘Basquiat’ using some of the artists clothes and wigs. ‘Hunky Dory’ peaked at number three in the UK album chart in 1972. “Andy Warhol” was never released as a single, only “Changes” and “Life On Mars” were issued a singles from that album. Although the track in question did make it to the B- Side of the 1972 single release of “Changes”. Bowie originally wrote the song for his friend, lover and protege Dana Gillespie. But her version didn’t see the light of day until 1973. Interestingly Mick Ronson played guitar on both versions. There are four versions of the song for you to feast your ears on below.
Bowie as Warhol
Warhol with a fir tree, now this is a Christmas post……. right?
Day 9 of our twelve day journey to Christmas 2017 and thank you for sticking with this largely non-Christmassy post. Anyway today’s famous person in a song is none other than one of the sexiest, smartest, sassiest and finest photo models there has ever been, Bettie Page! Born Bettie Mae Page in Nashville in 1923, Bettie left this world just over nine years ago aged 85. She made her way to New York via California to become an actress.
Something Christmassy for my readers 🙂
But she became a pin-up model and in 1955 as Miss January she became one of Playboy magazine’s first Playmate Of The Month. She posed for many photographers during the 1950s until in 1959 she converted to Evangelical Christianity and worked for Billy Graham. She spent many years of her adult life in a psychiatric hospital suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Minor planet 184784 is named after her and the luxury droid in ‘Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith’ from 2005 was inspired by her.
But the song for today has nothing today with Star Wars, but it does come from a true punk star. It is Public Image Limited with the song “Bettie Page” taken from their 2015 album ‘What The World Needs Now….’. This was the tenth studio album released by John Lydon’s Public Image Limited a.k.a. PiL. It reached number 29 in the UK album chart, the band’s highest placing since ‘Album’ in 1986. Sadly, in my opinion, it was never released as a single, but I still love it, I hope that you do too! Incidentally the latest rumour is that Lydon may be representing Ireland in next years Eurovision Song Contest!
The 20th of December? Wow where has the time gone? It is now day 8 of my 12 days to Christmas blog posts. Today’s historical person who features in a pop song is that lovable scamp, Martyr and holy virgin Joan of Arc. She was born in 1412 and died in 1431 aged just nineteen. She is a national hero in France and was canonised as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. She led a degree of relief effort toward the end of the 100 Years War. She was captured by Burgundian pro English forces and after a trial, was sentenced to be burned at the stake. She is also known as the Maid Of Orleans.
There are many songs which are about or at least mention Joan of Arc. One of my favourites is the Smiths “Bigmouth Strikes Again” for the lyric, “Now I know how Joan of Arc felt, As the flames rose to her Roman nose, And her Walkman started to melt”. But that is not the song that I will be sharing today. In fact I am sharing two by a Liverpool band with a massive name. Yes it is Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (well that is a massively long name isn’t it?), nowadays they are more likely to be known as OMD. The band featured two songs about Joan Of Arc on their 1981 UK top 5 album ‘Architecture And Morality’. Both were released as singles; “Joan Of Arc” reached number 5 in the UK charts in 1981 and in the following year “Maid of Orleans (The Waltz Joan of Arc)” made it to number 4. The latter was also a number one hit in Germany and the Netherlands. “Maid of Orleans (The Waltz Joan of Arc)” was also played of the closing credits of the final episode of the second series of the rather excellent BBC TV series ‘Ashes To Ashes’.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 