I posted recently about how the use of your favourite song to advertise a product you don’t like or feel is wholly inappropriate made me think of something similar. How do you feel when you hear that a celebrity, politician or someone you simply don’t like is a big fan of your favourite artist, song or music? I’m not talking about political parties or candidates appropriating music for their campaigns; just those who give an insight into their personal taste.
Dave 'The Rave' Cameron attempts the Macca signature thumbs up......... and fails!
Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I have been a fan of David Bowie for many years. Chris Evans mentioned on his Radio Two show this morning that Jeremy Vine is a big David Bowie fan. I like that because I think Jeremy Vine is an excellent broadcaster. However when I discovered a few years back that Gordon Kennedy, the former leader of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK was a David Bowie fan I felt almost cheated as I really have no respect or liking for Mr Kennedy. But to be fair I still like him far more than I like Nick Clegg!
The Cleggatron after Dave Cam told him he was no longer required to play tambourine in Led Coalition.
Then there are people like Old EtonianDavid Cameron who has said that he is a fan of the Smiths and of the Jam; particularly “Eton Rifles” How does that kind of thing sit with such a strong right-wing ideology? Paul Weller actually commented on that with “It’s Like, which bit of it didn’t he get? It wasn’t intended as a fucking jolly drinking song for the cadet corps” Liam Fox, former Defence Secretary, is supposedly a fan of the Scissor Sisters. I bet he doesn’t feel like dancing with Andrew Werrity anymore though!
Dangerous Dave in his Hippie days
As well as being a Bowie fan I am also a massive fan of the author Stephen King and a few years ago I was quite excited to read that Mr Bowie likes him too. Bowie was quoted as saying something like “I like Stephen King, he scares the shit out of me!”
Clegg says goodbye to his groupie and wonders where his red mullet is
So to finish who has expressed a liking for your favourite songs and artists and how did you feel about it?
Johnny and Paul at the first meeting of the Anti Cameron League
How often do you watch or listen to a TV or radio advert and cringe at the fact they’ve chosen some of your favourite music to soundtrack a terrible advert or a horrible product or a combination of both?
The new John Lewis Christmas ads, primarily there to promote a new range of Smiths pillow cases perhaps?
I suppose we shouldn’t get too precious about these kinds of things, after all the writers might need the money. If I’d written a piece of music that someone wanted to use on an advert and they were willing to pay me would I allow it? Of course I would, just as long as it wasn’t used to promote the likes of the BNP, the Daily Mail, Cheese on Toast or the Tory Party.
Morrissey refuses to get catty about the use of Smiths songs in adverts
I was pointed in the direction of the new John Lewis television advert by my good friend Nick Horslen. It is soundtracked by a cover version of the Smiths song “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” by Slow Moving Millie. Personally I don’t think it’s a particularly bad cover, perhaps just a bit bland. Some songs just pass me by on adverts I think, but others are particularly annoying. It’s hardly a song, but I generally change channels if the Go Compare advert comes on, I can’t stand that obnoxious faux opera. However, whilst I am not a big opera fan I do love the music that British Airways have used on many of their ad campaigns; “The Flower Duet” from the opera Lakme composed by Leo Delibes.
For the record Morrissey refuse to wear clothes made from animal skins, which clearly means that his wardrobe is quite small!
As for songs that I love that have been used in disappointing ads, I have to say I was gutted (yes I too am very precious sometimes) when Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” was used to advertise pizzas on TV a couple of years back. But equally Levi’s used some classic music in their brilliant series of TV adverts, including “I Heard It Through The Grapevine“. That same series made hits of many songs that hadn’t been around for years. My particular favourites were “Stand By Me” by Ben E King and “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” from my favourite band of all time, The Clash. But for every one of those there are plenty of awful selections; for example the new Christmas ad for Marks & Spencer uses a version of “When You Wish Upon A Star” by the 2011 X Factor finalists!
If you're ever invited to go for a walk with Morrissey please read this first
Which of your favourite songs have been used in adverts and what did you feel about it?
You’re probably all bored with the excessive coverage of Michael Jackson in the press lately, driven by the trial of his personal doctor, Conrad Murray. So I will try not to add to that boredom, I certainly wouldn’t want you to overdose on it, like a massive amount of boreprofol!
Anyway the doc has now been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and within no time at all a company called Julien’s Auctions of Los Angeles have offered Michael Jackson’s death bed along with other items of furniture that are “smeared with his makeup”. Is this just a little weird? How did they get this stuff? Did they steal it? Did they collect it from the local rubbish tip? Or did the Jackson family offer it to them with a view to scraping just a little more flesh off the cash cow that Jacko has become?
I would really love to hear your views on this one. As I said earlier you’re probably bored with Jacko for now and are there any of his videos you haven’t seen? I doubt it. So here are three eclectic covers of classic Jacko songs (and somehow I doubt that you were expecting the last one!
For quite a while now I have subscribed to the dictionary.com word of the day e-mail. Some days it doesn’t really do much for me, but on other days it really makes me think. It was from one such e-mail that I learnt about the zarf. I posted about that in my sister blog With Just A Hint Of Learning (Click here to read that post) However todays word of the day has a bit of a musical link, in a way that is quite amusing. Had this been the word of the day on April 1st I would have assumed it was an April Fools joke.
The word in question is kef. It is a noun, pronounced keyf and it has two definitions;
1 A state of drowsy contentment
2 Also, keef, a substance, especially a smoking preparation of hemp leaves, used to produce this state
Have you sussed the musical link yet? Why it’s Keith Richards off of the Rolling Stones of course. He has been known as Keef to many of his thousands of loyal fans for years. It’s fair to say that his has probably had quite a few smoking preparations made with hemp leaves too.
Clearly the moniker Keef was made for Mr Richards wasn’t it?
So now go and roll yourself a smoking preparation with your own hemp leaves while you enjoy a couple of Keef’s finest riffs below. But don’t forget the Government says that too many smoking preparations are bad for you so don’t forget to keep a spliff upper lip.
I was reading an interview with Nile Rodgers off of Chic in the latest issue of The Word magazine. He is promoting the publication of his memoirs entitled ‘Le Freak‘. There were two parts in the interview that really sparked my interest. Firstly Nile has documented his recovery from cancer in his blog, ‘Walking On Planet C’ It’s really candid and very well written, click here to read it. I hope that Nile completely kills off the Big C and is able to produce even more great music.
Secondly Nile and his Chic cohort Bernard Edwards once produced an album by uber diva Diana Ross which included some great stuff; “Upside Down”, “My Old Piano” and “I’m Coming Out“. Whilst I don’t consider any of these to be Ms Ross’s career peak they sure as hell knock spots of that dreadfully awful song “Chain Reaction” which sadly made the top of the UK charts. Anyway I would like to focus on Mr Rodgers’ comments about “I’m Coming Out” which when you listen to it is such a very obvious gay song. According to Nile when Diana Ross asked about the sexuality of the song she was informed it wasn’t a gay song. However Nile also confirmed that it most definitely was a gay song when he revealed the inspiration for it. He had been at a transvestite club called the Gilded Grape and the call of nature took him to the urinal. It was here that he spotted three or four Diana Ross styled trannies! As soon as he got home he called Bernard Edwards and that is how “I’m Coming Out” was born!
Whenever Ms Ross meets Lil Kim she feels a right tit............ or is it a left one! Danger, Danger...... wardrobe malfunction!
Coming home from work today I was listening to Jessie J’s song “Price Tag” Ever since I first heard it I have liked it. But today I must have listened with a different head on, as scary as that sounds! I began wondering whether the lyrics to this little nugget of great pop music were actually Jessie J’s successful attempt to predict the current Euro zone financial crisis. Let me tell you about it by taking small excerpts of the lyrics to explain my reasons. please note that my tongue is lodged somewhat firmly in my cheek ok!
Okay, Coconut man, Moon Heads and pea; you ready Clearly Coconut Man is George Papandreou the current Greek Prime Minister (well at least for tonight anyway). He looks like a coconut and clearly he is nuts. The Moon Heads must therefore be the heads of the G20 nations currently working hard/ living it up in Cannes. As for Pea, that must be a special nickname for President Sarkozy of France, because he is very small isn’t he?
Seems like everybody’s got a price, I wonder how they sleep at night. Obviously the banks and Greece seem to have a price, although I’m not sure what it is. Bankers have no morals so it does make me wonder how they sleep at night
When the sale comes first, and the truth comes second, just stop for a minute and smile. Because when you’ve sold or lost all you have (for the Greeks read dignity and the Elgin Marbles) and the lies of financiers and politicians have dropped you six feet deep in poo you can’t do anything but smile can you?
Why is everybody so serious? Acting so damn mysterious? Got your shades on your eyes and your heels so high. That you can’t even have a good time. This part is about Berlusconi I believe. He is seriously mysterious, wears shades and as a short man I reckon he wears Cuban heels. I think our Jessie got it wrong on the having a good time front, Mr Berlusconi seems to like a bit of Bunga Bunga
Everybody look to their left (yeah), Everybody look to their right (uh) This must refer to the fact that it doesn’t matter what flavour your political party is you’re pretty much all in the shit
Can you feel that (yeah) We’re paying with love tonight. More on Mr Berlusconi methinks only I think it probably should read he’s paying for his ‘love’ tonight.
It’s not about the money, money, money. We don’t need your money, money, money. We just wanna make the world dance,
Forget about the price tag. Well looking at the way Greece appears not to want to accept a massive debt write off from those incredibly generous bankers (NOT!) it can’t really be about the money can it? I’d bloody accept an offer like that. In fact if Greece don’t take it can I have it please? But maybe the Greeks do want to make the world dance, anyone fancy the twelve-inch vinyl DJ Bouzouki remix of ‘Zorba The Greek’ Yo’r probably want to forget about the price tag too if your wages were cut. What’s a Grecian earn? It’s a big old vase isn’t it?
Ain’t about the (uh) Cha-Ching Cha-Ching. Ain’t about the (yeah) Ba-Bling Ba-Bling Back to Berlusconi again, the political leader with the most bling!
Wanna make the world dance, Forget about the price tag. We need to take it back in time, When music made us all unite!
And it wasn’t low blows and video hoes, Am I the only one getting tired? Why is everybody so obsessed? Money can’t buy us happiness. Can we all slow down and enjoy right now. Guarantee we’ll be feeling alright. This is a plea to take us back to the days when we all loved Greek music. How could we forget that classic slab of rock music “Forever And Ever” from the King of Kaftans himself Demis Roussos. The money can’t buy us happiness reference is a topical pointer to Macca’s recent nuptials.
[B.o.B rap]
Yeah yeah. Well, keep the price tag and take the cash back. Just give me six strings and a half stack
And you can, can keep the cars leave me the garage and all I, yes all I need are keys and guitars
And guess what, in 30 seconds I’m leaving to Mars. Yeah we leaving across these undefeatable odds
It’s like this man you can’t put a price on a life. We do this for the love so we fight and sacrifice every night
So we ain’t gonna stumble and fall never waiting to see a sign of defeat Uh uh
So we gonna keep everyone moving their feet
I feel that Mr B.o.B’s rap has missed the point or perhaps he just hasn’t got that same Nostradamus gene that Ms J has. Although he does mention those Bouzoukis and perhaps the dancing is more about Zorba. As for the mention of Mars, well that’s a schoolboy error from Mr B.o.B isn’t it; Mars is a Roman God and a chocolate bar, nothing to do with Greece!
Jessie likes a bit of Greek bubblegum, because the bubble is always about to burst
What do you think and do you know of any pop songs that might predict the future? I won’t accept “I Predict A Riot” from those nice boys from Leeds, the Kaiser Chiefs. That is just too obvious!
One of the subscribers to the blog has reminded me of the plight of Babar Ahmad, currently in prison for 7 years without charge or evidence. He needed 100,000 signatures on this petition site to trigger a debate in the Commons, and that might free him, or at last restart the justice system for him. I am pleased to say that I just signed and the total now stands at 100,106 (in the time it has taken me to compose this post it has risen to 101,126. But let’s try and push the total even further. The following text is lifted direct from Ben’s e mail. Please read it and more importantly please sign the petition. However you arrived at this site, if you’re a UK citizen please take the time to sign the petition.
Babar Ahmad’s story, widely covered in the Guardian and elsewhere, is a horrifying account of what the ‘war on terror’ has meant in particular for British Muslims.
Baba Ahmad has been in prison for seven years, pending extradition to the US on charges of terrorism for which no evidence has been given. If this petition gains enough signatures there will be a debate on his case in the House of Commons, which could increase his chances of going on trial prior to extradition. A trial would compel the evidence against him — if there is any — to be produced. Whether convicted or cleared, he would at least have had justice.
Babar Ahmad was originally arrested in 2003, assaulted at midnight in his home by several officers from the ‘territorial support group’ (the riot police), and then immediately released. A year later — 5 August 2004 — he was rearrested on an extradition warrant from the US and has been in prison since.
In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights suspended his extradition pending presentation of evidence. Under the Extradition Act 2003, the US does not have to provide evidence when seeking extradition from the UK, including for British citizens (which Ahmad is); there are stirrings of dissatisfaction about this within the current parliament.
In 2009 the Metropolitan Police admitted liability for assault during Ahmad’s first arrest and paid him £60,000 damages. This year, in a separate trial, the officers were found not guilty of assault. Evidence of the officers’ histories of racist assaults was not shared with the jury (see BBC story here, including CCTV footage of Ahmad being brought, injured, into police custody; see also this Guardian account, and this Guardian story; be warned that the accounts of the behaviour of police officers Roderick James-Bowen, Mark Jones, Nigel Cowley, and John Donohue are unpleasant).
Maybe you won’t will take much persuading about this, but anyway I urge you to sign the petition, and to circulate it to anyone who might also support it. The deal with the Number 10 ‘e-petitions’ site is that any petition that gets over 100,000 signatures must be debated in the Commons. The petition currently has 50,000 signatures, and the deadline is 10th November.
If extradited to the US, Baba Ahmad faces life in solitary confinement. He is not the only UK citizen still held in the UK without trial or evidence; he is just the longest-serving.
This is not just about justice for Baba Ahmad; it concerns the moral character of the entire UK legal and political system, and so concerns each of us personally: if it can happen to him, it can happen to me and you.
As I have said many times before, this is a music blog, so here are some appropriate(ish) songs;
This hopeless sinner (or maybe I’m just a talented sinner) was listening to the radio at the weekend and a song that I really love came on. It was the beautiful “People Get Ready” by the Curtis Mayfield era Impressions. Now this is a very religious song and I am not a religious person. So my question to you is; should I be able to enjoy religious songs even if I am not religious myself? Well I’m talking conventional religion I suppose because in the last two census forms I completed I registered as a Jedi (hence the Star Wars elements of this post!)
I have quite a few songs of a religious nature in my collection including;
“I Want Jesus To Walk With Me” – Johnny Nash – But then I do have a rather extensive Johnny Nash Collection
“Forever Loving Jah” – Bob Marley – I love loads of Rasta but let’s face it I can never be one, I am now forever a “Crazy Baldhead”
“You Got The Love” – The Source featuring Candi Staton – Probably my favourite dance track, probably my favourite song of the 90s too! I am pretty sure this is a religious love song about the love of god rather than just a love song.
“People Get Ready” – The Impressions – A truly beautiful song whatever it’s sentiment in my opinion
I’d like to know what you think about this potential dilemma. I don’t have a problem with this, but I wonder if there is anyone out there that does. On a similar vein I once worked with a guy who was a racist, I’d like to stress that he wasn’t a friend. He had lots of 60s soul music in his collection; Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and plenty of Motown. Personally I find that hard to reconcile; he didn’t like black people and yet he had a large amount of black music in his collection. I’d love to hear your views on that too.
Incidentally I would like to state categorically that I do not own any of Cliff Richard‘s religious songs such as “The Lords Prayer ” and “Saviours Day” 🙂
I think I have come close to experiencing regret on two occasions and that is with the benefit of hindsight. Those two occasions occurred in the late 70s and both involved me turning down what would have been significant opportunities.
Firstly I was sitting in my local pub one evening in December 1976 (it was the now sadly departed Oak Tree in Hillingdon) when someone came in and offered tickets to see a band at Brunel University. It was a band that was causing quite a stir and I could have made it quite easily. But I decided that the pub would win that night. The band was the Sex Pistols!
Possibly the very ticket that I turned down!
Secondly I was on a lad’s holiday in Spain in 1977 (or it might have been 1978). We were staying maybe less than an hour’s drive from Barcelona. While we were there a now sadly late, great performer was playing a gig in the city. We asked our travel representative about getting tickets. He
said getting them was easy but that for a bunch of English blokes to turn up at a gig in Spain would incite the Spanish youth to violence. I now realise that this was probably complete bollocks and we should have gone to the show. That legendary, late, great performer was none other than Bob Marley.
So I have always felt that I have never regretted anything I have done in my life so far. I still believe that and I also feel that this is a good philosophy, however that doesn’t mean that you can’t be sorry about some things you have done, does it?
There were a couple of people at school that to be perfectly honest I treated in quite a mean and disrespectful way. With one of those people I simply followed the herd and behaved just like most other people in my school peer group. With the other person I made them look like a liar in order to save some teenage face. So there you have it, my teenage confessions of sorts. I would like to apologise to both of these people albeit so many years later, but I guess I am just salving my conscience. I thought long and hard about whether I should mention them by name and I personally feel that I should, I’m sure that the chances of them reading this is pretty remote anyway.
So at the risk of steering into Simon Mayo confession territory I would like to apologise unreservedly for my behaviour towards two people between 1972 and 1977 or thereabouts. Geoffrey Guile and Susan Batty this one’s for you! If I knew then what I know now then I would have behaved very differently.
Many of you know that Catwoman (a.k.a. Catherine Lee now Catherine Adamson) and I recently got married. As you might have guessed music did play quite a big part in the day, beyond just the choice of first dance. We chose a small but special group of songs for our guests to listen to while they were waiting for the beautiful bride to arrive and the ceremony to start. Those songs were;
It took us months to choose the song that Catherine would walk up the aisle to and we believe in the end it was the perfect choice. It
was Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World”
Then we had four songs very carefully selected for the signing of the register. Those were;
We even chose the song for us to exit the ceremony room. That simply had to be “This Will Be” from Natalie Cole. We even managed a half decent jig on the way out of the room to that one!
We also chose a selection of swing type songs as background to the serving of champagne and canapés or as I like to say; fizzies n fod! The background music for the wedding breakfast (incidentally why is it called a breakfast when it’s not usually in the morning?) was carefully selected classic soul and Motown love songs. These two sets are included as a list at the end of this post.
Then of course it was time for the first dance, the title of which was also immortalised on my cufflinks for the wedding day. It had to be
the really beautiful Nick Cave ballad, “Into My Arms” Probably the only song I know that includes the phrase ‘interventionist god’ in its lyrics.
We hired a swing band for the evening; the truly excellent and very talented Chris Hilton Little Big Band. They did two sets of around an
hour each combining swing classics and swing arrangements of many other hits too. Their version of “I Wanna Be Like You” from the Jungle Book was a real rocking party tune.
There was also a very special guest appearance after the bands first set. A long overdue set from the superstar DJs of the 70s ‘Bill
& Glen the Disco Men’ this was their first gig in more than 30 years. They had specially designed wigs and costumes. Well ok cheap T Shirts with their pictures on and tacky 70s wigs from the party shop. None the less the boys really rocked the joint with a storming set of pure 70s disco classics, many of which haven’t been aired in years. In case you were wondering, the Bill part of the team is me and the Glen part is my best buddy Glen Voisey. We went to Ryefield Primary School together in Hillingdon in the late 60s. It was my selection that managed to actually clear the dance floor though; personally in my defence I just feel that there was no one with enough class and taste to really appreciate the finer points of Mr Dooley Silverspoon’s amazing “Bump Me Baby” The full Bill and Glen set was;
“Boogie Nights” – Heatwave
“Get Dancin'” – Disco Tex And The Sex-O-Lettes
“Ain’t Gonna Bump No More” – Joe Tex
“Bump Me Baby” – Dooley Silverspoon
“You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” – Sylvester
“Get Down Tonight” – KC & The Sunshine Band
“Rock The Boat” – Hues Corporation
“September” – Earth, Wind & Fire
In addition to all of this there were also two other musical related items on the day; one was a reading of the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “Wedding Song” lyrics from the Planet Waves album. This was read by our good friend and wife of my best man, Caron Godbold-Derbyshire. (The other two readings were not music related but were superb none the less, so thank you also to Rachel Vernelle and Ruth Smethurst). The second of these musical pieces was a part of my speech at the end of the wedding breakfast. I wanted to do
something along the lines of what Peter Sellers did in the 60s with George Martin, when he recorded a version of the Beatles “A Hard Days Night” in the style of Laurence Olivier.
It took me ages to come up with the right song. I considered Kylie’s “I Should Be So Lucky” and “Love Is All Around” from the Troggs or Wet Wet Wet. But then the weekend before the wedding I saw Madness at the Reading Festival and I knew what song I was going to try in a Olivier style; it simply had to be “It Must Be Love”, and it was! I introduced that part of the speech as something Shakespearian, using some props; a cape and a skull. I kicked off with “Alas poor Yorrick…….” And then went straight into “It Must Be Love” in my
best Olivier style. I felt it could have worked really well or could have bombed completely. I think it went quite well, but obviously I would appreciate any comments from those of you who were there!
I should also add that my excellent Best Man, Mr John Williams also managed to include a little section from David Bowie’s “Heroes” in his speech!
Thank you for reading this far into what has been a rather self-indulgent post, but I hoped that you have enjoyed the music too. I would
also be interested to hear any stories you have of music used at weddings; be they your own or those of friends and family.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 