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.
Sadly I missed the Kickstarter campaign for this album from the talented and magnificent Daniel Versus The World. ‘Remember Who You Are’ is another fine release from Dovetown Records, the label that brought you Colour Me Wednesday and the Tuts among others. The album came out last year and I purchased the CD version a few weeks ago. The songs are all wonderfully catchy pop tunes, most of which grab you very quickly and bury themselves in your brain. Lyrically Mr Stocker is a great talent and he and the band have the chops to back up those often sublime lyrics.
I find the music and singing sometimes reminiscent of early Elton John or Billy Joel. But these words are not words that Elton could have even dreamt of singing back in the day, although as a great campaigner for the LGBT community I reckon Reg would enjoy this record. The album is dedicated to ‘all the angry queer punx’ which is in itself a fabulously bold statement especially in the dark days of so-called president Trump. (I somehow doubt that the Tango Prez will like Daniel Versus The World, but hey that’s the orange comb-overs loss!)
The album’s manifesto is most clear on opening track “Second Class Citizen” which relates to the treatment of gay people by many in this ‘modern’ society of ours. I find it incredible and horrifying that there are still people out there that continue to persecute minorities. Sadly it is often people of my generation that are guilty of such misinformed arrogance and hatred. Yes I am a middle-aged/ old straight white bloke, but I am also an Earthling. I totally accept people for who are what they are I have never been bothered by skin colour or sexuality. If you are a good person then I reckon I’ll probably get on with you, if you’re not then I’m pretty sure that I won’t!
“Thank You” is currently my favourite song on this collection. On first listen you might think of it as a heartbreak song, however while it certainly does seem to be about Daniel being spurned by a former lover the message turns to glass half full with the line ‘thanks for making me, me’. I should mention the band who are very tight and offer a more than accomplished canvas for Daniel’s song paintings. Laura Ankles on drums, Jaca Freer on bass and Carmela Pietrangelo on guitar. Daniel Stocker himself plays piano and obviously vocals too.
The CD, download and music streaming age make it easy to skip tracks on albums, however ‘Remember Who You Are’ is one of those gems on which there are no tracks that you need to skip. Another favourite of mine is “Little Blue” especially for its couplet around ‘love will make you six feet tall, but I’m six-foot three’. In a parallel universe “I’m So Fun” has topped the charts for the last twelve weeks. Next week my favourite Daniel Versus The World songs will probably different, but what is wrong with that? If Daniel did take on the world right now he might not win but he would give that mean old world a few good body blows at least. I recommend that you buy, download or stream this album immediately, no on second thoughts that is not a recommendation it’s an order!
So after nearly eight years of blogging I am approaching my 1,000th post on here. This one you are reading is post 999. But for post 1,000 I made a little offer to my Facebook friends, I asked them to name one song (or one artist) that they wanted me to include in post 1,000. So before I get there I would like to extend that offer to any of you in the blogosphere that would like their song added and receive a name check. I promise to try to say something nice about your song choice! Just message me or add a comment.
Anyway now for post 999, I went through a whole range of ideas for this one; songs about or related to the emergency services was a favourite until I thought of doing a sum. So what follows is a list of twenty songs with numbers in their title. If you add all those numbers together they total 999. Trust me they do, I used a spreadsheet 🙂 I hope you enjoy them and that you exercise your brain with a bit of mental arithmetic while you do!
Obviously most of you are aware that there is a referendum looming for us folk in the UK. It is a vote on whether we as a country should stay a part of the European Union or whether we should leave and go it alone. Personally I fundamentally disagree with the need for a referendum; if an elected government can’t make big decisions then why are they there? Give the people a referendum on all big decisions from keeping Trident to MPs pay. That would be much fairer and a true reflection of what people want. But no; we are lumbered with making a massive decision on a subject that no one really knows the answer to Just listen to all the drivel spouted by both the Brexit (incidentally I despise that invented word) and Remain camps. If anyone truly understands this decision and all its implications then I have never heard of them. Do I understand it? Of course not, although in some sleepless moments I might think that I do. But I am enjoying the spectacle of the Tory party tearing itself apart over it. Anyway I thought I would put a helpful list together of the reasons to vote Remain and the reasons to vote Brexit on June 23rd. I hope that you like it and feel free to add to it and share your opinion. I have also added a referendum poll if you wish to cast a vote here. Oh and obviously there is some (in)appropriate music too. Feel free to suggest your own referendum stay or leave songs.
Reasons to vote Remain
Reasons to vote Brexit
1 Brexit is a shit word concoction which shows no imagination
5 It will annoy the Biffers of Britain First and their ilk immensely
5 Gideon will be upset
6 Donald Trump won’t like it
6 UKIP will have no reason to exist
7 To stop Boris Johnson succeeding in his reality TV interview for the Prime Minister’s job
7 Millions of UK ex pats will be returned to the UK from Europe. (Incidentally why aren’t they called immigrants?)
8 To cling on to a very thin chance to ditch the unelected House of Lords
8 To lose all the lovely foreign folk that clean for us, work in our essential services, pick our food and serve our food. You know those people that do the jobs no native of this country wants to do
9 To cling on to a slim chance of seeing the end of the monarchy in the UK
The other day I decided to take a quick count of all the artists in my album collection where I have at least 10 albums by a single artist. I included CDs, LPs and cassettes (although the only non compilation cassettes that I have are David Bowie bootlegs). Oh and while I’m on bootleg recordings obviously I have included them whether they are live, studio outtakes or simply unreleased stuff. I have not included digital recordings. I was surprised to find that there are 4o artists where I have at least ten releases by them. The list is below, (artist followed by the number of albums) there are no real surprises for me, are you surprised at any on this list? Have you ever done anything similar? I have also added a song from each of the top ten artists 🙂
David Bowie 141
Bob Dylan 30 Johnny Nash 26 Bruce Springsteen 26
Beatles 25
Neil Young 25
Elton John 19
Bob Marley 19
U2 19
Rod Stewart 18
Pink Floyd 17
REM 17 Elvis Costello 15
The Eels 15
Prince 15
Paul Weller 15
Ryan Adams 14 Led Zeppelin 14
Madonna 14
The Clash 13 Elvis Presley 13
Radiohead 13
Kate Bush 12
Oasis 12
Lou Reed 12
Stevie Wonder 12
Morrissey 11
Tom Waits 11
ZZ Top 11
Jeff Buckley 10
Julian Cope 10
Johnny Cash 10 Michael Jackson 10
John Lennon 10 Manic Street Preachers 10
Kylie Minogue 10 Iggy Pop 10
Rolling Stones 10
Frank Turner 10
The Who 10
Don’t you just love Elton John’s “Bennie And The Jets” from his 1973 double album ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road‘? I certainly do. I knew that it wasn’t a live recording but the applause included on the track makes it sound as though it is. Did you know that the applause wasn’t even recorded at an Elton gig? In fact it is drawn from recordings of the audience clapping and shouting at Jimi Hendrix’sIsle Of Wight festival set in 1970.
I know of another occasion where that kind of thing has happened too. The sound of the crowd used on the title track of David Bowie’s ‘Diamond Dogs‘ album is actually the applause taken from a live album by the Faces! Can any of you offer any similar gems?
The synthesiser intro to Elton John’s magnificent (in my opinion) “Funeral For A Friend”, the opening track on the ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road‘ album, was recorded by David Hentschel an engineer and, obviously, a synthesiser player. Apparently Elton only heard it for the first time after it was finished.
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