This is apparently the 666th post on this blog, so I thought I’d celebrate that with devilishly beastly top 13 Satan songs. I’d also love to hear what other songs you might have chosen. Given that we are days away from Halloween I suppose that this borders on being a topical post too 🙂
It would appear that the Performing Rights Society recently undertook a survey to determine the most controversial song ever and surprisingly many of the usual suspects are in the top 10. Controversially I am still just a little under the influence so to speak 😉 Here is the top 10;
Smack My Bitch Up – Prodigy
God Save The Queen – Sex Pistols
Relax – Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Kim – Eminem
Killing In The Name – Rage Against The Machine
Ebeneezer Goode – The Shamen
Suicide Solution – Ozzy Osbourne
Get Your Gunn – Marilyn Manson
Angel of Death – Slayer
Dear God – XTC
In my view the songs represent many people’s view of controversy, but not mine! I can see that people might have been angered and provoked by many things in their topics; religion, firearms, death/ suicide, drugs, violence, sex and being against the monarchy. Well maybe they’re right, but I for one do not think so, but it is, after all about the rock n roll! well not just the rock n roll but also the sex and drugs too. Hmmmmmm…… “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll”
I’m also surprised that there is no room for Max Romeo’s “Wet Dream“, Donna Summer‘s “Love To Love You Baby” and “Je T’Aime” from Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. However there were only 1,700 people in the survey! read the story on the BBC here.
Hello once again good Blog Peeps, this is the first time I’ve posted two days on the trot for ages, so I’ll try and make it a good one.
Firstly I recently reacquainted myself with the wonderful ‘KissThisGuy‘ website aka the Archive Of Misheard Lyrics. You’re probably all familiar with that classic Hendrix misheard lyric which gives the site it’s name. The lyric comes from “Purple Haze” and if you click on the song title you will see that perhaps this wasn’t necessarily the misheard lyric we all thought it was. Incidentally if you’re not familiar with this and you wondering what the hell I’m talking about the original line was ‘scuse me while I kiss the sky’ and has apparently often been misheard as ‘scuse me while I kiss this guy’. There are some excellent misheard lyrics on the site my favourite has to be the one taken from “Centrefold” by the J Geils Band, are you ready for this? Are you sure? Really, really sure? You won’t be offended? OK then here it is ‘my anus is the centre hole’ Isn’t that excellent?
Jimi prepares to 'kiss this guy'! 😉
I’d like to finish this misheard lyrics piece with a comment about my Mum, she’s smarter than me in most things, but she has come up with some excellent misheard lyrics. My two favourites from her are Dr Hook’s “Sylvia’s Mother” where she heard ‘Sylvia’s mother’s dead’ rather than ‘Sylvia’s mother said’ and also Three Dog Night’s “Joy To The World” where my Mum for some strange reason heard ‘Hiawatha was a bullfrog’ instead of the actual lyric of ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog’ Hopefully you’re reading this post Mum 😉 In defence of my Mum, I’m not perfect when it comes to misheard lyrics either. I was perhaps aged 9 or 10 when I first heard Max Romeo’s classic reggae single “Wet Dream“. being a complete innocent in those days I actually thought the whole song was in some made up foreign language. So I heard phonetically ‘lygo lygo hushy girl hushy girl lygo’ when in fact Max was singing ‘lie down gal let me push it up, push it up lie down” As you can see I wasn’t even close 🙂 The song was banned from radio in the UK for being sexually explicit, although Max did explain once that the song was about a plumber coming to fix a leak, you know somehow I reckon he was telling porkies, what do you think?
Is Max's girl waiting for the plumber?
Anyway enough of that vulgar frivolity and onto the usual dull and boring stuff, starting with a birthday. April 30th 2009 is the 76th birthday of Mr Willie Nelson, one of the few country stars that I can actually listen to. Over the years Nelson has proved himself to be an excellent songwriter, perhaps one of his greatest songs was “Crazy” which became the signature tune of the late great (see the l’s & g’s never go away for long!) Patsy Cline. He has also collaborated with many other artists including Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Snoop Dogg and a former Real Madrid goalkeeper Senor Julio Iglesias with “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before” Nelson’s guitar is named Trigger after Roy Rogers ever present and faithful horse. Willie has said that when Trigger becomes unplayable he will probably retire. Enjoy some Willie here (ooooooooooh MATRON!) with “You Were Always On My Mind”
This is Willie Nelson's guitar, affectionately known as Trigger. It sure has been used!
On this day in 1968 the ‘Cilla Black Show’ was launched by the BBC. Cilla apparently became the first British female artist to have her own show. The theme song “Step Inside Love” was written by none other than Sir Paul McCartney off of the Beatles!
Cilla has to duck to avoid the glass ceiling at the BBC
And finally on this day in 1976 Keith Moon off of the Who paid nine cab drivers to block both ends of a New York street so that he could throw the contents of his hotel room out of the window. Now that is what I call rock n roll! They don’t make ’em like that any more do they?
keith had thrown almost everything out of his hotel room, except of course for the girls!
Hello again readers (well I am assuming that you’re not just looking at the pictures here obviously!). I’ve moved away from the usual birthday and ‘onthisday’ post once again today. This post could I suppose be called a fire sale! It was inspired by my second fire walk which I completed last night! Yes I walked barefoot over hot coals and I urge you to try it yourself if you ever get the chance. It’s not just a turn up and walk kind of thing there is a build up over a few hours including breaking an arrow on your throat. That too is an incredible experience. The lady who ran last nights session and indeed the first firewalk I did a few months back is ‘Lovely Lisa‘ click her name to get to her website. Lisa is truly an inspirational coach and those of you who know me well will be aware that this is strong praise indeed coming from such a cynical skeptic. Check out Lisa’s site and do everything you can, short of perhaps selling your mother, to do a firewalk.
This is me exposing my soles to hot coals!
Anyway to get back to the music I thought I would run through my top 5 fire related songs and maybe it could ‘spark’ you into shedding some ‘light’ one your own ‘burning hot’ songs. Here are mine;
1 “Firestarter” – The Prodigy
2 “Fire” – Ohio Players
3 “Burning Down The House” – Talking Heads
4 “Burnin’ And Lootin‘” – Bob Marley and the Wailers
5 “Light My Fire” – Jose Feliciano
OK now do your worst and tell me your favourite fire related songs, if I receive enough I’ll put my five and yours in a poll in a future post!
A post of mine wouldn’t be the same without a large degree of trivia so here it comes.
The Prodigy took their name from a Moog synthesiser which unsurprisingly was called the Moog Prodigy! The band rose to fame during the rave era of the early 90’s in the UK. They released their first single “Charly” in August 1991. It took a sample from a British public information film called ‘Charley Says’ and reached number 3 in the UK. Eventually things went mega for the band in 1997 with the release of the excellent ‘Fat Of The Land’ album which spawned two UK number ones in “Firestarter” and “Breathe”. My own favourite Prodigy song is their fourth single, released in 1992, “Out Of Space”. It sampled heavily from a Max Romeo song “I Chase The Devil” which had originally been produced by the stupendously talented Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. The “I’ll take your brain to another dimension” line is taken from the excellent “Critical Breakdown” by the Ultramagnetic MCs. What is your favourite Prodigy song?
Keith Prodigy knew he would have to grow his hair much more before he could acquire the perfect comb-over
I was a big fan of funk music in the 70s which is how I first got into the rather wonderful Ohio Players. There was a bonus for teenage boys who were fans of this band and in 1975 I was just 16. That bonus was that all their album covers had pictures of semi naked women doing things like pouring honey over themselves! Excuse me while I go and take a quick cold shower……………… ok that’s better, now where were we? Oh yes the Ohio Players. In their early days Walter ‘Junie’ Morrison was the lead vocalist, he later went on to sing lead for Funkadelic (probably my favourite funk band ever!). Those Red Hot Chili Pepper fans amongst you may already be familiar with the Ohio Players via the Chili’s rather good cover of “Love Rollercoaster”. The RHCP version featured in the movie ‘Beavis And Butthead Do America’ and when released as a single from the soundtrack the additional track was “Lesbian Seagull” by Englebert Humperdinck, I kid you not! Click the title to hear it! The original Ohio Players version of “Love Rollercoaster” features a couple of high pitched screams which have developed an urban myth about them over the years. One myth says they are the screams of a dying woman being murdered outside the studio, another says that it is the painful scream of a dying rabbit which was run down outside the studio. The truth would appear to be much more likely and indeed mundane. It is the sampled scream of a woman riding a roller coaster. Well come on it fits the song doesn’t it? Anyway click here to watch a brief video that explains the urban myth and then tell me what you think. Personally I think it is complete and utter crap!
For research only here are two pictures of Ohio Players album covers. I love the strategically placed picture of the band on the second one
The Fire Service budget cuts had resulted in almost a complete lack of protective clothing for firefighters
Well they do say that honey is good for you;-)
Talking Heads originally formed in 1974 as the Artistics featuring David Byrne, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz who were all attending the Rhode Island School Of Design. The name Talking Heads came after they read a TV Guide which explained that just a headshot of a presenter was known as a talking head and was basically ‘all content and no action’ They felt that the phrase was a perfect fit for the band. The first time they played under the new name was when they opened for the Ramones at CBGBs in 1975. Jerry Harrison joined the band from Jonathan Richman’s Modern Lovers in 1976. It was a cover of Al Green’s “Take Me To The River” that really helped them take off
After a power failure backstage the band had dressed in the dark again
Bob Marley is one of my all time favourite singers and has been for many years. I hadn’t heard of him when he released his first singles though. Largely because I was only three years old and the singles only came out in Jamaica! The songs were “Judge Not” and “One More Cup Of Coffee” production was handled by legendary Jamaican Producer Leslie Kong. Marley didn’t even use his own name on the singles, for both he was known as Bobby Martell. Earlier this year Marley’s family struck a deal with a Finance Company to licence Marley’s image under the ‘House Of Marley’ brand. So expect to see House Of Marley image and branding on everything from Snowboards (that sounds really authentic Jamaican), Luggage, Headphones and a Jamaican Beer!
This little fella auditioned for the 'Marley And Me' movie but clearly didn't know the story very well
OK I guess I should expect some kickback for this but I feel that the Doors are overrated! Although I love “Light My Fire” I much prefer Jose Feliciano’s version. Jose is Puerto Rican and was blind from birth. His full name is José Montserrate Feliciano GarcÃa. Perhaps if he had called himself Jose Garcia he could have formed a Latin American version of the Grateful Dead! In 1967 Jose was denied entry into the UK. Why was that? Drugs? Murder? Something worse? No, the animal quarantine laws in the UK prevented Jose from bringing his Guide Dog. he was a massive star in Latin America when he moved to LA in the late 60’s (I presume that the US Government let him bring his Guide Dog). Shortly after this he recorded his version of “Light My Fire” which went to number three in the US charts in 1968. Most covers of the song nowadays tend to favour Feliciano’s arrangement, including the relatively recent version from Will Young.
Jose used his three heads and six hands to play guitar faster than anyone had ever done before
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 