As many of you know I am a massive fan of Stephen King and as such I have looked forward to the cinematic adaptation of his magnum opus, ‘The Dark Tower’. I was really excited when I learned that Idris Elba had been cast as Roland the Gunslinger and that the Man In Black would be played by Matthew McConaughey. Then there was that ridiculous period when the internet trolls moaned on about how could a black man play Roland. Well Roland’s character transcends colour and Elba is undoubtedly one of the finest actors on the planet. Thankfully that all died down. But then recently I started reading the reviews and almost all of them have been negative. Was the film as bad as those reviews have suggested?
Well I saw it on 18th August, sadly not on the 19th (OK some of you won’t get that point!) and I thought it was a very good opener for what I hope will be a long Dark Tower series. Elba and McConaughey are on superb form. Idris Elba makes a perfect Roland and Matthew McConaughey does evil in the most convincing way. Tom Taylor who plays Jake is pretty much everything I imagined Jake Chambers would be from the books. Taylor is British and this is his big screen break, although he has previously appeared in a number of TV shows.
New York in the movie looks every bit as vibrant, busy and depressing as I hear it can be. While Mid World looks exactly what a world that has moved on should look like. The odd reference to some of King’s other works are clever, particularly Pennywise from IT. If I were scoring this film I would give it a 4 out of 5 and I excitedly anticipate the following instalments building on that and getting even better. To all those critics who scored it 1 or 2 out of five, were you actually watching it? Have you forgotten the face of your father? But to finish, this is a music blog so I have selected a few songs that in some way relate to the Dark Tower, did you get all the references?
Definitely on the home straight now, we’re on the 19th December. So day 19 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem Advent posts brings two songs with the number 19 in their title. Can you guess what the f-f-f-f-first one is going to be?
I’ll put you out of your misery the first tune is Paul Hardcastle‘s “19” which was his fifth solo single. It went to number one in the UK in 1985 and made the top spot in Ireland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Austria and Italy. It was also number one on the US Dance charts. Hardcastle was inspired to compose “19” after watching a documentary about the Vietnam war called ‘Vietnam Requiem‘. he was shocked that the average age of the US combat soldier killed in Vietnam was 19. That was his age when he saw the documentary. The song may have performed better in the US had it received more airplay. It stalled at number 15 in the Billboard charts after many US radio stations refused to play it as they considered the song to be anti-American. Hardcastle has always denied this and I believe he is right. He is quoting statistics. Although the average age of 19 statistic has been challenged and various sources have suggested that between 20 and 23 are more realistic. That is still bloody young though! Paul Hardcastle’s 1986 single “The Wizard” became the theme tune to Top Of The Pops from April 1986 to September 1991. He also produced Rory Bremner‘s parody recording of “19”; “N-N-Nineteen Not Out” which was released under the name the Commentators and reached number 13 in the UK charts in 1985.
The second song on day 19 comes from those ancient geezers the Strolling Bones, well that’s what they look like these days right? I am talking of course about the Rolling Stones with their 1965 UK and US Billboard number two hit “19th Nervous Breakdown” It broke a run of five consecutive UK number ones for the band that stretched from April 1964 to September 1965. Those five songs were; “It’s All Over Now”, “Little Red Rooster”, “The Last Time”, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Get Off Of My Cloud”. The number 19 is an important number in Stephen King’s ‘Dark Tower Series‘ and this song is referenced a few times within those tales. The song has been covered by the Standells and the Wedding Present. On the US TV show Saturday Night Live in 2012 Mick Jagger performed the song with the Foo Fighters.
During my formative years I was a big fan of the USA. This view was largely developed from reading Marvel comics, the Apollo missions and watching westerns and war films on the TV. As I got older and became interested in politics my views on America flexed somewhat. Whilst there is much to love about the place there is an awful lot to dislike. I love New England, San Francisco, Marvel Comics and Stephen King to name but a few. I dislike, again to name just a few, the Republican party, the Christian right, Dubya, Gun laws and the way Hollywood changes so much in movies (The ending of I Am Legend, Disney‘s version of Winnie the Pooh and the fact that no Americans were involved in the real Great Escape)
But I do have a number of friends and readers that are Americans so I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy Independence Day from a Brit across the pond. To help you celebrate here are some of my favourite USA themed songs
I always get a bit of a good feeling when a favourite song, or even one that I recognise is mentioned in a story, do you? My favourite author Stephen King does it quite often. Now there is a regularly updated site called Small Demons that have compiled a list of the songs mentioned most often in works of fiction. Click here to read about it in the NME. Here is the top 20;
1. The Beatles – ‘Hey Jude’
2. Elvis Presley – ‘Heartbreak Hotel’
3. Led Zeppelin – ‘Stairway To Heaven’
4. USA For Africa – ‘We Are The World’
5. Abba – ‘Dancing Queen’
6. Carl Perkins – ‘Blue Suede Shoes‘
7. The Beatles – ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds‘
8. The Beatles – ‘Eleanor Rigby’
9. Nirvana – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’
10. Queen – ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
11. Los Del Rio – ‘The Macarena’
12. Michael Jackson – ‘Beat it’
13. Creedence Clearwater Revival – ‘Proud Mary’
14. OneRepublic – ‘Apologize’
15. The Beatles – ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’
16. The Beatles – ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’
17. ‘Lili Marleen’ (first recorded by Lale Andersen)
18. Michael Jackson – ‘Billie Jean’
19. Bob Dylan – ‘Like A Rolling Stone’
20. Rolling Stones – ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’
I get why some of these would appear, but USA For Africa, “Macarena” and “Apologize”? What’s that all about? “Hey Jude” has been mentioned in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. The Beatles have a probably unsurprising five titles in the top 20 with Michael Jackson the only other artist with more than one with his two entries. I suppose an entry for the Fab Four‘s “Paperback Writer” would have been quite apt wouldn’t it? Click here to see a longer and nicely pictorial list.
Today, September 19th, would have been my Dad’s 81st birthday. But sadly he died in 2001 shortly after his 70th birthday just 5 days out of his 60s. I still miss him a lot and I often wonder what he would think about where my life has gone since he died. For my whole life there were always two Bill Adamsons in my family; me and my Dad, yes we shared exactly the same name. But since 24th September 2001 I have been the only one. But then I do see my Dad every morning when I shave and I hear him in the way I laugh. I sometimes wonder if I am in fact turning into him and frankly that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I was and always will be proud of my dad as both a father and a man. Time may heal, but that gap in your life after you lose a parent always remains. I’m sure that many of you who have lost a parent will have similar memories too and if it would help you to share them feel free to add a comment with your own feelings about sadly departed parents.
Obviously I have to include some music in this post, this is a music blog after all. So I have chosen four songs; Rod Stewart‘s version of “Sailing” as that was his favourite song ever. “The Living Years” from Mike and the Mechanics as that song made me reflect a lot after dad died and yes I cried a few times at that one. Next is the song that my Mum chose to have played at his funeral, “I Can’t Stop Loving You” by Ray Charles. Finally I felt that I had to include Mike Skinner‘s fabulous Streets track “Never Went To Church” as that is all about coming to terms with the loss of his own father and provides the title for this post. In the words of Roland in Stephen King’sDark Tower series ‘do you remember the face of your father?’ Well i do and I always will. Enjoy the music Dad, these are for you.
Aerosmith‘s producer wanted Steve Tyler to collaborate with my favourite author Stephen King for songs on the next Aerosmith album. Jack Douglas felt that with King writing the lyrics Tyler would be inspired with the music. It seems unlikely that it will happen now, but you never know do you?
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
Thanks to my good friend Nick Horslen for directing me to this rather amusing story on the BBC recently. Apparently the latest movie in the Resident Evil franchise is being filmed in Toronto and when a number of actors in Zombie guise were moving from one stage to another there was an accident. There were no major injuries, just cuts and bruises. However the best part of the story is the surprise of the emergency services when they arrived. Can you imagine turning up to an emergency only to find that the victims were covered in blood; mostly fake blood as it turns out!
You can click here to read the story on the BBC. Obviously given the music nature of this blog I simply had to include some Zombie related
songs. Maybe you should consider including some of these on your Halloween party soundtrack later this month! Keeping up that Zombie theme, how many of you are fans of “The Walking Dead”? I think it’s a superb horror series, enjoy the trailer for series two by clicking here.
“Zombie” – Cranberries – Not really a Zombie song as it relates to the troubles in Ireland.
“Pet Sematary” – Ramones – This is also not strictly a Zombie song but the classic Stephen King story centres around how things that are buried in an ancient native American burial ground come back to life. This song is the theme to the movie version. As I believe the strapline on the film poster and trailer said…….. ‘Sometimes dead is better’
“Call of the Zombie” – Rob Zombie – No Zombie song list would be complete without Mr Zombie himself would it. He recently made an appearance on the new Alice Cooper album “Welcome 2 My Nightmare” which is a sequel to, can you guess the title………… “Welcome To My Nightmare”. It’s rather a good album in my opinion.
“Zombie” – Fela Kuti & Africa ’70 – More of a tub thumping funky criticism of the Nigerian army than about zombies themselves. But an excellent song nonetheless.
“Thriller” – Michael Jackson – I guess this must be the Zombie song that everyone knows, especially the Zombie dance section. Did you
know that Vincent Price and Paul and Linda McCartney all appear as Zombies in the Zombie formation dancing section of the video.
I bet you can't guess who this fine looking Zombie is can you?
I used to have this poster on my bedroom wall as a teenager
I won’t go as far as addressing you as constant reader as Stephen King does, but I will say dear regular reader thank you for coming to this blog every so often. In particular a big thank you to those of you who send me links to stories that might be worth posting about. I do try to use all of them, although I haven’t done much of that in recent weeks. However I intend to rectify that today with a double whammy of two car related stories. The first was provided by my good friend Nick Horslen and the second from yet another good friend, Tom Wycks. Strangely or appropriately both are car related, so perhaps you can guess the kind of songs that will follow!
Apparently a few days ago whilst out and about in LA actor Peter Fonda discovered a dead body in a car. It wasn’t his, I mean the car wasn’t his, but then neither was the body, but that would have been a hell of a story too wouldn’t it? he saw the body slumped over the wheel and reported it to police. I wonder if he thought it might have been George Michael asleep at the wheel again. You can read the Fonda and the Dead Body (now that’s a good name for an indie band don’t you think?) story on the Guardian website. There are a couple of easy music links to any story involving Peter Fonda. Firstly his involvement in acting and co writing the film Easy Rider means I simply have to include the magnificent “Born To Be Wild” by Steppenwolf from the soundtrack of the movie. This song was said by many to be the first heavy metal song, whether that is true or not it may well be the first song to use the phrase in its lyrics. Secondly it is Peter Fonda’s voice that you can hear sampled on Primal Scream‘s excellent “Loaded”
Nick Cave 1 Speed Camera Nil
The second story is now a few weeks old, but it involves gruff Aussie Crooner Nick Cave who attacked a speed camera in Hove with his car. Now I don’t condone vandalism, but frankly there must be a modicum of praise given to someone who decommissioned a speed camera. But somehow I don’t think the police and the judiciary will see it that way. But joking aside for a moment whilst Nick’s Jaguar was obviously damaged both he and his 10-year-old twin sons were fine. You can read the story here on the BBC News site.
So moving along a car and road travel theme here are a few related songs for you pleasure;
An US Research Scientist recently claimed that science is not very far away from being able to record dreams. His name is Dr Moran Cerf which sounds made up to me. You can probably get some good anagrams from it, I tried and came up with DREAM FOR SNR which I interpreted as dream for senior, i.e. dream for older people, i.e. me!
I’m not sure it would be a good thing, it might reveal your innermost thoughts to everyone and frankly it could destroy the porn industry too, everyone could just record their own personal fantasies! It really does take science way into the realms of science fiction. He does however state that the first step is to visualise dreams by a combination of recollection and brain activity. The actual recording is quite some way off. I’m pleased about that, I’m not sure I’d want my dreams available to all! What do you folks think?
On a bizarre footnote as I was typing this WordPress showed the following proposed tags based upon what I had written; Dream, BBC, Neuron, Science Fiction and Brain. All of which make logical sense, but it also added Marilyn Monroe and the Eiffel Tower. Is it reaching into my dreams? I have certainly dreamt about Marilyn before, mostly in my teens! Anyway I deliberately haven’t added them as tags to this post.
As always this is at heart a music blog so please enjoy the following dream related songs and feel free to add your own via the comments facility. I started out expecting to put a top 10 together and appear to have ended up with 20, not all of which I like incidentally, but I’m sure there is at least one person out there that likes them! There is also one hidden dream song, the first person to tell me what it is and where it is in the post via the comments facility may win a prize!
“All I Have To Do Is Dream” – Everly Brothers. Written by famous husband and wife songwriting team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant in 1958, Don and Phil’s version is probably the most well known although it has been covered by many acts. It was most recently used in the 2010 remake of ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street‘ where of course all Freddie Krueger has to do is dream to be able to kill
“Dreaming” – Blondie – Taken from the ‘Eat To The Beat’ album and released in 1979 and reached number 2 in the UK. As with many of Blondie’s hits it was written by Deborah Harry and Chris Stein. It has been covered by the Smashing Pumpkins, the Posies, Yo La Tengo and Jeff Tweedy off of Wilco amongst others.
“Dreaming” – Cliff Richard – The same title as the Blondie song but definitely not the same song! Cliff was never massively succesful in the US. “Devil Woman was a big hit and “Dreaming” also made number 10. Cliff is the only artist to have had UK number one hits in every decade since the UK charts began (50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s). None in the 10s yet though, but I reckon a Christmas team up with an X Factor winner would probably swing it.
“Teenage Dream” – T Rex. Bolan’s chart success had started to wane by the time this was released in 1974, it still made UK number 2 though. It was also the first release that was credited to Marc Bolan and T Rex. It was taken from the wonderfully titled album ‘Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow‘
“Dream Kid” – Sutherland Brothers and Quiver – Gavin and Ian Sutherland started life as a folk rock duo in the late 60s, they joined with Quiver in 1972 and sadly didn’t have massive chart success. But this song from 1973 remains one of my all time favourites.
“Don’t Dream It’s Over” – Crowded House – It was recorded in LA in 1986 and released in January 1987. The song was written by Neil Finn and was the first of the bands two US Top 40 hits. The song featured in the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’. It has been covered by quite a few artists. The Sixpence None The Richer version was very good, the Paul Young version was frankly…..crap!
“Dreams” – Fleetwood Mac – This one’s a true classic from the ‘Rumours’ album and was written by Stevie Nicks. The song was most famously covered by the Corrs and none other than Mick Fleetwood joined them to sing it at the Royal Albert Hall with them in 1998
“Silver Dream Machine” – David Essex – This was recorded for David’s 1980 film ‘Silver Dream Racer‘. Not one of his better hits in my opinion. What do you folks think? (Especially you Ms Topsom!)
“Boulevard Of Broken Dreams” – Green Day – This was taken from the bands excellent ‘American Idiot’ album. Billie Joe Armstrong wrote the song and was rather amusingly criticised by Noel Gallagher off of Oasis for ripping off one of his songs (the chord progression is very similar to “Wonderwall”)
“Dreamer” – Supertramp. This was from the ‘Crime Of The Century’ album and was released in 1975. The B Side was another brilliant song; “Bloody Well Right” which was released as a single in its own right later that year.
“In A Broken Dream” – Python Lee Jackson – Python Lee Jackson were an Australian band during the late 60s. They had a brief stay in the UK where they recorded this song with a then unknown vocalist, Rod Stewart. The single was a flop when it was released in 1968 but became a big success when it was rereleased in 1972.
“I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) – Electric Prunes – Perhaps one of the most fondly remembered psychedelic bands from the 60s. They had a song, “Kyrie Eleison” included on the ‘Easy Rider’ soundtrack. The band reformed in 2001 and are still touring.
“Daydream Believer” – Monkees – The song was written by John Stewart and the lead vocal was sung by Davy Jones. It was an US number 1 but only managed number 5 in the UK. Despite being effectively a manufactured boy band all four members actually played or sang on this song.
“In Dreams” – Roy Orbison – The song was written by Orbison himself and he was able to demonstrate his amazing vocal range, he sings across two octaves. Roy said that the song came to him while he was a sleep and presumably while he was dreaming. David Lynch used the song in his film, ‘Blue Velvet’
“Never Had A Dream Come True” – Stevie Wonder – The song was released in 1970 before Stevie was able to take control of his own career, so it was not one of his own compositions. It was however a co-composition written along with Motown staff writers Henry Cosby and Sylvia Moy. The song was covered by the Jackson 5 for their first album.
“Island Of Dreams” – Springfields – The group formed in 1960 when Mary ‘Dusty’ O’Brien and her brother Dion O’Brien teamed up with Tim Field. They all took on the Springfield. And that dear readers is how Dusty Springfield came to be!
“Teenage Dream” – Katy Perry – The same title as the T Rex song, but not the same at all. It was the second single taken from her 2010 album of the same name, following the worldwide smash that was “California Gurls”. I wonder if she’ll use her married name in future? Actually Katy Brand doesn’t sound bad does it?
“Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) – Eurythmics – This gave the band their only US number one when it was released in 1983. Marilyn Manson recorded an excellent cover of the song in which he changed some of the lyrics, adding lines like “I wanna use you and abuse you/I wanna know what’s inside you.”
“Any Dream Will Do” – Jason Donovan – The song was written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber for their 1968 musical ‘Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat‘ which has gone on to massive success on stages all over the world. At various times it has been sung by everyone from Philip Schofield to Donny Osmond.
“Dreaming Of Me” – Depeche Mode – This was the bands first single and was released in the UK in February 1981, strangely it was never commercially released in the US. It was written by Vince Clarke who went on to form Yazoo and Erasure.
With Just A Hint Of Mayhem 
“None of them received a heroes welcome” – Advent day 19 December 19, 2013
Tags: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, 19, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Billboard, Commentators, Foo Fighters, Get Off Of My Cloud, It's All Over Now, Little Red Rooster, Mick Jagger, N-N-Nineteen Not Out, Paul Hardcastle, Rolling Stones, Rory Bremner, Satisfaction, Saturday Night Live, Standells, Stephen King, Strolling Bones, The Last Time, The Wizard, Top Of The Pops, United States, US Billboard, Vietnam, Vietnam Requiem, Vietnam War, Wedding Present
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