Liberal Burblings

Archive for the ‘Pop music’ Category

As a Republican and an avowed hater of men who go anywhere near a bottle of hair dye, I suppose I could have been nasty and written a title like “McCartney the Royal Toady”. But that would have been uncalled for. Paul McCartney, when all’s said and dyed, has, it seems, retained a wide-eyed innocence from his childhood. A laudatory essay on the Queen which he wrote when he was 10 years old has been unearthed.

It has interesting echoes with a tiny track on Abbey Road. Abbey Road has got a few interesting, very short tracks on it. One is “The End” which is part of a Medley just before the er….end of the album. It is interesting to reflect that if you listen to all the Beatles albums in the order they were recorded, “The End” is fittingly the last thing you will hear (it would be interesting to know if it was the last track they actually recorded), except for the tiny and simple track stuck on the end of “The End” called “Her Majesty”. It’s a wonderful little end to the album, complete with rather abrupt ending:

Her Majesty

(Lennon/McCartney)

Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl,
but she doesn’t have a lot to say
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
but she changes from day to day

I want to tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
Someday I’m going to make her mine, oh yeah,
Someday I’m going to make her mine.

That track is so short and, I suppose, odd, that it is hardly ever played on the radio. In fact, I have only heard it played on the radio once. That was last week by the (now he’s stop being silly like he was on Radio 1) excellent Chris Evans. Well done Mr Evans.

Not wishing to ride a complete coach and horses through copyright law, here’s a great video by a young American lady featuring “Her Majesty” on the Ukulele (twice) plus some interesting nonsense in the middle. It’s received 655,010 hits on You Tube so it must be relatively good:

(And yes – I couldn’t sleep)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgHoY_IOp_s&hl=en&fs=1&]

As a Republican and an avowed hater of men who go anywhere near a bottle of hair dye, I suppose I could have been nasty and written a title like “McCartney the Royal Toady”. But that would have been uncalled for. Paul McCartney, when all’s said and dyed, has, it seems, retained a wide-eyed innocence from his childhood. A laudatory essay on the Queen which he wrote when he was 10 years old has been unearthed.

It has interesting echoes with a tiny track on Abbey Road. Abbey Road has got a few interesting, very short tracks on it. One is “The End” which is part of a Medley just before the er….end of the album. It is interesting to reflect that if you listen to all the Beatles albums in the order they were recorded, “The End” is fittingly the last thing you will hear (it would be interesting to know if it was the last track they actually recorded), except for the tiny and simple track stuck on the end of “The End” called “Her Majesty”. It’s a wonderful little end to the album, complete with rather abrupt ending:

Her Majesty

(Lennon/McCartney)

Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl,
but she doesn’t have a lot to say
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
but she changes from day to day

I want to tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl
Someday I’m going to make her mine, oh yeah,
Someday I’m going to make her mine.

That track is so short and, I suppose, odd, that it is hardly ever played on the radio. In fact, I have only heard it played on the radio once. That was last week by the (now he’s stop being silly like he was on Radio 1) excellent Chris Evans. Well done Mr Evans.

Not wishing to ride a complete coach and horses through copyright law, here’s a great video by a young American lady featuring “Her Majesty” on the Ukulele (twice) plus some interesting nonsense in the middle. It’s received 655,010 hits on You Tube so it must be relatively good:

(And yes – I couldn’t sleep)

Goodness knows. But the question ought to be asked. He had a spurt of popularity in the Seventies with “Dancing on a Saturday night” (see video below with our Bazza in his signature blue silk cat suit and a remarkably unmoved audience behind him) and “Do you wanna dance” (see also below – this time with the attachment of blue and white frills on his catsuit) and other hits. He’s been a producer and songwriter (“I eat cannibals”) but goodness knows what he’s doing now. I doubt whether he wears a blue silk catsuit any more, that’s for sure. Here’s the NME biog of him.

By the way, his real name is Barry Green. Barry Green – Barry Blue. Geddit?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWBUk9fBkA0&hl=en&fs=1&]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ4Tilc6wbI&hl=en&fs=1&]

Well you can slap me down with a kipper. I never expected Percy Faith’s Orchestra’s Theme from a Summer Place to resurface. And here it is in a very punchy (literally) slow-mo trailer for the newly ballsed-up Bill. You can see a wonderful film below from You Tube which actually shows dear old Percy conducting his orchestra playing said tune. Marvellous!

Talking of which, I never expected an old Gilbert O’Sullivan track Alone again, Naturally to be unearthed for Ice Age 3, but it was.

Sometimes it is a bit of a burden actually remembering these tracks the first time round….

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mERbQIvgJXs&hl=en&fs=1&]

It’s funny how you can think you heard someone saying something which they didn’t. I thought I heard Simon Mayo saying on Radio Two’ Drivetime that Real Thing’s “You to me are everything” was the first UK number one by a black band (in 1976). After rifling through my reference books and finding Emile Ford and the Checkmates, the Tams, the Miracles, the Tymes and the Stylistics (all of whom had number ones before the Real Thing) I re-listened to the show and realised he actually said “first number one single by a black British band”.

But it is a great shame that he didn’t even mention the Equals (pictured – Number One in 1968 with “Baby Come back”) . OK, they had three black members out of a total of five group members. But they were definitely British – three of them studied together at Acland Burghley School, North London and they first started rehearsing on a council estate at Hornsey Rise, North London.

And, let’s face it, “Baby come back” was a half decent record and gave Eddy Grant one of his first public outings. “You to me are everything” is best forgotten, in my humble judgment.

Michael Jackson 1958-2009 RIP