Russell Davies

day 30 - your favourite song at this time last year - M

According to Last.fm, this week last year I was in my 'listening to music beginning with a different letter of the alphabet each week' phase. And I was in week M. And my top listen was Max Richter.

I remember liking it a lot, slow and moody but not too self-indulgent. Of course, I've not listened to any since. Which is a shame but probably inevitable. There's only so much room in my life for music. As Mr Hepworth points out, it's not discovery that's the problem, it's attention. That's why I liked the listening by letter plan, and this 30 Days of Music Blogging thing. It makes you pay attention. That's got to be a good thing.

And that's it. If you have been, thanks for listening.

Anyway.

 

day 29 - a song from your childhood - 9-3

(This is something I wrote somewhere else a while ago.)

I'm not very Welsh. If I was American I'd be a Welsh-American but that's not saying very much.  My Mum's of Welsh stock but was brought up in London,  I was born and brought up in Derby, but my Dad and his family are from Pontypridd. We used to go back every Easter to visit my Gran. So my associations of Ponty are all Easter Eggs and not using the front room because it was for special. But really, the only connection I get to any Welshness is the fact that I really, really love this album (and The Incredible Plan). Music wasn't  a communal thing in our family, we didn't have much muscial taste in common, but this was something you could stick on the record player and everyone would sit, listen and laugh.  I didn't understand much of it when I was 11 or 12 (probably my peak listening time) and I still don't to be honest. But a score of 9-3 always tugs at my attention a little. I still find myself thinking Duw, It's Hard when I've had a bad day, and I've never seen anyone look as happy as that bloke on the right hand side of the cover with the pipe.

I think a lot of the joy of it is the communal atmosphere. The jokes  (and the songs) aren't that brilliant but there's so much common understanding and shared experience in the room that they sound incredibly funny and affecting. We would all go and see Max Boyce when he played in Derby and for all the cartoon Welshness, huge leeks and bad Lloyd-Webber parodies (Don't MOT my Cortina) there was a similarly rich community feeling. I suspect some actual Welsh people might feel Max isn't the sort of Welshness they'd like to hang on to, I don't know, but I like it.

Listening to it again the other day it sounds like it comes from a completely different world. A world of with a weird sort of casual racism (directed at the Japanese rugby team), a world of doctor's papers where pithead baths are a recent memory and Wales are triumphantly good at rugby.

And it makes me realise I was never destined to be cool. This came out in the late 70s. When the rest of the class were listening to The Sex Pistols I was listening to this, the King's Singers and The Wombles.

day 28 - a song that makes you feel guilty - less is more

I tell you what's made me feel guilty about this 30 Days Of Music thing. I know quite a few people who make really good music, which I listen to a lot, and I've been burbling on about Nick Heyward and The Wombles. I think a lot of the music you love is just embedded in you by circumstance, whereas you have more choice about the music you like and enjoy.

For instance, a tweet from Rhodri, a year or so back, led me to Amazon to buy his Free French CD - It's Not You, It's Me. It's brilliant stuff; intelligent, funny, tunesome pop. I listen to it a lot. You can buy all the albums as downloads, or listen to some on MySpace. Actually, this has reminded me to get the other two albums. Will do that now.

Or Paul is involved with uncharted audio who bring us the gorgeously disjointed and slippy music of LJ Kruzer (among others). Also high on the listening list.

And Andrew has made some lovely sounds as Covert, electronic and warm. Good for bedtime. He's not done any for a while though, probably too busy starting up a start-up.

And then there's Craig's mighty Scaremongers and Born In A Barn. Rocky, guitary, witty songs that are all the better because you know they're a product of grown-up friendship and fun rather than adolescent angst. I listen to that lots too.

Now I feel less guilty, though I'm sure I'm missing someone. Anyway. Back to writing about The Wombles.

day 27 - a song you wish you could play - the elements

I used to be desperate to be able to sit at a piano and sing Shipbuilding after the manner of Robert Wyatt. It seemed like it would be so cool - like Chet Baker but with added political commitment. But then, after hearing Costello doing it himself I realised how much the fragility of Mr Wyatt's rendition masks the obviousness of the lyrical conceit. I'd be embarrassed to sing it now, however beautiful the tune, it's only a few steps up from War Is Stupid or People Are People.

So, on this mythical occasion when gifted the talent to perform a song I think I'd forgo the significance and sing something useful.

day 26 - a song that you can play on an instrument - i will

I can play quite a few songs on an instrument - give me a bass and I'll play Walking On The Moon or Under Pressure. Give me some drums and I'll play The Show by Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew. But it's nothing you'd want to hear.

I've always wanted to be able to play something that I could sing along to, to actually perform rather than just accompany. Which is why I bought a ukulele a few years back and taught myself I Will. I used to play Arthur to sleep with it but I think it was more about my idea of being a good dad than him actually enjoying it, so it didn't last long. And I won the inaugural w+k london talent contest by playing it. Haven't tried it for ages though, must do that this evening.

The video above is not me.

the comfort of the comfort of things

I've just soared through The Comfort of Things. I was going to say ploughed through but that suggests it was an effort and it was no effort at all. I was going to do the blog-all-dog-eared-pages thing but it's too good to be broken up like that. It needs to be read as a whole.

This little passage from the prologue seems to encapsulate a central argument of the book and certainly reflects what I got from it. And it comforts me because I often feel at odds with the consensual sentiment in the Sunday Papers - that the most refined state of being is when we all decide to shed our possessions and live lightly and minimally, choosing only what we know to be beautiful and useful blah blah blah. I tend to think my pleasure in the dumb objects and physical things of everyday life make me deficient, this book reminds me it just makes me normal. (In this respect at least. Hurrah.)

"We live today in a world of ever more stuff - what sometimes seems a deluge of goods and shopping. We tend to assume that this has two results: that we are more superficial and more materialistic, our relationship to things coming at the expense of our relationships to people. We make such assumptions, we speak in cliches, but we have rarely tried to put these assumptions to the test. By the time you finish this book you will discover that, in many ways, the opposite is true; that possessions often remain profound and usually the closer our relationships are with objects, the closer our relationships are with people."

day 25 - a song that makes you laugh - if i had $1,000,000

I laugh at songs for a bunch of reasons - seldom because they're funny. There's a tiny keyboard stab, on the upbeat, just before the chorus on Shalamar's There It Is which always makes me laugh. I'm not sure why. I think it's because I can imagine the smile on the band's faces when the keyboard player first did it. The laughter's a mark of social/professional approval and delight - extended out through the song to me. Likewise I often smile at the middle 8 of NIck Heyward's Take That Situation, because Pino Palladino's bass flourishses get more elaborate and audacious at the end of every passage. The third one is just brilliant and you can imagine the grins going round the studio when he brings it off.

If I Had A Million Dollars doesn't do any of this. But it made me laugh originally because it's as close to genuinely funny as a 'proper song' can be - in a low-key, charming not-at-all-hip way. Now, it's got funnier because the references seem so familiar and dated. And because we've listened in a hundred happy places. And because it's one of those songs we sing in the car, laughing because we're laughing.

1989 weeks

day 24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral - last train to trancentral

Order Of Service

Entry Music:

Trouble Funk - Let's Get Small

Reading:

August 3rd 1914 Sequence: Forty Years On by Alan Bennet

Music:

Top Of The World - The Carpenters

Reading:

Opening pages - Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

Time For Silent Reflection

Music:

Womble Of The Universe - The Wombles

Reading:

List Of Common Misconceptions by Wikipedia

Music:

Last Train To Trancentral - The KLF

(The congregation will be issued with drums and asked to accompany the final piece. These drums will then be soaked in oil and set on fire in the centre of the room while the congregation silently mouth the words to Consider Yourself from Oliver)

Exit Music:

Shipping Forecast / Sailing By

day 23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding - enola gay

This is where I finally have to admit that this list isn't really for me is it? It's for someone much younger. Someone who gets happy and sad and has favourite albums. I'm a middle-aged man, I don't have emotions or certainty. I've already had songs played at my wedding.

And following this meme has certainly made me feel old. Especially doing it alongside Matt. I'm literally old enough to be his father - if I'd been more sexually successful at college. But it's been a treat to do it in parallel - a splendid glimpse into another musical imagination. It's also shown me how far I am from being a proper writer.

So, this is the song we actually did play for the first dance at our wedding. And it's for Anne. Because.

(And yes we know it's a slightly odd sentiment to associate with your marriage but loads of people have Every Breath You Take as their wedding song and that's just creepy.)