Russell Davies

Day 30 - Favourite Song This Time Last Year - Saturday Nite

According to Last.fm the track I listened to most this week last year was Saturday Nite by Earth, Wind & Fire. I suspect that's because Daft Punk were all over the place and I wanted a taste of the real thing. (Though I may be misremembering.)

And, there and then, we're done. 30 days over. I enjoyed this, mostly because of reading along to other selections. Alice, Greg, Frances, Matt and Mark have all written about music in a way that makes me like it - and them - more. (Though I'm worried about Mark wanting to drive me into the sea. It's the kind of thing he would actually do.)

And huge thanks to Matt for getting us all going again.

More blogging!

 

 

Day 29 - Song From Your Childhood - Zadok The Priest

If I have a skill, something at which I'm uniquely gifted, it's getting out of things. It developed, I suppose, because of my mother's determination that I should get into things.

In order to get out of scouts I became a chorister at Derby Cathedral. We were, reputedly, the worst cathedral choir in the country but we used to get paid, which was better than scouts. The best bits were doing plainsong on a Thursday evening and the annual bash through Zadok The Priest with a full orchestra.

Eventually I got out of the choir by joining a brass band.

Day 28 - Song That Makes You Feel Guilty - The Work Comes First

Way back in the last century I made a bunch of songs about the place I worked, built out of sounds submitted by the people who worked there. You can read the whole saga here. It pops up in my shuffle every now and then and I wish this wasn't the only musical project I'd ever actually finished. It's sort of interesting, but it's not the best I can do. That makes me feel guilty.

I still quite like how odd and out of tune this one is and it features my friend David - and I feel guilty about not having talked to him for years. And I like this one - and ditto it features Jed. This has a vague Disintegration Loops vibe. This one's a bit motorik. And this is The Work Comes First.

Day 27 - A Song You Wish You Could Play - Boneshaker

In my head I can actually do this, I just need a couple of weeks off work to polish up the details.

Day 26 - Song You Can Play On An Instrument - That Sinking Feeling

I can play this, on the keyboards. Look - that's me playing it. On Razzamatazz, 30 years ago.

Day 25 - Song That Makes You Laugh - Ill Wind

Flanders and Swann again. I always laugh at this. Two bits in particular:

I love the internal rhyme in "I bet you a quid somebody did" and the sudden drop into a low. growly simile "It had vanished away like the dew in the morn".

One of the rarest of things - a funny song that's both funny and a song.

 

Day 24 - Song To Play At Your Funeral - Slow Train

Well, let's assume we want to get people blubbing. That'd be a fitting tribute to a man of my greatness. But let's also assume they might need a nudge given I'm a grumpy git.

This'll do it. The most poignant song ever. Laden with nostalgia when it was written 50 years ago. Sung, simply and clearly by unaccompanied voices redolent with the atmosphere of cathedrals and cloisters, many names from the Midlands of my youth, and a bit of vinyl crackle thrown-in.

Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Millers Dale for Tideswell. Kirby Muxloe. Beautiful.

Day 23 - Song You Want To Play At Your Wedding - Hero Theme

This decision has already gone, many blissful years ago. Nothing at the registry office, Enola Gay for the first dance, Love Train at midnight.

But, if this was a different question - what piece of music would you like to enter to, like you were a bride, or a darts professional? This would be it. Fanfare and march in one. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...

Day 22 - Song You Listen To When You're Sad - I Can See Clearly Now

I grew up in the first age of associative TV branding. Ad agencies had learned to create densely packed affinity-bombs and were still able to stick them in front of you - whatever screen you looked at. And because these were new, fresh techniques we hadn't developed appropriate anti-viral remedies.

Thus BBH were able to take all the freshly-minted American cues of early 80s movies, of James Dean, of American Grafitti, of Motown and pack them into the a brown-star cliche package like Launderette. It looks so thin and obvious now. Then it was like a youth culture cluster weapon. Agencies had a new power, they could take a whole cultural landscape boil it down to 55 seconds and associate it with something you could buy.

You can't really do that any more. We're all onto it, we don't much care and every culture's already been strip-mined.

The one that hit me most was this Nescafe ad. Hook, line and sinker. It's even got the shipping forecast.

I've never drunk Nescafe, but I've got one of those water-boiling element things in the car and if I ever want to do being sad in a well-lit way, this is the soundtrack.

Day 21 - Song I Listen To When I'm Happy - Well Did You Evah!

I keep trying to get Arthur to watch High Society but he consistently refuses. I don't really mind about most of it, I just want him to watch this scene and know this song - but he needs all the context about why it's so good.  The rivalry between Frank and Bing, Frank being a boozer, Bing being all laid-back, the jokes about singing styles ("you must be one of the newer fellas"), all married to Cole Porter cleverness, properly classy, over-the-top Hollywood glamour and sweeping genius arrangements. This makes me happy.

Have you heard? it's in the stars, next July we collide with Mars.