BAIBS Tuesday 4/12/12

Bought a belt today. I know! What with last week's gold, could be orange, tie I'm properly accessorising. Usual shopping tactic: Go to belt shop, buy belt. Not so easy. Who would've thought that belts had become the porn of the fashion world. Hid out of sight or on a top shelf. Plenty of spotty 17 year olds in BHS plucking up the courage to ask a shop assistant for a 34" black leather in a brown paper bag. This is why internet shopping's so popular. No awkward lurking. Finally found the belts hiding under an escalator. £10!! For a belt. Again, this is when I need the 'Belts In All Sizes That Will Fit Through The Loops On Your Suit Trousers And Are Cheap Shop.' Shop number two. Belts next to the tartan slippers in plain view of the queue for the lift. Held my head high and shamelessly picked my £2.50 belt. I'm too old to lurk.

So the news is overloaded today with news that Kate (Middleton just in case you've luckily missed the news) is pregnant. My excitement cannot be measured. Honestly. 0.0 on whatever the equivalent of the Richter Scale is for excitement. Thousands of people get pregnant every day. Er, obviously I mean thousands of women get pregnant every day. If men were the child bearers the planet would still belong to the fish. I know she's a royal but so what is what comes to my mind. I have to admit to being a huge hypocrite when it comes to the royals.

Capital R for royals I've just been told.

Get bent.

I'm not a royalist at all and don't see what purpose they serve. If men were the child bearers it would be what porpoise do they serve. Sorry. Tangents. But I love the whole pomp and pageantry of royal occasions. I do think we do it better than any other nation and it gives me a sense of national pride. Think I'm a lapsed Socialist. I know the argument is the whole tourism thing but I truly fail to see what difference having a royal family makes to people visiting the UK. They don't come to see the Queen! I'm off to play some Pistols and cleanse my soul.

Had, let's call it, a discussion this morning with a friend about a local band who I often wax lyrical about. He says he likes their tunes, and image and stage presence but thinks their lyrics are lacking so he'll never be a fan. My argument, primarily, was that their lyrics are way better than some out there but also they got away with it because of the quality of the songs, arrangements, live performances etc. Which leads to the old debate: Do you go for lyrics or tunes? I think songwriting is a gift. I cant write a tune or a decent lyric. I've written 2 lyrics in my life. One contained the line 'I'm still not heard as she runs wild with life's flag unfurled.'

I think we can all agree that just from that one line I should never be allowed to attempt lyric writing ever again. My other lyric was co-written with one of my oldest friends, Nigel Smith, and I should point out was made up on the spot one very drunken night in a park in Golder's Green. It contained this gem: 'I'm made out of cheese, you get honey from bees, Ken Barlow hugs trees, I've got brie for my knees cos I'm made out of cheese.' Nigel's a very talented songwriter. Think I dragged him down to my level on that one.

I've tangented again. My point is writing lyrics isn't easy. Listeners will know how much I love Bruce Springsteen. But the man who penned 'Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack. I went out for a ride and I never came back' and 'The screen door slams, Mary's dress sways. Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.' also wrote 'Surprise, surprise, surprise, yeah, surprise, surprise, surprise. Well surprise, surprise, come on open your eyes.' You can guess the next line! Even the best don't always get it right.

My friend, Richard Pierce, calls one of our greatest lyricists, Billy Bragg, a poet and I'm inclined to agree. 'And then it happened, she cut her hair and I stopped loving her.', 'If you've got a black list I want to be on it.' and 'The revolution is just a t-shirt away' are pure genius. (Tomorrow we'll do politics and music).

The one difference in the songs I've mentioned though (and I'm getting to my point finally) is that they are all great tunes apart from Bruce's Surprise, Surprise so it stands out as a particularly bad song. Had it been a good tune he would've got away with it. Duran Duran's Please, Please Tell Me Now has a shocking lyric including possibly the worst line ever, 'You're about as easy as a nuclear war.' but it got to No.1.

So in conclusion as much as I love a great lyric you can hide a poor lyric in a great tune but not vice versa. It's the tune we hear first.

Think I've waffled enough. There's prawn crackers to be ate and blue suede minsters to fawn over. Trust me on this.

Laters

SS

Playlist Tuesday 4/12/12

Dancing Song - Little Comets

Rollercoaster - The Cave Toads

Bubbles - Biffy Clyro

Like A Dancer - The Enemy

VPL - Gbone

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love

Tick Tick Boom - The Hives

Antarctica - Sound Of Guns

Outsiders - Franz Ferdinand

Another Love - Tom Odell

The Magnificent 7 - Bad Manners

Seven Seas - Echo and the Bunnymen

Sheena Is A Punk Rocker - The Ramones

If I Ever Stray - Frank Turner

How It Ended - The Drums

Men's Needs - The Cribs

Pictures Of You - The Cure

Hold On - Don Broco

Drop Dead Gorgeous - Republica

Trash - Suede

Loaded - Primal Scream

I Always Knew - The Vaccines

Fairytale Of New York - The Pogues

Pelican - Maccabees

Bassline - Reverend and the Makers

Lightning Bolt - Jake Bugg

Ceremony - New Order

Wrecking Ball - Bruce Springsteen

Lead The Way - The 48ks

After Hours - We Are Scientists

We No Who U R - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Dead Wrong - Hanni El Khatib

Sexuality - Billy Bragg

Mary - The Adulescents UK

Love Is A Wonderful Colour - The Icicle Works

Wouldn't It Be Nice - The Beach Boys

Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple

Ho Hey - The Lumineers

Just Like Honey - The Jesus and Mary Chain

Egyptian Reggae - Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers