159 STGOOBF - School Daze (Part 3)

Intro

Folk Arc (Part 1)

Folk Arc (Part 2)

School Daze (Part 1)

School Daze (Part 2)

Big Audio Dynamite II - The Globe

What a great song to finally get back into the list on! The Globe is the title track of Big Audio Dynamite II's 1991 effort, which was the second album released with the suffix 'II' in the band's name, the addition of which was to recognise the change in personnel from Big Audio Dynamite, and by the release of The Globe only Mick Jones remained from the original lineup. Mick Jones was (obviously) also in The Clash (on guitar and vocals), which (no brackets this time) obviously also featured Joe Strummer, who was temporarily in The Pogues and is mentioned in a song by The Hold Steady (we'll be hearing from them later). In addition, The Globe samples a Clash song written by Mick Jones - Should I Stay or Should I Go.

Every time I hear this song I think back to the time at which I really got into it, when I was living with my uncle temporarily because my father was the Administrator of Christmas Island (which has obviously been in the press a fair bit of recent years due to issues of refugee detention), a role which included marrying people. Performing the ceremony that is, not actually getting married.

Falling Joys - Lock It

You know, I only just found out right now that the Falling Joys were from Canberra, so this process has been as educational for me as it has for you! You can watch the video of this (to quote JJJ) 'magical alterna-hit' here, and the fact that the You Tube clip is from rage is awesome, because even if I don't watch it much any more I sure used to back in the 80s and 90s when the Falling Joys existed.

Other than that I don't really have too much to say about this song to be honest, but I do remember a friend from high school being a particularly big fan because of the line 'Christ I really like you...' at the end of the second stanza; she felt it really captured the moment of clarity when all of a sudden you realise you're head over heels for someone, and it's that great mix of hope and excitement and happiness, with just a dash of fear. At least based on my memory that's what I assume she meant, that is I assume we were able to feel like that, have such experiences and such emotions as school children, obviously we've now had all potential for real joy mercilessly ripped from our hearts and souls by the flagitious reality of adult life in modern society...

Guns n' Roses - Don't Cry (Original Lyrics)

There were two version of Don't Cry released by Guns n' Roses on their studio albums, the version I include here on Use Your Illusion I, and a version with alternative lyrics on Use Your Illusion II; a third version was not on any albums but appeared on the Don't Cry single.

Now, why would I choose this Guns n' Roses song for the 159 STGOOBF you may ask, above all of their other more notable efforts? Well, really it's a combination of two factors, neither of which would necessarily be looked upon favourably had this list been complied under the auspices of serious musical criticism, but given the drivel I've produced about these songs so far I'm sure that's hardly a surprise.

The first reason is another place/time memory inevitably triggered by hearing this song, the place being a holiday house in Shoreham (Victoria), at which I spent many incredibly enjoyable fortnights over the summers of my childhood, and the time being a particular one of those fortnights, in the summer of 1991/92, which also happened to be smack bang in the middle of my short, but sweet, first real relationship.

The second (and no doubt to the detriment of my romantic reputation almost certainly the stronger) reason is the video, not only because it featured Stephanie Seymour (and other similarly attractive females) in a range of figure hugging singlets, sweaters and bodysuits, showing just enough promise of what lay beneath to bring any reasonable adolescent male back for more, but, and this was the real clincher, because in the video Axl Rose wears a t-shirt which I owned, giving me (at least on my scale) a massive amount of cool points, a t-shirt of a band, and a band which will feature in the next installment of 159 STGOOBF. I can't find a great version of the video, the best I could do is here.

Neutral Milk Hotel Footage - Awesome!

Mumford & Sons

This has just convinced me I need to go to St Jerome's next year.

Awesome.

159 STGOOBF

I'm not going to go and edit all of the times I've used 158 so far, but the list has expanded to now contain 159 pieces of musical awesomeness, and I'll try to describe it thusly going forwards.

This isn't a song I've only just got into, but one which somehow got lost from my iPod and so wasn't picked up in the original list creation process.

Shame on me.

Give me your eyes, I need sunshine

Certainly only one of these started the night full, but they all ended up at the same level.

If I could take the fire out from the wire I'd share a life and you'd share a life.

Interesting?

158 STGOOBF - School Daze (Part 2)

Intro

Folk Arc (Part 1)

Folk Arc (Part 2)

School Daze (Part 1)

R.E.M. - Stand

What do I have to say about this song, other than 104.7? And that's not some obscure reference to the number of times I listened to it on repeat, it's the assigned nominal centre frequency of the Canberra radio station with which I associate this song. Quite possibly before JJJ's launch in the nation's capital, and certainly before my migration to 101.5 (or the frequency JJJ launched on in Canberra, which was something other than 101.5), I was an enthusiastic listener to, and often voter in, FM104's 'hot eight at 8', a (week)nightly compilation this song certainly made a Stand in. (158 bad puns TGOOBF).

It's not the only entry in the 158 STGOOBF which I associate with FM104, but its partner in crime will come later, so I'll just close here by pointing out that each of the last two choruses moving up a major second is an example of truck driver's gear change and including a link to this live version.

Pink Floyd - The Gunner's Dream

I was in Merbein on the weekend, and whilst there I saw a photo of my great-great-great-grandmother, which I think is pretty cool. Also in Merbein was my uncle, who I lived with for a couple of periods of a couple of weeks towards the end of my secondary schooling, and listening to Pink Floyd's The Final Cut, the album upon which this song appears, always brings back strong memories of living with my uncle, and hot dogs, and raspberry/blueberry pie. Go figure.

The Final Cut was the last Pink Floyd album including Roger Waters, like a number of their other albums is best appreciated as a whole rather than as a sum of its parts, and features a fair old whack of holophonic sound effects.

And speaking of sound effects, I got into this album via a mate at school who was regularly in charge of sound for the school's dramatic productions, and used bits of The Final Cut for a production I also worked on. A few years ago I stumbled upon this particular mate's blog when it was the second result returned in Google to a search for 'margarita mix', as you do.

Here's the song's music video.

158 STGOOBF - School Daze Part 1

Intro

Folk Arc (Part 1)

Folk Arc (Part 2)

Eric Clapton - Wonderful Tonight

This song was written by Eric Clapton for Pattie Boyd in 1976. As well as being married to Eric Clapton, Pattie Boyd was married to George Harrison, had an affair with Ronnie Wood, and turned down several years worth of advances from from Mick Jagger - that's some heavy hitting musical success in the participants of your love life right there!

My primary association with this song is a locational one, lying on the lounge room floor of my house listening to the song over and over again whilst drifting in and out of consciousness one day towards the end of 1990. I wasn't hung over (being only 16 and not turning to drink till a number of years later), but I had had a very late night the night before at my high school's 'Spectacular' (annual talent show), in which I'm sure I'd been involved, though I can't remember precisely how. One of the musical acts in that year's Spectacular had been a band performing Wonderful Tonight, a song I hadn't heard previously, but which my brother owned on CD, much to the appreciation of my sleep deprived brain.

My other distinct memory from that Spectacular (obviously significantly more distinct that the details of my involvement) occurred during a rehearsal, when the singer of one of the musical acts (maybe, maybe not, the same group of kiddies who performed Wonderful Tonight, again a detail which has been lost over time) knocked over the microphone he was singing into, but was so drunk, stoned or otherwise chemically altered that he didn't notice and continued singing, somewhat uselessly given the amplification of the band's instruments. This particular memory has stuck with me, I assume, for two reasons; first, due to the shock to my rather straight-laced (even more so than nowadays) system from seeing an (underage) peer so obviously whacked off his head on goofballs during the middle of the day at a school function, and secondly due to the surprising reaction to this obvious display of offchopedness by the teacher in attendance which was, it seemed at the time, to do absolutely nothing.

The Doors - Hello, I Love You

Another song with a locational connection - the inside of my parents' mid 70's red Volvo ('The Brick', which I'd like to point out was not the same Volvo mentioned here), on the road between our house and a local shopping center which at one point of the halcyon days that were the late 80s and early 90s had not one, but two video game arcades, of which my brother and I were frequent and enthusiastic customers.

Street Fighter II, Bubble Bobble (my personal favourite), Double Dragon, Midnight Resistance, Cabal, Cadash, WWF Superstars, and from the pinball side Pin*Bot are the games from those particular pinny arcades which immediately spring to mind, bringing with them many very happy memories indeed.

But why this song by The Doors you might ask? Well, to be honest I think a real contributor was the fact that at only 2:15 we (excursions in The Brick to empty our pockets of 20c pieces began before I had a licence, so my brother was driving) could get through the whole song on the way to the shops. Not that the rest of the offerings on Waiting For The Sun are operatic in length, but at 4:26 we weren't guaranteed to get through my brother's chosen track, Five To One.

Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet

It's strange, the things we remember (or at least the things I remember). I remember that in February of 1991, on a day I didn't go to school because I was sick (though probably not so sick I couldn't have made it through the day at school), I went to the post office at the set of shops mentioned in the Hello, I Love You blurb above, to post the first mix tape I ever made to a girl.

I know that tape had just four songs on it, and that three of those songs were the first three songs in this post, but for the life of me I can't remember what the fourth song was, which makes me just a tiny bit sad.

I do also have some other memories of Romeo and Juliet which I'm not going to detail here, but suffice it to say they make me anything but sad, and also make me sincerely hope that the days of making mix tapes are not all behind me.

Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me)

This song, from the seminal 1980s teen film The Breakfast Club was not written by Simple Minds, and they were not the first choice artist to perform it, with Brian Ferry and Billy Idol both rejecting the song (though Billy Idol did include a version of the song on the 2001 greatest hits compilation Greatest Hits). I'm often a big fan of cover versions, but I've got to say the Billy Idol version doesn't quite do it for me - feel free to form your own opinion here.

There's definitely an extent to which it's the movie as well as this song I'm GOOBF here, and I'm certainly not alone in the film having an important place in my heart, Matt Groening took Bart Simpson's 'eat my shorts' catchphrase and the character name of Futurama's Bender from the movie, and it's also been referenced in other such important TV shows as Family Guy and Degrassi: The Next Generation.

The Pixies - Wave of Mutilation [UK Surf]

With a release date of 1990, Pump Up The Volume, though less critically successful and with less direct influence on the careers of its cast, the genre of film from which it's drawn, or popular culture of the years following its release, had a greater personal impact on me than The Breakfast Club, (in fact I'd go so far as to describe it as the iconic film of my teenage years, and in fact I've done that once before here), and as a film about a pirate radio station it's not surprising a significant portion of that influence was musical.

This was the first soundtrack I ever bought, and features some great songs including Concrete Blonde covering Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows (both versions of which appear in the film, and it's fair to say this isn't the last mention we'll hear of Leoanard Cohen in the 158 STGOOBF). The singer in Concrete Blonde is (rather than was, I think they reformed a few years ago) Johnette Naolitano, and I only found out that's how her first name is spelt in the process of writing this post, which is knowledge which would have stopped me wondering, when in the USA in 2003, if she'd become Governor of Airzona (but that's Janet Napolitano, now Secretary of Homeland Security).

Wave of Multilation is certainly my favourite song on the album however, and I prefer this version to the original, more upbeat recording from The Pixies excellent third album Dolittle. In JJJ's Hottest 100 Of All Time there was one song by The Pixies, Surfer Rosa's Where Is My Mind? which is another awesome song, and in fact there's probably an infinite number of alternative universes in which it's my favourite song by The Pixies. Not this universe but.

I haven't cooked popcorn in oil for a very long time, and you can listen to a partial cover of the song by Beck here.