spare the darkness, let it never fade away...

--
Earworms of the Week

> "Stone Cold Dead in the Market" - Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan
(I can't find Ella's version online, but here's someone else doing it, and I'm sure you get the general idea)

A remarkably cheerful and light-hearted song about a battered wife murdering her husband with a frying pan. Not the usual kind of material for a comedy song, I grant you, but it's really very good. I believe it is essential that this song is sung in the most appalling cod-Jamaican accent. It might even be law. If you find yourself singing this song to yourself next week, you have to do the accent. That's all there is to it.

> "Mo Money, Mo Problems" - Notorious B.I.G.

I loathe this song. I hate the whole stupid bling-bling sean 'puffy' combes thing anyway, but I particularly hate this song. There is absolutely nothing appealing to me about a fat, dead guy bragging about how much money he has and how attractive he is to women. Nothing. So... naturally I was quite alarmed to find this song in my head. I haven't even heard it in about a year. Where's the justice in that?

> "Rule The World" - Take That

The theme song to "Stardust", which we went to go and see last weekend. The film itself is okay -- the book is a lot better -- but this is another in the long line of really very good Gary Barlow songs. I liked it when I first heard it, but I think it's been growing on me and I may be about to own my first ever song by Take That. You'd have got good odds on that a decade ago.

> Cantina Band theme - Star Wars OST

Well, do I need to explain? It's probably always playing somewhere in my head, along with the Twentieth Century Fox fanfare, but I think it popped up this week because I saw a bit of footage on the telly of Ewan McGregor visiting the site of the Tatooine set in Tunisia.... Uncle Owen's farm and ... crucially... they popped into a bar too. In spite of the fact that this was clearly quite a tourist spot and there was a massive poster of McGregor as Obi Wan Kenobi on the wall, no one appeared to recognise him. He was actually wearing a t-shirt with his name printed on the back too.... but not a peep.

I imagine he was probably quite relieved. You know what Star Wars fans are like....

> "Salut Chantal" - Stefie Shock

asta was good enough to send me a copy of her shuffleathon CD and this is sitting pretty at track 3. It's in French, but as it's a CD worth of Canadian music, I imagine that they must be Québécois. In spite of having a French wife, I haven't really heard an awful lot of French rock music (or at least, rock music performed in French). French rock bands tend to perform in English if they have any real desire to be successful. I have to say though, it works quite well. It does here, anyway.

> "More Than a Feeling" - Boston

We put this on in the car on the drive back from the Foo Fighters gig. If Led Zeppelin taught him how to rock, Boston taught Dave Grohl everything he knows about melody. This is a brilliant record.

> "Gone Again" - Patti Smith

JoeinVegas kindly sent me a copy of the Great Grape Ape's shuffleathon and this is the opener. I like a bit of Patti Smith. She's clearly absolutely bonkers mad in the head, but she's a proper icon and a bit of a genius. I think this is a relatively recent number, but it's strongly reminiscent of her "Horses" heyday, and as such is absolutely brilliant. Wild eyes though. And scary hair.

> "When The Levee Breaks" - Led Zeppelin

As part of Zane Lowe's classic album thing that he's been doing, on Thursday night they played Led Zeppelin IV in its entirety on the radio. To be honest I'm a tiny bit bored by "Stairway...", but I don't think I'll ever get bored of Bonzo's monumental drumming on this track.

> "This is a Call" / "Everlong" - Foo Fighters

Well, I've been listening to the Foos pretty much non-stop since the gig on Tuesday night, so it's hardly surprising that a couple of their songs have sneaked onto the list. I prefer it when he rocks, but he's got a surprising ear for a melody as well. I was literally singing "This is a Call" to myself all day yesterday.... I just couldn't shake it out of my head. Thank God it's a good song. "Everlong' is supposedly the Foos best song. Well, I don't know about that, but I do know that it works well on record with the backing of the band and a bit of thrashy guitar going on, but it also works very well with just Dave Grohl doing it. I think that's probably a sign of a good song. Good band.

> "The Living Daylights" - A-Ha

This was an accident waiting to happen. When I plug my iPod nano into my car, it starts to play the first song by the first artist on it in alphabetical order.... and so it is that every single time I get into my car, I listen to at least the first thirty seconds of this song as I cue up another track. I suppose I should be grateful really, it could be a whole lot worse a song than this one....

Right. I'd best get myself off to Birmingham airport to rescue my wife... the bag containing her car keys hasn't turned up and she wants rescuing.

The things we do for love.

[cue earworm]

Next week: asta
The week after: Ben

Earworm Podcast are BACK!

(ah, apparently the bag turned up on the next flight. I'll be opening that bottle of wine then....)