keep keep on running....

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Earworms of the Week

> "Killing in the Name" - Rage Against the Machine

For some reason, this has kept popping up this week, and I'm almost almost always delighted to hear it. It's a particularly good track to hear when swimming, actually. It's certainly more likely to get me moving a little faster than all the Radiohead that keeps popping up, anyway. What a brilliant band RATM were. Sure, they're not terribly subtle about their political statements (although those orange boilersuits were great), but you surely have to admire their passion. And the sixteen times that Zack de la Rocha tells us, with varying degrees of intensity, that "fuck you I won't do what you tell me". There's one hell of a "motherfucker" at the end there too. Huh. Come on. Great record.

> "People Help the People" - Cherry Ghost

"Thirst for Romance" was one of my favourite albums of 2007, but I have to say that I haven't listened to it an enormous amount over the last few months. This was the song that first caught my attention, and when this popped up on my iPod when I was out running the other day, it's such a great song that it prompted me to dig out the album again. Still sounds pretty good to me.

> "Holiday" - Madonna

Not a record that I would say I am especially fond of (to put it mildly), but they keep playing at the gym, so what can I do? To be honest, I'm mainly thankful that this is the one that stuck and not the other song that they keep playing.... Club Tropicana.

> "The Needle and the Damage Done" - Neil Young
> "Heroin" - Velvet Underground

Well, there's no prizes for guessing where these two came from. To be fair, if you have to be thinking about songs related to injecting yourself, you could do an awful lot worse than these two. Very different songs, for sure, but both are outstanding.... I saw the Velvet Underground perform this song at Glastonbury in 1993 (just about, as I walked back to my tent having seen Suede).... perhaps I'll be lucky enough to see Neil Young playing perform this at Glastonbury this year. I'm not holding my breath though, cantankerous old sod.

> "Hero" - Enrique Iglesias

This is just bloody wrong. I've no idea where it came from, and I simply wish that it would go away. Soon.

> "No You Girls" - Franz Ferdinand

"Ulysses" did absolutely nothing for me, so I wasn't really holding out much hope for the album. The first couple of plays seemed to confirm my opinion that they'd stuffed up, but... you know what? It's really grown on me, and I think one of the keys has been this song. I'm not saying it's genius or anything, or even that it's anywhere near as good as some of their other stuff, but I like it.

> "All Nightmare Long" - Metallica

"Death Magnetic" just keeps getting better and better the more I listen to it. It's a real struggle when I go out running not to just default to this album now, because I know that I run like the hounds of hell when I'm listening to this. It's an absolutely massive album. I love "That Was Just Your Life", "Cyanide", and "Broken, Beat and Scarred", but this is my current favourite. Nobody growls like James Hetfield.

> "Make Your Own Kind of Music" - Mama Cass

Memorably used in an early series of "Lost", a programme that I gave up on a couple of years ago. C., however, still watches it religiously. Judging from an episode that I sat and watched earlier this week, I can't say that I'm especially sorry to have given up on it. Time travel? Eh? Life's too short. And don't get me started on "Heroes", either. This remains a great song, however.

> "Touch Too Much" - AC/DC

You have to love AC/DC. They're not the cleverest band in the world - not by a long shot. Their songs essentially tell stories of sexually voracious women, heavy drinking and a lot of shagging. They have one amazing riff, which they stole from the blues.... but what a brilliant band they are. This song is from "Highway to Hell", and it basically conforms to type: it's about a woman who likes to shag and it has a chorus that other bands would die for. And the lyrics? Ah, the lyrics:

"She had the face of an angel
Smiling with sin
The body of Venus with arms"

The body of Venus with arms? That's brilliant!

Judging by the setlist tweeted by @mrmarkreed, it sounds like their current live show is worth seeing too.

> "Farewell to the Fairground" - White Lies

I wasn't sure about this lot initially, but almost in spite of myself, I've found that I really like the album. This song (which I think is their current single) has lodged itself into my head simply because of the choppy guitar riffs. When it pops up on my iPod when I'm running, I simply cannot resist doing a bit of air guitar. I look a twat when I'm out in my lyrca at the best of times, but sweaty, wearing lycra and playing air guitar? Yes, quite.

Right. Enough.

Have a good weekend y'all, and stay classy.