we're making our own way out....

Earworms of the Week

"California Uber Alles" - Dead Kennedys

See below.  Still a magnificent record, mind.  That opening is both menacing and a weapons grade earworm.

"Alouette"

"Alouette" is the french word for skylark, apparently, and the song itself is about plucking the feathers off one of these lovely little birds.  In the lyrics, the singer is informing the bird that they will pluck its head, nose, eyes and wings and then tail.

Alouette, gentille Alouette (Skylark, nice skylark)
Alouette, je te plumerai (Skylark, I shall pluck you)
Je te plumerai la tête (I shall pluck your head)
Je te plumerai la tête (I shall pluck your head)
Et la tête (and your head)
Et la tête (and your head)
Alouette (Skylark)
Alouette(Skylark)
O-o-o-oh

And this is a song that we actively encourage our children to sing.

French Canadians are weird.

*update*  I've been reminded why this song was in my head: it's all down to GJ, who also knew what the song was describing.  Credit where credit is due, eh?  I think it's the Mensa anthem.... along with the Okey-Cokey, obviously.  Those in the know - Mensa members foremost among them - all realise that the okey-cokey IS what it's all about.  Sir Clive Sinclair told them.  Very good GJ.  As you were.

Theme from Bergerac

Ah, why aren't there more tv programmes about Jersey-based detectives with ambiguous relationships with jewel thieves and rich friends called Charlie Hungerford?  Forget Midsomer, John Nettles should be making more of these.  Great electric guitar work with French stylings around the edges.  Do you see what they did there?  Channel Islands?  France?  Nice.  Mainly inspired by the fact that we call one of our colleagues "Bergerac" as he looks a little like a fat John Nettles.  Completely coincidentally, a still from the credits subsequently appeared as a question in the pub quiz too, which was nice....

"Heart of Glass" - Blondie (jazz version)

Not the traditional version, you understand, but a jazz version of my own composition.  I'm not quite as pleased with this as I was with the Reggae Police version of "Roxanne" ("you don't have to put on de red light").  Mind you, as the reggae Police brought the rhinos out to play WITHOUT FAIL whenever we sung it in Etosha National Park in Namibia, that's hardly surprising.  I have to be quite careful how I use it in the UK.  I'm not sure a whacking great big rhino would be all that welcome in Market Square in the middle of Nottingham.

"I Wanna Be Like You" - King Louie

I think that this one springs from either the little mouth trumpet solo that King Louie does in the middle of this song, of the bit where Balloo goes "I'm gone man, solid gone" and keeps doing a little scat even after everyone else has stopped..... I think I was on a bit of a scat jazz theme this week.  Mmmmm.  Nice.

"Wannabe" - Spice Girls

Nearly 15 years after my spell working in HMV York and an enforced period of listening to this album, over and over again FOR WEEKS AND WEEKS, I can still pretty much remember every word.  Imagine my delight when this popped into my head.  Gah!  A friend of a friend of mine used to date Mel C, as it happens.  Apparently they used to ask him if he fancied a beer after their game of footie, and he used to make his excuses and say that he had to go to a movie premiere with the missus.  No idea if they're still together, but the thought used to make me chuckle.  She was my favourite.  Not in THAT sense, but because she seemed nice.... perhaps only relative to the others, but still.

"Cars" - Gary Newman

Best keyboard riff ever?  I don't even like cars much and I enjoy this song.  I also quite like Top Gear, although I do think that it's probably jumped the shark a bit recently, and the scripting of those stunts is becoming ever more obvious.  The car stuff I can take or leave, obviously.  Nor did I care who the Stig was.  James May is my favourite there, probably.  He's the one I'd have a beer with, anyway.

"End of The Century" - Blur

I think that Blur's performance on the Pyramid Stage a couple of years ago was the best I have seen in all my years of attending the Glastonbury Festival: it was both emotionally draining and intensely satisfying.  They are a band I've loved for years, but had never actually got around to seeing live.  They were amazing.  "Tender" is probably the song that stays the longest in my memory from that night, but this little corker - which I hadn't listened to in ages - was also a real standout.  It seems ridiculous now that Blur were ever compared with Oasis.  There is no way in a million years that the Gallaghers could ever come up with something as interesting as this.  No way.

"Neat Little Rows" - Elbow

The jury is still out on the new album for me, but history tells me that Elbow albums are growers, and this album is growing on me slowly.  "Leaders of the Free World" is still my favourite though.

"Give It All Back" / "L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N" - Noah & the Whale

... on the other hand, I just can't stop listening to the new Noah & the Whale album.  I'm hopeful of getting my hands on a couple of tickets to their gig in Nottingham in 6 weeks or so, but in the meantime I seem to be putting on the album every time I get a spare minute.  "Give It All Back" is a slightly gauche song about a band that Charlie Fink formed when he was still at school.  It's short and a bit awkward, and I'm not entirely sure why I love it so much, but I really do.  "L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N" is a belter though; a bona fide classic.  I can't stop listening to it.

and that's your lot.  I've a weekend of sleeping, running and swimming in front of me, so I'm going to get right on with that (well, I took my boss out for a run at lunchtime and had a swimming lesson this evening, so mostly I'm just going to be flopping out in front of the telly with a beer, but you know what I mean).

Have a good weekend, y'all.