call me delilah then, I wouldn't care....

Earworms of the Week

“That’s Amore” – Dean Martin

Some earworms are elemental; they are eternal; sometimes they leave you alone for a while, but they're never very far away.  Sooner or later, possibly when you least expect it, they ambush you and then stay stuck inside your head shouting for an indeterminate period of time.  Perhaps they never really leave.  Yeah.  That.  It doesn't help that I don't fully know the lyrics to this song.  Sure, we all know that bit about the moon hitting the sky and the ting-a-ling-a-linging... but what about the gay tarantella?  What they hell is that?  Is that a thing, or am I mishearing?  Why is he a lucky fella?  Is he gay as in happy or just, you know, gay?  Looking it up has answered some of those questions, but by no means all.  I bet Dean Martin knew better than to ask.  He just sang what he was told to sing.  Lucky fella.

“Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats”

We used to have a tape of the cast recording of the musical "Cats" in my mum's car when I was growing up.  I've never seen the musical performed, but I seem to know most of the songs backwards.  Bustopher Jones was probably my favourite, but for some reason this popped into my head this week.  This is kind of a creepy theme, especially when it recurs in the score later on in the musical, and it used to freak me out a bit.  Why this week?  Who knows, although I did wake up this morning to find a contented cat asleep on my feet and a dead bird on the doorstep, weirdly intact apart from a drop of blood on its beak.  A gift, I suppose.  Thanks cat.

“You Can’t Hurry Love” – Phil Collins

I *think* this one comes from seeing someone wearing a Phil Collins t-shirt when I was out in town the other day.  I don't own any Collins, I don't think.  Figure of fun, for good reason, but he has been involved with one or two bona fide tunes (yes, I am including covers...obv... and anyway, it's this version of the song that stuck).

“Caroline Says II” – Lou Reed

"Berlin" is not Lou Reed at his most arm-wavingly catchy, is it (and this about someone being beaten up by their lover)?  Atmospheric, though.  C. has been away in the USA all week, and I've been spending my evenings sitting upstairs ploughing my way through book 3 of the "Game of Thrones" series and listening to as much back catalogue sat on my iTunes as I can.  Now playing "Horses" by Patti Smith.  Not a whole lot more upbeat, but a whole lot more fun as an album than Lou "Smiler" Reed's.  This is a great song, though, to be fair....

“War Pigs” – Black Sabbath

I was chatting to a sikh colleague of mine at work the other day, and he was revealing an unexpected past as a drummer in a rock band.  Turns out that he's a big fan of the Sabbath.
"Ah, funnily enough, I was listening to their first album only the other day.  You can't argue with Paranoid, War Pigs and Iron Man, can you?"
"Well, actually I preferred their later stuff... with Ronnie James Dio."
"You're dead to me now".

Seriously... Dio-era Sabbath?  Pff.

Shout out to the Faith No More version of this song too...which is actually where I first heard it.

“I Was Made For Loving You” – Kiss

Big, stupid, face-painted rock music FTW!

“Hate To Say I Told You So” - The Hives

Big, stupid, non-face painted, Scandinavian rock music FTW!

“On A Rope” - Rocket From the Crypt

Big, stupid, non-face painted, retro-styled, less than 3 minutes long US rock music with trumpets and stuff FTW!

“Town Called Malice” – The Jam / someone who sounded like Kate Nash

Well, I'm claiming that it's the Jam version that's stuck in my head... but the plain fact is that it was the Kate Nash-style version that put the song in there in the first place.  You know the feeling: hear a song over the PA; recognise the song as one you enjoy; realise that it's not the version you know; realise with a terrible sinking feeling that it's being butchered by someone who sounds like Kate Nash.  Argh.

“Unknown Soldier” – the Doors

Another result of my "listen to more music from the depths of iTunes as I read" campaign.  A good one, I'm sure you'll agree.  Listening to the Doors (and to a lesser extent listening to Lou Reed, especially the "New York" album) reminds me of spending a lot of time with a guy at school who I came to dislike quite a lot as we got older.  Still, we had some good times listening to songs like this when we should have been studying.

“Sim Sala Bim” – Fleet Foxes

Love, love, love the new album ("Helplessness Blues") by the Fleet Foxes.  Of course, as it's more or less more of the same as on their debut, I suppose I was always going to.  Perhaps it's the Medieval Historian in me, but I love the travelling troubadour/wandering minstrel stylings of the Fleet Foxes.  Oh, and their harmonies.  Especially their harmonies.  They sound like no one else and are instantly recongnisable.  It's a fantastic album, and I've been listening to it more than anything else over the last couple of weeks.  All the songs are good, but this is the one that's caught my ear the most.... I think it's the way the phrase "sim sala bim" sounds so evocative and conjures up (appropriately, given its origin as a nonsense magic word like "abracadabra") images of magic and the far east.  Beautiful song.  Very much looking forward to seeing the band again at Glastonbury.

...and that's your lot.

Well, nearly.

I leave you with this:

“For over two decades, Kenobi has been the Jedi rebellion’s leader and symbol,” the Lord of the Sith said in a statement broadcast across the galaxy via HoloNet. “The death of Kenobi marks the most significant achievement to date in our empire’s effort to defeat the rebel alliance. But his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that the rebellion will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.”

Geeks get something of a bad name, but this is the funniest riff on the death of Osama Bin Laden I have yet seen.  Check out some of the comments too... as "Yoda" says, "Until body I see, belive it I will not".

Have a good weekend, y'all.