With the holidays
receding into the ether, I was back on the commuter train this morning, a bit
of a jolt but still with the iPod for company, now increased in capacity to 15,727
songs as a result of Christmas additions that included a 4-CD Jimi Hendrix box set,
the 5-CD Elvis in the seventies collection, which I’d been meaning to investigate
for ages, a couple of The War On Drugs albums and, Sam’s left-field choice for
me, an album called The Campfire Headphase
by The Boards Of Canada, a Scottish electro-
So with 15,000+ songs in the barrel, anything
can happen when I switch on shuffle and first up this morning was Creedence
Clearwater Revival’s unnecessarily long version of ‘I Heard It Through The
Grapevine’, not my favourite CCR track by any means but it wiled away 10 or
more minutes while I chuckled over Prince Andrew getting into hot water over
some sexual indiscretion which has been ‘angrily denied’ by Palace officials.
As the late great Mandy Rice-Davies would have said, ‘Well they would wouldn’t
they’.
CCR were followed by ‘Perth’, the
opening track from the second album by Bon Iver whose records I discovered
about two years ago and like a lot. Their music is on the ambient side, very
haunting, ethereal, and this one benefits from a swelling brass section towards
the end. I was happy to introduce their lovely debut album For Emma, Forever Ago to an Emma who worked in our offices for a
while but now lives in Melbourne.
Clearly unaware that Christmas is now over,
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles cropped up next with ‘Santa Claus Is Coming
To Town’ but I was getting fed up of Christmas songs by now – I made a playlist
of 30-odd for a party chez CC over the holiday – and don’t even want to hear
Spector’s Christmas LP again, though I will never tire of The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale
Of New York’. So I fast forwarded to what turned out to be Derek & The
Dominoes’ ‘Roll It Over’, a medium placed blues from the Layla album, the sort of thing Eric’s pal George Harrison would
have liked to play I thought as Surbiton station flashed by.
Next up was Block Party’s ‘Where Is Home’,
quite new to me as daughter Olivia had downloaded two of their CDs for me as
she thought I might enjoy them. An unusual acapella opening leads to drum and
vocals only, and some phased machine-gun guitar before the song breaks out with
slightly off key vocals and an air of menace. A taste I have yet to acquire. This
was followed by Simply Red, ‘Freedom’ from their Stars album which I at first thought was a cover of ‘How Long’, the
1974 hit by Ace. If I was Paul Carrack I’d play this to a copyright lawyer.
Mick Hucknall takes song into Isaac Hayes territory as it develops, but I’ve never
been a big fan of his blue-eyed soul.
‘The Line’ from The Ghost Of Tom Joad by Bruce Springsteen came next. I have a lot
of Bruce on the iPod, 379 songs in all, but this album is among my least played
which I ought to rectify as I enjoyed the fragility of this gentle song, another
in that album’s theme of sympathy for dispossessed folk living on the
Mexican-American border. The melody is simple but Brice sings earnestly about
the border guards’ endless war against migrant families.
Two songs from The Who cropped up next
as my train sped through Clapham Junction and into Waterloo. The first was ‘Rael’,
the early mix from the bonus CD added to the last upgraded reissue of The Who Sell Out. This was the original
recording produced by Kit Lambert at Talent Masters Studio, New York, July
1967, but it isn’t as developed as the later, better-known version and about
half way through it descends into an unmelodic electronic work-out, just Pete I
think, twiddling with the knobs on his guitar. An untitled advert for milk
shakes spoken by Keith brought it to an end and, curiously (since consecutive
songs by the same act are rare), it was followed by ‘Lubie (Come Back Home)’
from the bonus disc attached to the last upgraded reissue of My Generation. This was actually a cover
of Paul Revere & the Raiders ‘Louie Go Home’, (previously recorded by Davie
Jones & the King Bees as the B-side to their 1964 Vocalion single ‘Liza
Jane’ – Davie Jones, of course, became David Bowie). For reasons lost in the
passage of time, The Who revised the title to ‘Lubie (Come Back Home)’. Not the
most accomplished Who cover but Roger gives it his all, and it reminded me a
bit of the tracks he recorded with Wilko Johnson on last year’s Going Back Home album.
Just as the train hit Waterloo, The
Who was replaced by The Manic Street Preachers’ ‘Let’s Go To War’ from their recent
Futurology album. Though I was once
deeply offended by Nicky Wire’s ill-judged remarks about John Lennon and
Michael Stipe (I eventually put that down to immaturity), I’ve forgiven them
now and I have a good deal of time for the Manics. This is a bit of a
tub-thumper by their standards, not one of their better offerings, but in the
fullness of time I will write more extensively about this Welsh group. After
his disappearance I remember reading somewhere that Richey Edwards had been spotted
busking on the streets of Skipton, my home town. Always fascinating to see this
picturesque but otherwise dull little town mentioned in connection with rock.
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