Mor-Than-Words

I Need A Dollar – Aloe Blacc This one popped up on one of those free CDs you used to get with the Sunday newspapers. Back when CDs were musical currency before streaming had taken over. I was captured by it's sound and I could certainly relate to the story inside. It's such a simple song but with a powerful message. The simple words, piano and brass backing are matched by a great vocal performance, all resulting in a very pleasing easy to digest sound. But the problem with simple songs is that they fast become ear worms, little phases of which get stuck in your brain and go round and round. In other words proper hooks, these make songs like this so catchy and remember able. Add in the 'hey hey's' and it's in there for keeps. The lyrics tell a tale of working hard and getting no credit for your efforts, the world not being a fair place and all you have to show for it is to be able to warn the next person in line. They could share their wealth and even things out

Wake Me Up – Avicii   Always liked this song, but after watching a documentary on Avicii last night I have a new understanding of it. As a teenager Tim Bergling (Avicii) loved to create music on his laptop and like all musicians wanted people to hear it, but as often happens with young talented creative people no one told him about the trappings of fame. With the stereotypical pushy manager and a larger and larger group of hanger ons, what started out as a dream began to take a toll on his mental and physical state. A performer who loved being up on stage in front of an entire stadium of people jumping to his every beat was tortured by the pressure of touring and the fear of letting people down. The stress of it all leading to multiple health problems. It's a sad tale and reading through the lyrics of this song, which featured on his debut album, it now reads like a warning to himself. Wake me up when its over, expecting his life to become clearer and easier as he got older, in o

  Stand By Me (2020) – Whispering Bob's All-Stars I was lucky enough to be on a Zoom call with the legend DJ Bob Harris as part of Country Music Week . I even got to ask him a question, I asked about how songwriters should go about getting there songs in front of established artists in the modern age. Social media being the main way to get noticed now. He told some great stories, my favourite being about Rosanne Cash , Johnny Cash her father put together a list of 100 Country songs she needed to learn just so he knew she had a real understanding of its roots and philosophy .  Bob has put together a version of this song to both celebrate 50 years in the business and to raise money to help COVID hit musicians. It's a real mixture of artists and is a good guessing game who's singing and playing which parts. Bob gets in on the act playing the triangle. Great to see Duane Eddy makes an appearance. I love this song, the Ben E King version is one of the most iconic songs ever

If It Makes You Happy – Sheryl Crow It's totally true, especially at the moment, if it makes you happy, just go with it. But do possessions and the like really matter, or do you still end up feeling like somethings missing. Sheryl Crow was another artist that grew on me over time, I didn't take much notice of her as each of her hits pilled up. Then I bought her Greatest Hits album and realised just how many of them I actually loved. Then it sort of dawned on me she's basically classed as Country now, so it all fits. Whenever you see Country royalty doing their benefit gigs you usually see Sheryl on there as a guest. Her voice is so strong and her song choices always seem to be about feelings. Also love ' All I Wanna Do ' is have some fun, can't argue with that either. Then there's ' Leaving Las Vegas' which is something I've had the privilege of doing a few times so brings back great memories. This song is basically a strange list of things an

Need You Now – Lady A This is one of those songs that I've been aware of since it's release in 2009, but it's grown on me a lot since then, to the point it's becoming one of my favourite songs. It's so well put together, great hooks and melody, then Lady A 's voices blend so well together. As part of Country Music week Radio 2 in the UK had them in session and this is a live version of the song, I think you can call this effortless. Just sitting there at the mic's and belting this out with so much emotion and power. I particularity like the simple piano riff, those few notes remind me of the rain and set the entire mood. The lyrics tell a story of making a drunk phone call to an ex, you get to that point that their going round and round in your head and you just need to speak to them. It's a simple thought but these lyrics put the hurt and remorse across so well. To get that amount of feeling into a song is really hard and the sparse backing adds to that

    Gimme Some Lovin – Spencer Davis Group   Hey! Spencer Davis died yesterday aged 81. He was the founder of this great group, named after him apparently because the rest of the band were to scared to do interviews. They had some big hits in the sixties, real power driven rock and roll, plenty of zip and upbeat tunes. More in the style of rhythm and blues riffs, dirty sounding guitars with heavy drums. They put this song together in just half an hour in the studio as they were under pressure to come up with their next hit. Love this song, another one on my 60s compilations. The organ work on this raises it above the normal guitar based guitar bands, it sounds out there and like a freight train is rushing towards you. Either get out its way or jump aboard and enjoy the ride. I'm so glad they made it. The other great use of this song was in the ' Blues Brothers ' movie, love that film and their version of this song with their big band really cooks. It's a crazy story o

  Get Here – Oleta Adams I've been lucky enough to be on some huge holidays over the years, I've been round the world twice. Love going to new places and having my photo taken at the biggest landmarks. There have been times I've been on me own, no one who knew who I was for hundreds of miles. You realise after a while this planet is one amazing ride and you should see and experience as much of it as possible. That's one of the cruelest tricks this Virus is playing on us at the moment. But wherever I've been I seem to taken this song with me, I can remember it spinning round on my Walkman, blank cassettes were a god send for taking huge chucks of your record collection with you. I can also picture being in the back of a hire car cruising down an American highway watching a freight train riding along beside us with this song telling me to 'Get Here' playing out of an early version of the ipod. You often hear it on Airplane radio playlists, its to perfect for a

    With A Little Help From My Friends – Joe Cocker This is another one I had on most of my 60s compilations . Think the production and emotion created into this is pure class. Especially compared to Ringo Starr 's version released by the Beatles . You believe Joe Cocker had a little help from his mates, the roar in this vocal is a master at work, is he out of tune? Who cares! What sounded like a nursery rhyme before now sounds like a huge cry for help. The subject matter is so true, we all need propping up once in a while, hard times are upon us and we need to look after each other. The other thing about this song was it was used as the title music for a TV program called ‘ The Wonder Years .’ Channel 4 in the UK showed it when I was a teenager. It was set in the 60s in small town America and the narrator was the main characters older self looking back on his younger days. Kevin Arnold had a best mate called Paul, my name being Kevin and my best friend being a Paul was enough rea

Stranger On The Shore – Acker Bilk   This reminds me of our family home movies. My Dad had a cine camera when I was a kid, when he used to play the films back to us on his projector screen there was no audio so we used to listen to songs like this as our accompanying soundtrack. My Grandad did similar with his slide shows, so when I hear this song it conjures up memories of birthday parties, family holidays and special occasions. Lots of my very young child hood recollections are based on those films, we never watched them in order so my whole child hood was one long mixture of various amounts of candles on cakes, different sized bikes and go-karts. It was always a special treat to watch these films, it was a big under taking to set up the projector and the big screen, we used to sit in the dark with the clacking of the camera as it transferred the film from one reel to the other and usually for fun back again in reverse. Reliving all those fun times. This song is so soothing, the vibe

The Love I Lost – West End feat. Sybil   I love finding out more about songs I love and remember. Back in 1993 in my night clubbing days, this song was a huge favouite, it was slightly different to other dance songs of that time which were even more beat heavy. This song has proper lyrics, a proper tune and is a stand out track which used to fill dance floors, it's had so many remixes I don't even know which is the official original version. It's one of those songs I hear and can suddenly cast my mind back to those days, visions of dancing with my mates and the bright lights spinning round our heads, speakers cranking out this at top volume. You could see everyone belting this one out as it's so singable and the subject matter is so universal, we all have a love that didn't make it. Sybil was one of those artists that fitted perfectly into a certain genre, releasing hits basically based on each other, everyone of them perfect pop tunes and instantly recognizable. A

  Imagine – John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band   This song to me is like a modern day hymn. I'm a big Beatles fan, all be it more their earlier pop stuff, than the later 'cool' stuff. I have huge respect for John Lennon as a songwriter and an activist. Anyone that has a song called ' Working Class Hero ' remembers where he came from and still speaks for the common man. John Lennon is in the news this week as he should have been celebrating his 80th birthday, the world was robbed of one of it's biggest voices in a music as well as global sense back in 1980. The video of this song, with that white piano is one of the icons of British music. The words and sentiment of this poem set to music are both haunting and almost a warning. The world may have changed a lot since it was written but sadly the messages in there are more relevant than ever. You have to be sure where you stand on things to be able to put into words what you think the world needs to hear and

I Can See Clearly Now – Johnny Nash Johnny Nash passed this week, he's best known for this song. It's an absolute classic, so soothing and makes you feel relaxed. The lyric sums up just how we all feel when we finally release we have managed to get through the worst of it and things are finally making a bit more sense. I'm a sucker for feel good songs, this song is almost a message on mental health, which is something we can all understand in these strange times. Lets just hope we all get to feel this way soon. For my generation I can't help hearing this and associate it with a famous advert from the 1980s for Nescafé. They used a cover version of this song to overplay a lady parking her iconic VW Beetle at a top of a cliff, she then fumbles around for a jar of coffee. She plugs in her drink warmer into the cigarette lighter and then stands beside her car watching the sunrise. The whole thing together somehow struck a huge chord with me, I love a good sunset/sunrise b

Jump – Van Halen Another sad post, as Eddie Van Halen died this week, he was only 65. To be honest I only really know him and the band Van Halen through this song. It's another one of those that I had on every Rock complication album I've ever owned, along with Jumping along with it more Saturday nights than I would care to remember. The chorus of this is so catchy, get a crowd together and just launch yourselves in the air. If it's meant to be a dance you can't get any easier moves than this, I've seen many a punter a bit worse for wear take the leap and then regret it afterwards, but that's the fun. The synths on this are so 80s, but guitar licks are timeless, Eddie certainly could make his Axe cry. I've read many tributes to him and all site him as a guitar god. When your mentioned in the same breath as Hendrix you must have got something right. When you see videos of him playing with his fingers just a blur you know that's a man in charge of his

Stagger Lee – Lloyd Price   I only know this song from a mix album I had of rock n roll songs. Back in the 80s they released a series on double vinyl albums that a DJ had mixed together, you only ever heard the first two thirds of each song. The song selection was more of the less well known songs from the 50s and 60s with some odd intersections between them. I found a lot of great songs listening to them.  This song always struck me as so joyous, but the fun backing covers up a very dark song matter. The way the song bounces along it sounds like it should be a fun song but when you read the lyric you find out it's a about a two gamblers that fall out. One then gets his revenge as he shoots down poor Billy. Then it turns out it's based on real life people it becomes even an odder thing to pen a song about, but old time tunes were often ways of telling stories before radio and TV came along. Then they became hit songs being covered many years later by the pop stars of the day by

In The Ghetto – Candi Staton This song is epic. Sadly it's writer Mac Davis died this week, so I thought it fitting to feature it, it's best known as a huge hit for Elvis . He also penned other Elvis hits such as ' Don't Cry Daddy ' and ' A Little Less Conversation .' Here's Candi Staton 's version of In The Ghetto, I was watching a documentary about Soul music and they told the story of how she ended up recording this. Her husband of the time, Clarence Carter, was recording his own album and was thinking of covering this song. At some point they decided to try a women's voice on the track and Candi smashed this in one take. When you hear it with a women's voice, it sounds like that poor boys Momma crying for her son. I think it adds another layer to an already emotional song. To sit down and write a social comment like this takes guts, opening the world's eyes to it's problems is never going to make you friends. But music is a bril

  It's Raining – Shakin' Stevens   I was a big Shaky fan throughout the 80s, never really realising most of his songs I liked were cover versions of old rock n roll hits and older classics. Some of the reworking his team did on straight laced old standards like ' This Ole House ' and ' Green Door ' were quite out there when heard next to their originals. Shaky was obviously an Elvis clone, but again I didn't know that as a kid. I just liked his songs and even tried to copy some of his dance moves. He did play a young Elvis in a West End show of Elvis' life so I guess there was the blueprint, I've grown into a huge Elvis fan since then. I wasn't into the modern bands of that time, all be it I've grown to love many an 80s tune, looking back now there was some amazing music in the charts then. I guess I missed out on them first time round, but as with each generation the sound track of their youth brings back all those precious memories. The

    Humble And Kind – Tim McGraw The lyrics to this one are pretty special. Think it's a message more of us could follow. Love songs like this, simple, straight forward, no huge production or gimmicks. Just real words, well sung and understated. I bet the writer sat down and said let's just write a song about how we would want other people to treat us and everyone else. The power of music, how it can sum up how you feel and what life should really be about in three minutes. Country music has a knack of pulling on the heart strings, it's one of the things that winds up non fans, saying it's all to self worthy. But to me it's getting a point across that the world we live in isn't always an easy place to be, but that doesn't mean you can't face your fears and make something of the hard knocks. I love all kinds of music but when a song can change the way you feel in a moment, that's class. Favourite lyric : Don't take for granted the love this life g

  You've Lost That Loving Feeling – Righteous Brothers   There used to be a nightclub in a town about half hours drive from where I lived, we used to go there quite often as a crowd. This was around the time of the music that's now called 'Old Skool' but then it was just dance music to us. We had to dress up in those days to just get in the door, past the bouncers, park your coat in the cloakroom and hit the bar. There was always a need for a few pints before even thinking about putting a toe near the dance floor. The club had a great light system and they would show it off by doing a launch theme and all the lights going off in stages building up the excitement of the evening. Then when enough beer had been consumed to pluck up the courage a few braver souls would attempt to dance to the sounds of the day, trying not to embarrass themselves and not crash into the people next to them. It was then like tag wrestling as some of the crowd would replace the early starters

Moves Like Jagger – Maroon 5 ft. Christina Aguilera If you've read a few of my past posts you may have picked up on my love of all things Rolling Stones . So it's no wonder that this song pricked my ears up, all about one of my main men and his distinctive dance moves. This was such a big song in 2011, I've been known to try and do the odd Mick impression at various birthday parties, so when this song drops it's hard to resist. I'm also a big fan of Christina Aguilera , her voice is one of the most strong and powerful of recent times. Maroon 5 suprised me with this one, I thought they were quite a laid back band, really like their song ' She Will Be Loved ' for example. But why not mix up your sound, plenty of remixes doesn't seem to hurt. This song is very critically acclaimed for it's arrangement and their performances. There's not a lot to say about the lyrics on this one, apart from it pays respect to one of rock musics best front men. I

    All Along The Watchtower – The Jimi Hendrix Experience So weirdly I never came across Jimi Hendrix to much later in life. I remember the other lads at school referencing him as part if their dads record collections as a big part of their 60s music, but my parents never had any of his stuff so I was none the wiser. As with lots of my influences I cottoned on to him at some point, like other previous posts I first heard this song on the soundtrack album of the film Stardust that I had on LP. That was enough to lead me to find out more. Apparently this is a Bob Dylan folk song that Jimi revved up. Think this is a very cool sound and I adore the riff, not really sure what the song is all about. I’ve since explored Jimi's greatest hits and really like other tracks like Hey Joe and Voodoo Child . But when you see footage of him over playing at the famous festivals and setting his guitar alight it sort of ruins his genius for me. No need for gimmicks when you’ve got r

Walk The Dinosaur – Was Not Was Open the door, get on the floor. What a fun song this is. Was Not Was is a great name for a band, sort of silly thing you never forget. We had this one on vinyl, proper old 45 single. I can still remember it blaring out in our front room, our young neighbours from over the road walking their dinosaurs up and down the lounge carpet. It’s such a catchy song, great tempo and plenty of clever hooks and silly rhythms. Boom Boom. All the chanting is a sure way to drive the listener mad, but I remember all of it so it proves it works. Even in 1987 it wasn’t your usual offering, wonder where the concept ever came from. But that could be said about loads of these silly song’s that inspire dance moves. My other memory of this song is that they played it at a Florida theme park when introducing their caveman show. All the presenters were dancing around in Flintstones type outfits and whooping the crowd up in the baking heat, all part of another brillia

Summer Of '69 – Bryan Adams One of my favourite songs, I've seen Bryan Adams a number of times and in a number of sized venues. He did an acoustic show at my local theatre a few years a go, it was amazing to hear some of his big rock hits like this one stripped back to an acoustic guitar and a piano. It's also a great memory to recall him rocking a massive crowd at Wembley Arena or the O2. Either way he's a real entertainer and a pretty solid songwriter. I've a couple of weird links to the Summer of '69, but that has nothing really to do with my love for this song. It's more about digging guitar driven songs, made up of a few chords, fantastic riffs and husky vocals, what's not to like. Not many of my Saturday nights, when I was going out regularly, didn't have me air guitaring to this song. I see this type of song in a direct line from earlier artists such as Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry . Great simple lyric which conjures up what it was like growi

  End Of The Line – The Traveling Wilburys As super groups go, The Traveling Wilburys must be pretty hard to beat. With a Beatle, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison in their midst I think they had rock royalty covered. The others were only Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne , George Harrison did a good job of getting his mates together to start up a band. Big fan of this lot as individual artists and together they were different class, this amount of songwriting expertise should produce the goods. This song all about looking towards the end of your future it's an interesting concept for the ageing rock stars. To that end poor Roy Orbinson didn't even live long enough to get in the video. I think it proves his iconic status when just your guitar in a rocking chair is enough to establish your presence.  Their voices all blend so well together and it's not hard to pick them out for each line of the lyric. Both the albums they released are so under rated, these are quality tunes. I think pro

  Back Home Again – John Denver   Got introduced to this one by my dad, he used to play this song with his mates in a band made up from workers on a building site. I can remember him playing it when I was a teenager and a few years later, when I picked up a guitar, he taught me how to play it. We even sang it together under an star spangled Arizona sky one night, sat next to a roaring camp fire on a real cowboy ranch. We did a sort of City Slickers night stay in a tent and we had a real character for a guide, Cowboy Dave played every cowboy song you could think of. Then he passed his guitar round the small crowd and we all had a go, what a great sing along. I've grown to love John Denver , he's a proper songwriter. He writes in such a way you can picture everything he's singing about, real paint a picture with words stuff. Some of the subtle references in this song are so clever, in this one you get the yearning from the singer how much he wants to be back home. Most of hi

  Bridge Over Troubled Water – Simon & Garfunkel For my 50th post I thought I'd grab a song from 50 years ago, picked this absolute classic of a tune. Released in 1970, this song stands out for me for being such a special lyric, the concept being how to overcome your problems by relying on friendship. A universal subject if there ever was one. For some reason, I always seemed to listen to Simon & Garfunkel when I'm on a plane to America, I've made quite a few trips across the pond. I guess they were a very safe bet for any airline radio station programmer to pick out, but I can't help but feel like I'm off somewhere amazing when I hear this played. The setting of the song is so well structured and cultured, it's so reassuring throughout and you get the sense the singer really cares and wants the best for you. Paul Simon is such a clever song writer and to know of the troubled relationship between these two characters makes songs like this seem all the

    Eve Of Destruction – Barry McGuire Apologies for adding to the misery at the moment, but this one came to mind today.    A very thought provoking song, showing music can be political and have a real message. Weirdly it was used as an example of what was wrong with the youth of the 60s, with the establishment  using it to point out that young people are often seen as the trouble makers. Whereas their usually the ones that stand up against the cruelty and injustices in the world. Sadly this song is still appropriate today, lots of people still don't believe what's going on around them, or maybe some don't care. It's a very honest lyric with lots of powerful images, no big judgement on the non believers just raising questions to say, have you thoughts about this? I heard this song on a 60s compilation back when I was in my teenage years and it always struck me how out of place it must have been in the pop charts. There were lots of protest songs back then, mostly folk

Down Under – Men At Work I have great memories of visiting Australia, so this song will always be special as it reminds me of those fun times. It's about the singers travels around the world, all the Ozzie references conjure up some great images. It was always a big party song before I ever set foot Down Under, it plays like a soundtrack to one of the best holidays I ever had.   I found it funny when I visited back in 2001 when I got chatting to the locals, it was very much like this song in reverse. As much as you would expect we know lots about each others culture through TV shows and the like. It was amazing how many different sayings we had for things and how we would even phrase stuff in our own ways. They picked me up a lot on my British accent and it made for some very funny conversations as we explored the silly differences between us. Lovely people, very welcoming and I made some good friends.   Men At Work is a cool name for a band, I think this was the only time they tro

    Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay – Otis Redding Another one of those songs that I've no idea where I first heard it, but as soon as I did hear it I was sat beside Otis on that dock. A brilliant lyric that takes you on a journey and helps you drift away to a happier place. The groove of this one so soothing and relaxing. I heard the story of how and where this song was written, Otis was actually sat on a house boat acting out exactly what he was describing in the words. Sat there in the morning sun just letting the day past him by, he thought to himself what's it all about? Love the fact it ends up by him just whistling over the backing, it's just what you would do as you were sat there contemplating life and let your mind wander.   Sadly this was recorded just days before his death in a plane crash. It was on the legendary STAX label and Booker T and the M.G 's did the backing like most of STAXs songs. Otis Redding was an amazing artist that broke new ground in

    Town Called Malice – The Jam   After ' The Sound of the Underground ' in my last post it reminded me of The Jam 's ' Going Underground .' I could have picked that as my favourite Jam song but it's trumped by this track, 'Town Called Malice.' I didn't follow them when they were most popular, I missed out on a lot of the 80's music. Weirdly I got more into them via a pub band we used to see on a semi regular basis at one of our locals, the lead singer was obviously a big fan and half their set was Jam covers. To be fair to him he would have been one of those on the TV show ' Stars In Their Eyes ', "Tonight Mathew, I'm going to be Paul Weller ," if had it existed at that time, he had him down pat.   This is a brilliant song with a hard meaning, a very clever way to sum up the state of play in his home town. People had it hard and music is a great way to highlight that to the world. I love the beat of this, the lyr

 Sound Of The Underground – Girls Aloud Some really good artists have come through the ranks of the TV talent shows, Carrie Underwood probably being my favourite. It's a shame these shows have managed to divide the average music fans into two camps, those that appreciate talent wherever it comes from, and those that can't get over manufactured Pop. You'd have to hope that talent wins out but that doesn't always seem to be the case. I've always had a huge soft spot for Girls Aloud, I think it's a very clever band name for starters. This being the song that they launched from Pop Stars the Rivals TV talent show, they turned out to be a really good group with lots of huge hits. But this song always stood out for me, think it's not so much the sound of the underground but more likly the sound of great surf guitar tunes of the 1950/60s. I love a good guitar rift, the quirky sound of the song is also very ear catching. The whole think put together with five grea

      Stick That In Your Country Song – Eric Church   I saw Eric Church perform at Marty Stuart ’s Late Night Jam in Nashville back in 2015, I didn’t know who he was before he came on stage. He was introduced as one of the latest outlaws of Country music. His songs and lyrics are definitely more honest than lots of other modern Country, he tells it as it is in the Willie and Waylon way. One of his latest offerings is a comment on what he must think of current Country music. The lyrics of this song pointing out all the subjects that are no longer sung about and the issues the world is facing. There are a lot of current songs about drinking, bars and trucks, but as always with trends in music once something becomes popular and makes money everyone has to have a go at replicating it. Then the next phase is for someone to highlight that and do an anti song and then that becomes the new trend and it repeats the cycle. A good and bad thing, if it throws out song’s like this one the

    Gloria – Them I was terrible at English lessons in school, I'm pretty sure I’ve got dyslexia and can spell to save my life. We used to be set assignments to read books and write long essays about them. Being a slow reader I was always still reading the book when I was meant to be giving in the homework.    We were reading a book called The Outsiders by a teenage American writer called S. E. Hinton. It was getting near the end of term and we wouldn’t have got it read in time, so on this particular day our English teacher wheeled in one of those old wooden boxed TVs they used to use at school in the 80s. He had found the movie made of the book on VHS tape and showed us the film during one double period.    Now this was much better I could understand every word and best of all it had a 1950/60s soundtrack, right up my street. Only when I re-watched it years later did I realise the big hits it had in there. This song being one of them and also a personal favourite. T

    Smoke Gets In Your Eyes – The Platters   How's this for an emotional song, love the feel of this one. A brilliant example of how voices blended together create such a sweet backing to the solo singer out front. The orchestra in the background is so beautiful, the sawing violins really sound like heart strings. Reading up about this, there have been many versions recorded of this song and by some big names. This version by US group The Platters from 1958 is the one I know from all the Rock n Roll compilation records I used to play as a kid in our spare bedroom. It made me laugh to read this song was used in the British TV drama, London's Burning , which was set in a London Fire Station. Favourite lyric : They said "someday you'll find all who love are blind" / When your heart's on fire, You must realize, smoke gets in your eyes    

  Black Horse & The Cherry Tree – KT Tunstall     My introduction to KT Tunstall was, as this video shows, her performance of this song on Later with Jools Holland . What I found fascinating was the fact she performed it solo by recording parts live into a loop pedal and basically backing herself. Very clever stuff, sort of ruinng the whole 'band' thing. It's a very cool song and she doesn't get the credit she deserves for being an innovator, seeing this performance made me go buy her album ' Eye to the Telescope '. Apparently this song is based on the famous Bo Diddley beat, maybe that's why it caught my ear so much at the time. I love a bit of Blues. I recently saw a repeat of a Shirley Bassey documentary which featured KT explaining how she wrote a song called ' Nice Men " for Shirley's 'The Performance' album. Seeing KT again reminded me of this great song. Favourite lyric : When the big black horse that looked this way

  Freedom – Robbie Williams So I used to work in a converted dog biscuit factory building in East London. It was a strange place to have a design agency, we were on the ground floor and with lots of residential flats above us. There were some interesting characters that lived there, one of which was the producer of the TV show Spitting Image . Also for some reason they also filmed scenes of the BBC TV show ' Loves Hurts ' with Adam Faith and Zoë Wanamakerin one of the flats. I can only guess there was also either a manager or music producer that lived there as one day out of the blue Robbie Williams appeared at the slope that lead up to the front door. It was very shortly after he had left Take That and to be rude he was at his largest, but it was definitely him and we all had to have a good nose out the window. I'm guessing at this stage he hadn't met Guy Chambers or got any of his own music ready to go. It's often run through my mind if I had been a bit bolder

  The Next Time – Cliff Richard   Cliff Richard has been around basically as long the popular music scene in the UK. Now very associated with his Christmas songs, back in the 50s he was our version of Elvis. His early rock ‘n’ roll songs were great, his debut ‘ Move It ’ was a great way to introduce the British take on this new musical movement. Cliff then a teenage heart throb had to change his style to be more family friendly as he gained more and more music rivals.  His move into movies was a bit hit and miss, with weak story lines and poor excuses to burst into song, they weren’t ever going to win any Oscars. But some of his best song’s fell out from those films. I love this song, it’s so simple, so understated. The theme of it is so obvious, plenty more fish in the sea, it’s what everyone says to you when you break up with someone. But he sings, what about if I’m not over you, not interested in the next one yet. This song was used in the movie Summer Holiday , I inh

  Birdhouse In Your Soul – They Might Be Giants   So I was still at school, we were told we had to go on work experience for three weeks. We had to fill out a questionnaire to figure out what we would be suited to do, I filled mine out hoping it would spit out something creative. Instead it suggested I go and stir paint for three weeks. Now I've been known to stare at the odd drying wall before, but didn't fancy this much. Luckily for me my Mum found me a friendly local design studio that was willing to take me and show me how they worked. Some of the stuff they got me to do was a bit mind numbing, like endless photocopying and re-arranging their letraset sheets. But the thing that filled my heart with joy was it turned out they were aloud to listen to the radio all day, not just as background noise but full on dance along stuff. This song just happened to be around at the time and being such a good unusual poppy hit they played it a lot. Like all good ear worm songs it has sta

 Go Your Own Way – Fleetwood Mac My friend's mum was really into this weird old band called Fleetwood Mac . Seemed whenever I went round his house or she gave us a lift somewhere they were playing on the stereo. I never took that much notice as a kid, only things I knew about them where, Mick Fleetwood and Sam Fox did the worst job ever of presenting the Brit Awards. Also if you played one of their tracks long enough it had the Formula 1 theme tune at the end. Then I grew up and started 'listening' to the music I heard, then I liked Fleetwood Mac. From early instrumentals like ' Albatross ' to their extensive catalog of thought provoking, emotional songs they are one amazing band. They have been like a Premier League football team for having some of the best players pass through their racks. But just like Doctor Who they just keep on re-generating. They must also rank up there with the strangest dynamic in a band how different members were partners at different t