I’ve written before about the Radio 2 series The Peoples Songs. A few weeks ago, they did an episode about musicals and I tweeted about my desire for a MadChester based one. A piece of whimsy I soon forgot about.
Then I found out about Sunshine On Leith.
If the Proclaimers can have a musical, then surely there’s room for one dedicated to dodging the rain and the bullets.
It’s still whimsy, but I’m going to kick ideas around and something may yet come of it. I’ll probably have a list of songs from ’88 to ’93 that I’d love to see in a film before I have any hint of the story they’d be hung on. But it’s a great excuse to create myself a Madchester playlist and watch videos like this-
So the BBC is asking members of the public to nominate their own 8 choices for Desert Island Discs, no doubt so they can see how the tastes of we plebs differ from those of the celebrity guests. It seems like the perfect excuse to list my choices here as well. In no particular order beyond as I think of them, here are mine-
1994 belonged to Oasis but, though I do have a soft spot for the mono-browed brothers, it should have been Echobelly’s year. Better songs, more interesting sound and vastly more attractive and interesting singer. I Can’t Imagine The World Without Me is a perfect piece of ego and joy, it can’t fail to make me happy.
I could have chosen the raw blast of Joe, my introduction to the band, or Sackville, which has the added interest of being about the street I used to study on. But there’s a power to this one. And apart from Sleeping Satellite, how many other pop songs have been about the lapsed glories of the space race?
I used to have After The Watershed as my Carter song because I pulled to it once and there’s something so wrong about the juxtaposition of the song’s subject and memories of getting laid. And Only Living Boy In New Cross was one of the songs which kept me going in 2001. But Say It With Flowers gave me the title to Sounds of Soldiers, and every radio show needs a plug.
It’s that time again when I lose my friends Go walkabout, I’ve got the bends from pressure This is a testing time when the choice is mine Am I a fool for love or foolish with desire You can throw him out you can spit on him Call what he does a sin if it makes you feel better
And I can’t believe you’re all I’ll ever need And I need to feel that you’re not holding me And the way I feel just makes me want to scream Come home, come home, come home Come home, come home, come home
After thirty years I’ve become my fears I’ve become the kind of man I always hated I am pulled apart, and my swollen heart Has flipped out of the pan into the fire I am in love insane with a sense of shame That I threw stones at the condemned and Now I’m slated
And I don’t believe you’re all I’ll ever need And I need to feel that you’re not holding me And the way I feel just makes me want to scream Come home, come home, come home Come home, come home, come home Come home, come home, come home
, and every radio show needs a plug.
, I’m not mercenary, it really is an excellent song.
