All About You

You Really Got Me by The Kinks

It’s time for another train post, how exciting.

I have approximately 2 hours to tell you about ‘You’. Should be enough, though ideally I’ll do it in less because I have a magazine and two Collings and Herrin podcasts to attend to – lots of train material today.

So, ‘You’. After finishing ‘W’ I have X-Ray by the Maccabees, and then Yellow Submarine and Yesterday by The Beatles. Then it’s ‘You’ time. It really ain’t too surprising ‘You’ comes up a lot – writers like to talk directly to people frequently, so using the second person is expected. It also helps that ‘You’ can be singular and plural, so there is more opportunity to use it.

Anyway, there a quite a few to get through, so let’s crack on:

You Ain’t Going Nowhere – Bob Dylan

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet – Bachman-Turner Overdrive (yes, purchase spurred by the Harvey the dog TV ad, but it just reminded me what a good song it already was)

You Can Call Me Al – Paul Simon

You Can’t Always Get What You Want – The Rolling Stones

You Can’t Fool Me Dennis – Mystery Jets

You Can’t Hurry Love – Phil Collins and The Supremes (I have both versions because it is THAT good a song…)

You Have Placed a Chill in My Heart – Eurythmics (another artist that comes up ridiculously a lot even though I only have one album by them – admittedly a best of, but still)

You Really Got Me – The Kinks

You Rock My World – Michael Jackson (said it before and I’ll say it again – didn’t like the guy, but you can’t deny some of his songs were good)

You Send Me – Jack Peñate (love Jack, love this old song, perfect combination. Randomly found this online somewhere and was very pleased)

You’ll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties – Jona Lewie & Man Like Me (thanks Ikea)

You’re Gonna Lose Us – The Cribs (not sure I’ve talked about The Cribs before – I used to really like them and have the album Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever, but for some reason I’ve gone off them a lot. I think my taste has just gradually leaned away from their sort of music…)

You’re So Cool – Hans Zimmer (for what felt like years I was trying to find a piece of music that was basically just xylophone/glockenspiel plinky-plonky sounds that was used in loads of films. Then, after much research I found it was this – though I think there are many variations and this isn’t ‘the one’ for definite – which is from the film True Lies)

You’re the Voice – John Farnham (randomly caught some of Hot Rod on TV once and this song is used. Like a lot of adverts, TV and film are prone to do, it reminded me what a great song it is. It’s probably cheese to the max, but I don’t care)

So that was all about ‘You’. I’m not sure writers like to talk as much about ‘You’ as they do themselves (there were about 4 posts on just ‘I’), but it’s still a popular topic. Are there any other famous ‘You’ songs? Probably a ton, but without the internet at the moment I can only think of You and I by the Gaga and You’re the One which must be a song title by loads of people… right?!

Anyway, I will sort out the picture and video when I’m home, now I’ve got an hour left of train journey to endure/enjoy.

Ta ra,

L x

Classic:

Things are So-So

So Sofia by The Musgraves

The next word in my ‘S’ list that crops up a couple of times is ‘So’. ‘So’ can be used as an adverb to mean ‘very’, ‘muchly’ or ‘too’, and also as a conjunction (though often used at the beginning of sentences too, e.g. ‘So, what shall I write my post about today?’). I think it probably has other uses too, but I can’t really be bothered to look into the nitty gritty stuff – and if I don’t care, no one else will in the slightest.

I think I’m going to be right in guessing that all my songs will use ‘So’ in the ‘very’ sense. It’s probably used more that ‘very’ itself because it has that ‘too much’ feeling to it too. It has a sort of intense feel that ‘very’ doesn’t quite capture – it goes deeper, further, longer etc., etc. And it just sounds better than ‘very’ I think. Maybe it’s the sibilance? (Trying hard to impress with my English language knowledge when all I can think of is a term we learnt in high school…)

Soooo, my ‘So’ songs are:

So Brand New - Fyfe Dangerfield (still don’t know his album that well because it’s early days on the second go at it)

So Lonely Was the Ballad - Jamie T. (not really sure on Jamie T. I like most of the album Panic Prevention – the only one I have of his – but I’m still unsure… he’s not like any other artist really. He kind of raps sometimes, but he’s so not a rapper… He confuses me. This song is good though.)

So Long – Willy Mason

So Near – Jack Peñate (he put a new song online recently - No One Lied. But when will there be a whole new album Jack!?)

So Sofia – The Musgraves (this is my first, and rather successful, Twitter-band discovery. I think either I found them on Twitter and started following them and they followed back, or they followed me because I had followed someone similar, I’m not sure. But anyway, I watched their YouTube videos – there are loads here - and they are so much fun! Not always my favourite kind of music, a bit more poppy than I like sometimes, but they seem like such lovely people and their songs and videos are really enjoyable. This song is bouncy and fun. Anyway, they have gone from strength to strength. When I first started following them I think they had about 500ish followers and had just released this song. Now, they’re being played on BBC Radio 2 and performing on the Graham Norton Show! Wows. It’s very cool to find a band from fairly near the beginning (probably not at all the beginning for them and their close support of fans) and to see them have such a rise to fame and success! And they deserve it too. Well done Musgraves. Sycophant-rant over.)

So there we go, that’s ‘So’. It was so-so. So, see you SOMEtime.

Au revoir,

L x

You can listen to the original So Sofia here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM4OVcGXccs&feature=related but wanted to share a fun version The Musgraves do (and the sort of thing they’re known for) – So Sofia with a twist:

Let’s Queue for a P

Perpetuum Mobile by Penguin Cafe Orchestra (from Preludes, Airs and Yodels)

I’m on to the letter ‘P’ and it’s another one of those letters where I have no repeats of words – what is up with that!?

So once again I will be just listing all the words that begin with ‘P’ that start song titles I own – like I did with ‘M’ and ‘C’. Yeah, this is cutting edge blogalism (blog journalism – I think I should coin that word).

I think I will list them all first, and then have a look to see if there are any of them that I would expect more song titles for. You can play the ‘guess the song from the beginning word’ again – what fun.

So my ‘P’ words are:

Pacemaker, Pack, Pan, Papa’s, Paperback, Party, Patricia, Penny, Perfect, Perpetuum, Pickup, Pictures, Pieces, Pissing, Pistol, Plains, Poker, Pony, Pool, Pork, Post, Pressure, Promised, Pull, Punky, Purple, Push, Put and Pyro.

Not that many really. I didn’t include two songs that are listed under ‘P’ – Pocahontas – Colors of the Wind and Pocahontas – Just Around the River Bend because ‘Pocahontas’ isn’t really their song title, just the film they’re from, and it would muck up my ‘there are no repeats’ angle…

I would have thought there may be more ‘Party’ songs because, woo, every musician likes a party, and maybe more ‘Put’ songs because it’s a common verb, but not in my collection anyway. I’ve had a looksie online for ‘P’ songs and there are lots of words that come up actually – ‘Picture’, ‘Pretty’ etc. But I think there are generally not as many ‘P’ songs as some other letters… that’s not based on any hard evidence though.

Well that will be it for ‘P’ then – there isn’t much to say seeing as I don’t have any words that come up a lot. And now for what to put as the picture and video for this post?! I haven’t mentioned any particular songs, except Pocahontas ones and I think I’ve over-Disneyed on this blog already. So I will have to choose a favourite ‘P’ song I have – it’s a close call between a nice instrumental song by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra , a Jack Peñate song or a new purchase from Real Estate (I recently downloaded their two albums – nice kind of chill-out, lo-fi indie). So am I going Perpetuum Mobile, Pull My Heart Way or Pool Swimmers?

Oh and I might as well as do ‘Q’ while I’m here:

Quiet Houses - Fleet Foxes

Bye!

L x

(Used in films etc, prime. And look – an actual orchestra playing in the video, classy)

 

Let’s Be Ladies

Let's Go Surfing by The Drums

Damn it, over a week again. I think I will have to just try to do at least once a week…

I’m continuing with ‘L’ and ce soir I have ‘Lady’ and ‘Let’s’.

I’m slightly surprised by ‘Lady’ – it’s fairly formal and not really a common word… There’s obviously the classic The Lady is a Tramp but there aren’t many other songs with ‘Lady’ in are there?! Well, apparently there are a few, and they are:

Lady Jesus - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

Lady Lynda - The Beach Boys (one of the few Beach Boys songs I don’t really like)

Lady Madonna - The Beatles

I’ve just looked into it a bit more, and there’s also that song Lady (Hear Me Tonight) released in the early noughties, but not a lot else that I’ve heard of. It’s also quite interesting that there are artists that choose to use it – Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum etc, there aren’t that many artists or songs with ‘Lord’ in are there (excluding religious stuff)??

Anyway… I’m not really going to find out an answer, so it’s onto the next word: ‘Let’ (and ‘Let’s')

There’s not that much to say about ‘Let’; it’s an imperative verb, but a rather passive one… unless you’re demanding something, like ‘Let me go!’, but that’s about as interesting as it gets.

‘Let’s', on the other hand, provides a bit more of a talking point. It’s the contracted form of ‘Let us’ and so the ‘us’ means it incorporates the singer, the listener, and everyone in between. It’s very involved with the listener, whether it is someone in particular, or all-encompassing and talking to a whole audience. A bit like what I discussed with ‘you’ in the ‘Do You’ songs.

So my ‘Let’ and ‘Let’s’ songs are:

Let It Be - The Beatles

Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Let Your Love Flow - Bellamy Brothers (Barclays slide advert)

Let’s All Die - Jack Peñate (nice song, but slightly uncomfortable with its rather relaxed, and positive, attitude to death…)

Let’s Dance to Joy Division - The Wombats

Let’s Go Surfing - The Drums (love this song)

Let’s Go To Bed - The Cure (another meh Cure song I wasn’t familiar with before I bought the best-of)

I think I will leave you with Let’s Go Surfing because it’s très bon.

‘Til next time,

L x

I’m a Giver

Supertramp - Give a Little Bit

After a bit of a break, I’m back, and I’m still on ‘G’s.

Today is a day of giving, in a small sense. The next word of my ‘G’s (it sounds like it should be some street style phrase: ‘ma gees’, no?), is ‘Give’, and again, I’m stretching things a bit because one of them is ‘Giving’ rather than ‘Give’ – tense inflections and all that…

We have:

Give a Little Bit - Supertramp (I only know four of Supertramp’s songs: this one, Breakfast in America, The Logical Song and Dreamer, and all of them I like and own. I think I like how completely different each song is from the next, and again, it’s that late 70′s/early 80′s fun pop/rock/electro-iness which I like. My enjoyment of this song has been slightly marred by its use in a McCains advert a while ago, and the over-playing of a song is like the kiss of death in my mind. But luckily it didn’t completely kill my liking of this song, so it remains safely on my iPod)

Give Yourself Away  - Jack Peñate (another track from his Everything Is New album)

Giving Up The Gun - Vampire Weekend (a single from their second album, and I thank them for creating a video for it with Jake Gyllenhaal)

I suppose ‘Give’ has come up because, once again, it’s being used in the imperative, but also it’s a sort of ‘gesture’ notion that has a poetic feeling and lends itself to song writing.

And now onto the other part of my giving….

The other day I discovered a Coventry-based artist, Stylusboy, on Twitter. I listened to his music on his website because he described it as ‘acoustic alt folk’ which I thought I’d like, and I did! His EP Whole Picture is available on his website - www.stylusboy.co.uk – for a ‘pay what you want’ fee or you can listen to it at his Bandcamp page – www.stylusboy.bandcamp.com

The six track EP is a lovely mixture of lo-fi and poppy folk, with some xylophone style notes added in here and there. And the nicety of his tracks is matched by the guy himself – he spent the time to talk to me a lot over Twitter once I’d followed him, something most people don’t do, and he even said he’d looked at this blog – the greatest compliment in my books! So this mention is a thank you to him. Here’s his video for the song Whole Picture too:

Hope you like, and always feel free to comment/contribute people! (If there’s anyone reading, that is)

Thanks

L x