A few weeks back, when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull started spewing ash clouds over Europe and disrupting everybody's flights in the process, Reluctant Blogger suggested I put together a Top Ten Volcano songs in tribute. I toyed with the idea, but feared I'd missed the boat. Good old Eyjafjallajökull though, I knew it wouldn't let me down. Topical blogging ahoy! (Well, as topical as Sunset Over Slawit ever gets.)
Apparently there's a Damien Rice song called Volcano, but as I've never heard it and can probably die happy without ever doing so, it doesn't feature in the list below. Just in case you were wondering.
10. Beck - Volcano
And I heard
Of that Japanese girl
Who jumped
Into The Volcano
Was she trying
To make it back
Back into the womb
Of the world?
Who says you don't learn anything from listening to Beck records? Right here I learned about Japanese student Kiyoko Matsumoto who committed suicide in 1933 by throwing herself into the Mount Mihari volcano, starting a trend which resulted in 944 people doing exactly the same thing over the next year. Those crazy Japanese, eh?
9. Embrace - Ashes
Embrace hail from Brighouse, which is halfway between where I live (t'other side of Huddersfield) and where I work (Bradford). There aren't a lot of volcanoes in Brighouse, but there is a huge crater in Bradford where six years ago they knocked a huge chunk of the city down in preparation for building a new shopping centre... and then left it to rot.
Embrace are currently recording their sixth album... hurry up, lads, it's been ages!
8. Grandaddy - Lava Kiss
Volcanologists say
That we're unlike the rest
That we're the best
Fearlessness
Deadliness
Lava Kiss
Togetherness
I keep biting my lip at the moment. It's very annoying and painful. But not as painful as a lava kiss, I'd imagine.
7. Islands - Volcanoes
Canadian band Islands find that when you anger the gods, "a hard rain falls, made of magma" and "melts Alaska".
6. Van Halen - Eruption
1 minute and 42 seconds of epic guitar wanking from Eddie. Because he can.
5. Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
Kilimanjaro is considered by many the best album the Teardrop Explodes ever recorded. It's also one of those albums where the original running order didn't include the title track. That popped up on an EP released later, and on subsequent re-issues. Julian Cope originally planned to call this album Everybody Wants To Shag The Teardrop Explodes, which would have been a must better title, but wouldn't have got a mention in this list. (EWTShagTTE was eventually used as the name of a compilation, long after the band had split.)
Not to be confused with Pete Doherty's Babyshambles who famously killed a man for his giro.
4. Bennet - Mum Has Gone To Iceland
Not actually a volcano song, nor a song about the country of Iceland, this is actually about the chain of frozen food shops. I don't care - it's bloody marvellous!
3. Ash - Burn Baby Burn
One of their best. Featuring both Ash and burning... and cheerleaders, in the video, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
2. David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes
Every now and then, I think, "actually, David Bowie's not all that mad really"... then I see a video like this one and I remember... no, he's barking.
The shrieking of nothing is killing me.
Just pictures of Jap girls in synthesis
And I ain't got no money and I ain't got no hair
1. Silver Sun - Lava
Perfect power pop with peerless Beach Boys harmonies and an opening line to die for.
"I fucking give up!"
(Though sung so high and harmonised, nobody could actually tell those were the lyrics... certainly we didn't know that, when we used to play this on the late 90s indie radio show I helped produce.)
So. Those were mine. If you've got a favourite volcano song... you know what to do with it. Equally, if you'd like to suggest another Top Ten subject, be my guest. I can only ignore you if I don't like it.
