So we move on from the 50s... to the decade you can't remember if you were there. I wasn't, so I guess I remember it better than most. Certainly better than many of the artists below...
10. Kenickie - 60s Bitch
Having previously included this in both my Top Ten Number 6 Songs and my Top Ten Bitch Songs, I'm running out of excuses to play it. Unless I decide to do a Top Ten 0s songs. Ordnance Survey?
9. Booker T & The MGs - Soul Clap '69
Booker T named his backing band "the MG's" after producer Chips Moman's sports car, but his record company (not wanting to get caught up in the murky world of trademark infrigement) claimed it actually stood for "Memphis Group". Moman's previous group (also with Booker) was called "the Triumphs". He was also temporarily in charge of "the Scumbags", until he sold his Audi.
8. Gorkys Zygotic Mynci - Foot & Mouth '68
An instrumental from the least interesting Gorkys album, this makes the list for its title alone. What other band would write a song about the outbreak of a terrible cattle disease 40+ years ago?
7. The Stooges - 1969
I love how youtube describes the genre as "proto-punk", suggesting Iggy represents some kind of primordial slime whio might one day evolve into the Ramones or Green Day. (He wouldn't evolve into the Pistols... Johnny Rotten was his own very distinct genus of British slime.)
6. Half Man Half Biscuit - 1966 And All That
Apparently there was some kind of famous footballing tournament in 1966, the last time we English won anything of any real worth. I wouldn't know.
5. New Order - 1963
New Order were one of those bands - like the Smiths and the Jesus & Mary Chain - who all the cool kids liked when I was in High School. Unlike The Smiths and the JMC though, I didn't arrive at the party late... I didn't arrive at all. I tried, which is how come their Greatest Hits landed in my collection. It's one of their more lyrically interesting tracks, but all those synths that bothered me back in 1987... bother me even more today.
4. The Auteurs - 1967
It's 1967 and there's no pop in Luke Haines's record collection. So he has to go and get a job in West Yorkshire... and being the proud Southerner he is, you know that'll kill him.
3. The Indelicates - Julia, We Don't Live In The 60s
Have I told you lately how much I love The Indelicates?
We never had it so good - life is sweet.
And now...
I've never had a tie for top place in these Top Tens before...
But I really can't decide my favourite song about the Sixties...
So this week there are TWO Number Ones...
1. Bryan Adams - Summer of '69
Summer of '69 is the cloest Adams ever got to recreating Born To Run era Springsteen - a triumphant, fist in the air, air raid blast of nostalgia that never fails to make me smile. As classic a slab of rock 'n' roll sunshine as Johnny B. Goode...
Adams and co-writer Jim Vallance can't appear to remember whether the '69 in question was the Summer of Love or the Summer of Mutual Oral Pleasure. You'd think something like that would stick in their mind.
The Canadian rocker's mum once lived just over the hill from me in Honley. That is my claim to non-fame for the day.
Oh, when I look back now, that summer seemed to last forever...
1. The Four Seasons - December 1963 (Oh What A Night)
Frankie Valli's biggest hit was originally titled 'December 5th, 1933' and celebrated the night prohibition was lifted in the States.
Apparently John Barrowman once recorded a cover. Much as I like Captain Jack, I won't be going out of my way to hear that.
So... do you remember any other songs about the 60s? Or were you actually there?
