Proof, if proof be needed, that it's possible to compile a Top Ten songs about any subject... even a load of old rubbish.
Special runners-up prizes go to Garbage and the Trash Can Sinatras...
10. Lonnie Donegan - My Old Man's A Dustman
Skiffle-king Donegan angered traditionalists with his turn to musical hall comedy in 1960 - but it proved one of his biggest hits, as well as his third and final Number One. In case you didn't know what a dustman was, the title also provided the following, slightly less poetic parenthesis... (Ballad Of A Refuse Disposal Officer).
Me, I always wanted to know what those "gor-blimey trousers" his old man wore were all about...
9. Blanche - Garbage Picker
Southern Gothic country madness helmed by husband and wife duo Dan John and Tracie Mae Miller...
My debonair style impressed you,
But you kept asking where I shop,
And that day you saw me picking by the roadside,
Was the day that our romance stopped.
8. Raveonettes - Love In A Trashcan
Those crazy Danes, they'll do it anywhere...
7. Johnny Cash - Country Trash
Listening to this song, I feel a strange kinship for Johnny Cash. I suppose I'm doing all right for country trash...
6. Blur - For Tomorrow
The song that gives the album Modern Life Is Rubbish its name, inspired in part by the fact that when they first moved to London, Damon Albarn's parents lived next door to John Lennon. Or so it says on Wikipedia. Which probably means it's bollocks.
5. The Faces - Debris
Rod Stewart used to be cool. Rubbish?
4. Michael Anderson - White Trash Shakespeare
I have no idea where I find these things. This is from a contemporary country album which also contains an excellent song called Raymond Chandler Said. I think someone might have pointed me towards that while compiling my Top Ten Detective Songs.
3. New York Dolls - Trash
While I don't share Morrissey's undying adoration of this band, this is probably the best thing I've heard from them: a raucous slab of pre-punk glam with a nice Mick Jagger impression from lead singer David Johansen.
2. Suede - Trash
25 years later, Suede recorded virtually the same song - yet made it sound completely different. There is a direct line from David Johansen through to Bret Anderson, but I'm not sure the Dolls were the inspiration behind Suede's biggest hit. Maybe it's just one of those glorious flukes pop throws up from time to time.
Maybe, maybe it's the clothes we wear,
The tasteless bracelets and the dye in our hair,
Maybe it's our kookiness,
Or maybe, maybe it's our nowhere towns,
Our nothing places and our cellophane sounds,
Maybe it's our looseness,
But we're trash, you and me,
We're the litter on the breeze,
We're the lovers on the streets...
1. Carter USM - Rubbish
The only problem with that Suede song, much as I love it and want to make it Number #1, is that it's not very British, is it, Bret? Where I come from, we don't have trashcans, we have rubbish bins.
"What do you think of the programme so far?" asks John Peel midway through this track. Wisely, Jim Bob and Fruitbat leave us to provide our own answers...
I wish I'd discovered Carter back in 1992... why did no one tell me?
From the black bag skip in the parking lot
It's a short bad trip to the candy shop
Where the shrimps sell smack to the jelly snakes
And the kids buy crack in their morning break
And the grass grows bluer on the other side
Where the old girls queue for their Mother's Pride
For a slice of life it's a bargain sale
The price is right but the bread is stale
From the high rise priest of the office blocks
To a five year lease on a cardboard box
From the old queens head to the Burger King
In my '57 Chevy made from baked bean tins
And when I drive that heap down the road
You can hear that cheap car stereo
Volume knob turned down low
Rubbish on the radio
Those were mine... what's your favourite rubbish song?
