Top Twenty Earth Songs

For the next few weeks (or until I grow bored of it), I've planned a musical trip into outer space. And where better to start than home?

Naturally, there are more songs about Earth than any other planet in our Solar System... so here's twenty of my favourites...

20. Placebo - Allergic (To Thoughts of Mother Earth)

If Placebo were starting out now, I probably wouldn't buy their records. Right place, right time.

19. Meat Loaf - Peace On Earth

Meat doesn't want peace on Earth. He just wants to go home.

18. Imogen Heap - Earth

Put that down and clean this mess up
End of conversation
Put your back in it and
Make it up to me now

Whatever you say, love.

17. Curiosity Killed The Cat - Down To Earth

I enjoy this now more than I did at the time, but Ben Volpeliere-Pierrot's hat is still very silly.

16. Prefab Sprout - Earth: The Story So Far

I was so looking forward to this long-unreleased Prefab Sprout album (Lets Change The World With Music) that when it finally arrived, disappointment was perhaps inevitable. Although Paddy's voice is still angelic, the instrumentation mostly sounds like it was recorded in his bedroom on a Bontempi. He just about gets away with it.

15. Green Day - Last Night On Earth

I quite like the fact that Green Day have written a musical. It's the ultimate one finger salute to all those former fans who've been screaming "sell-out" to them for years. This was never a band you should take seriously.

14. Duran Duran - Planet Earth

Yes, I know. I know. But you'd have been disappointed if I hadn't included it somewhere.

13. The Sundays - On Earth

The Sundays are a band that always make me feel younger. They remind me of a certain time. Ironically, a time when I wasn't actually listening to any of their records. But I should have been.

12. The Divine Comedy - Life On Earth

Too good for youtube, apparently. Shame.

11. Gay Dad - To Earth With Love

For about 5 minutes one Wednesday in January, 1999, Gay Dad were the next big thing. And then, like that, they were gone.

10. George Harrison - Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)

Forever the coolest Beatle.

9. Carole King - I Feel The Earth Move

See also Martika, obviously.

8. Graham Coxon - People of the Earth

People of the earth, your world is crap
You ain't even on the universe map
People of the earth, you do not rock
You are nothing but a fluffy flock
People of the earth, you have failed
You still worship The Sun and The Daily Mail

7. Neil Young - Falling Off The Face Of The Earth

For a cranky old bugger, Neil don't half make some beautiful records.

6. PJ Harvey - The Colour Of The Earth

A cool a capella rendition (followed by the full album version) of one of the stand out tracks from Polly Jean's second Mercury Prize winner.

5. Belinda Carlisle - Heaven Is A Place On Earth

It was about time someone judged Belinda's biggest hit worthy of a reassessment in cool. Thanks to Lana Del Rey then for paying homage on Video Games.

4. Sparks - Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth

Never turn your back on Ron & Russell Mael. Or on the excellent Niko Case cover.

3. Strangelove - The Greatest Show On Earth

Many of the Britpop era bands that slipped through the cracks were a damned sight more interesting than the ones that bothered the Top Ten. Patrick Duff's Strangelove deserved stardom far more than Oasis.

2. The Dandy Warhols - Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth

Another band I sometimes think I've left behind... but they're better than history remembers them.

I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so passé...

1. The Penguins / The Crew Cuts / Death Cab For Cutie et al... and, of course, Marvin Berry & The Starlighters - Earth Angel

C'mon man, let's do something that really cooks...

So. Those were my favourite Earth songs. Now tell me yours.

Points deducted for anyone who mentions the one I left out on purpose...

Book Review - 11.22.63 by Stephen King

If you'd told me there was a new book out in which a teacher has to travel back in time to try and stop the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on the 22nd of November 1963, I would have bought it regardless of the author. From Back To The Future to Mad Men, I've long had a great affection for late 50s / early 60s Americana, and I've also always been fascinated by the way the Kennedy assassination has been absorbed into pop culture, from Oliver Stone's epic, star-studded and wildly paranoid JFK to one of my favourite Manic Street Preachers songs, I'm Just A Patsy. And it goes without saying that I'm a sucker for time travel stories too. So, like I say, I'd have bought this book whoever wrote it. But Stephen King? My favourite author in the whole world ever, ever? Could it get any better?

Well, yes, it could. Because not only is this Stephen King, but it's also the best Stephen King I've read in 20+ years. I've been more positive about King's recent works than many of his longtime fans, but I've still been aware of its flaws: self-indulgent rambling and anti-climatic conclusions being his greatest crimes of late. But at no point during 11.22.63 did I feel that King was dragging his feet: indeed, for a novel that's 734 pages long I could happily have read another 734. Unlike many novels, I wasn't racing to get to the end so I could move on to the next book on my stack, I was pacing myself, slowing down my reading, trying to relish every page, not wanting it to end. That said, I was glad when it did - and, more importantly, how it did. This was perhaps the most satisfying climax King has ever written, and it was interesting to see him tip his hat in that regard towards his son, Joe Hill, who "thought up a new and better ending".

The most impressive thing about 11.22.63 is the plot. Time travel stories are notoriously tricky to navigate, especially ones which involve changing history. Add to that the conspiracy legends that surround JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald and there were a plethora of predictable twists that could have sunk this story. That said, there are also certain time travel tropes which are essential, and to ignore them would have led to a hugely unsatisfying read. King's answer to this dilemma is two-fold: firstly to cleverly hoodwink readers who were expecting a shlocky conspiracy thriller into enjoying a far more satisfying romantic drama. To the point that once the Oswald chase finally takes centre stage, we're screaming at the author to take us back to the comforting diversions of young high school teachers in love. Secondly, there's King's ingenious solution to the book's true protagonist and antagonist. Despite what you might expect, this is not one man from the future versus history's most infamous assassin. Instead, it's one man from the future versus time itself. Time is the bad guy in 11.22.63, because time does not want to be changed. And time will do anything to stop history being meddled with. 'How does one man defeat time itself?' is the novel's central question, yet we're ever aware that a second question lurks in the background: 'What are the consequences if he does?'

The best thing I can say about 11.22.63 is that it's taken top place on my list of Stephen King novels I'd recommend to people who don't read Stephen King novels. If it's true that King has spent his entire career trying to shed the clumsy genre labelling and write that elusive "Great American Novel", then I'll be damned if he hasn't finally done it. Whether or not the sniffy critics will be able to get past the fact that this is a story in which an English teacher travels back half a century through a food pantry in a roadside diner... well, screw 'em if they don't have the imagination.