Top Ten Seaside Songs

Following my Return To Reighton Gap post, this seemed apt. You may be going on holiday soon. You may just have come back. Either way, here's ten seaside songs that might get you in the mood / jog your memories. I could easily have made this a Top 20 or 30 but I'm trying to reign myself in and stop boring your speedos off.

10. Led Zeppelin - Down By The Seaside

(From 'Physical Graffiti'.)

The sea air makes messrs. Page and Plant go all mellow. Nice.

9. Queen - Seaside Rendezvous

(From 'A Night At The Opera'.)

It has the opposite affect on Mr. Mercury, sending him quite, quite bonkers. Not that he has very far to travel.

8. The Kooks - Seaside

(From 'Inside In/Inside Out'.)

I like the way they've recorded the acoustic guitar on this track. It sounds like he's busking on the sea front. Without the seagulls stealing coins from his hat.

7. Kirsty MacColl - He's On The Beach

(From 'The Best of Kirsty MacColl'.)

Poor old Kirsty, she's doesn't have much luck with men. This bloke tells her he's going on holiday without her... next thing she knows she's getting a postcard from the seaside. Sydney, Australia.

And he says it's brilliant there
There's something in the air
There's sunshine everywhere
He's on the beach

Was it something she said?

6. Bruce Springsteen - 4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)

(From 'Greetings From Asbury Park N.J.')

Being brought up in Asbury Park, Bruce had a lot of seaside stories to tell on his early records. This one brings a tear to my eye if I'm in the right mood (melancholic).

Every summer when the weather gets hot
They ride that road down from heaven
On their Harleys, they come and they go
And you can see 'em dressed like stars
In all them cheap little seashore bars
Parked making love with their babies
Out on the Kokomo

I've never been to Asbury Park, but for some reason I imagine it to be like the New Jersey equivalent of Blackpool.

5. Rialto - Summer's Over

(From 'Rialto'.)

A song that obviously owes an enormous debt to our number two record this week (no jumping ahead, kids, we'll get there soon enough). It's no worse off for that.

Kamikaze seagull planes fighting over chip shop take-away remains
When you're walking on the cliffs
You can't help thinking of how far down the sea is
And what if it should give...

Quite beautiful.

4. Squeeze - Pulling Mussels From A Shell

(From 'Greatest Hits'.)

I never really understood the innuendo of this song, but it's obviously a gloriously mucky tale of a holiday romance and what goes on behind the chalet. If anyone wants to explain just what Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook mean by "pulling mussels from a shell", you know where the comments box is.

On second thoughts...

3. The Drifters - Under The Boardwalk

(From 'The Very Best of the Drifters'.)

If this song doesn't make you want to go lie on a blanket down by the sea, you're obviously dead from the sunglasses down.

Just be thankful this child of the 80s didn't inflict the Bruce Willis version on you. (One of the first records I ever bought!) Hey, Bruno...!

2. Morrissey - Everyday Is Like Sunday

(From 'Bona Drag: 20th Anniversary Edition'.)

Hands up if you thought this would be number one? Well, yes, it is one of Mozzer's best. And it is wonderfully evocative of those dreary seaside towns where the highlight of the week was sharing some grease tea and celebrating winning a cheap tray on the bingo. But hey, Morrissey - I actually like those tacky resorts. I can think of far better places to bring down your nuclear bombs. Is is really so bad that Every Day Is Like Sunday?

1. Beach Boys - Surfin' USA

(From 'Surfin' Safari/Surfin' USA'.)

I'm sure that seaside holidays are completely different kettles of fish in the USA, but nothing says sun and sand and sea to me more than the Beach Boys and nothing gets me more in the mood for a holiday. I'm waxing down by surfboard as I type...

(No, that's not a Squeeze-esque euphemism, Steve!)



So those were my bucket and spade / sandcastle / ice cream on the beach songs... but what song reminds you of seaside holidays gone by... or gets you in the mood for future ones?

Top Ten Songs About The 50s

Because I want to do a Top Ten Songs About The 80s in a few weeks time, and because I'm a saddo list-compiler completist, I first had to go back further, to the dawn of rock 'n' roll. Just be glad I couldn't find enough songs about the 30s or 40s... or the 1800s.

To be clear - this isn't my favourite songs FROM the fifties... all these tracks were released much later. It's just a list of tracks that recall that mythical decade in one way or another...

10. Ronnie Milsap - Lost In The 50s Tonight

It's crass music journo shorthand to call Ronnie Milsap the "country Stevie Wonder" just because he's blind... so I won't.

This song was recorded in 1985... yet it could easily have come from thirty years earlier.

9. Patti Smith - 1959

I like Patti Smith. Horses? Great album. That one with Because The Night on? Even better. Let's face it, there are those who believe Morrissey and Marr named their band after her... so really, who am I to be critical?

However...

This song does contain the following lyric...

Wisdom was a teapot
Pouring from above.

???

8. The Police - Born In The 50s

OK, Sting, here's the problem. You call your song Born In The 50s, yet all your lyrics refer to events that took place in the 60s.

My mother cried
When president Kennedy died
She said it was the communists
But I knew better

Also, it seems Sting knew exactly who shot JFK... even when he was a little kid. Pity the Warren Commission didn't just ask li'l Gordon. And what's more...

They screamed
When the Beatles sang
And they laughed when the King fell down the stairs
Oh they should've known better
Oh we hated our Aunts
Then we messed in our pants

I swear I'm not making these lyrics up. I take back everything I said about Patti Smith's teapot.

7. Dion - Queen of '59

From the album Streetheart, which came bundled up on CD with its far superior (Phil Spector produced) predecessor, Born To Be With You, this is a nice little duet with Phil Everly, written about Dion's wife Susan. Damned if I can find it anywhere on the internet though.

6. Tom Waits - Ol' 55

Tom Waits takes his vintage automobile out for a spin. I have no idea what sort of car this would be, but I want to say Buick. Apparently the Eagles covered this track, but Tom wasn't too impressed, calling their version "antiseptic". But then, he hates the fucking Eagles, man.

5. The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound

You ain't supposed to die on a Saturday night, not even for making a career out of impersonating the E Street Band.

4. Beach Boys - Disney Girls (1957)

A nostalgic ode from Beach Boy Bruce Johnson, released in the 70s when the 50s already felt like a golden age. I'm not sure how much of this is American Happy Days mythologising (certainly Britain in the 50s doesn't look half as appealing with hindsight) but you can hear in this song exactly why Marty McFly had to go back there.

3. Morrissey - Munich Air Disaster 1958

As if to prove my point about Britain, here's Morrissey with a song dedicated to the Manchester United team killed on their way home from Germany. In black and white, no doubt.

2. Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire

Some may question this track's inclusion. To them I say: compile your own list. This infamous 80s list song begins in the year of Joel's birth, 1949, but spends more of its time in the 50s than it does in the 60s, 70s or 80s... as illustrated in this excessively detailed guide to every single lyric.

We Didn't Start The Fire was released at the height of my teenage Joel-mania, when I really should have been listening to the Smiths... but wasn't. I still love it, even the bit where he obviously can't think of a rhyme for "JFK blown away". He should have asked Sting.

1. Richard Thompson - 1952 Black Lightning

A wonderful story about Richard Thompson's favourite motorcycle, and the heartbreaking romance it inspires. Would also likely make Number One in my Top Ten Motorbike Songs... if I ever get round to that.

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride

So... do you remember any songs about the 50s? Or are you all too young?