Top Ten Songs About The 60s

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?

Top Ten Bitch Songs

This seemed like an obvious follow-on from last week's list of Bastard Songs, however I was not without my qualms...

I used to work with a woman who absolutely loathed the word B-I-T-C-H. She was happy enough using most other swearwords (even the C-one), but could not even stand to be in the same room as someone saying "bitch". Now I'm a firm believer in not letting words have power over you... but I also don't want there to be any kind of misogynist subtext from a post like this. (Misanthropic, yes, but there's a misanthropic subtext to just about every post I write.) Besides, as this list proves, the word in question can have all kinds of different interpretations... and it does make for an excellent selection of tunes...

10. Meredith Brooks - Bitch

What further proof can you ask for than this 90s feminist empowerment anthem (oh, argue that one amongst yourselves) from Meredith Brooks...?

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover
I'm a child, I'm a mother
I'm a sinner, I'm a saint
I do not feel ashamed
I'm your health, I'm your dream
I'm nothing in between
You know you wouldn't want it any other way

9. Inspiral Carpets - Bitches Brew

An atmospheric, almost Joy Division-esque drone from the Manc madcaps... though they are wearing Sphinx masks in the video, and you never saw Ian Curtis doing that, did you?

8. David Bowie - Queen Bitch

Ah, Bowie. You really should show up on these lists more often, you crazy androgynous godlike genius, you.

She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat
and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that

What a bee-yatch!

7. Kenickie - 60s Bitch

I make no apology for the fact that this also appeared in my Top Ten Six Songs. It's Kenickie, deal with it.

6. Absentee - Bitchstealer

"Bring her back, bring her back, bring her back..."

I knew very little about Absentee... but after hearing this, I wanted to know more.

5. Elton John - The Bitch Is Back

In which Elton is the titular bitch... and you just know he is, too.

4. Blast Off Country Style - Hey, Hey I Love You Bitch

I can't find much about this band online either, and sadly no link to the song in question. But it's great... so if you can track it down, you'd be doing yourself a huge favour.

3. Bowling For Soup - The Bitch Song

The b-word means something quite different in an all-male prison, as Bowling For Soup discover in this sensitive video dealing with the harsh realities of prison life.

I like Bowling For Soup. They're like a band from a Hannah Barbera cartoon. I bet they drive around in a colourful tourbus solving spooky mysteries and upsetting local shopkeepers wherever they go.

It amuses me no end that when you search for this song on youtube it comes up as "Beach Song".

I originally placed this song at #7... then I received a tweet from the band's lead singer Jaret Reddick... and he's right, they should have been at least #5.

So I changed the order round and made them #3. Yes, I am that easily swayed.

If David Bowie wants to tweet me, I'll make him at least #4.

2. Ben Folds - Bitches Ain't Shit

Quite possibly the greatest cover version ever recorded, in which Ben Folds castrates the macho posturing of Dr. Dre's original (though to be fair, the bitches Dre refers to are a former bandmate and his manager) and turns it into a heartbreaking piano ballad. Folds' version of this song became so popular that he eventually had to give up playing it live because he didn't want his kids to hear him referred to as "that bitch guy".

1. Robyn - Konichiwa Bitches

I first became aware of Robyn, and this song, through Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's excellent Phonogram.

Here Robyn brags like the cockiest of rappers yet in such hilarious, tongue-in-cheek fashion you can't help but love her. This song is actually the main reason I wanted to compile this particular Top Ten... it was either this or a Top Ten Foreign Language Greetings Songs... which was much clumsier... though I haven't ruled it out completely.

I'm so very hot that when I rob your mansion
You ain't call the cops, you call the firestation

'Cause my love is so sweet
You'll be zoom, zoom, zoom
Don't even get me started on my bada-boom-boom
One left, one right thats how I organize 'em
You know I fill my cups no need to supersize em'
Right now you probably thinking how she get in them jeans
Well I'm gifted all natural and burstin the seams

Konichiwa bitches!

Feel free to bitch in the comments about the bitches I kicked to the curb...