Top Ten 40 Songs

It was inevitable, wasn't it?

10. The Enemy - 40 Days and 40 Nights

The Enemy go for a walk to the supermarket and find themselves snowed out. While they're away, someone else shacks up with their girlfriend for 40 days and 40 nights. Meanwhile, they band is left sleeping in a petrol station. I wish I was making this up.

9. Badly Drawn Boy - 40 Days, 40 Fights

After which time, Damon lets The Enemy have her back.

8. The Donnas - 40 Boys In 40 Nights

While on tour, the Donnas make a bid for the Guinness book of records. This leaves them little time to see the sights.

7. Duane Eddy - 40 Miles of Bad Road

Obviously recorded before David Cameron's revolutionary, can't-fail plans to privatise road mending. 40 miles? Try 40,000...

6. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes - 40 Day Dream

Edward Sharpe's been sleeping 40 days, in which time he's been mostly dreaming about the Beatles. Not scrambled eggs, more magical mysteries...

5. Franz Ferdinand - 40'

In which Franz Ferdinand stand atop a cliff, contemplating a 40 foot leap... come on, lads, it's not that bad - surely? It's not like you've just turned 40 or anything.

4. Ocean Colour Scene - 40 Past Midnight

I consider this more a homage to Let's Spend The Night Together than a direct rip-off. Mick 'n' Keef never actually sued, so...

3. Johnny Cash - When It's Springtime In Alaska (It's Forty Below)

Good job The Enemy don't live in Alaska - they'd never have got home.

2. Robert Palmer - Top 40

Batley Bob shows Bublé how this sort of thing should be done... long before Bublé was any more than a bubble.

1. Mercury Rev - Opus 40

A thing of beauty. If being 40 is anything like this song, it'll be a glorious, epic adventure...

Countdown To 40: A Song A Year - 20 Is The New Teenage

The first ten years...

The troublesome teens...

And now, part 3 of my Countdown to...

21 (1993) Aimee Mann - I Should've Known

If I were being retroactive, I'd pick something like OU or Razzmatazz from the Pulp: Intro album, but sadly I didn't discover Jarvis till the following year. I did discover Aimee Mann in '93 though and even chose her debut solo record, Whatever, as my album of the year. Mr. Harris is probably my favourite track from that disc now, but this is the one that made me love Aimee at the time.

Meanwhile, the singles chart had fallen off a cliff. Number One as I got the key to the door? Oh Carolina by Shaggy.

22 (1994) Morrissey - Now My Heart Is Full

And I just can't explain so I won't even try to

Jarvis almost made it home once again, I could have gone with just about anything from His 'n' Hers. But then there's Vauxhall & I. Could this be Morrissey's finest 39 minutes as a solo artist?

I told you the birthday number ones just get worse and worse. March 19th, 1994? Doop. By Doop. Sadly, not this one...

23 (1995) Pulp - Common People

All hail Britpop, and its greatest hero finally makes it home. I could have chosen Sorted For E's & Whizz, but I'd just be being contrary.

Meanwhile in the charts... Love Can Build A Bridge by Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton. Who all should have known better.

24 (1996) Ocean Colour Scene - The Day We Caught The Train

At last, proof that my favourite singles don't always come from my favourite albums. This was the year of Everything Must Go, Beautiful Freak and Murder Ballads... yet the song that most reminds me of my second stab at being a teenager is this exuberant blast of sunshiny retro-pop from Ocean Colour Scene. Hard to believe they were the first band I ever saw live.

Meanwhile, back in the charts... How Deep Is Your Love? Shallow, when it comes to the Take That version. Not so shallow they couldn't drown a few Gibb brothers in it.

25 (1997) Blur - Song 2

Blur were a great singles band and this was their greatest moment. Two minutes of noisy power pop that never fail to make me go "Woo hoo!" While Radiohead, The Verve and Gene were darkening my long player collection, Damon and the lads kept me smiling. This year's runner-up was a hymn to optimism from James: Tomorrow.

And in an alternate reality to my own, The Spice Girls were having their 4th Number One as I reached my mid-20s. I can't even remember the title.

26 (1998) The New Radicals - You Get What You Give

Another song that stands out by not belonging to one of the year's best albums. 1998 gave us my favourite record of the 90s, Pulp's public breakdown on This Is Hardcore. But the single of the year belongs to Gregg Alexander, a man who hated being a rock star so much he went off and wrote songs for Ronan Keating.

Sadly, I can't find my other favourite single of 1998 on youtube. Child Psychology by Black Box Recorder must be too dark for the video collective.

March 19th 1998, the Number One was It's Like That by Run DMC vs. Jason Nevins. Which is a damn sight better than we've managed throughout the rest of this decade so far.

27 (1999) Travis - Why Does It Always Rain On Me?

I thought long and hard about this one. It would have been so much cooler to pick something by The Magnetic Fields (69, my favourite album of '99), The Flaming Lips or even Ooberman, but as much as Fran Healey has damaged his limited rep by writing MOR-pap for the last 10+ years, this is still a perfect gloomy-pop song that captures a snapshot of my life in 1999. I remember watching them play it live at a festival just before they went big, in the rain. Perfect.

Besides, it could have been worse. I could have chosen my last birthday Number One of the 20th Century. Boyzone murdering Billy Ocean. When The Going Gets Tough... the tough put their hands over their ears and go lalalalalalalala.

28 (2000) Everclear - Wonderful

Neither of my two favourite singles of 2000 meant much to the public at large. I've written about Black Box Recorder's The Facts Of Life before, but Wonderful by Everclear is a curio. An American band who have never bothered the British charts, this is their greatest moment. More upbeat power-pop packed with smiley hooks, handclaps and a 'na-na-na' chorus... masking a dark lyrical undertow.

Please don't tell me everything is wonderful now

Far less Wonderful, my first birthday chart-topper of the 21st Century: Bag It Up by Geri Halliwell. WTF? Is that Geri singing about her shopping? I'm not sure I've ever even heard that record. I am sure I never want to.

29 (2001) Eels - Souljacker Part 1

Ben Folds came close with Rockin' The Suburbs, but this rocks harder.

And on my birthday? Pure And Simple by Hear'Say. The charts are officially dead.

30 (2002) The Flaming Lips - Do You Realise?

The song I want playing at my funeral. Kind of apt for my 30th birthday?

But as I actually turned 30, Will Young was at Number One, marking the funeral of the singles chart as we knew it. Simon Cowell slaughtered the damned thing before our very eyes.

Ten more years to go...

Top Twenty Train Songs

I know, it's been a while. You've been getting Top Ten withdrawal, haven't you? To make up for it, here's 20 songs about trains. Because there's a new Denzel Washington movie out this week where the train don't stop for nobody... or something. It's got Captain Kirk in it too (no, not The Shat). I might have to go watch that...

20. The Doobie Bros - Long Train Running

Likely to be the first and last time the Doobie Brothers appear in one of my lists, unless I do a What A Fool Believes Top Ten.

19. Whistler - Don't Jump In Front Of My Train

A wistful indie gem from the mid-90s, dedicated to all of you who have been held up on your way home by some selfish suicide...

18. ELO - Last Train To London

Considering my love for all things Electric, Light and Orchestral, this should be higher in the list. Unfortunately it suffered a little overkill in my head between 15 and 20 years ago when "the radio" decided it was one of the best testing oldies ever and subsequently played it three times an hour for about 6 months nonstop.

17. Johnny Cash - Hey Porter

You can't help but think it was a simpler, better world when Johnny Cash began writing songs back in the early 50s. You know, when train companies paid someone to help you with your bags...

See also Rock Island Line, Orange Blossom Special, and a bunch of other Man In Black songs I don't have time to link to.

16. Thea Gilmore - Don't Set Foot Over The Railway Tracks

Sadly, one of Thea Gilmore's greatest songs can't be found anywhere online for me to point you to. It's available on her album Songs From The Gutter though, and well worth tracking down.

Don't set foot
Over the railway track
The Heathens and the spin-doctors
Are waiting round the back
The skies are always sullen and
Rain races to the tarmac
So don't set foot
Over the railway track

Don't set foot
Over the railway track
The grass isn't green its yellow
And the pavement is all cracks
The graveyard's in a coma
The church has got the blues
And Jesus has a nose-ring
And Mary has tattoos

Girls paint their skins like corpses
And have hair of scouring wire
And the men all look like demons
See them dancing round their fires
Every door has leprosy
Every house has got the clap
So don't set foot
Over the railway track

15. The O'Jays - Love Train

A prime slab of Philly cheese.

14. Bruce Springsteen - Downbound Train

You should have realised by now... if these lists don't contain a Morrissey track, they must by law feature The Boss. If you don't like it, you know where the Next Blog button is.

13. Gordon Lightfoot - Canadian Railroad Trilogy

A true story of blood, sweat and tears. Songwriting as history lesson - if my history teacher had sounded like Gordon Lightfoot, I wouldn't have dropped it at the end of the Third Year.

12. Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip - Last Train Home

In which the beardy rapper finds himself on the last train home, surrounded by people who are "either stinking of weed or stinking of beer, being loud and obscene or sitting in tears". No wonder he doesn't want to be there.

11. The Monkees - Last Train To Clarksville

I'll meet you at the station... for our last bit of nookie before they ship me off to war.

10. Soul Asylum - Runaway Train

I'll play this one for Tony McGee, the biggest Soul Asylum fan I know.

9. The Cure - Jumping Someone Else's Train

Don't say what you mean
You might spoil your face

8. Spearmint - The Train

Shirley Lee's observational tale will be familiar to most commuters...

Everybody runs down the steps in case the train is coming
They didn't run when they left their houses
Didn't run along the street or down the escalators
Just for this very last bit

As the train arrives they start to walk along the platform
As though it might just go right past
As though today it might be too short

People crowd around the doors, initially letting people get off
But soon pressing forward
Even though there are empty seats they push anxiously
As though the doors may close before they manage to get on

A man insists that people should "move down, please!"
He does this in a haughty and petulant manner
But he's the same man who didn't move down the other day
I see him often

And just as the door is closing, and as the beeper's beeping
A man with a backpack hurls himself in
His rucksack gets trapped between the closing doors
He struggles, the doors re-open, and he stumbles into the carriage
Embarrassed and relieved
People look disapproving
"How selfish," they think
Some look away, but each of them has done the same at some point in the past

Some people are reading newspapers
Many seem transfixed by the newspaper of the person next to them
And are snatching covert glances
Even if they have the same paper themselves

Several people are reading novels
You can tell what the latest bestsellers are
Just by looking down the carriage...

And that's when the story really begins.

7. Gladys Knight & The Pips - Midnight Train To Georgia

I never realised just how sad this song is until I heard the Neil Diamond version.

6. Elvis Presley - Mystery Train

I love the illiterate arguments people have on youtube...

The words to the song is : Train I ride , sixteen coaches long NOT Train arrive ..... At least if you are gonna put up info on the record at least get it right ........

THANQ a lotttt for ur info but this is not my problem, It's the lyric 's web site problem ,and The English not my 1st language ,I just love the King and adore this song u should thank me and say good word .

5. Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time - The Girl Who Waves At Trains

You're as welcome as a Christmas rose
Like a shotgun in a field of crows
As breathless as my fifth form prose

Stephen, I hate to pick, but how welcome is that shotgun if you're a crow?

4. Elbow - Station Approach

Guy Garvey describes the uplifting emotion of returning to your hometown by train after a long time away...

The streets are full of Goths and Greeks
I haven't seen my mum for weeks
But coming home I feel like I
Designed these buildings I walk by

This song also wins through the typical Garvey compliment, "You little sod, I love your eyes". What an old romantic he is.

3. Paul Simon - Train In The Distance

Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance
Everybody thinks it's true

One of the best songs Paul Simon ever wrote.

2. Ocean Colour Scene - The Day We Caught The Train

Say what you want about Britpop, say what you want about Ocean Colour Scene... but this is a gorgeous blast of euphoric, picture-painting singalong pop that I'll never grow tired of. Could have been Number One but I bottled it...

1. The Jam - Down In The Tube Station At Midnight

Weller used to be such a great storyteller. Why doesn't he tell stories like this anymore?



So... which train did I miss?