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...

Top Ten Self-Pity Songs (Volume 1)

Isn't self-pity great? I hereby declare it the most ace emotion ever! If I'm having a bad day, there's nothing more guaranteed to cheer me up than a good long bout of feeling sorry for myself.

You'd think that with all the money and groupies and cocaine and stuff, your average rock star wouldn't have much time for self-pity, yet they seem to get off on it almost as much as I do. Although to be fair, most of the anthems to self-loathing listed below come from early in the respective artist's career - by singing about how shit they felt, they made oodles of money and hence stopped feeling so shit about themselves... and then went on to stop writing such good songs, since happiness is rarely conducive to artistic greatness.

This is Volume 1 simply because there are so many great self-pity songs, I really couldn't narrow it down to just ten. I'll throw some more onto the fire the next time I'm feeling crappy. Do feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments box...


10. Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag

I don't care, I love this song. It encapsulates how shit it is to be a teenager, listening to Iron Maiden, unable to get the girl you want because she's dating a dick. The video features perpetual loser Jason Biggs trying to cop off with Mena Suvari (from Amy Heckerling's underrated teen-com Loser). The band followed this supreme ode to woe with an Erasure cover. Yes, a fucking ERASURE cover. They deserved to self-destruct after that. But as one-hit wonders go... wow.

9. Eels - Dog Faced Boy

Coming home from the school today
Crying all along the way
Ain't no way for a boy to be
Begging ma to shave me please

You little punks think you own this town
Well someday someone's gonna bring you down
Life ain't pretty for a dog faced boy

E from the Eels has built a career on feeling sorry for himself, and understandly so when you consider some of the things that have happened to him. That said, he's always aware that things could be worse. He could always have a face like a shaggy mongrel.

8. Strangelove - Freak

If your name was Duff, you might expect your life to follow suit. So cheesed off that fate had robbed him by leaving that all-important 'y' off the end of his name - otherwise he might have been The Man From Atlantis or Bobby Ewing - Patrick Duff formed Strangelove and channeled all his negativity into this...

I walk the plastic streets
Just like a monkey
Just like a geek
My scraping knuckles bleed
I hear my Mummy crying out
He's a freak
I live a life alone
And all my friends are gone
It kind of turns me on
I hate them one by one by one
I'm a freak

7. Mansun - What It's Like To Be Hated

A song so utterly depressing, I can't even find it on youtube.

How are you feeling today, Paul Draper?

Ugly, scruffy, no one

Really?

Nasty, bitter, enraged

Right...

Hated, broken

Oh, come on now, cheer up - it can't be that bad.

Disturbed, unwanted at birth
The fucking joke that we are
I've never had any friends

Fair enough then.

6. Simon & Garfunkel - I Am A Rock

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

See the genius of Paul Simon here is that, bad as he's feeling, he's actually convinced himself he's better off that way. There was a time in my life I lived by the following lines...

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.

And if it all falls apart at sometime in the future, I'll live by them again.

5. Teddy Thompson - Turning The Gun On Myself

I really should do a list of suicide anthems. And this really should be on it. But as it's possibly the best song Richard Thompson Jr.'s ever written, it deserves its place on this list too.

4. Eric Carmen - All By Myself

When Eric Carmen was young, he never needed anyone. Making love? Making love was just for fun! Sadly, those days are gone. Now he's living alone, thinking of all the friends he's known... but when he dials the telephone... nobody's home.

I don't know about you, but I'm welling up.

3. Beck - Loser

For many years, I thought that Beck sang "So - open up the door - I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?"

Only when it comes to writing this post do my investigations reveal he's actually singing "Soy un perdedor", which, according to the internet... is Spanish for "I'm a loser".

2. Radiohead - Creep

I wish I was special. Don't you?

1. The Smiths - I Know It's Over

Of course, I could have compiled an entire Self-Pity Top Ten just from Smiths songs. And I could have made a Top Hundred just from sticking pins at random in Morrissey's solo catalogue. But none of them would have been quite as majestically miserable as this. It begins with Morrissey climbing into an empty bed he equates with a grave... and goes rapidly downhill from there. He then imagines a relationship with a potential partner who turns round and says to him these immortal words...

"If you're so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
And if you're so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you're so very entertaining
Then why are you on your own tonight ?
If you're so very good-looking
Why do you sleep alone tonight ?
I know ...
'Cause tonight is just like any other night
That's why you're on your own tonight
With your triumphs and your charms
While they're in each other's arms..."

If you've never sat alone late at night and asked yourself these questions... count yourself very, very lucky.



There - don't you feel better now?