Top Ten Valentine Songs

We'll get back to sexy next week... today though, we're going with soppy. Or not, as many of these songs look at the darker side of Valentine's Day. Which is good because I've never been a fan. If you're not in a relationship, it's just another kick in the ribs. If you are... well, not everything's roses, is it?

10. The Humms - No One Wants To Be Alone On Valentine's Day

Goes without saying really.

9. The Killers - The Ballad Of Michael Valentine

More tarnished Vegas romanticism from Brandon Flowers Pops.

8. The Very Sexuals - Anti-Valentine

Sounding like the Jesus & Mary Chain playing Unchained Melody in a Twin Peaks bar, this track is available to download free (along with the rest of their excellent album, Post-Apocalyptic Love) from the Very Sexuals website.

7. Richard Hawley - Valentine

About the only truly romantic song on this countdown, but that's OK because it's Richard Hawley and that's allowed.

6. The Auteurs - Lenny Valentino

In another life, Luke Haines was the south coast's answer to Martin Scorcese. Or Oliver Stone...

5. Tom Waits - Blue Valentines

Guilt and betrayal haunt every line of Tom Waits' apocalyptic love letter. Just devastating.

4. Bruce Springsteen - Valentine's Day

Nobody writes "driving to see my baby" songs like Bruce and this is one of his most atmospheric. Like much of the Tunnel Of Love album, it's dark and dramatic.

Is it the sound of the leaves
Left blown by the wayside
That's got me out here on this spooky old highway tonight?
Is it the cry of the river
With the moonlight shining through?
That ain't what scares me baby
What scares me is losing you

3. Frank Sinatra - My Funny Valentine

Or you might prefer the Elvis Costello version. Depends what kind of day I'm having.

2. Ruth - Valentine's Day

Stay out of my way on Valentine's Day!

Ah, Ruth... with tunes this good, you should have been massive.

1. Billy Bragg - Valentine's Day Is Over

One of Billy's best. Damn, these lyrics take some beating...

Thank you for the things you bought me, thank you for the card
Thank you for the things you taught me when you hit me hard
That love between two people must be based on understanding
Until that's true you'll find your things
All stacked out on the landing, surprise, surprise
Valentine's Day is over

But which song were you hoping for in the post this morning?

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 Movie Songs

No, not songs from the movies - songs about the movies. And no Celine Dion: guaranteed.



10. Belle & Sebastian - Like Dylan in the Movies

Stuart Murdoch's stalker anthem (one of many!) based around Dylan's famous promo film for Subterranean Homesick Blues. I'm not sure how the two connect, but when the end product sounds this good - who cares?

9. The Auteurs - Underground Movies

Another song I really don't have the first clue about lyrically... but as with most things Luke Haines touches, it has a welcoming seediness.

8. Murder By Death - Holy Lord, Shawshank Redemption Is Such A Good Movie

Murder By Death are great with the titles. This comes from the album Like The Exorcist, But More Breakdancing which also features tracks called: I'm Afraid Of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, Intergalactic Menopause and Flamenco's Fuckin' Easy. All inspired titles which the songs in question rarely live up to... how could they?

7. Suzanne Vega (If You Were) In My Movie

Simply put: if you were in Suzanne Vega's movie, you'd get the girl.

6. Death Cab For Cutie - A Movie Script Ending

Death Cab For Cutie believe you can go home again.

5. Thea Gilmore - Movie Kisses

Here it is
The not-so-happy-ending
We've done our picket fence defending
We did Bogart and Bacall and now the spotlight's gone, and anyway
All those movie kisses just last too long

4. Everclear - Songs From An American Movie Part 1

There's something of the David Lynch about many Everclear songs. On the surface: white picket fences. Underneath: darkness.

3. The Long Blondes - Lust In The Movies

I know you think you're in the movies.
You're in the movies and you don't wanna know me.
Well I know all about fear and desire, and I know all about lust, etc.

Edie Sedgwick, Anna Karina, Arlene Dahl.
Edie Sedgwick, Anna Karina, Arlene Dahl.
I just want to be a sweetheart.

I always thought Kate was singing about Tolstoy's tragic heroine Anna Karenina along with cult actresses Edie Sedgwick and Arlene Dahl. I never quite understood why.

Turns out it's actually Danish actress Anna Karina. Well, I never.

2. The Drifters - Kissing In The Back Row Of The Movies

One of those things you dream about doing when you're young and single... then when the opportunity does finally arrive: "Get off me, woman - I want to watch the film!"

1. Okkervil River - Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe

Their best song, it's a lyrical blizzard and no mistaking, with some of the more interesting rhymes you'll hear this week.



Do you have a favourite movie song? Do tell.

Anyone who suggests My Heart Will Go On, Everything I Do (I Do It For You) or Take My Breath Away... don't let the door hit your arse on your way out.