My Top Ten Thunder Songs

So the THOR movie is almost upon us and appears to be getting halfway decent reviews too. Good old Kenneth Branagh, eh? I won't be seeing it for a while, but in honour of the God of Thunder, what better than a Top Ten Thunder songs?

If you're really good, we'll do lightning next week.

Special mentions go to Thunder, Thunderthighs, Thunderclap Newman... and (thanks to Rob), Thor himself... with Thunder On The Tundra! (Nice hammer.)



10. Kiss - God Of Thunder ( From Greatest Hits)

The most appropriate record on the list, if not the best, though Kiss seem to be confusing Thor with Elvis... he's not just the God of Thunder, he's also the God of Rock 'n' Roll. And a very naughty boy too, no doubt.

9. Leo Sayer - Thunder In My Heart ( From The Show Must Go On: The Very Best Of Leo Sayer)

Man, that is one serious 'do, Leo.

I can't help but think of Kenny Everett while watching this video.

8.Alphabeat - 10,000 Nights Of Thunder ( From This is Alphabeat)

I know absolutely zilch about Alphabeat, but this record found its way onto my radar a couple of years back and it's not an unpleasant way to spend 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

This is the first time I've ever seen the video though... and if I didn't know better, I'd swear the (male) lead singer was a young Chris Morris.

7. John Cougar Mellencamp - Thundering Hearts ( From American Fool)

Back when he was just a Cougar, JM took a motorcycle ride through the valley of the Thundering Hearts, and this was the result.

Louise recently bought Guitar Hero for her wii. Yes, we've jumped on board the Guitar Hero craze just as everybody else jumped off it (or maybe not). Anyway, one of our favourite songs to play, from Guitar Hero 5, is JCM's Hurts So Good. Just in case you were wondering.

6. The Kinks - Johnny Thunder

From my favourite Kinks album, The Village Green Preservation Society, the songs takes its name from the same DC Comics character that also christened the late New Yorks Dolls guitarist.

5. Tina Turner - We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) ( From All The Best)

From the movie Mad Max 3 - Beyond Thunderdome (1985) [DVD] - now there's a killer idea... Thor vs. Max Rockatansky. (Not in 3D.) C'mon, Hollywood - make it happen!

4. ACDC - Thunderstruck ( From The Razor's Edge)

Featured in the soundtrack to Iron Man 2(although the soundtrack to Iron Man 2 was pretty much a crass exercise at shifting a Greatest Hits album for a band that never does Greatest Hits albums).

Still worth getting your old school uniform on for...

3. Tom Jones - Thunderball ( From Best of Bond...James Bond)

Another soundtrack favourite. Tom Jones allegedly fainted while singing the last line in the recording studio, so much thunder did he put into his performance. Big girl's blouse.

2. Prince - Thunder

Here's a story I might have told before.

Thunder is the opening track to the album Diamonds And Pearls. I remember buying the CD as soon as it came out and rushing home to listen to it. Realising I had to work that night, I decided to copy the CD onto cassette to listen to in my car on the way (this was 1991, so forgive me for not having an in-car CD player). To make sure the album filled the cassette, I programmed the CD player to repeat-play then left it recording while I went to have my tea. I returned, picked up the cassette, and set off to work. Thunder was a great opening track and I was really enjoying it... but, boy, did it go on. I was halfway to work before I started to get a little bored of it - how long was this track anyway? Was track 2 ever going to begin?

No. It wasn't. Because rather than repeat-play the whole album, I'd set the cassette to record repeat-play just track 1... and filled an entire C90 with it. A great song then... but perhaps not one you want to hear for an hour and a half solid.

1. Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road ( From Born To Run)

There is a constant debate going on in my head about which is my favourite Bruce Springsteen song. This is always one of the top contenders, and therefore has a pretty good chance of getting into my Top Ten Favourite Songs of ALL TIME.

The screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again



Do you have thunder in your heart? What song's it playing?

(Attention, Thor-fans, I reviewed Thor Visionaries Walt Simonson Volume 1 over at Comics On The Ration last week. Go there and say hi to Rob.)

Top Ten Songs About The 80s

So we jived through the 50s...

We couldn't remember the 60s...

We were born in the 70s (well, I was, anyway)...

Which brings us to the most maligned decade of the latter half of the 20th Century. Quite unfairly, if you ask me. The 80s were ace. They gave us Jet Set Willy, The A-Team, Back To The Future, The Queen Is Dead, Frank Miller's Daredevil, Rubix Cube, Born In The USA and Tunnel Of Love, Moonlighting, John Byrne's Fantastic Four, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Total Eclipse Of The Heart... and all they asked in return was our souls. Sounds like a perfectly fair trade to me.

Anyway, as usual, this isn't a list of Best Songs FROM The 80s... just Best Songs ABOUT the 80s. Don't make me have to explain that to you again.


10. David Bowie - 1984 / Eurythmics - Sex Crime (1984) / Tina Turner - 1984

Having said that, let's start with three songs that were actually recorded in the devilish decade, each dealing with the year George Orwell predicted fascism would run rampant. In reality, we had Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan... phew, lucky escape there, eh, George?

9. John Mayer - 83

Apparently we're all supposed to hate John Mayer because he's a precocious pretty-boy who's had his hands (and, no doubt, other bodily parts) all over Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston and a dozen other Hollywood bimboids. Ah, good on him. I'm not jealous. (If he ever goes near Kate Winslet though, I'm calling him out.) Anyway, this is probably the best song he's ever recorded, from early in his career, before he went all rockstar cliché.

8. Kid Rock - All Summer Long (1989)

Ah, but if it's rockstar cliché you're after, look no further than Kid Rock, bringing the obscenity of his expense account to this video with speedboats, tattoos and pretty girls. Not a bad tune though, despite the fact that he owes most of it to Warren Zevon and Lynyrd Skynyrd. At least he's not afraid to own up to the thievery...

7. Randy Travis - 1982

A more respectable face of American Mid-West musicianship, Randy Travis arrived on the scene in 1985 when Marty McFly was just beginning to travel in time. Here Randy's experimenting with a little cross-chronal communication of his own, calling on the phone company and the post office to help him contact the girl he left behind in 1982. Probably Kim Wilde.

6. Camera Obscura - Eighties Fan

The word 'wistful' was invented for this song. Elsewhere in Scotland, Stuart Murdoch is seething with jealousy at lines like these...

Run away to a bed and breakfast
Console yourself with the Reader's Digest
Ringing the Yellow Pages all alone

And for a certain kind of girl, there's no greater chat up line than this...

You say your life will be the death of you
Tell me, do you wash your hair in honey dew?

5. Manic Street Preachers - 1985

Trust the Manics to pour scorn on the decade of their teenage riot, remembering a year in which Orwell was proved right and the Civil War failed. Still, from misery comes hope...

In 1985, my words they came alive,
friends were made for life,
Morrissey and Marr gave me choice.
In 1985, in 1985.

4. Regina Spektor - Dance Anthem of the 80s

What killed the 80s music scene? If you'd asked me in 1989, I'd have screamed "dance anthems". S-Express, Technotronic, Black Box and their sordid, wailing ilk. (I quite liked MARRS and Pump Up The Volume, but it was a grubby, guilty kind of like, and I knew it was wrong.)

Regina Spektor remembers a much more enticing 80s dance anthem though... if only they'd all sounded this good.

3. Ash - True Love 1980

Ash narrowly missed out on last week's list due to the fact that their debut album was called 1977 and kicked off with the sound effect of Lucasfilm Tie Fighters to celebrate the year of their birth.

Those Ash boys grew up fast though... look at what they were getting up to by age 3!

2. Denim - I'm Against The Eighties

Another artist who really should have made it into last week's list (check out Lawrence's heartfelt 70s tribute The Osmonds if you don't believe me), particularly when you consider that he's not actually that fussed about the decade in which he first shimmied onto the indie-pop scene...

Well I’m against the ‘80s bands that couldn’t play
I’m against the ‘80s singers with nothing to say
You heard it on the radio
You saw it on the TV
You still went and bought it

Guilty as charged, m'lud.

1. Bowling For Soup - 1985

And so we reach, unarguably (don't even try), the greatest ever song ABOUT the 80s... and a promise fulfilled to Bowling For Soup's Jaret Reddick that if I ever compile such a Top Ten, his band will be Number One.

No contest...

Bruce Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she's uncool
Cuz she's still preoccupied
With 19, 19, 1985

Audio & lyrics below, full video on the link above - worth watching, even though the record company don't want me embedding it. After all, there's a danger you might like the song and want to go out and buy it... and that'd never do.



Oh, and Richard Thompson does a pretty mean cover too.


So that was the 80s, my coming of age. What's your favourite song about this decas horribilis?

Don't worry, only one more week to go...