Top Ten Spaceship Songs

My musical exploration of space continues.

You may be wondering how I'm planning on getting up into the stars? Here's ten modes of interstellar transportation I considered...

10. The Rezillos - Flying Saucer Attack

Laser beams and gamma projectors
There'll be nothing on earth to protect us
When they arrive out of the sky
They'll be frying us alive

I think I'll wait for the next bus.

9. Def Leppard - Rocket

Oh, come on, you know you don't mean that. It's only Def Leppard. Calm down. Who wouldn't want to go into space with poodle-rockers from Sheffield and a one-armed drummer?

8. Starship - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now

They started out as a Jefferson Airplane, but that wasn't going to be Slick enough to get them into space. Becoming a Starship rocketed them to the top of the charts.

Heh. DJ puns. They could have been my life.

7. The Wedding Present - Flying Saucer

Dave Gedge has been collecting rusty old spacecraft for years. He also has a Rocket (though sadly you can't hear that on youtube).

6. Suicide - Rocket USA

If flying saucers ever did invade earth, this would be the perfect song to accompany their otherworldly attack. Deeply unsettling, even though it's actually got very little to do with space travel.

5. Peter Parker - Swallow The Rockets

The name of this band is Peter Parker. 'Nuff said.

If I had to go into space, I'd want Peter Parker as my co-pilot. Obviously.

4. Julian Cope - Spacehopper

Julian Cope may well be singing about the orange children's toy with hang-on ears... but I like to picture him riding through space on said item. Kind of like the Silver Surfer... but cooler.

3. Billy Bragg - My Flying Saucer

Care of Woody Guthrie, a sad little song about getting deserted by the mothership. Just like ET. Billy Bragg phone home.

2. Elbow - Lippy Kids

The "title" track from 'Build A Rocket, Boys!'

1. The Kinks - Supersonic Rocket Ship

On my supersonic rocket ship
Nobody has to be hip
Nobody needs to be out of sight. Out of sight.
Nobody's gonna travel second class
There'll be equality
And no suppression of minorities. Well alright.
We'll take this planet, shake it round
And turn it upside down.
My supersonic rocket ship.

Ray Davies: astronaut of pop genius.



So, that's my transportation sorted. If you had to go into space on a musical ship... which would you choose?

Top Ten Easter Songs

Everybody has a favourite Christmas song, but poor old Easter always has to make do with second best...

10. Patti Smith - Easter

A classic example of a great album let down (slightly) by its title track. There are far better songs on Easter, but I couldn't really ignore this. She is Patti Smith, after all.

9. The Associates - Tell Me Easter's On Friday

Easter's on Friday, Billy.

8. Mansun - Egg Shaped Fred

I did like Mansun, but this is just a blatant attempt to rewrite I Am The Walrus with added indie guitars. You're not Oasis, lads. (Thank god.) Really should have included this in my Top Twenty 'Na Na' Songs.

7. Ashton, Gardner & Dyke - The Resurrection Shuffle.

This band sound like a firm of accountants and look like a bunch of dodgy plumbers you wouldn't let into your house to fix your washing machine. They made a nice enough racket though. This one might also give you a clue as to where we'll end up...

6. Ricky Ross - Cold Easter

Can't find it anywhere online so you'll have to take my word for it: to quote the late Frank Carson, it's a cracker. (Sorry, wrong religious holiday pun.)

5. Tori Amos - Crucify

In which Tori has just got out of the bath. (Rol waits while Steve goes to check out the video and is inevitably disappointed.)

4. Mott The Hoople - Roll Away The Stone

For those of you who think Mott The Hoople only had one good song (the one Bowie gave them), watch this. Hell, watch it anyway for Tony Blackburn and a Womble.

3. XTC - Easter Theatre

Tasty as a big chocolate egg.

2. Julian Cope - Easter Everywhere

There are long periods in which I forget just how good Julian Cope really is. Then suddenly, I remember.

1. The Stone Roses - I Am The Resurrection

No, but just imagine for one second if Ian Brown had been The Resurrection? Would Christianity really have lasted this long?



So... what's your favourite Easter song?

Volcano Songs

A few weeks back, when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull started spewing ash clouds over Europe and disrupting everybody's flights in the process, Reluctant Blogger suggested I put together a Top Ten Volcano songs in tribute. I toyed with the idea, but feared I'd missed the boat. Good old Eyjafjallajökull though, I knew it wouldn't let me down. Topical blogging ahoy! (Well, as topical as Sunset Over Slawit ever gets.)

Apparently there's a Damien Rice song called Volcano, but as I've never heard it and can probably die happy without ever doing so, it doesn't feature in the list below. Just in case you were wondering.



10. Beck - Volcano

And I heard
Of that Japanese girl
Who jumped
Into The Volcano
Was she trying
To make it back
Back into the womb
Of the world?

Who says you don't learn anything from listening to Beck records? Right here I learned about Japanese student Kiyoko Matsumoto who committed suicide in 1933 by throwing herself into the Mount Mihari volcano, starting a trend which resulted in 944 people doing exactly the same thing over the next year. Those crazy Japanese, eh?

9. Embrace - Ashes

Embrace hail from Brighouse, which is halfway between where I live (t'other side of Huddersfield) and where I work (Bradford). There aren't a lot of volcanoes in Brighouse, but there is a huge crater in Bradford where six years ago they knocked a huge chunk of the city down in preparation for building a new shopping centre... and then left it to rot.

Embrace are currently recording their sixth album... hurry up, lads, it's been ages!

8. Grandaddy - Lava Kiss

Volcanologists say
That we're unlike the rest
That we're the best
Fearlessness
Deadliness
Lava Kiss
Togetherness

I keep biting my lip at the moment. It's very annoying and painful. But not as painful as a lava kiss, I'd imagine.

7. Islands - Volcanoes

Canadian band Islands find that when you anger the gods, "a hard rain falls, made of magma" and "melts Alaska".

6. Van Halen - Eruption

1 minute and 42 seconds of epic guitar wanking from Eddie. Because he can.

5. Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro is considered by many the best album the Teardrop Explodes ever recorded. It's also one of those albums where the original running order didn't include the title track. That popped up on an EP released later, and on subsequent re-issues. Julian Cope originally planned to call this album Everybody Wants To Shag The Teardrop Explodes, which would have been a must better title, but wouldn't have got a mention in this list. (EWTShagTTE was eventually used as the name of a compilation, long after the band had split.)

Not to be confused with Pete Doherty's Babyshambles who famously killed a man for his giro.

4. Bennet - Mum Has Gone To Iceland

Not actually a volcano song, nor a song about the country of Iceland, this is actually about the chain of frozen food shops. I don't care - it's bloody marvellous!

3. Ash - Burn Baby Burn

One of their best. Featuring both Ash and burning... and cheerleaders, in the video, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

2. David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes

Every now and then, I think, "actually, David Bowie's not all that mad really"... then I see a video like this one and I remember... no, he's barking.

The shrieking of nothing is killing me.
Just pictures of Jap girls in synthesis
And I ain't got no money and I ain't got no hair

1. Silver Sun - Lava

Perfect power pop with peerless Beach Boys harmonies and an opening line to die for.

"I fucking give up!"

(Though sung so high and harmonised, nobody could actually tell those were the lyrics... certainly we didn't know that, when we used to play this on the late 90s indie radio show I helped produce.)



So. Those were mine. If you've got a favourite volcano song... you know what to do with it. Equally, if you'd like to suggest another Top Ten subject, be my guest. I can only ignore you if I don't like it.