Title Fight - Drive

They've got the same title - but they're completely different songs.

My new Sunday blog feature pits them against each other... and you get to vote on the winner.

This week... which is your favourite 'Drive' song?

Who's gonna drive you home tonight?

(From 'The Cars - Greatest Hits'.)

Hey kids - rock 'n' roll!

(From 'Automatic For The People'.)

Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there
With open arms and open eyes

(From 'Monuments And Melodies'.)

We should be racing from this murder scene
Like jets that cross the sky
Leaving our trails to fade and die

(From 'Night on Earth'.)

Daddy let me drive

(From 'Drive'.)

Go to sleep, my brothers
I'm alright to drive

You have till Friday to cast your vote - I'll reveal the results next Sunday.

Top Ten Songs About The 50s

Because I want to do a Top Ten Songs About The 80s in a few weeks time, and because I'm a saddo list-compiler completist, I first had to go back further, to the dawn of rock 'n' roll. Just be glad I couldn't find enough songs about the 30s or 40s... or the 1800s.

To be clear - this isn't my favourite songs FROM the fifties... all these tracks were released much later. It's just a list of tracks that recall that mythical decade in one way or another...

10. Ronnie Milsap - Lost In The 50s Tonight

It's crass music journo shorthand to call Ronnie Milsap the "country Stevie Wonder" just because he's blind... so I won't.

This song was recorded in 1985... yet it could easily have come from thirty years earlier.

9. Patti Smith - 1959

I like Patti Smith. Horses? Great album. That one with Because The Night on? Even better. Let's face it, there are those who believe Morrissey and Marr named their band after her... so really, who am I to be critical?

However...

This song does contain the following lyric...

Wisdom was a teapot
Pouring from above.

???

8. The Police - Born In The 50s

OK, Sting, here's the problem. You call your song Born In The 50s, yet all your lyrics refer to events that took place in the 60s.

My mother cried
When president Kennedy died
She said it was the communists
But I knew better

Also, it seems Sting knew exactly who shot JFK... even when he was a little kid. Pity the Warren Commission didn't just ask li'l Gordon. And what's more...

They screamed
When the Beatles sang
And they laughed when the King fell down the stairs
Oh they should've known better
Oh we hated our Aunts
Then we messed in our pants

I swear I'm not making these lyrics up. I take back everything I said about Patti Smith's teapot.

7. Dion - Queen of '59

From the album Streetheart, which came bundled up on CD with its far superior (Phil Spector produced) predecessor, Born To Be With You, this is a nice little duet with Phil Everly, written about Dion's wife Susan. Damned if I can find it anywhere on the internet though.

6. Tom Waits - Ol' 55

Tom Waits takes his vintage automobile out for a spin. I have no idea what sort of car this would be, but I want to say Buick. Apparently the Eagles covered this track, but Tom wasn't too impressed, calling their version "antiseptic". But then, he hates the fucking Eagles, man.

5. The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound

You ain't supposed to die on a Saturday night, not even for making a career out of impersonating the E Street Band.

4. Beach Boys - Disney Girls (1957)

A nostalgic ode from Beach Boy Bruce Johnson, released in the 70s when the 50s already felt like a golden age. I'm not sure how much of this is American Happy Days mythologising (certainly Britain in the 50s doesn't look half as appealing with hindsight) but you can hear in this song exactly why Marty McFly had to go back there.

3. Morrissey - Munich Air Disaster 1958

As if to prove my point about Britain, here's Morrissey with a song dedicated to the Manchester United team killed on their way home from Germany. In black and white, no doubt.

2. Billy Joel - We Didn't Start The Fire

Some may question this track's inclusion. To them I say: compile your own list. This infamous 80s list song begins in the year of Joel's birth, 1949, but spends more of its time in the 50s than it does in the 60s, 70s or 80s... as illustrated in this excessively detailed guide to every single lyric.

We Didn't Start The Fire was released at the height of my teenage Joel-mania, when I really should have been listening to the Smiths... but wasn't. I still love it, even the bit where he obviously can't think of a rhyme for "JFK blown away". He should have asked Sting.

1. Richard Thompson - 1952 Black Lightning

A wonderful story about Richard Thompson's favourite motorcycle, and the heartbreaking romance it inspires. Would also likely make Number One in my Top Ten Motorbike Songs... if I ever get round to that.

Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride

So... do you remember any songs about the 50s? Or are you all too young?

August Listening

So what am I listening to at the moment? You know you want to know.

First though, for everyone who found themselves staggering under the weight of all that relentless misery last week... This Is A Happy Song by Superman Revenge Squad.



I always found Guillemots a rather frustrating band. They lured me in with classic indie pop singles like Made Up Love Song #43 and Annie, Let's Not Wait then bored my pants off with half-arsed albums full of much beard scratching and muso-noodling. I always felt songwriter Fyfe Dangerfield had great potential... and he's taken a step closer to realising that on his new solo album Fly Yellow Moon.

Earlier this year Fyfe scored an actual Top Ten hit, albeit with a cover of Billy Joel's old cheesefest She's Always A Woman, as featured in some TV ad or other. That's been stapled onto subsequent reissues of the album, but there are far stronger songs here (and songs which fit Fyfe's delicate voice much better - rather than straining to hit some of Billy's notes). When You Walk In The Room, She Needs Me, and this... all good stuff.



Earlier this year, former Delgado Emma Pollock released her second solo album, The Law Of Large Numbers. I remember commenting that certain songs on her previous record (Watch The Fireworks - my 9th favourite album of 2007) reminded me of mid-period Elvis Costello. That's truer than ever here, many of these tracks could fit snugly onto Mighty Like A Rose or Spike... though Emma's got a much sweeter voice (no offence, Declan).



Eddie Argos is back again! Not with Art Brut, not with The Glam Chops, not even with Everybody Was In The French Resistance... Now, but with yet another side-project, this one aimed squarely at comics fans... Spoiler Alert! Eddie is a particular fan of DC's old JLI comic book - i.e. The Justice League when they were funny (and worth reading), and the first Spoiler Alert! EP features songs about Booster Gold, Blue Beetle and Batman. Available to download for peanuts (you choose how many peanuts) right here.

I used to have this theory that The Divine Comedy got better with each album, in inverse proportion to how many people were buying their records. Much as I still love Neil Hannon, he's tried his best to disprove that theory with Bang Goes The Knighthood. It's a fine record, featuring many good songs, but doesn't quite scale the heights of Victory For The Comic Muse or Absent Friends. It does however feature the first decent song I've heard about the financial crisis...



A recent Radio 2 documentary on Laurel Canyon in the 60s stirred my interest in loads of old hippy songwriters, including Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Though I'm more familiar with the work of their occasional fourth member Mr. Young, I've been enjoying their mellow greatest hits collection. And boy do I know where Fleet Foxes nicked all their tricks now.



Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer has released an EP of old Radiohead songs played on her magical ukulele. There's a real ukulele resurgence going on at the moment - Louise just bought one, then there's the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain... even Dan's getting in on the act. Radiohead on the ukulele really shouldn't work... and yet, it does. Creep in particular is a work of twisted genius. Download the EP from Amanda's website, Amanda Fucking Palmer dot net.



New Jersey's favourite Bruce-influenced band The Gaslight Anthem are also back with a new record American Slang, and while it's not quite as barnstorming as The '59 Sound it does make me want to go tripping down the boardwalk then sleep on the beach at midnight. They still sound like a tribute band though. A more interesting bunch of Springsteen groupies are Titus Andronicus whose debut The Monitor roars out of Jersey louder and punkier than anything you'll ever hear on E Street. I'm still undecided on whether this is a good thing or not, but they certainly nail their colours to the mast with this song, paying debts not only to the Boss, but to Billy Bragg as well...

"No I never wanted to change the world, but I'm looking for a new New Jersey...
'Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to die."

Finally, an oldie but... well, an oldie. When I was 14, I thought Dire Straits were pretty cool. Then, like much of the rest of the world, I decided categorically they weren't. Now... many, many years later... I might actually be coming round to cool again. Yes, Mark Knopfler looks like your dad's stupid mate with the Ford Capri, but this is a great song whatever...