Sing This All Together (See What Happens) (02/03/13)

Here's a handful of songs that will genuinely enrich your life; some you may have heard before, some you may know the acts but not the song but trust me, they are all earth shatteringly great.

And just to make it a bit sort of 'old days', I'm adding no links here, no YouTube, no Spotify; search for this stuff like we used to do in record shops on friends' recommendations. Let this stand as my last testament to when personal reference was important.

Shack "Comedy"

Mick Head is one of the greatest songwriters of the last thirty years but stands hostage to ill fortune and his own bad habits. There's a long story to be told about Mick and his equally talented brother/band mate John but for these purposes lets just point out that in an alternate reality the biggest hit of the Britpop era was 'Comedy', a sublime mix of acoustics and strings, a song that knows more about love than most other songs will ever learn. Noel Gallagher knows this, he gave Shack the money to make an album, it's time you knew it too.


The Beatles "She Said, She Said"

Yes I know, you know The Beatles. But most people don't. Not really. They know the singles and a few others but ignore all this other incredible stuff. Two things;
The Beatles are the only band in the history of the world where, no matter how good you think they are, they're actually better than that. There's always something new to find.
The adjective Beatlesque is the laziest term ever coined. 'They're like The Beatles", yeah, okay, which Beatles? They weren't even the same band across a single album, let alone their career. Please Please Me, Tomorrow Never Knows, Hard Day's Night, side 2 of Abbey Road. Do you want any more different? 'She Said..' is on Revolver, which is, without any doubt, the greatest album ever made by human beings, anyone arguing otherwise is wrong and I can prove that fact mathematically. This is a prime lesson in psychedelia based round taking acid with Peter Fonda, has better guitars, drums and harmonies than anything else you've ever heard. Ever.


The Boo Radleys "Lazarus"

Again, you know 'Wake Up'. One hit wonders, poppy, happy, smiley, friendly, nice. This is none of those things. A reggae beat strafed by phased guitars, a slow build, a long intro then the greatest horn blare you can imagine. Pure tripped out bliss. As good as anything on Screamadelica. With acoustic guitars and 'Ba-Ba-Ba's'. brilliantly all over the place, shouldn't work. Does. Beautifully.


Nick Drake "Northern Sky"

Nick; was unknown in his lifetime, to the point that he could deliver his third and final album to Island records reception himself and the receptionist have no idea who he was. He was cripplingly shy and died far too young, suddenly and tragically. 'Northern Sky' is all acoustics, Hammond organs, brushed cymbals, piano and bliss. "I never felt magic as crazy as this" indeed.


The Monkees "Early Morning Blues and Greens"

I will defend The Monkees to the death. As much as you'll try to argue (correctly) that they were the first purpose built boy band and (incorrectly) that said fact puts them alongside Boyzone and Westlife, I will point out that they had genuinely brilliant musicians and songwriters in their midst, they had people who were willing and able to fight for the best possible tunes to fill their TV show with and they had the prime of LA session men (and woman) 'The Wrecking Crew' all over their hits. They were as perfect as pop gets. They wrote more of their stuff than you'd think and though they didn't write this they played everything on it. It's dark and dreamlike and genuinely as good as anything that was recorded in the sixties.


Simon & Garfunkel "America"

I know. You actually know this one. But have you ever really listened to it? Take time out and listen to S&G. They're a lot darker than you think, there's more depth in them than you remember. This has the most honest, most lonely and desperate, bleakest lyric you could wish for "Kathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping, I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"  A man admitting that something is missing but only able to admit it when he knows that it won't be heard by the woman he loves. But admitting it to millions of people? Masterful.

Hoagy Carmichael  "Stardust"

You need  'The Great American Songbook' in your life. Not the saccharine 'TV Ad' version, the real version. The Tony Bennett version, the Nat 'King' Cole version or, on this particular song, Willie Nelson's or Hoagy's own version. Carmichael was Ian Fleming's ideal for James Bond; weatherbeaten, somewhat grizzled, nobody's idea of a heartthrob and not a great singer but what a song, "Though I dream in vain, in my heart it will remain, my Stardust Memory, the memory of love's refrain" I genuinely believe there is every possibility that this is the greatest song ever written; in the original sparse version or in Cole's gorgeously phrased and orchestrated take on it.

The Pale Fountains  "Thank You"

When it came to choosing an orchestra for their first major label single, Liverpool's Pale Fountains opted for the only orchestra they had ever heard of; The Geoff Love Orchestra, erstwhile backers of 70s variety shows. Sumptuous, gorgeous, heartfelt, owing a thoroughly acknowledged debt to the works of Burt Bacharach long before Noel Gallagher made it fashionable again, 'Thank You' was a stunning take on 60s epic balladry in the early 80s. Obviously nobody bought it. A pattern that would repeat throughout the entire career of it's writer; one Michael Head.


Which takes us back to the beginning because all music owes something to all other music, whether it be before it or around it. There's so much that you'll love beyond what you already know and the joy of the way that we consume (horrible word, lets go for enjoy) music nowadays is that it's all there. Just a click away. All you need is to know what to look for. It's okay, I'm here for you for just that reason.