For Song Lyric Sunday this week, our job is to come up with a song that reached #2 on the charts but never got to #1. I focused my attention on the UK charts and what I tend to think of as ‘my’ era. Even with those restrictions there was still plenty of choice. However,…
This week’s challenge for Song Lyric Sunday is to post a song by somebody who has appeared on the ‘reality’ TV show ‘American Idol’. Some might consider this to be a little US-centric. However, we did watch ‘American Idol’ when we lived in Abu Dhabi. There, the TV diet was very short on European networks…
This week’s challenge for Song Lyric Sunday is a particularly interesting one: we are asked to come up with a song by an artiste or group using the backing of an orchestra or choir. My personal task was made the harder because, as a general rule, ‘orchestral rock’ is not something I favour or have…
This week’s theme – ‘Two are better than one’- challenges us to find a duet featuring two prominent performers. Well, it was never going to be ‘Islands In The Stream’ on this page was it? Instead here’s Freddie Mercury with prominent operatic soprano Montserrat Caballé. I had this perfect dream-Un sueño me envolvióThis dream was…
This week’s theme is fire or something involving heat. ‘Fire On The Mountain’ is the product of a rare collaboration between drummer Micky Hart and lyricist Robert Hunter (who more usually wrote with Jerry Garcia). In concert, it was almost always paired with ‘Scarlet Begonias’ in the ‘Scarlet-Fire’ diptych, but this is an outstanding standalone…
Something chilly is the order of the day for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, so how about ‘The Boss’ himself? A tenuous link to the brief, perhaps, but who knows what a ‘freezeout’ is anyway? Tear drops on the cityBad Scooter searching for his grooveSeem like the whole world walking prettyAnd you can’t find the…
This week Jim wants us to truffle out a song that was specifically written for a movie. I featured one of the more obvious choices, ‘Saturday Night Fever’, a few years ago for a different prompt, and although there are some other classic Bee Gees songs on that soundtrack, I decided to look elsewhere. For…
This week’s theme for Song Lyric Sunday is children and/or families and Jim has entitled his post ‘Perks of having kids’. It’s not all good news though, and while not all families have a black sheep, this one clearly did. This is a Merle Haggard song that, not being a particular fan of Country music,…
Song Lyric Sunday this week covers the pretty heavy themes of war and/or peace. It’s not too difficult to think of quite a few songs that would fit either of those briefs, but I’ve gone for what I think is a rather deeper cut, to be found on The Zombies’ second studio album, ‘Odessey And…
This week, we seek songs about God or the afterlife. Personally, I don’t believe in either of those things but, as Martin Luther reportedly said (although he probably didn’t): “why should the devil have al the best tunes?” The short-lived supergroup Blind Faith released their only – eponymous – album in 1969, when I was…
This week, Jim is looking for a song based on true events. My tertiary education alma mater is the University of Kent at Canterbury, where I studied (among other things) from 1970 to 1973. During my first year, a fellow student was an American who was doing a one-year masters course in Philosophy. I remember…
This week, Jim has set us the task of posting about a song written by a duo. Hmm. A few famous duos quickly came to mind: Lennon & McCartney; Jagger & Richard perhaps most (too?) obviously. Then I thought of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, who – in my humble opinion – deserve to have…
“To have a girl like her is truly a dream come true” This week’s theme is to find a song by a group that wore uniforms or dressed alike. Off the top of my head, I could think only of Kiss, with whose work I’m not at all familiar, and Kraftwerk – not exactly renowned…
As one who is blessed with all the graceful co-ordination of an inebriated elephant with its legs tied together, as a matter of public service I don’t dance. You’re welcome. Accordingly, I was particularly attracted to this little number as a response to Jim’s theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week, because although it’s about…
A little bit of personal history here. In the second half of the eighties, I spent a considerable proportion of my life on aeroplanes. Why so? Because, as I used to sum it up, I lived in Scotland and worked in London for an American investment bank as an analyst, covering companies (more specifically, banks)…
the only deadhead in the hameau 