It’s all about bodily extremities for Jim’s Song Lyric Sunday challenge this week, so let’s go with fingers and the Grateful Dead’s ‘Crazy Fingers’, one of my favourite songs in the canon. Robert Hunter’s lyrics are sheer poetry and if you have the time (and inclination) listen to the magic starting from 4:45 in this…
Come or go? Leave or stay? The choices for Jim’s Song Lyric Sunday Challenge this week are stark and it’s not difficult to think of many possible candidates. For some reason, however, the first song that occurred to me was this Holland Dozier Holland Motown classic – and it’s a bit more positive than ‘Where…
Personal pronouns – I, you, we and suchlike are the keywords for Jim’s Song Lyric Sunday challenge this week. You may read what you will into the fact that this absolutely was the first song that came to my mind when I saw the prompt. This is the epitome of 1967, when even rough-edged R&B…
Jim’s key words for Song Lyric Sunday this week could all be classed as terms of endearment. I’ve gone for ‘honey’ and this lovely song by Van Morrison, from the 1971 album of the same name. You can take all the tea in China Put it in a big brown bag for me Sail right…
The Proclaimers – twin brothers Charlie and Craig Reid – are arguably a Scottish national institution. It is, for example, an iron rule that any evening wedding ‘do’ that takes place in Scotland must end with ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’. This lovely song is a nod towards their birthplace of Leith – once the…
Any Tom, Dick or Harry will do for Jim’s Song Lyric Sunday challenge this week – so here is ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, written and performed (under the group name The Verve) by Richard Ashcroft. There was a great deal of controversy about this song when it was first released (in 1997) , as it clearly…
Even a great wordsmith like Leonard Cohen sometimes ran out of things to say – especially when in want of a chorus. ‘Joan of Arc’ is the final track on ‘Songs of Love and Hate’. With this dialogue between Joan and the fire which is to burn her at the stake it is, in my…
Song Lyric Sunday this week has the theme of ‘Crazy’. This was the first thing that popped into my head: an archetypal – and archetypally mis-spelled – Slade footstomper from 1972. I don’t want to drink my whiskey like you do I don’t need to spend my money but still do [Chorus] Don’t stop now…
Appropriately enough for the time of year, Jim has selected a yuletide theme for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. One of the truly worst aspects of `Christmas shopping is being subjected to the ceaseless barrage of a comparatively short playlist of ‘Christmas classics’. This song by Wham! is one of the few that doesn’t make…
Oh Bob, you old romantic… This is the final track on the 1967 ‘John Wesley Harding’ album that got plenty of needletime from me back in the day. It’s a sweet, upbeat ending to an album that has more than it’s fair share of darker, more serious material. Close your eyes, close your door You…
the only deadhead in the hameau 