Song Lyric Sunday: Disco ‘You Should Be Dancing’

Oh, I’ve been to ‘discos’ alright – if by that you mean standing around the edge of a Junior Common Room while a distinctly amateur DJ plays loud music and some people dance. However, to the best of my knowledge I have only ever been to one actual ‘discotheque’ in my entire life. It was…

Song Lyric Sunday: Boy Bands – ‘Bye Bye Baby’

Back in the mid-seventies the Bay City Rollers were the biggest boy band, certainly in the UK and perhaps even on the planet. I had a job in Manchester at the time and they were shooting a video in the theatre of the company I worked for. The place was surrounded by hundreds of screaming…

Song Lyric Sunday: Reggae – ‘Satta Massagana’

It’s reggae week on Song Lyric Sunday, and that’s certainly fine by me. I listened to quite a lot of reggae in my teenage years, not least because my brother was (is) a major fan. It’s hard not to be seduced by the hypnotic rhythms. The go-to reggae artiste is the great Bob Marley, of…

Song Lyric Sunday: Funk – ‘Funkytown’

Song Lyric Sunday appears on a Monday this time because, you know, stuff… Anyway, the theme is funk and when I saw that, there was only one song that came to mind, entirely due to the funniest scene ever (in my humble opinion) of Malcolm In The Middle as Hal (Bryan Cranston) reveals a hidden…

Song Lyric Sunday: Rockabilly – ‘Blue Suede Shoes’

This week it’s rockabilly for Song Lyric Sunday, so it’s time to take one step back from the beginnings of what’s generally thought of as rock ‘n’ roll, to an earlier, (even) more innocent time. With the benefit of hindsight, you can see in what direction music was heading back in the mid-1950s, and this…

Song Lyric Sunday: Swamp Rock – ‘Fortunate Son’

This week’s chosen genre for Song Lyric Sunday is ‘swamp rock’. I thought I knew what it means, and my suspicions were confirmed with a quick online search. Naturally, the results of this included a number of ‘best’ and ‘greatest’ lists of both songs and performers. In all honesty almost all of them were new…

Song Lyric Sunday: Bubblegum – ‘Dizzy’

Ah, bubblegum: mindless, shallow stuff for kids, dismissed snootily by moody teenagers in its late-sixties heyday. Oh, that would be me then. It would be idle to pretend that I’ve ever been a fan of this sort of stuff, but this, it must be said, is pretty catchy. And the video’s probably worth watching as…

Song Lyric Sunday: Sunshine Pop – ‘Young Girl’

So, ‘Sunshine Pop’ for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. That’s not a description I’d heard before, although sandwiched between last week’s Yacht Rock and next week’s Bubblegum, it wasn’t too hard to find myself somewhere in the ball-park. Naturally, I googled it and, among other things, the search threw up a list of the top…