Fourfoot's Top Forties

Bored, I decided to devise a series of weekly top 40 playlists based on the shit I like.

Enjoy, share, whatever.

Funkadelic, The Orb, Mark E Smith and Ivor Cutler rub shoulders with Leadbelly, Tom Waits and Nina Simone.

Volume 1 - ECSTATIC MIDGETS

A Villanil

A Villanil

(apologies to DT)

Do not go gentle out of that top flight,
Our fans should cheer and rave at close of play;
Rage, rage against the relegation plight .

Though Weimann at his end knew Derby was right,
Because his wages had not proved frightening he
Did not go gentle out of that top flight.

Grealish, the local boy, crying how bright
Their frail legs might have danced on Match of the Day,
Rage, rage against the relegation plight.

Guzan who caught then dropped the ball in flight,
And learn, too late, they gave a goal away,
Do not go gentle out of that top flight.

Chairmen, in debt, who see with blinding sight
The money spent on Nzgobia and Gueye,
Rage, rage against the relegation plight.

And you, Micah, fallen from such dizzy height,
Curse, bless, me now with your first team, I pray.
Do not go gentle out of that top flight.
Rage, rage against the relegation plight.

Bowie

There will be millions of words written today on how David Bowie impacted upon the lives of millions more. That's a clumsy sentence but the world feels slightly less magical today and it's affecting me.

I was about 3 when I first saw Bowie. The gatefold sleeve of Aladdin Sane. My parents couldnt afford many records. So this one must have been one they needed to buy. And the sight of this naked silver andrgoyne with his proto-Potter flash of make up is a core memory, as Joy from Inside Out might have it. This image and the sounds that emanated from my dad's tinny Fidelity record player (4 speeds!) are enough - I am in love with pop music.

I find out that Bowie is from just down the road, my dad went to school with him. My mum sells his mum fags and newspapers at RG Haines. He had awful teeth, so did I. I felt a connection.

Ashes to Ashes goes to number 1, I'm 9 and the most terrifying, gripping, strangely upsetting pop video I have seen at this point of my life is Top of the Pops.

1983, I am 12. I've started getting pocket money and buy a new 7" single each week. Bowie is the first artist that I buy more than one record buy. Let's Dance, China Girl, Modern Love. Pop music. I can't tell the world how cool I am because that same year I buy records by Toto, Men at Work and Culture Club.

We grew apart, Dave and me. I discovered all the bands he inspired - Joy Division, Smiths, etc. I never get my teeth fixed and my indeterminate gender issues are a problem not worth sharing with anyone in the tiny Ceredigion village where I find myself as a teenager.

I left school and went to college. The kid in the next room to mine plays Queen Bitch continually on his guitar. One night, you and your mate The Monk, fed up with playing James records to student teachers, stick Low on and leave the album to play in its entirety. You are amused, no one else is.

You get older, Bowie songs get on the radio, you turn them up and sing along. Streaming allows the world to jump in and out of that glorious back catalogue. You make a mental note to see him live if he ever returns to the stage. You play Changes and Oh You Pretty Things to your little girl. She loves them.

One morning, you turn on your phone and Twitter tells you David Bowie is dead. 2 days after dropping a new LP. Cancer. He knew it was the end. Social media explodes with genuine heartfelt grief and you find yourself for the first time sobbing for a star you never met.

Bowie lived the most extraordinary of lives. Carpe Diem doesnt do it justice. His death robs us of an artist whose best work may yet have been to come. When I found myself crying to The Prettiest Star earlier I realised I wasnt crying just for him, but for me. All the times I could have reinvented myself, created something, done anything even remotely out of the blue and I didnt. I chose to live an ordinary life because only the brave do otherwise.

Rest in peace, David. Everyone says Bye.

Note: A personal Bowie playlist here

100 best songs of the 1980s.

Inspired by NME's list this week, I thought I'd give it a crack myself.

I set myself the restriction of only allowing myself one song per artist otherwise there might only be five or six groups in it.

Anyway, here they are.

A Perfect Circle – R.E.M

Ace of Spades – Motorhead

All of My Heart – ABC

Atomic – Blondie

Automatic – Pointer Sisters

Back to Life – Soul II Soul

Beat Surrender – Jam

Billie Jean – Michael Jackson

Blueboy – Orange Juice

Bone Machine – Pixies

Bow Down – Housemartins

Box Elder – Pavement

Bridge to Your Heart – Wax

Buffalo Stance – Neneh Cherry

Cattle and Cane – Go-Betweens

Destroy The Heart – House of Love

Don’t You Want Me – Human League

Eardrum Buzz – Wire

Electricity – OMD

Embarrassment – Madness

Everyday is Like Sunday – Morrissey

Fairytale of New York – Pogues

Fantasy Island – Tight Fit

Final Day – Young Marble Giants

Freak Scene – Dinosaur Jr.

Geno – Dexy’s Midnight Runners

Getting Away With It – Electronic

Ghost Town – Specials

Good Life – Inner City

Goody Two Shoes – Adam Ant

Greetings to the New Brunette – Billy Bragg

Hilly Fields (1892) – Nick Nicely

I Feel For You – Chaka Khan

IOU – Freeez

Just Making Memories – Black

Just What I Needed – Cars

Kennedy – Wedding Present

Left to My Own Devices – Pet Shop Boys

Let’s Go Crazy – Prince

Life During Wartime – Talking Heads

Like A Prayer – Madonna

Love Like Blood – Killing Joke

Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division

Manhattan Skyline – A-ha

Master Blaster – Stevie Wonder

Me, Myself and I – De La Soul

Megablast – Bomb The Bass

Mirror In The Bathroom – Beat

Modern Love – David Bowie

Never Understand – Jesus and Mary Chain

New Sensation – INHS

Our Lips Are Sealed – Fun Boy Three

Pacific State – 808 State

Paid In Full – Eric B and Rakim

Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode

Pump Up The Volume – M/A/R/R/S

Rebel Without A Pause – Public Enemy

Ride On Time – Black Box

Rush Hour – Jane Wiedlin

Sewing The Seeds of Love – Tears for Fears

Sexual Healing – Marvin Gaye

She Bangs The Drums – Stone Roses

Shipbuilding – Robert Wyatt

Situation – Yazoo

Song to the Siren – This Mortal Coil

Sorry for Laughing – Josef K

Sorry Somehow – Husker Du

Straight Outta Compton – NWA

Strange Day – Cure

Talkin All That Jazz – Stetsasonic

Teardrops – Womack and Womack

Teen Age Riot – Sonic Youth

Temptation – Heaven 17

The Boy in the Bubble – Paul Simon

The Classical – The Fall

The Crown – Gary Byrd

The Killing Moon – Echo and the Bunnymen

The Mercy Seat – Nick Cave

The Perfect Kiss – New Order

The Reflex – Duran Duran

The Sensual World – Kate Bush

The Show – Doug E Fresh

The Sun Rising - Beloved

There She Goes – La’s

Trumpton Riots – Half Man Half Biscuit

Two Tribes – Frankie Goes To Hollywood

UFO – ESG

Unsatisfied – Replacements

Veronica – Elvis Costello

Vienna – Ultravox

Voodoo Ray – A Guy Called Gerald

Waltz Darling – Malcolm McClaren

Wednesday Week – Undertones

What Difference Does It Make – Smiths

Where the Streets Have No Name – u2

White Lines – Grandmaster Flash

Who’s That Girl – Eurythmics

Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin) – Scritti Politti

Wrote For Luck – Happy Mondays

You Made Me Realise – My Bloody Valentine

John Lewis and the Yewtree REM Band

YEWTR.E.M – Nonce on the Moon

 

Leon Brittan and the missing file yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Jimmy Savile is a paedophile yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Stylophone, Wobbleboard, animal vets,  yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mister Stuart Hall in a knockout mess yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Let's blame Thatcher, let's blame Heath yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
We won’t do the inquest till you’re underneath yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

John Lewis did you hear about this one?
Tell me am I talking too much?
Noel are you going to get the royalties baby
Or do you have too much?

If you believed they put a nonce on the moon
Nonce on the moon
If you believe in paedo gravity
Then nothing is cool

Prophets lost Watkins for the next thirty years yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Cliff’s talking nicely to the Yorkshire police yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Talbot couldn’t jump off the island in time asp yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mister Gary Glitter and his life of crime yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

John Lewis did you hear about this one?
Tell me am I talking too much?
Noel are you going to get the royalties baby
Or do you have too much?

If you believed they put a nonce on the moon
Nonce on the moon
If you believe in paedo gravity
Then nothing is cool

Here's a little rumour about Harriet Harman yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Here's a little clip of Jonathan King yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Here's a kids home in the Channel Islands yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Another inquiry just got postponed for the winter yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

John Lewis did you hear about this one?
Tell me am I talking too much?
Noel are you going to get the royalties baby
Or do you have too much?

If you believed they put a nonce on the moon
Nonce on the moon
If you believe in paedo gravity
Then nothing is cool

If you believed they put a nonce on the moon
Nonce on the moon
If you believe in paedo gravity
Then nothing is cool

 

A Poem

Hello

Here's a poem I wrote about the clocks going back.


An extra hour in bed 


Midwatch for the night nurse, a chance to check
the traces, the heartbeats, the nil-by-mouths.
She moves in the torchlight, soft steps conspire
with the silent hymn of respirators.

Outside, two becomes one. Winter’s first gain.
Clocks are put back and pulses are taken.
A patient gives in, hands in his last breath.
Paperwork demands the time of his death.

Tender mercies of the nurse’s pen. For the alive
and the dead, an extra hour in bed.

Mouth of A Piggy

(to the tune of Survivor's Eye of the Tiger)

Now I’m up, on Downing Street
I’m in charge, knew I’d make it.
No resistance, it’s too easy for me
Just a man and his public school tie.

So many times it happens too fast
You fail to stay Mr Big
Don't lose your grip on those friends of the past
They’ve got pics of your cock in a pig.

It's the mouth of a piggy
It's the Bullingdon Club
Smashing up restaurants – its no biggie.
Give the homeless a fiver
Just to watch them breathe fire
And then we stick cocks in the mouth of a piggy.

Face to cock, meat to meat
Initiation ceremony
You never think of the secrets they keep
For the chance of revenge if they like.

It's the mouth of a piggy
It's the Bullingdon Club
Smashing up restaurants – its no biggie.
Give the homeless a fiver
Just to watch them breathe fire
And then we stick cocks in the mouth of a piggy.

Staying up, friends at the top
Had the cash, joined the Tories
Went to Eton, now I'm not gonna stop
Just a man and his public school tie.

It's the mouth of a piggy
It's the Bullingdon Club
Smashing up restaurants – its no biggie.
Give the homeless a fiver
Just to watch them breathe fire
And then we stick cocks in the mouth of a piggy.

The mouth of a piggy
The mouth of a piggy
The mouth of a piggy
The mouth of a piggy