Blog playlist: songs about wanking

Just a quickie, as it were. I love this Bowie cover of the Pixies' Cactus - here preformed live in a duet with Moby:



There's no tactful way to say this, even on a blog read by my mother: this is a song about masturbation. Spotify playlist ahoy! I've kicked things off with Turning Japanese and I Touch Myself. Any more for any more?

NB: this is a playlist for songs ABOUT. Not songs CONDUCIVE TO.

Blog Playlist (sort of): songs that make you cry

Everyone's talking about songs that make them cry. And when I say everyone, I mean some people who write for the Guardian and a girl I follow on Twitter. Everyone.

Music doesn't make me cry. It doesn't have long enough. Like someone who needs a lot of foreplay, I just can't reach tearful climax in three minutes or less. On the few occasions I have cried listening to music, it wasn't the music on its own that did it. It was the soon to be ex boyfriend sitting next to me or the recent loss of a beloved friend or - well I don't know why I cried listening to Coldplay play Clocks at Glastonbury, but the weather was really bad and I'd been standing up all day.

There is just one song I shouldn't ever listen to in public and it's Ruby's Arms by Tom Waits. I find it heartbreaking. Just getting the video on YouTube, I had to switch it off after the first few bars. In fact I just tried reading the lyrics to see if I could quote some here, and I only got two thirds of the way through. It's devastating. Listen to it and you'll see what I mean.



The Guardian have their own Spotify playlist of sad songs and you can contribute to it here.

Blog Playlist update

OK team, Spotify are being particularly uncooperative, playlist-wise. Apparently their supply of obscure foreign language hits of the 1980s is limited. (They do however have the French Canadian song from the point of view of a disappointed seal, so it's not all bad news.) So we're going to need some more suggestions of great foreign language songs to fill up this playlist. It's very good so far. Aside from the Mylene Farmer (fixes Helen with disapproving gaze).

Blog playlist: best songs in other languages

Allegedly here are other things to do on a Sunday afternoon, but I can't quite see why anyone would choose not to spend it lying on the sofa (or outside when the weather is nice), reading and listening to Huey Morgan followed by Jarvis Cocker on 6 Music.

Assuming that's what all of you were doing on Sunday, all of you have already heard the magnificent Les Cactus by Jacques Dutronc (thank you, Jarvis). But have you seen Michael Jackson dancing to it? (Um, sort of?)



I think you need the lyrics translated as well:

The whole world is a cactus
It is impossible to sit down
In life, there all there is is cacti
I know it because I'm pricking myself
Ow, ow ow, ouch, ow ow ow

In their hearts there are cacti
In their wallets there are cacti
In their feet there are cacti
In their jackets there are cacti
ow, ow, ow, ouch, ouch, ouch, ow

To defend myself from their cacti
I've put cacti too
In my bed, I've put cacti
In my underpants, I've put cacti
ow, ow, ow, ouch, ow ow ow

In their smiles there are cacti
In their stomachs there are cacti
In their hellos there are cacti
In their cacti there are cacti
ow, ow, ow, ouch, ow

The whole world is a cactus
It is impossible to sit down
In life, all there is is cacti
I know it because I'm pricking myself
ow, ow, ow, ouch, ow ow ow

Blog playlist time! Great songs in foreign languages please. Translated lyrics optional. It's a huge category so maybe try to restrict yourselves to ones that are undeservedly underplayed.

Blog playlist: first memories

What's the first pop song you remember? Not the first one you remember liking, just the first one you remember. Mine is Video Killed the Radio Star. Released in 1979: I was three. Even if I hadn't just looked that up, I know it must have been a long time ago because I remember being really worried about the radio star being killed, and also finding the video dead scary, even if it wasn't a MURDERER. I hadn't watched the video in years, so I dug it up on YouTube to see precisely how scary it is:



OH NO! WHAT IS THE SPARKLY LADY DOING IN THE PLASTIC TUBE? WHY CAN'T SHE GET OUT? WHY IS EVERYBODY DRESSED AS THE FUTURE? WHY DOES THE WASHING MACHINE KEEP EXPLODING? (Eagle eyes may have spotted that the washing machine is not, in fact, a washing machine but a large radio with a round speaker, which makes a little more sense.)

It isn't very scary.

Remind me one day to do a blog about music lyrics that I took literally when I was very small. (Why are the words of the prophets written on the subway wall? I don't know what prophets are but I'm going to assume they're some kind of graffiti artist.) Meanwhile, please put your own first musical memories in the comments. I am steeling myself to deal with some of you being VERY young and remembering things that I danced to at university.

For UK readers, first memories playlist can be listened to here.

Blog playlist: update

Playlist coming together nicely, thank you everyone. You can listen to it here. It is a very mixed bag, which is a good thing, although the person who emailed me to suggest James Blunt should be ashamed. You know who you are. I have put it in because I am a good blogger, and I listened to five seconds of it just in case. It is an abomination. (There are also some suggested songs missing or performed by the wrong artists, but that's just where Spotify has not obliged.)

Now if one of you would be kind enough to get dumped so we can test the efficacy of the mix, that would be most obliging. Thanks in advance. Remember you're doing it for the greater good.

Blog playlist: break up songs

So we're all agreed that David Tennant is mine. (No need to respond; it isn't a question.) In which case: what is he doing marrying and having a baby with somebody else? It just doesn't make any sense. Unless... he's playing hard to get. That must be it. It's all a passive aggressive act designed to get my attention. Look how he's deliberately chosen somebody who looks nothing like me:



Stop being so obvious, Tennant.

Fine. As I sorrowfully cross David Tennant off the 'famous men I am unlikely ever to get off with' list and add him to the 'famous men I am extremely unlikely ever to get off with' list, I will be listening to my favourite break up songs in my lonely bedroom, crying over the DVD cover from 'Casanova'. Which is where you come in, helpful readers! Yes, in an exciting new music feature which does not have the day of the week in the title - clever me!! - I will suggest a theme, you will all contribute (yes you will) and then I will make a Spotify playlist which everyone can listen to as long as they live in the UK and have Spotify. The rest of you: too bad.

This is my favourite break up song:



"Your lies won't leave me alone, you used to say you loved me. Did you?... I got your message on the phone*, I hung on every single line. Told me what we had was only business, hurt me so bad I had to sit down with the sickness."

*Legal note: I have never received a phone message from David Tennant.

(It's off 'I Am Shelby Lynne', which is a perfect album.)

Over to you. The finished playlist will be here: http://open.spotify.com/user/strugglingauthor/playlist/5MTIXj47ukZ2EECnGa6ske