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: 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

Music Monday EXTRA! On a Friday

I hate washing up. Which is why I have a dishwasher. But for reasons that are not exactly too lengthy to explain, but would lure me into an orgy of cursing my plumber and my electrician that I fear I would never emerge from, I can't use my dishwasher at the moment, so I have been reduced to washing all my dishes by hand. The only way to survive - aside from stacking the dirty dishes very neatly so that they don't look as threatening - is to listen to the radio while washing up. And so, this morning, cleaning up after dinner for four last night, I discovered - thanks to Huey on 6 music - the absolutely perfect music for washing up to. You can boogie as you scrub, it's full of resentment, and it even has housework-related lyrics. It's A Town Called Malice (do do do do do do!):

Music Monday: Miliband special

So for one selfish reason at least I am glad that Ed Miliband won, because it gives my 'time I met him at a barbecue' anecdote so much more currency. Maybe I should save it until he's Prime Minister, but seeing as that's not exactly guaranteed, I will tell it now. It was around the time that Gordon Brown took over from Blair, but before we all hated Gordon; we were in Hay on Wye; he had a stinking cold.

Him: Hi, I'm Ed.
Me: Hi Ed. So what do you do?

(I paraphrase. We may have discussed the sausages and the quality of literary entertainment on offer first.)

Him: I'm an MP.
Me: Really? That must be very interesting. God, it's hard becoming an MP isn't it? How did you manage to get selected for your seat?
Him: I work very closely with Gordon Brown.

(Hear that sound? It's the sound of a penny not dropping.)

Me: Oh, now is a good time to be on Team Gordon. I like Gordon Brown. He reminds me of my dad.

(Gordon Brown does not remind me of my dad. They both have the same colour hair and that's about it.)

Him: So what do you do?
Me: I'm an author.
Him: I never read fiction.

(I like to think he said this so that he, too, would have contributed something idiotic to the conversation.)

Me: Oh well you should read my book anyway. In fact, what you should do is, when you have constituency surgeries in - where's your constituency?
Him: Doncaster.
Me: Is that in the north? Anyway, when you have constituency surgeries in Doncaster, you should always be reading Gods Behaving Badly when people come in, and be laughing loudly, and then put it cover side up on your desk and wipe your eyes and say "That's such a funny book. What can I do for you?"
Him: Please excuse me. I need to go to the loo now.

I have seen Ed Miliband in Hay on Wye on a number of occasions since, and every single time, I have hidden.

This is the song that I got stuck in my head when the leadership was announced. It is not by the Steve Miller Band but I'm glad to see that joke's still trucking along. No visuals, sadly all the ones where you can see the sequence from Cabaret have had their embedding disabled.

Music Monday

Yes yes yes. I know everyone's been talking about Janelle Monae for months. I have been busy.

Music Monday

A short Music Monday today. I've been finding myself singing this song a lot lately for obvious reasons, and it reminded me how fantastic the whole of the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid soundtrack is (also check out the brilliant 'South American Getaway'), and thence how fantastic the whole of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is, one of my favourite films for a long time and probably only not now because it's so long since I've watched it, and so how I absolutely must watch it again. But in the meantime, here's the classic bicycle scene with Paul Newman and Katharine Ross looking impossibly young and beautiful:



Oh screw it, here's 'South American Getaway' as well:

Music Monday on a Tuesday

I wasn't here yesterday to do Music Monday on yer actual Monday as I was in transit from a (lovely, sunny) long weekend on Dorset's beaches. On the way home I was listening to my iTrip* (*not actually an iTrip but some ultracheap knockoff I bought off Amazon which just about transmits to my radio if they are within no more than two inches of one another, but hey, that'll do) and reflecting on how, when we used to drive to Dorset as a family, we would listen to only the following tapes ever, for as long as I can remember throughout my entire childhood:

- the Muppet tape - an distinctive olive green tape with songs and skits from the Muppet Show on it (good grief the comedian's a bear!)
- Ella Fitzgerald's Greatest Hits
- Louis Armstrong's greatest hits
- Simon & Garfunkel's Greatest Hits
- the Bubbling Brown Sugar original cast recording

And that's it, for well over a decade. I think you could probably trace all of my musical preferences and half of my personality back to that very list. (I will no doubt be returning to one or more of the above for future Music Mondays.)

That's all very well, I hear you say, but it would be helpful for us to judge your taste, not to mention your sanity, if we knew what Bubbling Brown Sugar is.

I'm so glad you asked. Bubbling Brown Sugar is a musical set in a nightclub in Harlem from the 1920s to the 1940s and features songs from artists including Duke Ellington, Eubie Blake, Count Basie, Cab Calloway and Fats Waller, which played in London in 1977, the year after I was born. I nver actually saw it, but I can probably do the entire album by heart - not necessarily in any way that another human being might enjoy, mind you - and when I was very small, my favourite song was called 'Strollin'. The singer said that in order to be cool you had to stroll, and in order to stroll you had to "walk with your left leg dipping a bit, resembling a limp". I thought this sounded like a great idea, so that's exactly what I did. All the time. Without telling anybody. I was three. My mother thought that I had orthopedic problems and nearly took me to see a specialist, except that I got bored of doing it just in time.

Here's a bit of Bubbling Brown Sugar performed on a Dutch TV gala a few years ago. No strolling, alas.

Music Monday on a Monday

A return for Music Monday, the much-loved feature that never gets a single comment, presumably because you are all in so much awe of it that you can find no words to say. And a very special Music Monday it is too, celebrating the reprieve of BBC6 Music from the champing jaws of BBC cuts. It is indeed a joyful day for thirtysomething Guardian-reading music snobs everywhere. Thirtysomething Guardian-reading music snobs like me. Hurrah!

I've noticed lately that everywhere I go and everything I do I am so in the middle of my demographic that I may as well sport a giant hat with the word AVERAGE on it, only that would actually make me not average. I doubt that anybody at any of the music events I attend doesn't read the Guardian or have an iPhone. I run into friends of mine wherever I go, from Jose Gonzales at the Festival Hall (he was pure genius, and I ran into my friend the literary agent there) to the Hay festival (everyone from primary school friend, the children's book author, to the co-godparent of my documentary-maker friend's baby - I put in the jobs here so you can see how smug and middle class boho it all is.) Even where I don't know people, everyone looks like they could be a friend of mine, if only I actually knew them. A while ago I went to see an avant-garde music event in a condemned warehouse in Kings Cross and took some pictures of the cellist on my iPhone. Last week I was doing a literary event with the writer Tim Coates, whom I'd never met before, and it turned out the cellist was his son. On Saturday night I went to Kenwood House to see Rufus Wainwright. King and Queen posh boho, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham-Carter were in attendance. I used to serve them when I worked at Daunt Books; H B-C went to my school. Afterwards, I told my parents how brilliant Rufus was, and they said they already knew - they'd been performed to by him at the American Embassy, at a private reception with 150 guests. I am so far from the cutting edge I have fallen off the handle.

Perhaps I should be depressed at being so very predictable, but I'm quite happy really. I've found the bit of life that I like, the bit which makes me feel like I'm hip without actually having to hang out with teenagers. Guess which festival I'm going to this summer. Go on, guess. That's right. Latitude. OK, so I'm either turning into Helena Bonham-Carter or into my mum - probably just depends on which haircut I get. Either way I'm quite contended. And now even my perfect radio station has been preserved for my listening pleasure. Could it be that I have found my niche, and that niche is marked "self-consciously cool but ultimately safe author in early middle age"? Who on earth thought there'd be so many of us?

Whatever. Here's some Rufus Wainwright.

The Choir pt 2

Another episode of The Choir to stoke my Gareth Malone crush. This time, Gareth is adorable with kids. This is hardly fair on the poor viewing public who don't want to swoon all the way off the sofa. Next week, Gareth will be adorable surrounded by young cockney fellas in hats, and I don't think I will survive. So just as well we are discussing this now.

I found myself perusing his website, just passing by chance, you know, and I came upon the 'Contact Me' form, thus.

You'll note there's a drop down menu for 'subject'.

Your choices are: Fan mail; school workshops; teacher training; choral societies / choirs; events; presenting; personal appearance; website feedback; and other.

*So* tempted to pick 'personal appearance' and just write 'cute'...

The Choir

Anybody else watching The Choir? This is the documentary series / intelligent reality type show (I think there's a technical term for this kind of thing, if any of my TV-land readers care to supply it?) which started on BBC Two on Tuesday. I actually missed the first episode, but was alerted to it by the wonders of Twitter, and so I caught up with it on iPlayer.

Let's get something out of the way immediately: the presenter, Gareth Malone. Shall we take a look at him?



He is completely adorable. He looks about 12 (in fact: 34!?) and is by his own admission "quite posh" and never wears a two-piece suit where a three-piece suit will do, and is completely, brilliantly, unassumingly lovely and seems to have gone straight from cute chorister to cute choirmaster stopping only to take a break in "unlikely sex symbol". Unlikely unless you are me, anyway. (And half the rest of the world, suggests Google.) I mean, he's a choirmaster! With floppy hair! And he wears glasses! And given how much he has to conduct while he's working, with his hands, they are super-good at keeping his wedding ring out of shot almost all of the time. *Melt*.

OK, now let's move on.

Because aside from lovely Gareth, Gareth Malone, The Choir is also fabulous. It is exactly what the X Factor pretends to be, but isn't. It is the anti X Factor.

Here's the idea behind The Choir. In season one (which, criminally, I never saw), Gareth put together a choir in a dodgy school, with beautiful, heart-rending results. Then there was something called Boys Don't Sing. I don't know what that was. (Hey, it's not like I get paid to do this.) But in season two, or maybe three, there was this season of The Choir, in which gorgeous Gareth goes to a run-down (and very big) council estate near Watford and galvanises 200 of its residents into a community choir.

Gareth doesn't care if they can sing. He only cares that they want to sing. And the people are sort of nervous and sort of excited, and he enthuses them more and more and they do their best and they sing. SOB. I haven't been this moved since that one where they get the Birmingham teenagers to dance ballet. Oh god, I am getting tearful just thinking about it.

Anyway, gradually you get to know some of the characters in the choir, like Matty the cockney hardnut boxer who only turns up to one rehearsal but is properly proud of his community, and Dee, the beautiful, shy gospel singer who starts the episode describing being chased by teenagers shouting 'n*gger' and ends it being cheered by an entire shopping precinct for her solo in 'Higher & Higher', and pensioner Fred, with the lovely voice, whose wife has just died and who stands next to his kitchen sink saying sadly, "Everything reminds me of her. Everything," only The Choir resists the urge to drown him out in soupy music and then make him sing the Wind Beneath My Wings while Dannii Minogue weeps. Because it is not the X Factor.

It is not the X Factor. Because it's not about "talent" and it's not sentimental. It's not about pretending to celebrate the gifted while we mock the unworthy, as a scene in which a series of wobbly-voiced women audition for a solo clearly demonstrates. People are applauded - yes! - just for having the guts to try. The Choir is about real people who want something to be proud of, or just something to do, and who are willing to put a bit of effort in, with the help of a sweet chap who really does look a lot like a baby David Tennant.

In short: it's brilliant.

Episode 2 is next Tuesday, and UK-dwellers can catch up with it all on iPlayer.