Baez of Glory

 

Welcome to Day 6 of the badly titled Everyone Has Got one Good Song blog thing.

I was thinking of building the ultimate playlist with one simple rule. One artist. One song. Each day will feature a song by an artist whose birthday is that day and then nine other songs by nine different artists just because people like things to be in tens.

So, the idea was that you might want to follow and share and either have the playlist yourself or do your own or chat about it with me, you could use the hashtag #EHGOGS.

I’m on Twitter X thing as @fourfoot.

Playlist here - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4exU9MUJMWaouOgnu7zmSl?si=I5fqk7VpQX6aDGec7xvqsQ&pi=e-IfIWXc5GT56R

Today’s selection.

Our featured birthday artist is Joan Baez. I would have had the massivest crush on Joan I’m sure had I been a young dude in the sixties. As it is I have to have a weird time travelling crush on her instead. A bit like that painting in Ghostbusters 2 – I’m not sure, it’s been 30 years since I saw that film.

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down is a song about grief and despair and somehow determined to do more than just survive at the moment all seems lost. It’s a peace anthem.

The other songs today….

To You – I Am Kloot. I keep meaning to investigate this band’s back catalogue. I still haven’t and I’ve loved this song since 2001? I think it was on some compilation CD with Uncut or some other magazine. It reminds me of the crazy summer I chickened out of getting married pretty close to the last minute.

Jungle Boogie – Kool and the Gang. Do you remember when they did a disco episode of Rainbow. Zippy and George on the decks, Geoffrey wearing a medallion? And they sang “Bungle Boogie?” with that awful bearchild Bungle giving it the full Travolta. Well you don’t because it didn’t happen despite my many letters to my MP demanding it.

Party Hard – Andrew WK. I can tell you the date I bought this single. December 1 2001. And it was from Spillers. And it rained. And the next day I went to London ostensibly to go Christmas shopping but instead I got absolutely wankered in Covent Garden with the woman I did end up marrying. This is about as dumb rock as it gets and I loves it.

United States of Whatever – Liam Lynch. Like Party Hard’s slightly more cerebral cousin.

Kids (Soulwax mix) – MGMT – a proper actual dancefloor monster. Proper late 2008 vibes – hanging out with a load of cooler, younger kids in the worst instalment of Mature Student you can imagine. Maybe I wasn’t quite that bad but now I feel slightly queasy for letting myself be adopted by a bunch of kids.

In-a-Gadda-da-Vida – Iron Butterfly. The one from the original Hannibal Lecter film with Logan Roy! ROCK!

Black Sun – Loop. I think they were from Wolverhampton. I’ve only ever been through there on the train. Some bloke opened a Wolves themed pub in Carmarthen in the mid 90s and you can only applaud the sheer mindless optimism and lack of business sense that went into that decision. Which, of course, backfired.

Wedi Blino – Adwaith. Lovely Welsh language indie stuff. Wedi Blino means “tired” which (Barry Norman Spitting Image 1988 voice) “leads me rather nicely to….”

In Dreams – Roy Orbison. If you don’t dig the Big O then well, it’s your loss I guess. I once told an appalling story about his song “I Drove All Night” to an ex which made her cry and it wasn’t true and I told her it wasn’t true but things weren’t really ok after that. If you’re going to make up stories about the origins of pop songs don’t make them upsetting ones. And definitely don’t try to make amends by admitting it was a lie.

Tomorrow, we have ten more….including one from birthday boy Rod Stewart.