The Holly and The Harvey

Welcome to the belated latest instalment of the badly titled Everyone Has Got one Good Song blog thing. Day 37.

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.

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

 

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

Today’s selections is dedicated to birthday dude Holly Johnson

The Power of Love – Frankie Goes to Hollywood I became a teenager in 1984. Only numerically speaking really. My journey from childhood to adulthood was pretty unusual really but I ain’t going to go into that here. I only want to natter about pop music. My mum clearly worried that I was going through some phase when I came home with Relax and then Two Tribes and then Hazell Dean’s Searching (Looking for Love) that year. But I liked duggaduggaduggga music as I called it. Anything with a fucking pulse and throbbing electronics, ooer missus. Anyway, this lovely ballad is the FGTH song I love the most, Hooded Claw references and all...

I Am The Black Gold of the Sun – Rotary Connection. It’s on that Netflix One Day thing at the moment but I would have picked this song anyway, it’s just beautiful.

Ain’t No Love – Sub Sub feat Melanie Williams The soundtrack to early summer 1993 where I’ll just say I went through quite an unusual set of events ranging from homelessness and failing my finals to being abducted and falling in love with a girl who spoke like Henry’s Cat. They went on to become Doves, of course. Sub Sub, that is, not Henry’s Cat Girl.

Got To Have Your Love – Mantronix feat Wondress Back on the duggaduggadugga I mentioned earlier. And even if the rap is a bit shit, this is still a tune. Reminded instantly of the upstairs bar in our shit Student Union where this was a particular jukebox favourite.

Uptown Top Ranking – Althea and Donna. Because I quite often use the phrase “I strictly roots” whenever asked a question I don’t understand. It’s an icebreaker and it covers up the fact that I probably wasn’t listening to the speaker. It’s a belter of a tune though, isn’t it.

Bedazzled – Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. You fill me with inertia…. I mean, you couldn’t really select Derek and Clive on this thing could you. Could you? I love this song and I love this film and it reminds me of the weekend my pal Garry (notes passim) came to stay for a weekend in my grim Roath bedsit and we couldn’t stop doing impersonations of Dudley Moore saying “preternatural.”

At the Hop – Devendra Banhart. It’s not often you get into a song because it advertises Cathedral City but there you go, that was the immediate aftermath of iTunes, executives finding odd shit for themselves by mistake and sticking fucking Vashti Bunyan and Sybiile Baier over stuff. This is lovely and if I ever get married again, this will be the first dance. Only cos it’s slow enough for my knees…

Eyesore - Women First time I heard this the singer’s voice grated. It still does, a bit. Then I read the lyrics and I liked them. And this song has one of my favourite drawn out outro’s ever…

You Let My Tyres Down – Tropical Fuck Storm. Everett True, distinguished gentleman of rock criticism, alerted me to this through his fucking brilliant blog and this song absolutely kills me each time with it’s startling lyrical imagery and I’ll just shut up. And you don’t want this song to end. It’s one of those, fading away as things get really interesting. What a band name too. It’s where the Met Office are going wrong. Storm Ian. Fuck off. Call it Storm Absolute Horrorbastard and people will stay indoors. Ian, despite all the wronguns of that name, doesn’t sound like it’s going to blow your house down.

The Community of Hope – PJ Harvey. I really didn’t know what to choose for old Polly. I love her, a consistently interesting artist. Good Fortune, Down by the Water, Rid of Me, Sheela-na-gig…but I’ve gone for this because it’s like a short documentary with the most heartbreaking coda…

Thanks for putting up with this shit – tomorrow we celebrate Roberta Flack….

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