Sweet Dreams My Los Angeles Ex

Welcome to the latest instalment 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.

Anyway, I couldn’t be arsed for a bit due to just life stuff and now I’m back with a briefish selection of musicians whose birthdays I missed.

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

LOS ANGELES – Frank Black I really liked Pixies and when their first and only classic incarnation disintegrated in 1992 I was like ah fuck. The first Frank Black solo album came out at one of the very worst times of my life and it’s hard to hear it without recalling that period. Something in Los Angeles decline from classic Pixie-thrash to heartfelt yearning for some place you can’t be right now spoke volumes to me at the time.  

YOU’VE CHANGED – Billie Holiday First girl I ever kissed loved Billie Holiday and I guess something was transmitted in that first torrid slice of lust. It wasn’t a mouth ulcer either. God bless Billie H.

DEF CON ONE – Pop Will Eat Itself Had to dig a while to find a musician with the birthday April 8^th and god bless Adam Mole from PWEI. See what I did there, Mole, Dig. And they had a song called Can U Dig It? I’m a genius, me.

SWEET DREAMS MY L.A EX – Rachel Stevens Absolutely perfect pop record. No notes.

THE COPPER TOP – Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells Aidan Moffat is a genius and this is just fucking hell, this takes melancholy and reflective to the top of a Munro and fucks it to a nearby loch.

STRANGE GLUE – Catatonia I didn’t really care for Catatonia at the time, truth be told. But there’s a line in this song that spoke to me very loudly about who I was at that period and I got kind of hooked on it one druggy summer.

LIKE A MOTORWAY – Saint Etienne I changed my mind several times about this selection, the first three Etienne albums are very special to me. Was going to go with Avenue. Then Nothing Stop Us Now. Then I remembered the absolute banger this is. Leader of the Pack for the techno kids.

HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART? – Al Green Recently had a torrid time in my personal life and in the middle of it found myself discussing the merits of this song with a man who went by the name of Potatoes Dave at a remote Cornish pub.

THE SUBURBS – Arcade Fire Me and my pal Steve drove to our old college a few years back on a nostalgic lets see what the old town looks like now kind of thing. This album was playing in the car. It felt appropriate.

GIRLS TALK – Dave Edmunds As I said on Twitter, would love to hear Gruff Rhys cover this.

PATIO SONG – Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci Sometimes I listen to the Mynci and think how weren’t this lot as big as the other titans of the Cool Cymru thing the press tried to make happen in 1996 or whenever and then I think hang on, when were the British public ever going to go for West Wales psychedelia.

DON’T YOU KNOW – Jan Hammer Group My friend Samantha loves this song. She once drunkenly fell on top of me outside the Old Duke in Bristol after a Big Thief concert. I don’t know why I mentioned that but that’s blogging for you.

BETWEEN THE BARS – Madeline Peyroux A Tom Waits-esque arrangement of an Elliott Smith cover. Lovely, hypnotic stuff.

HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN – Animals. You know this. It’s a classic for a fucking reason.

REAGAN – Killer Mike Only one of the best hip hop tracks of all time and you’re welcome.

LIKE COCKATOOS – The Cure Robert Smith is 65 today. No Cure for Old Age jokes etc. Anyway, I can’t say I ever went through a Goth stage though I did once shag a girl dressed as a witch so there’s that. I wasn’t dressed as a witch, she was. It was Halloween. And my son was thus conceived. That Mills and Boon esque confessional over, I bid you adieu….

As ever, your love/disgust/apathy is taken as read. Thanks for putting up with this shite. Your disappointment is taken as read, also. It’s that nice Muddy Waters birthday tomorrow.