I cried like a baby, ironically

Following on from the previous post which can be summarised as "noises that delight children but annoy adults", I have an addition.

Noises from children that thrill adults

This particular example is of a simple little song, sung by my two-year-old nephew during a Christmas Day telephone call.

He's at home in Armagh, I'm currently out in Silver City, New Mexico. But to hear him sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star so beautifully was one of the best things I've experienced all year. If not the best.

Therefore Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is by far and away the song of the year. But only when sung by Ben.

See, now here's the thing. Does a song actually have to be good, well played or beautfully arranged to be best song ever? Or can it just be simply annoying and work its way into your soul that way?

I'll give two examples. First, Silent Night (all good so far) played in a Latino style at Albuquerque airport (I refuse to call it a "Sunport" as they'd like). The second is I'm a Little Teapot, played through the atonal medium of a child's doll. The child in question has no idea that this song is causing certain adults (mostly me) to contemplate a childless existence or imposing a rule that all musical toys should be vetted by the parents at least three months in advance.

I'd hate to say bah humbug. But I can't stop humming a tiny little song about teapot thanks to a tinny rendition played when a doll's stomach is pressed. Repeatedly. That's got to make it the best song ever. Right?

Leavin' on a jet plane

...I'll be back in about ten days

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it and it's not a song that I've heard all the way through. In fact, I don't think I've heard more than those two lines.

I'm flying out to Denver this morning. A nine or ten hour flight from Heathrow. I've checked the films BA will be showing and frankly, they wont detain me for long. I've brought some things to do (as a part-time student and full-time worker, I need these opportunities to read and make notes) but I've also topped up the old Shuffle with a tune or two.

There aren't any in particular that I'm salivating at the thought of listening to. This is mostly because I know what I'm like on planes. I will spend nine or ten hours flitting between activities. I will spend nine or ten hours doing this and that for ten or fifteen minutes. Diana will sleep for the whole journey so she's the lucky one.

I will, from time to time, listen to a very British song, a slightly morose effort with someone I don't usually care for, a great guitar solo. It's almost vaguely apposite for half a dozen ways (band reunion including). For the Christmas period then, Blur's This is a Low is the best song ever.

Subjectivity and modernity (sounds like an OMD album to me)

In any normal year, if some of my purchases matched the various end-of-year lists then there would be some celebration chez nous.

Actually, the normal years stopped around the turn of the century when I stopped a) caring and b) buying because a) I got bored b) I couldn't keep up and c) anyway keeping up meant listening to things that sounded a little bit too much like things that I've already listened too and frankly I'd rather listen to those things stuff again.

I have bought a few more records/albums/downloads this year. But I have mostly been buying new albums by artists I already own records/albums/downloads by.

And not all of them very any good.

Sadly.

So, imagine my surprise when The Times included three of my purchases in its top twenty rock and pop albums of the year. Imagine my astonishment when two of them were the rather average albums by REM and Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan.

The Times 100 best records of 2008

The third of my purchases also made it into The Guardian's poll. Its Elbow's Seldom Seen Kid which is, at least, rather good. A description Guy Garvey might not worry to much about.

To be more precise, it paints the most distinct aural picture since Talk Talk's Laughing Stock. Which is a description Guy Garvey might be slightly more interested in.

The problem is, I rather like Laughing Stock (which makes my understatement of the year list). So far, I've only been able to admire Elbow's album. I should like it more. It should be a relief it exists compared to other people's efforts. But it's not. Perhaps I like Laughing Stock too much. Back to square one with Mr. Garvey then.

Guardian critics poll

Of the other records/albums/downloads I've bought this year, I'd like to put in a good word for Billy Bragg's Mr Love and Justice which has four or five really strong songs of tender beauty.

Releasing it as a band version and an old Billy style one man and his guitar version was a mistake though. The band allows him to explore the full emotional range of each song. On his own with his guitar, he only explores the emotional range of The Saturday Boy.

However, if anyone has written finer songs than I Keep Faith or You Make Me Brave during the course of the last two years, well I'll disappointedly admit that this sort of thing is a subjective judgment and although I might disagree others are entitled to their views.

I also enjoyed the Hungry Saw, the new album by The Tindersticks. Not as lavishly orchestrated as albums of old but it hardly matters when the tunes are good and supplemented by emphasising words like cut, skin, muscle, crack and bone. And that's just the title track.

There are several gems on there as well.

One minor flaw though, what, or who, exactly is Boopar?

And then there's Decoration. If you haven't heard of them, scroll through the archives. The name will come up a few times.

The new album, See You After The War came out this year. I'm still thinking about it.

Two tracks, Somewhere In Western Approaches and Our Friends Don't Mix are fantastic. I'm just worried that they're running out songs. There seem to be a few too many re-writes to be completely healthy.

But I'm still thinking about that too.

Anyway, Billy Bragg and The Tindersticks were overlooked by the Berliner broadsheets so it's hardly surprising that Decoration were too. But that's fine, I don't need validation from a subjective list anymore.

This is probably why, when I sit down with a DJ to plan the songs to be played at my wedding, they will tend to come from 1965, 1982 and 1995. There might be a couple from 2008. But no more.

And finally...
I really ought to saw what the best song ever is. Well, for at least the next fifteen minutes, and possible well into the new year, the best song ever is Billy Bragg's I Keep Faith.

Mixed messages

Songs can be misappropriated. Songs can be taken and given a different life to the one intended for them. The song that is currently in my head as the best song ever is one that has a complicated personal history.

• The song's writer, Mark Knopfler, is not someone people admit to liking without reservation. Dire Straits have history. Like Queen only less interesting and without a dead member to help people reassess their (non-existent) worth. Although it needs to be said that any song, used appropriately can be brought to life. Dire Strait's Brothers in Arms was astonishingly (and annoyingly) effective when used the in The West Wing
  
• Newcastle United play the song as the teams run out at St James' Park. Newcastle United are currently another one of those joke football teams where cliches are spouted about passionate its fans are whilst new story focus on the pathetic way the business side of the club is handled
• It has taken ages for the film concerned to be released on DVD. The reason for watching it this time round was a newspaper give-away in a recent promotion. As much as I love both the paper concerned and the film, I am uncomfortable with this as a method of promotion. It blurs the lines of what papers are there for and that worries me. Is it a reward for loyal readers or a pathetic attempt to lure in the waverers? I think I know the answer
  
• Last year I wrote an essay about the producer of the film, David Puttnam for my MA. It's an area I'd like to explore more but watching the film reminded my how much better I'd have done if I'd looked at it more closely. There's so much to write about but I only had 5000 words and half a dozen elements to write about. I'm revising for next exam at the moment and am following the same, lazy pattern. I could do more. I ought to do more. I probably wont
  

The film, Local Hero, is a truly fantastic film. The soundtrack is almost perfect.
The contrast between the city and the sea is more important to me than ever. Although I now live in a relatively quiet part of London, it's still London. And I still want out.
For the next fifteen minutes, Going Home from the Local Hero soundtrack is the best song ever.

The end of the world is nigh

I was frustrated when The Guardian chose recent events as a backdrop for an article entitled on whether or not capitalism had run its course. My problem is not with the thinking behind the subject matter but the way it was put together. It was an opportunity to ask the poster boys of the old left to throw their hands in the air and shout "we told you so". So you did. So you did. Now is not the time for triumphant schadenfreude. Ideological gloating can come later.
Well, whatever happens to capitalism now is not to be debated on this page but whilst wandering through one of the capitals of capitalist endeavor of the last eighty years, Leicester Square, one of the more recent symbols of capitalist endeavor blasted Bob Dylan's Maggie's Farm into my ears.
Even though it has nothing to do with the Thatch, even though it has nothing to do with the deregulatory monster she helped to create, even though the lyrics (as much of Dylan's best work is) can only be made sense of by a teenage miserable with pretensions to more delusions than you've ever heard of, the repeat button was hit until I got to work.
The refrain, "I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more" can be taken as a celebration or a lament. It's up to you. It doesn't really matter because although it's from 1965, for the next fifteen minutes Maggie's Farm is the best song ever.

Just making notes

I would just like to say at this point:

Naive melody (this must be the place)
You make me brave
and
Sea of love

Consider this a note pad for some ramblings I will come back to later.