My little runaround

For reasons that are unlikely to become clear in this lifetime, I've started running. Well. it's been about nine months now so started might be pushing it slightly.

As I run on my own, I have taken obsession with my ipod to the nth degree. For many months, exercise was a method to listen to podcasts. You see, I've tried songs before and frankly, they're too short. As one song ends, so does my motivation. Therefore it's either later Talk Talk (average song length: seven minutes) or it's podcasts and preferably one lasting longer than 30 minutes.

My list of usual suspects includes Adam and Joe, the Guardian's Football Weekly, Mayo and Kermode's film review, Collins and Herring, the Word and so on. Most average 50-60 minutes.

Here's the rub. I have a new phone and a new exercise tracking program, one that pulls music from my playlists automatically. I have, therefore been letting it do so in the knowledge that I've only upload around 40 songs to my phone.

My recent runs have been to a soundtrack of early 80s wonderment. There has been ABC, Japan, Yazoo and the Specials. There has also been some comparative mid 80s maturity in the shape of The Smiths, The Cure and Billy Bragg.

These are all the antidote of the kind of crap you find spouted by sections of the running community who seem to think it's all about beats per minute. Well, to me it's all about listening to a song and forgetting about the fact I'm running at the same time. I need distraction not pacing.

Both above all else, the soundtrack to my running, the thing that has got me going is the enriched vocal talents of Mr Glen Gregory. So despite their appearance on those awful Plusnet adverts and some appearances with the awful La Roux (why name yourself after a mixture of flour and butter?), there is little else to say other than, for the fifteen minutes or so that I'm out running, Heaven 17's Come Live With Me, is the best song ever.

Just don't listen too closely to the lyrics.

You're my first, my last, my everything

After the wedding comes the Alan Hansen show.

I'll leave a minute dissection of how splendid a day it was for elsewhere, however whilst the song for the first dance got a couple of nice comments, the song for the second one got a lot!

The first dance was Billy Bragg's You Make Me Brave because frankly, that's what we do for each other.

The second was Bob Dylan's I'll Be Your Baby Tonight! This seemed to be really popular and may turn out to be one of the things people remember. Funny really, I had the idea for a novel I'm still trying to get published. One of the best sections involves a student union disco where this is the most popular song. And it turns out to be true. Time to revisit the novel I think.

And of those who were left at the end, the opinion of my friends seemed to be that Gene's We'll Find Our Own Way was a really good choice for the last dance.

All three are most definitely the best three songs ever.

Just because you haven't heard it, doesn't mean it wont work

Eight days from now, the wedding dance will start.

I've emailed a list of requests to the DJ. It was divided into three. Songs requested by guests. Songs that I think would be good to play. Songs that I absolutely want played.

The DJ, on the one occasion we spoke, sounded like a decent man. There is a stereotype of the wedding DJ, the man would couldn't get on radio, the man one step away from children's parties, the wacky, the loud, the full of himself. And he did not seem to meet any of those stereotypes.

OK, so they may not be stereotypes, they may actually be prejudices. I'll admit it.

Anyway, his emailed reply suggested that the first two lists would not be a problem, however he said he did not have copies of any of my non-negotiable list. This is not a huge surprise. Instead it is a mild surprise. Some of them are most unlikely to rear their semi-ugly heads at weddings but I did think that one or two might have appeared.

So, here's the list:

You Make Me Brave - Billy Bragg (first dance)

I'll Be Your Baby Tonight - Bob Dylan (second dance)

She Bangs The Drum - The Stone Roses

Sea of Love - Phil Phillips

What You Do To Me - Teenage Fanclub

Enjoy Yourself - The Specials

An Audience With the Pope - Elbow

Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher - Jackie Wilson

We'll Find Our Own Way - Gene (last dance)

Now what could be so weird about that lot?

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.

I'm sorry. I forgot. It's an honest mistake.

Before visiting my old friend Grant, I took in the excellent televisual experience that was The Hits' (channel 18 on Freeview) attempt to give a comprehensive list of the 20 best Scottish acts ever. I may have missed one or two but I'm fairly certain that Rod Stewart wasn't on the list, presumably on the grounds that thinking you're Scottish and being Scottish are actually two completely different things. The list had predictability all over it. I give you Annie Lennox, Travis, Eddie Reader, the band Antoine De Caunes used to describe as Le Wet, Wet and Le Wet again, the Proclaimers, Simple Minds and KT Tungsten (yes, I know). There were the odd smatterings of the ok/naff border with the likes of Altered Images and Aztec Camera. And a hearty dose of twee nonsense: Sheena Easton, please stand up. Oh, you are. Sorry.
Grant, for lo, he is Glaswegian wanted to know whether Belle and Sebastian got a mention (not to my knowledge). I was surprised not to hear from Big Country, Orange Juice (or Edwyn Collins on his own for that matter) or Isobel Campbell. But I knew someone how I was forgetting someone. It's taken me over a week to remember the band I wanted to remember and I'm so annoyed. So, out of the way, The Hits, because not only are Teenage Fanclub the best Scottish band ever, but Sparky's Dream is, for at least the next thirty minutes, the best song ever.

Frustrated of Woolwich

Well, no actually, it's not that bad. But my music quota has dropped drastically recently. And the reason? Well, I'm not sure that reason comes into it when music is concerned. There has been very little variation in my music habits recently and due to an on-going feud with Secure Mail Services, I didn't even make Decoration's gig on Friday night (it's a lame excuse really and isn't actually much of a feud. Can one feud on one's own or must it be reciprocated? Unrequited feuding is so last year).
It's all the fault of "podcasting" although again, podcasting probably doesn't worry too much about me. Between The Now Show, Danny Baker, Martin Kelner, Smodcast, Test Match Special and the rest, I really haven't been interested in listening to much music.
When I started going to the gym I packed the ipod with lots of very long songs. I figured that if I was rowing, I would complete the programme by listening to two Talk Talk songs (say New Grass and After The Flood, both nine minutes each). Better to think "I'll row to the end of this song" than "I'll row to four more songs". Better to think neither in truth but you get the point. So, despite the self-indugent drivel that constitutes podcasting (and this coming from a "man who blogs", I refuse to call myself a blogger however Kevin Smith really should take a long hard look at himself and say, over and over again, "I'm not that interesting, I will shut up about my life especially about my sex life and bowel movements.")I'm now cycling away for forty-five minutes on the exercise bike safe in the knowledge that I'll still have ten minutes of Danny Baker to listen to whilst doing some weight.
However, if pushed (and stop pushing me you bully) to select the best song ever if only for the next fifteen minutes then I'll return to Hell's Ditch, by far the best Pogues album probably because Shane's influence is more diluted. But Ghost Of A Smile is by a long way, the best song ever.
It is my mission for the week to try to find something different, something beyond my comfort zone.

To compare is human, to forgive divine

Once again I've left it a little too long between updates and so I shall briefly mention a couple of songs that are worthy of the title of Best Song Ever (well, if only for the previously allotted fifteen minutes).
Decoration - Job in London "You've got that job in London/So when does it start?/You'll have a job in London/To mend your broken heart (cue loud guitars and much excitement/stroking of chin at the simplistic cleverness of the lyric). And suddenly there be resonance in them there words, or at least there be nodding of heads with a wry smile because you be knowing someone who got that job in London and did mend their broken heart (cue much loudness in guitars and desperate attempts to start getting back into the correct tense once more).
REM - Fall On Me. Oh to have finally got Life's (sic) Rich Pagent back. This is such a simple, beautiful song. But then the best ones normally are...
Neil Young - Fuckin' Up. Oh to have finally got Ragged Glory back. This is such a simple, angry song. But then the best ones normally are...

BUT BUT BUT BUT
for the song de jour I eschew the above although I return to Decoration. But this record, Flippant (look I'm crap at this so you'll have to copy and paste the link into your browser), http://www.decorationmusic.co.uk/shop/ is worth a look and I'll give you three reasons.

Firstly: Only A Plague Can Stop Us Now is such a fine combination of the power (indie) pop and wry lyrics that constantly surprise. Candidate is one of the best songs you'll hear anywhere (and this isn't even the best version of it) with one of my all time fave lyrics "Don't let me down/I can do it for myself thank you" and above all else at the moment and for the convceivable future (fourteen minutes, fifty nine seconds and counting) I Just Froze is the perfect combination of dry English wit and melodic invention. Imagine Fairytale of New York written by a sober man and set in small town England without attempting to go for (what, lets face it, is as we know in our heart of hearts) blandness. And whatever you say about the Pogues, Fairytale is more fondly remembered because it's not a cheesy Christmas song and because of the sadness at Kirsty's untimely death (is there ever a timely death?).
But buy this album. Listen to I Just Froze and try to tell me this doesn't paint a more vivid Christmas picture of love, regret and seasonal sadness. It's just so god damn English and that is why it is the best song ever. For now.

He's a liar and I'm not sure about you

One of the wonderful things about meeting new people is being reminded of thing you'd forgotten. Make sense? probably not. Ok, how about seeing things through new eyes. Oh, come on, you find a cliche that fits properly.
Anyway, I was reminded of the genius of Kirsty Macoll before Christmas and not because of the link to the Pogues (lets face it, when even your retired mother starts to profess a fondness for A Fairytale of New York then perhaps, like David Beckham at Madrid it's time to move on.
And meeting a self-professed Kirsty Macoll fan I did what I usually do in these circumstances and plough through the back catelogue on itunes. Now I don't think I own a Kirsty Macoll record although I my brother had the 7 inch version of A New England. But I must have a dozen records with her on backing vocals and I guess that's true of more people than is strictly healthy. So having got through the itunes samples I was reminded why. Firstly I'm not sure anyone ever refined her songwriting. Whilst in the complete understanding that I can do no better and a whole lot worse, I can appreciate that not enough was done to iron out the kinks that appear in her songs (tempo is often my main stumbling point along with sudden shifts in melody that seem to leap around without reason) but there is one song that has been repeated so much on my ipod that it's starting to develop a life of its own. And sadly it's a song that I first heard through that wonderous example of variety, Ms Tracey Ulman. I seem to think that she played is as a slightly comic song but in truth it's the most feisty pop song I can recall. It's a real, "fuck you, I'm happy" song that contains one of the great moments in pop history.
The song is "They Don't Know"
The moment comes later than you think it should. After two trips round the verse-chorus structure we arrive at the middle eight. And you expect the moment because middle eights lead into this sort of thing. But no, it leads to the guitar break and finally, buried in the mix but still clear, Kirsty wails, lungs aplenty and out comes the most plaintive "Baby" you've ever heard. Seriously, listen. She's worth it. And so's Kirsty.

Christmas is, apparently not like London buses.

"I'm having too many ideas" I thought on the way back from Sainsburys. I should have stopped to strip each one back but I was worried about the fish in my bag. Well, not that worried or else I wouldn't have bought the thing in the first place. I am assured that humane methods were used in the farming and killing of this fish but as the most popular human methods of death are starvation, malaria and the bullet, I really ought to rethink the whole buying strategy.
So, if I've forgotten any of the greatest songs of as and when they occurred to me over the last six months then you (and by you I really mean me, after all which other sad git is reading this tosh) will have to forgive me. But how would you know? Why would you care?
Anyway here we go. Each one of these songs were, as far as I am concerned the greatest song ever for around fifteen minutes each over the last six months (Did that make sense? Too late).
Erasure - A Little Respect. Although really, did they have to make the most literal video ever.
Teenage Fanclub - Cells. I love the Fanclub but I avoided buying the last album for months but I'm pleased I waited because I wasn't ready for it then. I needed to suffer a bit first. Cells highlights the dangers of overlistening. What is a beautiful, simple, eloquent song has started to sound perilously close to an old time folk songs. If they played stump, kettle and par-boiled potato instead of guitar, bass and drums it would only be half a "hey-nonny-nay" away from a Morris Dancer's delight.
Edwyn Collins - The Campaign For Real Rock. A great song but as it's six minutes long that means it only gets two and a half plays before it ceases to be the best ever and that's just not value for money.
Arctic Monkeys - A Certain Romance. Obvious really. Man that boy can bang the drums.
Oasis - Go Let It Out. Only for the "Click on the bass" moment.
Decoration - Candidate. "Don't let me down/I can do it for myself thank you/ Let me do it for myself thank you" "In the eighties they had electric dreams/I just dreamt of you" "Don't build you hopes up/I will only knock them down she said/I guess it's something to do" Evidence? Case closed.
Billy Bragg - The Saturday Boy. Ahh Billy, you were the king of sad geeky broken hearted teenage boys.
Beta Band - Dry The Rain. Got bored of this one ages ago. Great song though. That's the danger of the ipod shuffle.
U2 - Stuck in a song title you can't get out of (or something like that). I finally started listening to the boys again. They're not boys anymore. Shame really, they were more fun when they were pretentious rockers. Now they're uber-pretentious rockers I just wish Brian Eno would get them in a headlock and rub their heads (or beanies) until they go bald. Balder.
Talking Heads - Naive Melody (This Must Be The Place) What a fucking brilliant song and a superb title to rank alongside the likes of Country Feedback (it's a country song with feedback of course).
Blur - He Thought of Cars/Entertain Me/Yuko and Hiro. The Great Escape is turning in their lost album, loved on release, discarded for being cold fairly soon after. Have a listen (selectively), it's more fun than peeing in a wet suit. Just
But for now it's back to Teenage Fanclub and from ManMade, the current best song ever. Born Under A Good Sign. The one note guitar riff is a killer and in terms of structure the song has got to be everything their fans have wanted since Bandwagonesque.
Phew, thank god that's over...

I just wasn't made for these times

And neither was Mark Hollis. I get the feeling that he would have been happier writing chamber music alongside the likes of Ravel. His music is so deeply layered and bitty, classical music in a pop context. Hey, that sounds like a soundbite. Well wrap me up and make me a speechwriter.
Talk Talk were one of the few bands to get consistently better as they went on. First album. Crap. Second album. The first side was pretty good. Side two? Crap. Third Album? The Colour of Spring. The title is the most accurate description of the record. You could sit and imagine flowers opening while you listen to it. Then Spirit of Eden. Beautiful. And finally, Laughing Stock which, from time to time I just listen to non-stop. It's six stark songs remind me of so many 'nearly' moments, especially from my long lost university days.
It's strange that I should pick it up and pick it out now. At this point when music is testosterone fuelled along with the rest of our culture. When we watch the beautiful game accompanied by bluntly obvious comments, preferably aided by bottled beer and then bellow our opinions to each other either to the person next to us or down a phone line to a radio station. When phrases like "a genuine one in two man" are meant to make us think of goalscoring credentials rather than the usual national pre-occupation. When I want to adore New Order, Keith Allen and John Barnes (of course I do). When I ought to be more socialble than I am being and sharing this great event and my opinions with others (although I am still trying hard not to have to many, opinions tend to make all our lives more bitter)
Instead I find myself watching the Netherlands versus Argentina match with the sound down, listening to Laughing Stock and the riff that leaves me speechless every time, that stands to me as a work of art comparable with anything modern music has created. And it adds to the football, it soothes me although removing the irritation of the worst of ITV commentators (Drury and Pleat!!!!!!) helps no end. Watching World Cup games on my own, listening to Laughing Stock is the modern eqivalent of being Jacob Barnes.
But, and quite possible for the remainder of the World Cup, Talk Talk's Laughing Stock is the best album ever but the best song either is, without doubt, New Grass.

It's been a long time baby

Yeah, sorry about that. I've had other things on my mind. For example, I've been wondering why it is that ABC are (still) slightly lauded for their first album only. Especially since the second is every bit as good but every bit as different. And I am aware that that sentence makes no sense whatsoever. I'm not entirely happy with the last one either. Or that.
Anyway, The Lexicon of Love was the first album I ever bought (jointly with my brother, on cassette, we saved for ages and bought it in secret and hid it from our parents because we were worried they'd tell us off for spending so much money on something other than sweets and fizzy drinks. Probably). And I love the strings that give it such richness (Anne Dudley, the most underrated person in British music) which of course were missing on the stark follow-up, Beauty Stab.
But it is good. And as long as you can get past the pretentious lyrics (so overblown at times as to border on the ridiculously sublime - what the hell does that mean?) there is a hard boiled album that is bursting with ideas. And amongst them is the single that really killed off the impression that ABC were gold lamee, funk bass and violin mad. I give you, That Was Then But This Is Now, for the next fifteen minutes, the best song ever.

Pancakes, yes. Pop, no.

I was going to write some boring, cliched drivel about how god awful Scottish pop music has been and place an apology here stating that I knew it had been done before but I'm going to do it anyway. This would all finish with 'Teenage Fanclub are brilliant' and a recommendation to boot.
Actually I've decided I can't be bothered and that music does not represent a nation in exactly the same way that music cannot betray an emotion. Unless you choose to let it. If you want to think of Scotland as a land that music forgot (I mean Texas, really, why? They weren't any good the first time and the second time they were merely poor but for some reason all of you were buying anything homegrown and recommended by Chris Evans - see also Ocean Colour Scene although at least they aren't Scottish) then feel free.
If, however, like me you choose to belief that your nationality is initially an accident of birth (before sadly becoming an accident of politics or war for some) then you can avoid all helpless, hapless, hopeless national stereotypes. Dundee has little in common with Dunfirmline, Glasgow with Galashiels. Nationality is a human construct designed to lift and separate like a well fitted bra.
So, my favourite band who coincidentally happen to all come from one particular area through a fortuitous accident of birth and economic necessity is Teenage Fanclub. And amongst their rich back catalogue is, what I currently believe to be, the best song ever written, if only for the next fifteen minutes. I give you: I Need Direction by Teenage Fanclub.

A moment on the lips, a lifetime whirling around in my brain

This is where the concept gets even more tortured, when instead of the best song ever all my mind can conjure up are moments within songs, memorable, magic moments (ho ho) that render the rest of the song obsolete.
Let me give you two examples.
1) Dusty Springfield and the Pet Shop Boys - What Have I Done To Deserve This. Now, Dusty is fantastic but the production on this leaves her double tracked all over the place, as though the "Boys" were suspicious of the longevity of her talent. Which is fine. Now, I'm a huge admirer of Dusty's voice but it's hard to admit that in a world that judges you for such an opinion. For many a long year it has been an accepted fact that in order to like Dusty you must be gay. Or, more accurately, in order to be gay you must like Dusty. I'm reclaiming her for the straight of the species, a bit like Billy Bragg trying to reclaim the George Cross from the facists.
And there is one moment of spine tingling brilliance on this song. All she does is go slightly deeper and spread the word "Yeah" out across a couple of bars with a little sexy quiver. I hear it now and it still works wonders. A great moment in an average song.
2) John Lennon - God
This is a pickle of a song. It starts with a piano and bass line that are warm and tender before descending in the pitiful repitition of "Here's a list of all the things I'm going to whine about now that I'm now well off and you're going to have to listen and oh yes I'm going to slag off the one thing that made me famous." So once he climaxes at his hatred of the Beatles, it is as though every venomous instinct is flushed from his body. And suddenly the warmth returns, the bass line returns, the tenderness returns. And there's a greater depth to his voices as well, before reedy and tight, suddenly it flows and right at the point where he says "that's reality" you can forgive him anything. Well, almost. Imagine remains a crime against humanity.

The counter is dead, long live the counter (when I can be bothered to sort a new one that is)

So, lets play "Guess the current best song ever".
It goes like this:
Guitar riff, old fire engine bell, nonsense lyrics.
Guitar fill.
Guitar riff, nonsense lyrics.
Guitar fill.
Guitar riff, old fire engine bell, nonsense lyrics.

Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

Well, if you haven't guessed then I present you with what will be, for the next fifteen minutes, the best song ever"
Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me and My Monkey by the Beatles.