Showing posts with label Neil Young. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neil Young. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

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.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

What do ya wanna make those eyes at me for?

Ah, pop music, a pedant's paradise. Well, Shaky, where shall we begin. Oh hang on a minute, that sounds like a really bad link into the best song ever. Shaking Stevens to Neil Young. Any eagle eyed sad geeks out there with that kind of knowledge need to be, oh hang, that's me too.
Any way, as I own seven hundred and forty-two of Neil Young's two thousand and twenty-six albums (or is just that the similar sounding acoustic make it feel that way, well done Neil, Harvest VI - Revenge of the Tractors - coming soon) it was inevitable that Neil would find his way on here. Chuck in last night's character assassination (see below) and even an idiot (hello)could see that his back catalogue would be on my mind.
So here it is, whiny Canadian singing about what it's like to be a Native American and how beastly the settlers were by killing us all before randomly wanting to talk to Marlon Brando (have you got any Native American in you? Do you want some?).
Disclaimer - any jokes relating to sex with obese dead American men are purely the result of over-wrought emotion and a lack of sleep.
The thing is that even Neil Young's inability to sing without his voice giving up the ghost and packing its bags can't spoil the beauty of the best song ever (for at least the next fifteen minutes):
Pocahontas
from Rust Never Sleeps.
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