5. Summer's Gone

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but summer is over. It's kaput. That's yer lot, barring the odd nice weekend between now and next June if you're lucky. The equinox isn't until the 22nd, but in the spirit of another glorious summer being over forever, here's a pre-emptive compilation encapsulating the crisp and not entirely unwelcome onslaught of autumn, and the End of Summer.

1) Summer's Kiss - Afghan Whigs

"... is over baby", laments Greg Dulli in his trademark strangled-cat wail, as what can only be described as "epic guitars, dude" churn and clang around him. But he isn't just going to sit there and take it, opting instead to rage against the dying of the light, or against daylight saving time at least, and go down swinging. Seguing into "Faded" on "Black Love" (which, if anything, ramps the angst up even further), "Summer's Kiss" accounts for what may be the most vitriolic, cathartic harangue against the inevitable changing of the seasons ever committed to tape. Which is why it's on the list, obvs.


2) This is the Thing - Fink

Fink, on the other hand, is one the most delightfully low-key mofos around, not that it makes this ode to the "nights getting long" any less arresting. "This Is the Thing" is a song for curling up with a cup of tea to, possibly under a large blanket. The song after next on the album is called "Blueberry Pancakes", for crying out loud. You couldn't really imagine him rocking a festival main stage in the blazing sunshine, which is appropriate for this list, since I'm afraid most of our rocking is going to have to take place indoors until next summer.


3) I'll Follow the Sun - The Beatles

A lovely little ditty about how it'll probably rain tomorrow (a theme that no doubt resonates among most Liverpudlians), which was apparently left off the first couple of Beatles' albums for being a little too wet behind the ears. The irony is that Paul McCartney probably does follow the sun around these days, as the poor chap doesn't seem in great health.


4) Autumn Leaves - Chet Baker

I put it to you that no one captures the nonchalant ennui of summer slipping away quite like '50-style crooner type Chet Baker. As Exhibit A, the appropriately-titled "Autumn Leaves" will not only destroy any counter-arguments you may have, but will also leave you sighing wistfully by a bay window you didn't even know you owned, inspecting vast, grey vistas of burning leaf-piles and drizzle, pining for the fjords. That's what this man's trumpet can do to you.


5) Indian Summer - Manic Street Preachers

This track and its title are more wishful thinking on my part than anything else, although it has been raining for as long as I can remember, so maybe we're due some late-summer sun to make up for all the damp. In any case, this is a stirring late-period offering from the Manics which sounds a bit like "A Design For Life" only not as good - may it offer you hope in these darkest and drizzliest of times. And be thankful I didn't bring up "Autumnsong" from the same album...


6) Autumn Sweater - Yo La Tengo

More sepia hues, lyrical wistfulness and warm, fleecy synths from Hoboken's prodigal sons/daughters - and verily, it has come to pass that I've actually had to break out my sweater in recent weeks; the big green knitted-wool one that makes me look like I'm going whaling. Haven't had to turn the heating on yet, but that's a whole other war of attrition with the elements that I've got to look forward to.


7) The Last Day of Summer - The Cure

You may have noticed that this mix is a little more low-key than usual, given the rather folorn subject matter, and right on cue here's everyone's favourite doom-mongers with a particularly mopey song from the "Bloodflowers" album. An interminable intro, funereal tempo, the word "nothing" used five times in the first five lines, and a rousing chorus of "The last day of summer never felt so cold". That should cheer all you miserable gits up a bit. See also: "Cold".


8) Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me - George Michael & Elton John

I was led to seek out and consciously listen to this song for the first time ever when compiling this mix, since I assumed it had an autumnal slant, or could at least be used for the purposes of this list even if it didn't. I was aware of it previously only as the gold standard of surprise celebrity guest appearances - case in point, when I went to see the Guillemots a few years ago they brought on Martha Wainwright and prefaced it by saying "This is our 'Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Elton John' moment", which I thought was rather sweet. Anyway, it's not a bad little tune, and Elton waddling onto a reconstructed soundstage is quite an iconic moment, even if he doesn't contribute much of note for the rest of the video.


9) 1979 - Smashing Pumpkins

Truth be told, this is less of a "summer drawing to a close" song and more of a "lamenting summers gone by" and "eulogising misspent youth" kind of a song (themes returned to by the Corgmeister on Zwan's "Endless Summer", with diminishing returns). But it's a hit, so I'm going to cave to the pressure and include it here so as to rack up the pageviews, improve my SEO and secure lucrative commercial tie-ins for the Fred Zeppelin brand. Plus it has a certain nostalgic feel to it not dissimilar to other, less crowd-pleasing tracks here. And I like the fact that the thumbnail for the song's famous, generation-defining video is an action-cam shot of a guy throwing a roll of toilet paper.


10) Summer's Gone - Beach Boys

The last track to a Beach Boys album I didn't even know existed until the other day, "Summer's Gone" is much better than it has any right to be - I just assumed all latter-day Beach Boys releases were horribly anachronistic ditties about surfing and being true to your school, but this is some pretty deep stuff, with world-weary harmonies and everything. When Feeder and Placebo say "Summer's Gone", you may simply dismiss it as the work of two bands that you spent a regrettable amount of time listening to in your teens; but when the Beach Boys of all people start chiming in as well, then that's basically the death knell for Summer 2014. It was fun while it lasted.

4. Movin' On

Some themes are hard to come by, while others are thrust upon you by happenstance - I should know, I've chosen over three in my lifetime. The theme for this blog has been wholly dictated by circumstances, and more specifically by me moving house last week (which, together with a newfound penchant for chain-watching The Wire, explains my absence on here these past few days). The theme is (drumroll) Moving House.


1) Leaving Trunk - Taj Mahal

And first up on the Moving House Compilation 2014 (which I actually made and burnt to CD, for the car journey) is this rollicking, jolloping sauce bottle of a track from veteran blues holler-er and noted Indian building Taj Mahal. It's sprightly, it's raunchy, it's slightly nonsensical, it was probably made up as the band went along, but to my mind there's no other song that better encapsulates the feeling of having enough, packing while blind drunk and heading off to Memphis in a huff and on a whim. "Cakewalk Into Town" provides a fitting soundtrack to the arrival at the other end too, not to mention an arresting visual image.


2) Moving - Suede

Picking up the pace is this jaunty little number from Suede's eponymous debut, which probably has nothing to do with moving house but fizzes with some of the same dynamism and momentum involved in moving everything you own from one place to another. Plus, "we'll stick like sick on the stars" is one of Brett Anderson's less nauseating couplets, ironically enough. Full of beans and possibility, "Suede" is the exciting road trip to new digs that would eventually lead to the dead-eyed, dead-end squat of "Dog Man Star" - arguably the better album, but that's another story for another mix (one about heroin, probably).


3) I Was Young When I Left Home - Antony w/ Bryce Dessner

Taken from the superlative, indier-than-thou "Dark Was The Night" charity compilation, this Dylan cover is one of the better takes on the Bobmeister General's oeuvre. For a start, Antony's take is much more fragile than the original, leaving the listener genuinely fearing for the narrator's wellbeing - without his Johnsons, Antony sounds like he could barely handle a day away from his opulent four-poster bed, let alone a week roughing it on the run from his folks, with his worldly possessions in a napsack. But the winning combination of his wide-eyed warbling (later used to great affect on "Knocking on Heaven's Door", obviously) and Bryce Dessner's thrumming acoustic guitar makes this a fine addition to the canon, and a quintessential "doing a runner" song along the lines of "She's Leaving Home" or "By the Time I Get To Phoenix".


4) You Gotta Move - Rolling Stones

I first heard this song when I was just getting into music, had only really heard of Queen and the Rolling Stones, and even then didn't want to know if the song in question didn't have a stadium-filling riff or guitar solo. So "You Gotta Move" was temporarily and foolhardily consigned to the scrap heap along with stuff like "Sister Morphine" and the weirder parts of of "Exile on Main Street". Now, of course, I've gone off the more bombastic side of the Stones completely, but still have a lot of time for their more rootsy, sarky material - for the same reason that I've always liked Van Morrison but never got into Aerosmith (case in point).

Anyway, this is a low-key, drawling cover of a Mississippi Fred McDowell song, which basically repeats the main refrain over and over again over mosquito-buzz slide guitar and sepulchral Deep South harmonies, and is pretty great even without the stadium-filling riffs. Interesting how a lot of these tracks are either covers or have been covered extensively themselves; maybe songs about transience and impermanence lend themselves to impermanent cover versions more readily than, say, songs about steadfastness and pension plans. Well, I say "interesting"...


5) Hold On We're Going Home - Drake

Distinguished trend-setter that I am, I'm only just getting into Drake and his smooth rap stylings, but there's no denying this is a stone cold classic tune, and one that has not left my head alone to deal with important stuff like admin and security deposits since I first heard it. On a personal note, the refrain of "It's hard to these things alone" carries extra poignancy because at the time of writing, I'm waiting for my wife to be let into the country following a protracted visa saga, and our new house - while undeniably pretty cool - feels rather empty without her at the moment. So there's that.


6) Slip Inside This House - Primal Scream

Primal Scream's brilliant, E'd-up reworking of the 13th Floor Elevators track, which appears on the seminal Screamadelica album, also unwittingly doubles a house-moving anthem - the jangling psychedelic rhythms and breathless exhortations subtly implying the fevered hoarding of cardboard boxes, the ferrying of delicate belongings and fretting about phone-line installations and estate agency fees. It's all there if you read between the lines.


7) Give A Man A Home - Ben Harper

This song was on heavy rotation in 2008-9, when I somehow conspired to move house something like nine times in as many months due to overambitious travel plans (Paris and Val d'Isere among them - long story) and general restlessness. At which point I grew understandably fed up of carting my belongings around and chanced upon a fantastic shared house in North London, where I dug in determinedly for four years, until everyone else had left and I was politely but firmly kicked out by the landlord, who was looking to sell the place.

It was at that point that this lovely, world-weary ballad (also covered rousingly by Ben's mates, the Blind Boys of Alabama) made a comeback, and I'm very grateful if only for the loveliness and world-weariness of it - probably Ben Harper's optimal factory setting, now I think about it. Wouldn't mind staying put for a while now though.


8) Leaving Here - Pearl Jam

A throwaway Motown cover that only surfaced on the "Lost Dogs" rarities compilation, "Leavin' Here" works fantastically not only as a moving-house-themed rabble-rouser (albeit one that's more about women leaving a town because of no-good men, from what I gather) but as a rare example of Pearl Jam having what sounds like genuine fun on record, and not in a weird in-jokey way which just makes everyone who isn't a member of Pearl Jam roll their eyes a bit (I'm looking at you, "Dirty Frank" and "Bugs"). In fact, I'd wager this version is even more of a blast than the original thanks to some raucous backing vocals and a very silly guitar solo. And it played a part in making the six hours spent driving back and forth across London last weekend a bit more bearable, for which I am eternally thankful.


9) Moving Further Away - The Horrors

I'm now living in South London; not only is it the first time I've lived there, it's one of the first times I've even ventured south of the Thames full stop, so it's all a bit new and strange. Entering Dulwich was like finding myself in a strange alternative universe where everyone does the same things as "up north" (please excuse the blindingly London-centric geography on show here) but in a slightly different setting.

I just assumed  that in South London everyone shuffled around in string vests, from betting shop to Wetherspoons, mumbling incoherently, in the rain. But it's actually a pretty cool, vibrant kind of place. I'm told there's a bar on top of a car park somewhere. It does mean that none of my friends will ever come and visit me though, hence this oddly wistful yet euphoric motorik workout from Southend's prodigal sons.


10) Does Not Suffice - Joanna Newsom

Coming at the end of a ridiculously long, intricate triple-album, it's easy to overlook the resigned sighs of "Does Not Suffice" at first, but it'll soon have its hooks in you and is now one of my favourite J-New songs. "The tap of hangers swaying in the closet / Unburdened hooks and empty drawers / And everywhere I tried to love you / Is yours again and only yours" - subtly devastating reminders that moving house may be exciting, but can also be brought on by separation, loss, restlessness and general misery. 

Anyway, Joanna explains it better than I ever could, so just press play and enjoy. At this point, normally I would wrap things up with Tom Waits' "Anywhere I Lay My Head" - a raucous paean to the rootless nomad and rudderless hippies of this world - but he got the last slot on the fruit mixtape, and it's someone else's turn. I'm off to enjoy my new house some more, if you don't mind. 

3. Love's Got the World in Motion

This whole mixtape lark sprung directly from a month-long themed curation on This Is My Jam, in which I picked a song for each of the 32 participating countries in the 2014 World Cup. Some of the choices were no-brainers ("Born in the USA" for the USA, "Ecuador" for Ecuador, Jacques Brel's "Le Port d'Amsterdam" for Belgium AND the Netherlands); some of them were happy discoveries (like this absolute tune for Chile) some of them were tenuous and revolved mainly around puns ("Ghana use my arms, Ghana use my legs", and "[South] Korea Opportunities" spring to mind). But everyone got a jam.

I didn't do any general World Cup songs though, summing up the highs, the lows, the creamy middles of association football's finest hour/four weeks. So as a Blogger premiere, and before the happy memories of Brazil 2014 fade entirely to be replaced by the human rights fiascos of Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022, here's the World Cup mixtape you never knew you wanted. Non-football fans are welcome too, since most of the selections are only vaguely linked to the World Cup, and I promise not to go on about the Dutch deployment of wing-backs too much.

1) World - Julia Holter

Case in point - Julia Holter was probably not going for a universal World Cup anthem when she wrote this, or if she was she did a terrible job, instead coming up with a sparse, haunting elegy to... hats? Mothers? God only knows what the enigmatic lyrics are hinting at. She mentions tennis at one point, which isn't really in the spirit of things.

But I do like ol' Julia - saw her the other day, as it happens, playing St. John's Church in Hackney with her merry band of double bassists and sax players, and was very impressed with their live sound, which replicates the eeriness of her records but in a massive church, for added atmosphere. You probably won't see this soundtracking the ITV highlights of the final or anything, but I think it makes a nice low-key start to proceedings, before we ramp it up a bit with...


2) Cups - Underworld

I'm just getting into Underworld, having been only a nipper in the '90s and only used mind-bending drugs on a recreational basis. They're pretty great - I know everyone says they're dated, but I reckon the people who say that are dated themselves, and need to drag everything they once loved down with them. To paraphrase David Brent, a good twelve-minute techno odyssey is a good twelve-minute techno odyssey FOREVER.

This track, the opener to the exquisitely-titled "Beaucoup Fish", starts ponderously before gradually gathering steam and bursting into a thrilling finale. Which is pretty much the opposite of the last World Cup, but it makes the cut because: "Underworld - Cups", and because I don't have a lot of options here.


3) World Domination - Ash

A very silly song for what is, after all, a very silly competition - amazing how all-encompassing the World Cup can become, for better or for worse, fuelled by the frothing media and lack of anything else going on in June/July. And amazing how 22 men kicking a ball around can be perceived as more of a quest for world domination than, say, invading Ukraine.

My Brazilian wife and her family were dead against this year's competition - the strain on the country's infrastructure, the diversion of resources from already under-funded areas like education and health, the hordes of football fans, the endless singing - until it actually started. At which point the protests died out almost immediately, everyone started cheering on Brazil and all was right with the world until the team got an absolute pasting from Germany in the semi-final. Such is the power, and the power of distraction in particular, of the World Cup. As an outsider I was able to enjoy the whole thing guilt-free, which made it even better!


4) I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor

Until Brazil's now-infamous semi-final collapse, I thought the 2014 World Cup - taking place in Brazil shortly after I married a Brazilian and got to know the country for the first time - might run along the same lines of the 1998 World Cup, in which the hosts France lifted the trophy the year I moved there with my family. Personal involvement always makes these things more interesting, and the 1998 final remains one of my fondest memories, football-related or otherwise - my first World Cup (apart from the rather dull '94 final), and the first time I felt a real kinship with my adopted home country, as fans swarmed into the streets to celebrate through the night.

I'm not sure why "I Will Survive" became the World Cup '98 French victory song - it's got nothing to do with football, or France - but for some reason it was played relentlessly at parties, discos and town fairs for the next few years, with everyone singing along to the wordless interlude and breaking into rhythmic chants of "et un, et deux, et trois-zero" (another catastrophic Brazil defeat, by the way - maybe this year's finals were pretty similar to '98 after all). The memory of that rather spectacular alignment of personal and national circumstances has actually made this song bearable to this day, although I apologise for thrusting it upon you who have no fond memories attached to it at all.


5) Boys From Brazil - Simple Minds

A word, though, for this year's host nation. Amid all the social unrest and immense domestic pressure, "the eyes of the world" were indeed on the Selecção, as Jim Kerr so prophetically/nonsensically sang back in 1981 - a simpler time, before Simple Minds jumped the shark and went all Bono on us. They (Brazil, not Simple Minds) had to win convincingly, not only to reclaim their crown as the GOAT, but also to prevent total social meltdown and save national face on the global stage (by the way, good luck with that in 2022, Qatar).

Unfortunately they just weren't very good this year, but that's not their fault. Everyone I knew - apart form the Brazilian contingent, obviously - turned on them from the first game, blasted them for eliminating the entertaining underdogs of Chile and Colombia, and seemed to relish their absolutely stunning 7-1 capitulation against Germany in the semi-final. I on the other hand grew quite fond of the hopelessly mismatched and bedraggled squad - especially my namesake Fred, who did his best up front, which was very far from good enough. Their elimination was unnecessarily cruel and I hope some of them can live to play again next time around (probably not Fred though; he looked like he was for the knacker's yard).


6) Tight Pants - Seeed

And a tip of the hat to Brazil's victors and humiliators-in-chief, who went on to win the thing outright. I've always had a soft spot for Germany since they proved just too good for England (better at penalties, anyway) back in Euro 96 - incidentally the last time England were any good at football. And what better way to honour the triumphant Mannschaft than with a cracking tune from Germany's most efficient rappers?

I am indebted to my friend Eric for introducing me to Seeed when I went to visit him in Berlin during university; I haven't heard any of their other stuff, nor do I particularly want to, but this masterpiece of falsetto and oompah made such an impression on me that I chose to include it here over, I don't know, Kraftwerk or "Deutschland Uber Alles". Bitte schön.


7) Corrupt - Depeche Mode

No run-down of the World Cup could be complete without a tribute to FIFA, the bastions of moral virtue and decency at the beating heart of the game. This one's for Sepp Blatter and, fittingly for the subject at hand, features Depeche Mode on total autopilot and long past their prime.


8) Another Star - Stevie Wonder

The song that soundtracked the Beeb's World Cup coverage this summer, on account of it being a bit samba-ish and unerringly catchy. As with most things, Auntie outdid its rival ITV in the soundtrack department, and even made England's damp squib of an exit seem faintly poetic by deploying Aimee Mann's rueful "Wise Up" in the bi-annual "England getting knocked out montage song" slot.

The song itself is bloody great, if a little long - Stevie had a double album to pad out though, and in fairness it's a hook that's worth milking for eight minutes, so we'll let him off. I remember this closing his set at Glastonbury 2010 (along with a version of "Happy Birthday" ft. MC Michael Eavis, naturally), and cropping up in a duet (quadruplet?) with Pharrell and Daft Punk at the Grammys, which is pretty cool apart from the bit about Pharrell and the Grammys. Stevie Wonder is the man, basically.


9) World Cup Drumming - Mclusky

Into the home stretch - the third-fourth place play off of the compilation, if you like - with a short blast of gibberish invective, from Wales' finest vitriol merchants since Richey Edwards went AWOL, and the only song here to actually reference the damn competition at all. I would also have accepted "The World Loves Us And Is Our Bitch", which should really be the song that all participating teams play in the dressing room before taking to the field. "It's war, I tell yer!"


10) The Flying Cup Club - Beirut

And so the World Cup playlist draws to a close, aptly enough with a song that has almost nothing to do with football, but crucially does include the word "Cup" in its title. And what a stirring closer it is too, all harmonized warbling and accordions set to "whimsy". Reminds me of a football terrace chant in a way, although maybe I'm just saying that to retroactively justify my rather generous inclusion criteria. There are no terrace chants at the World Cup in any case, just vuvuzelas and endless brass bands.

Ultimately the World Cup does what it does very well. Even a rubbish World Cup, like 2010, is still pretty great all things considered, and World Cup 2014 proved to be among the best in my lifetime, if not ever. The future is uncertain, given the ongoing and lucrative rise of club football at the expense of its national equivalent, and FIFA not even trying to conceal its own greed and corruption anymore. So all the more need for a tenuous and barely thought-through playlist accompanied by some half-hearted commentary, to reflect on the good old days which have literally just happened. Take it away, John Barnes.

2. Strange Fruit

In case my first entry came across as a little too existential, or just directionless and annoying, I would like to assure my (so far purely theoretical) audience that there's more to my repertoire than cod-philosophy and vague ennui.

I also make mixtapes themed around Fruit.


1) Strawberry Swing - Frank Ocean

And kicking us off is a cover of one of Coldplay's better latter-day tracks (I imagine - I lost interest after the disappointing "X & Y", and now only ever overhear them on the radio or when they play the stadium next door to my house). Frank Ocean blows the original out of the water, by preserving the sugar-spun guitar parts and Graceland-esque rhythm, and simply by not being Chris Martin. Even the latter's unwanted appearance towards the end only serves to emphasise how much better a singer Ocean is, thus bolstering the cover's worth even as it nearly derails it completely. Not sure how this ties into the whole fruit theme beyond the title, and I'll be buggered if I know what a strawberry swing is (an All Bar One cocktail, perhaps?), but the smooth soul and concluding alarm clock sample make it a worthy opener to "Now That's What I Call Music About Fruit Vol. 1 (of 1)".


2) Lime Tree Arbour - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

Nick Cave appears to be in some sort of orchard in this low-key ballad, which isn't very Nick Cave of him. A boatman is having a go at him, and "a lone loon dives upon the water" as he tries gamely to chat up the girl he's with. The limes seem almost incidental. In fact, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that Nick Cave is just using the lime trees as window dressing for another heart-stopping vignette of bittersweet love and desire. It's shocking false advertising, but it's also a nice song and "Raspberry Beret" isn't available on Youtube, so in it goes at track number 2.


3) Lemon - U2

When God gave Bono lemons, he turned them into a seven-minute future-disco epic (and a 40-foot mirrorball). "She wore lemon", he coos in outrageous falsetto, at the height of his MacPhisto post-modernist bollocks (actually my favourite U2 era by some distance - I'll defend "Pop" to the death if need be). Brian Eno chimes in with something about moving pictures, and the Edge reminds us all that "midnight is where the day begins". Larry Mullen Jr. plays it cool from behind his drumkit. It's utterly fantastic.


4) Peach Plum Pear - Joanna Newsom

Three fruit for the price of one from famed East End market stall-holder Joanna Newsom. An abrupt about-turn from the cutting-edge Eurofunk of Zooropa, this song features just a run-of-the-mill antique harpsichord, hammered with merry abandon, and strident vocals which even the staunchest of Newsom-ites would concede are a little... eccentric. Still, it's a rousing little ditty, offering glimpses of the genius later to manifest itself on "Ys" and "Have One On Me", and it contains all the makings of a decent fruit salad.


5) Tangerine - Led Zeppelin

The band whose legacy lives on in the pun-tastic title of this very blog, Led Zeppelin were a very popular blues rock outfit from the late '70s (and also gave us "The Lemon Song"). Though they were known for their rock 'n roll lifestyle, thundering riffs and endless drum solos, Led Zep were often at their best when breaking out the acoustic guitars and getting all gooey on us. Case in point is "Tangerine", a lovely three-minute tune about lost love and citrus fruit, featuring a melodic solo that I never Jimmy Page had in him. There's more to this lot than just "Stairway" and indecent acts with mudsharks, you know. Plus, this song means I don't have to include any Tangerine Dream, for which we should all be grateful.


6) Step On - Happy Mondays

"You're twistin' my melon, man"


7) Strawberryfire - Apples in Stereo

Possibly the fruitiest song there is, "Strawberryfire" is by Apples in Stereo, and seems inspired by the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" (actually it's more in the "Rain"/"Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" mould, but that doesn't fit the narrative, damn it). A veritable farmer's market of produce all in one four-minute burst. It's also considerably more cheerful than the other "apple" songs I considered, including "Rotten Apples" by the Pumpkins and "Rotten Apple" by Alice in Chains, who should both lighten the hell up, frankly. This is meant to be an uplifting fruit compilation after all.


8) Coconut - Harry Nilsson

Unlike Nick Cave, Harry Nilsson isn't one to take limes for granted. Or coconuts for that matter. He built one of his best-known tracks around those two fruits (is coconut a fruit? It had better be), just the one chord and some silly voices - the rest is history, by way of Reservoir Dogs, which is where I first hear it. A brilliantly silly song which will stay attached to your head, facehugger-like, for days after you hear it.


9) Bowl of Oranges - Bright Eyes

Conor Oberst is another lime enthusiast, but for the sake of variety I've chosen another of his fruit-based works, and one of my favourites songs on "Lifted". I love the intricate wordplay of the lyrics and breezy simplicity of the folky backing, especially compared to some of the more arduous tracks surrounding it (having said that, I'd forgotten what a tune "Don't Know When But A Day Is Gonna Come" is...). "Our still lives posed / like a bowl of oranges / like a story told / by the fault lines and the soil": doesn't really mean much, doesn't even rhyme particularly well, but it's a great way to end a song.


10) Grapefruit Moon - Tom Waits

Tom Waits doesn't strike me as someone who eats as much fresh fruit as he should, but his Vitamin C loss is the music world's gain. He's seemingly well enough acquainted with the stuff to mention it in his lyrics, although again, I'm not entirely sure what a grapefruit moon is supposed to be. Still, it sounds good alongside lines like "Every time I hear that melody / Something breaks inside" - basically, it's early-period Tom doing what he does best and being all lovelorn and down on his luck in the coolest way possible.

Honorable mentions: 
Peaches En Regalia - Frank Zappa
Raspberry Beret - Prince
Strawberry Wine - Ryan Adams
Lemonworld - The National
Orange Appled - Cocteau Twins
Banana Co. - Radiohead

1. Hello There Ladies and Gentlemen

[So I've decided to start a blog - I would like to say this is due to an irrepressible urge to share my incisive wit and wisdom with the rest of the world, but if I'm honest it's mainly because I haven't got a lot on at the moment.

I have, however, bothered to come up with an overarching format, or gimmick if you like, to keep things interesting and at least vaguely coherent. I am only equipped to talk about two things, music and myself (and restaurants, I suppose); bearing that in mind, I'm going to talk about myself, but dress it up as being about music.

Each entry will be a ten-song themed mixtape, with accompanying Youtube clips and general rambling. Songs about tea, songs about Mao Zedong, bossanova songs, that sort of thing. Ten songs - no more, no less - because Ian Brown once said that's the best length for an album, and I base all my major life decisions on the words of Ian Brown. The plan is that it may just come across as trenchant, well-structured commentary that way. Stranger things have happened!]

Since this is the first entry, the logical theme is Beginnings, and beginning the mixtape about beginnings is...


1) Begin the Begin - REM

There are literally thousands of contenders for Side 1 Track 1 of this compilation - most bands usually stick their best song there, and a lot of them reference new beginnings, or fresh starts, or going back to the drawing board, because bands are lazy like that. I'm struggling not to immediately start referencing Nick Hornby here (like when I started doing a show on university radio and couldn't help but lapse into Alan Partridge impressions), but I always liked the bit in "High Fidelity" about top ten Side 1 Track 1's.

But that's another mixtape for another day; this one's about songs specifically relating to beginnings, and this one just edges it because the title uses the word twice in quick succession. Plus, it's one of those songs which just feel right in front and centre on an album, or concert - bristling guitar and wild organs, coupled with Michael Stipe suddenly ditching the cryptic mumbling of old to actually SING raucously about Myles Standish and how he has no rhyme for "begin". A worthwhile change, I'm sure you'll agree, as I now know all about Myles Standish, and have also been prompted to seek out the delightful "Begin the Beguine", which presumably inspired the song's title if nothing else.


2) Hello There - Cheap Trick

Big fan of instances where bands have written a song that's clearly designed solely to open their concerts, blow the audience away and make them look cool onstage. These tracks often only consist of one chord, so the guitarist can make devil horns and gurn like a maniac, but rudimentary songwriting can be overlooked if it succeeds in giving the crowd an adrenaline rush, like the Pavlovian dogs they are.

Cheap Trick have provided us with a prime exhibit (basically an extended "Hello [city where concert is taking place!"), as have the Rolling Stones and Spinal Tap, while the title track to Sgt. Pepper's offers a slightly more sophisticated twist on the standard - the Beatles having given up touring at this point, of course, only to bloody-mindedly recreate the live experience on their next record.


3) Genesis - Justice

While "Hello There" had but one humble and fairly realistic aim - to introduce Cheap Trick audiences to the notion of rocking, should they be that way inclined - "Genesis" aims to equate the start of Justice's debut album with the very creation of life, the universe and everything, using just the power of programmed beats and some distorted synths. It pretty much pulls it off too.

One of my fondest memories from Glastonbury was when they started testing out the speakers on the Other Stage one morning by blasting this out at full volume - among the mud-splattered falafel tents and the hordes of hungover unwashed, it genuinely sounded like the end of the world, or the beginning of a new one - a better one, where everyone smoked Gauloises while nonchalantly nodding along to electro.


4) December 4th - Jay Z

A rich and always-rewarding subgenre of our "Beginning" theme is the hip-hop origin story. Now I don't know much about hip-hop - just wait 'til my hip-hop themed mixtape for definitive proof, or visit "Stuff White People Like" now and save yourself the wait - but I'm always fascinated by musician's accounts of how they got started, even/especially if it's mostly made up, like Robert Johnson or Drake. And the lives of hip hop artists tend to be slightly more interesting to listen to than, say, Alex Turner's or Tom Petty's. Kanye West's "Last Call" is a good example; "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air", less so.

"December 4th" is such a detailed account of Jay Z's first steps, literally, that his mum guest-stars in between verses, recounting his birth, his childhood, his first boom box etc., while Hov goes on about his parents conceiving him under a sycamore tree (which, somehow, made him "a more sicker MC"). It's overblown, it's entirely too much information and I think at one point it samples Gladiator. "Swann's Way" to the Black Album's "In Search of Lost Time", if you will.


5) First Watch - King Creosote & Jon Hopkins

A lull in proceedings (I have a coherent, flowing mix to assemble after all, amid all this philosophising and general faffing about), and proof, lest we forget, that beginnings don't have to involve bombast, braggadocio, sturm or indeed drang. In fact, it's only in music (and major sporting events) that beginnings usually equate to gratuitous, over-the-top spectacle and blaring sax solos. In everyday life, most beginnings involve not being altogether sure what's going on, falling out of bed and staggering to the local greasy spoon in search of breakfast. Which is exactly what King Creosote and Jon Hopkins have managed to capture in two and a half minutes of sparse musique concrète, bless them.

Contrary to everything that's come before, I have a lot of time for songs - and album openers in particular - that take their time to establish a mood without really doing much, before building to a heart-stopping crescendo without you noticing (like "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart"), or not, and leaving the dynamics shift to the next track (like Guillemots' "Little Bear"). I also like songs based around samples of Scottish people being lovely to each other, although only this one springs to mind really (the Proclaimers don't count).



6) Afraid of Nothing - Sharon van Etten

Beginnings can be fairly scary too; fear of the unknown and all that. Sharon van Etten knows what I'm talking about; kicking off her latest, and typically wonderful new album with a stately torch song about facing up to harsh realities ("I can't wait 'til we're afraid of nothing / I can't wait 'til we hide from nothing"), or at least getting someone else to do it for you ("I need you to be afraid of nothing").

The music follows suit, switching things up when the drums come in, revealing a hitherto unsuspected time signature and tempo when you least expect it. The pendulum swings, the veils keep falling away, the tension ratchets up and dissipates into a fine mist or fog. And ain't that just like real life? (No, really, is it? I'm genuinely asking).


7) Start Again - Freddy Powys

This is one of my songs, but don't worry, I'm not going to be bombarding you with these on a regular basis (unless they prove to be really popular, in which case, who am I to deny the public what they want?). This one just happens to fit the bill for this mix, what with being about starting again - my "Just Like Starting Over", if you like, only definitely not written about Yoko Ono.

I'd like to say I wrote this when leaving university for the real world, as it would fit the theme and lyrics quite neatly, but I don't remember when it actually was, to be honest. My lyrics tend to just be a hodgepodge of phrases from various sources anyway, strung together just coherently enough to write a song around. But it does make for quite a handy set-opener (the old one-chord trick again, you see. No devil horns though), and I used to have a rather grand version of it kicking off Disc 2 of my debut double-album, following a particularly apocalyptic closer on Disc 1. Even if I had to pad the rest of Disc 2 with utter filler just to back up this conceptual gimmick.


8) New Day Rising - Husker Du

In which Husker Du posit that the best reaction to beginnings, with all their uncertainties, doubts and tricky track-sequencing issues, is to simply yell the same stock phrase over and over again, backed by buzzsaw guitars and sugar-rush drums, until you don't know who you are or what you're doing anymore. Listening to this glorious blast, opening the album of the same name, who would dare doubt them? They sound like they would kill you if you did, for a start.

Maybe the only way to confront new situations is to confront them head on, with unwavering singularity of purpose and conviction, and worry about the fall-out later. At least I think that's what Bob mould is trying to say, even though to the untrained eye he's just shouting "NEW DAY RISING" until his head explodes.


9) Stormy Clouds - The Verve

But then doubt creeps in; as is doubt's wont. "Stormy clouds / and new horizons" sings Richard Ashcroft, summing up the hesitancy of human nature in the face of unfamiliarity, or maybe just singing half-arsed platitudes over Richard McCabe's undulating guitar lines, depending on how generous you're feeling. "A Storm In Heaven"'s opener, "A New Decade" (perhaps the more obvious choice here) always sounded like "And you decayed" to me for years before the penny dropped. What does this mean? Does it matter?

Why am I asking you?


10) A New Career In A New Town - David Bowie

So what have we learned? Beginnings can be terrifying, exhilarating, confusing, low-key, high-key, medium-key, or other. Sometimes they're not even beginnings - this instrumental (possibly my favourite instrumental? That's a big call and I'd have to get back to you on that) appears somewhere on Side 2 of "Low" and doesn't even have any words beyond the title to suggest its subject matter. But you can sense Bowie's first hesitant steps in the seedy underbelly of Berlin from the keening harmonica and awkward bassline alone, before things go really off the deep end with "Warszawa"and its ilk. The title is a bit of a giveaway too.

Not to get all meta on you, but this blog is now in a similar position - a new beginning filled with hopes and dreams and uncertainty. If it were an animal, it would be one of those newborn foals you see sometimes, covered in afterbirth and trying to get the hang of its own legs. I don't really know where I'm going with it, or whether the theme thing will stick around, or what my next entry could possibly be about. I just fancied having a bit of a write. But if this blog had a theme song, I'd like to think it would be "A New Career in a New Town", harmonicas and all.