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.