10 Australian pieces on my ipod

1. Friday on my mind The Easybeats (Number 2 in Top 100)
2. The Carnival Is Over The Seekers (Number 37 in Top 100)
3. Torn Natalie Imbruglia (Number 51 in Top 100)
4. Down Under Men At Work (Number 65 in Top 100)
5. Truly Madly Deeply Savage Garden (Number 89 in Top 100)
6. You're the Voice The Alan Parsons Project (Number 90 in Top 100 ie John Farnham version)
7. Weather With You Crowded House (Not in Top 100 though other Crowded House soings are)
8. All The Lovers Kylie Minogue (Not in Top 100 though another Kylie song is)
9. I'll Never Find Another You The Seekers (Not in Top 100)
10. Maroubra Bay Edgar Froese (Maroubra Beach is in Sydney)

Four recent deaths in the world of rock and pop

Mark Randall Volman (19 April, 1947 – September 5, 2025) was an American vocalist, guitarist and songwriter best known as a founding member of the 1960s rock band the Turtles, and, along with his bandmate and friend Howard Kaylan, a member of the 1970s rock duo Flo & Eddie, where he used the pseudonym Flo (The Phlorescent Leech). Volman also became a stand-out figure upon joining Frank Zappa's band, The Mothers of Invention. I knew of him through his work with T Rex.

 

Richard "Rick" Davies (22 July 1944 – September 6, 2025) was an English musician best known as founder, vocalist and keyboardist of the rock band Supertramp. Davies was the band's only constant member and wrote or co-wrote songs including "Goodbye Stranger", "My Kind of Lady", "Cannonball", and "I'm Beggin' You". He was known for his rhythmic blues piano solos, jazz-tinged progressive rock compositions and cynical lyrics. I was not abig Supertramp fan but Breakfast in America, Dreaming, Logical Song, etc, wormed their way into my psyche.

 

Nicholas "Nicky" Dominick Ryan (14 July 1946 – September 10 2025) was an Irish music producer, recording engineer and manager best known as the longtime business and recording partner for the singer, songwriter and musician Enya alongside his wife, poet and lyricist Roma Ryan. Born and raised in Dublin, Ryan gained initial recognition in the 1970s and 1980s for his work with several artists including Gary Moore, Planxty, Christy Moore and Clannad.

Bobby Hart (born Robert Luke Harshman; 18 February 1939 – September 10, 2025) and Sidney Thomas Boyce (1939 – 1994) were an American duo of singer-songwriters. In addition to three top-40 hits as artists, the duo is well known for its songwriting for the Monkees.

10 Songs that are actually about children

1. Save your kisses for me/Brotherhood of man
2. Clair/Gilbert O'Sullivan
3. Isn't she lovely/Stevie Wonder
4. Forever young/Bob Dylan
5. Beautiful Boy/John Lennon
6. Memphis Tennessee/Chuck Berry
7. Precious/Depeche Mode
8. Go home girl!/Gaelic Storm
9. Lovin' you/Minnie Riperton
10. Welcome to the world/Ed Sheeran

10 Popular Songs That Feature Morse Code or Something Similar

1. Wichita lineman Glenn Campbell
2. London Calling The Clash
3. Starman David Bowie
4. YYZ Rush
5. Can I believe you OMD
6. Secret Messages ELO
7. Radioactivity Kraftwerk
8. You keep me hangin' on The Supremes
9. Watching you without me Kate Bush
10. Shooting Star Mamas an the Papas

Lives Behind The Music

I have enjoyed reading this collection of obituaries from The Times. The linking theme is that they are all popular musical entertainers. There are around 75 names altogether, nearly all of whom I was aware of (Phil May was new to me; I didn't know the name Jet Black; I knew the name Captain Beefheart but noithing about him). Some are legends, as they say, others less so. They die at different ages (with a little glut around 27 as is known - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, etc). Few of them seem to have lived very easy lives and most of those who weren't abused themselves in some way were immoral or drug abusers. Some of the stories are very sad (Elvis, Michael Jackson, Kurt Cobain, etc). There are very few Christians here (Alvin Stardust and Glenn Campbell?) few religious at all. They are really a bunch of misfits in many ways but redeemed by their musical genius. From David Cassidy to Shane MacGowan I read them all and found them all interesting in one way or another. The obituaries change in style and length over the years (I'd like to have had a longer one on Marc Bolan). Some are missing (such as Johnny Cash).

10 Bee Gees Songs Sung By Other Artists

1. Islands in the Stream Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton
2. Heartbreaker Dionne Warwick
3. If I can’t have you Yvonne Elliman
4. Nights on Broadway Candi Staton
5. More than a woman Tavares
6. Grease Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
7. Woman in love Barbra Steisand
8. Chain Reaction Diana Ross
9. Immortality Celine Dion
10. Come on over Olivia Newton-John

10 Song Titles containing the word Best

 

1. “You’re My Best Friend” Queen
2. "Simply the best" Tina Turner
3. "My best friends' girl" The Cars
4. "The girl of my best friend" Elvis Presley
5. “Best Years of Our Lives” Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
6. "Bestof my liive" The Emotions
7. "The Best of my Love" The Eagles
8. (Arthur's Dream) "Best that you can do" Chris Cross
9. "Best Day" Taylor Swift
10. "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" Marilyn Monroe

10 Song Titles Containing the Word Better

1. Better Regina Spektor
2. Better Day Ocean Colour Scene
3. Better Things The Kinks
4. Getting Better The Beatles
5. It's Getting Better Mamas and the Papas
6. Gonna Get Better Gabrielle
7. I Should Have Known Better The Beatles
8. You Better You Bet The Who
9. Nobody Does It Better Carly Simon
10. I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better The Byrds

10 Songs about waiting

1. A hundred years - Tracy Chapman

2. Tired of waiting for yu - The Kinks

3. Waiting in vain - Bob Marley and the Wailers

4. I'll be waiting - Horslips

5. Ain't no sushine - Bill Withers

6. Evert day hurts - Sad Cafe

7. Crying, waiting, hoping - Buddy Holly

8. Don't miss you at all - Norah Jones

9. Wouldn't it be nice - Beach Boys

10. Wait - The Beatles

(Hanging on the telepone - Blondie)

10 Square Lyrics

1. T Rex, Telegram Sam (I ain't no square with my corkscrew hair)

2. T Rex, Savage Beethoven (I don`t care, `cos I`m no square)

3. Kinks, Dedicated follower of fashion (His clothes are loud, but never square)

4. B B King, I don't want you cuttin' off your hair (If that's what it takes to be hip baby Oh, I want you to be a square)

5. Mac Curtis, Grandaddy's rockin' (My granddaddy's got long white hair But I'll tell you now that he ain't no square)

6. The Aristocats Movie Soundtrack, Everybody wants to be a cat (A square with a horn makes you wish you weren't born Every time he plays But with a square in the act You can set music back To the cave man days)

7. Buddy Guy, Country man (I'm just green as a pool table, you know I'm twice as square)

8. Dizzee Rascal, Quality (I don't know about algebra but I know that I am no square)

9. Dizzee Rascal, Everything must go (No squares in the circle, Everything must roll)

10. Paul McCartney, Feet in the clouds (I know that I'm not a square as long as they're not around)

10 Songs With Square in the Title

1. You're so square, Buddy Holly (also Joni Mitchell, etc)

2. She's So Square, XTC

3. Hip to be Square, Huey Lewis and the News

4. Unsquare Dance, Dave Brubeck

5. Square Dance, Eminem

6. Big Square People, Heaven 17

7. Squares Make The World Go Round, Roger Miller

8. Don’t Be Square (Be There), Adam and the Ants

9. You're a Square, Paddy Roberts

10. Square Biz, Teena Marie

10 Anti-war songs 1961-1973

There are hundreds of these. I heard Donavon singing Buffy Sainte-Marie's Universal Soldier the other day and that set me off.

1. 1961 "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" Pete Seeger
2. 1964 "With God on Our Side" Bob Dylan
3. 1964 "Universal Soldier" Buffy Sainte-Marie
4. 1965 "Eve of Destruction" Barry McGuire
5. 1966 "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night" Simon & Garfunkel
6. 1969 "Fortunate Son" Creedence Clearwater Revival
7. 1969 "Give Peace a Chance" Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon
8. 1970 "War" Edwin Starr
9. 1971 "Yours Is No Disgrace" Yes
10. 1973 "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" George Harrison

10 Lollipop Songs

Evan-Amos, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

1. My Boy Lollipop - Millie Small
2. Good ship lollipop - Shirley Temple
3. Lollipop, lollipop - The Chordettes
4. Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows - Leslie Gore
5. Lollipop - Mika
6. Lollipops - Mike Manders and The Shut Up
7. The Lollipop Tree - Burl Ives
8. Lollipop Man - Sweet
9. Lollipop Girl - Derrick Harriott
10. The Lollipop Guild - "The Munchkins"

10 Popular Songs With California in the Title

1. California Here I come Al Jolson
2. California Girls Beach Boys
3. California Joni Mitchell
4. Hotel California Eagles
5. California Dreamin' Mamas and Papas
6. California Blue Roy Orbison
7. California Man The Move
8. Danny California Red Hot Chili Peppers
9. California (There is no end to love) U2
10. Sunny California Woman Odyssey

(I understand there is a song by My Chemical Romance called We don't need another song about California)

10 Pop Songs whose titles do not appear in their lyrics

1. Bob Dylan - “Subterranean Homesick Blues” (also, “Positively 4th Street,” “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” “My Back Pages,” etc)
2. Led Zeppelin - “Immigrant Song” “The Lemon Song” etc
3. The Beatles -" A Day in the Life" (Also "Ballad of John and Yoko", "Tomorrow never knows")
4. Nirvana — “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, etc
5. 40 - U2, etc
6. Queen — “Bohemian Rhapsody”
7. Coldplay — “Viva La Vida”
8. The Who — “Baba O’Riley”
9. David Bowie — “Space Oddity”
10. Paranoid - "Black Sabbath"

(Also - The Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody; Chumbawumba - Tubthumping)

Day Off Week 10 2022

Had me traditional day off last Tuesday. I selected another of my art books - this time on Kandinsky. For the first time I wasn't really convinced. Kandinsky doesn't wow me I'm afraid. Remembering my art project made me check on Amazon which ones I haven't got in the series and so I sent for van Gogh, Monet, etc. Looking at my wish list I saw the book Turn Turn Turn by Steve Turner. This book takes a hundred popular songs in chronological order and teases out their biblical connections, obvious or not. I downloaded a sample and was then hooked, reading about half of it then and more since. The combination of a very good Bible knowledge and a great grasp of popular music from the thirties to the present. I enjoyed the obvious ones, the ones I'd never heard of and the explanations. This is a vast subject and right up my street. Having Alexa around was useful for checking songs referenced. In some ways I'd like to check out the further hearing too (he lists three more recordings for each of the hundred examples).

10 Popular Songs About Trains and Stations

1. Slow Train Bob Dylan
2. Marrakesh Express Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
3. Blue railroad train Doc Watson
4. Last train to Clarksville The Monkees
5. Trains and Winter Rains Enya
6. Doomsday Train Brainbox
7. Trains and Boas and Planes Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas
8. One after 909 The Beatles
9. Rock Island Line Johnny Cash, Lonnie Donegan, etc
10. People Get Ready Curtis Mayfield &The Impressions (Also Bob Marley)

10 Popular Songs based on words of Scripture (more or less)

1. Turn Turn Turn (Ecclesiastes 3) The Byrds, etc
2. The Lord's my Shepherd (Psalm 23) Judy Collins
3. Psalm 33 (Psalm 33) Sinead O'Connor
4. "40" (Psalm 40) U2
5. Hineimatov (Psalm 133) Miami Boys Choir
6. Rivers of Babylon (Psalm 137) The Melodians, Boney M (Also Don McClean)
7. The Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6) Sister Janet Mead
8. The Millennium Prayer (Matthew 6) Cliff Richard
9. While Shepherds watched (Luke 2) Bing Crosby
10. The four horsemen (based on Revelation 6) Aphrodite's Child

(There is also Awake, awake by Steeleye Span, very much based on Song of Solomon)

10 Songs with a list in the lyrics

1. California Girls The Beach Boys (Well, East coast girls are hip I really dig those styles they wear And the Southern girls with the way they talk They knock me out when I'm down there The Midwest farmer's daughters really make you feel alright And the Northern girls with the way they kiss They keep their boyfriends warm at night I wish they all could be California (Girls))
2. Thank you very much The Scaffold (Thank you very much for the Aintree Iron, thank you very much, thank you very very very much ... for the birds and bees ... for the family circle ... for love ... for the Sunday joint ... and our...cultural heritage, national beverage, being fat, Union jack, nursery rhyme, Sunday times, napalm bomb, everyone! ...Thank you very much for playing this record, thank you very very very much ... for our gracious team)
3. We didn't start the fire Billy Joel (Harry Truman, Doris Day Red China, Johnnie Ray South Pacific Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon Studebaker, Television North Korea, South Korea Marilyn Monroe Rosenbergs, H-Bomb Sugar Ray, Panmunjom Brando, The King And I, And The Catcher In The Rye Eisenhower, Vaccine England's got a new queen Marciano, Liberace Santayana goodbye ... Joseph Stalin, Malenkov Nasser and Prokofiev Rockefeller, Campanella Communist Bloc Roy Cohn, Juan Peron Toscanini, Dacron Dien Bien Phu Falls, "Rock Around the Clock" Einstein, James Dean Brooklyn's got a winning team Davy Crockett, Peter Pan Elvis Presley, Disneyland Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev Princess Grace, Peyton Place Trouble in the Suez ...  Little Rock, Pasternak Mickey Mantle, Kerouac Sputnik, Zhou En-lai Bridge On The River Kwai Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle California baseball Starkweather Homicide Children of Thalidomide Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur Space Monkey, Mafia Hula Hoops, Castro Edsel is a no-go U-2, Syngman Rhee Payola and Kennedy Chubby Checker, Psycho Belgians in the Congo ... Hemingway, Eichmann Stranger in a Strange Land Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania Ole Miss, John Glenn Liston beats Patterson Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex J.F.K. blown away What else do I have to say?
4. Route 66 Nat King Cole, etc (Now you go through St. Louis Joplin, Missouri and Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty You see Amarillo Gallup, New Mexico Flagstaff, Arizona Don't forget Winona Kingman, Barstow, San Bernandino)
5. My favourite things Julie Andrews (Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens Brown paper packages tied up with string These are a few of my favourite things Cream coloured ponies and crisp apple stroodles Doorbells and sleighbells and schnitzel with noodles Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings These are a few of my favourite things Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes Silver white winters that melt into spring These are a few of my favourite things)
6. Under the sea from Disney's Little Mermaid (The newt play the flute, The carp play the harp, The plaice play the bass And they soundin’ sharp The bass play the brass, The chub play the tub, The fluke is the duke of soul, Yeah, The ray he can play, The lings on the strings, The trout rockin’ out, The blackfish she sings, The smelt and the sprat They know where it’s at An’ oh that blowfish blow)
7. Sweet Little Sixteen Chuck Berry (They're really rockin' in Boston, In Pittsburgh, PA, Deep in the heart of Texas And 'round the 'Frisco Bay, All over St Louis, Way down in New Orleans, All the Cats wanna dance with Sweet Little Sixteen ... Cause they'll be rockin' on Bandstand In Philadelphia PA, ....)
8. Forever Young Bob Dylan (May God bless and keep you always, May your wishes all come true, May you always do for others And let others do for you, May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung, May you stay forever young ... May you grow up to be righteous, May you grow up to be true, May you always know the truth And see the lights surrounding you. May you always be courageous, Stand upright and be strong, May you stay forever young, ... May your hands always be busy, May your feet always be swift, May you have a strong foundation When the winds of changes shift. May your heart always be joyful, May your song always be sung, ...) [Dylan has several list songs]
9. Fifty ways to leave your lover Paul Simon (You just slip out the back, Jack Make a new plan, Stan You don't need to be coy, Roy Just get yourself free Hop on the bus, Gus You don't need to discuss much Just drop off the key, Lee And get yourself free)
10. Give peace a chance Plastic Ono Band (Ev'rybody's talking about Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism, This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m All we are saying is give peace a chance ... Ev'rybody's talking about Ministers Sinisters, Banisters and canisters Bishops and Fishshops and Rabbis and Pop eyes And bye bye, bye byes All we are saying is give peace a chance ... Ev'rybody's talking about Revolution, evolution, masturbation Flagellation, regulation, integrations, Meditations, United Nations, Congratulations All we are saying is give peace a chance .. Ev'rybody's talking about John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper, Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna Hare, Hare Krishna)

10 Songs that feature a different vocalist to usual

This list was prompted by a question on University Challenge recently

1. The Kinks, "Death of a Clown" (1967) Dave Davies not brother Ray
2. Canned Heat, "Going Up the Country" (1968) Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson not Bob "The Bear" Hite
3. Marshall Tucker Band, "Can't You See" (1973) Toy Caldwell not Doug Gray
4. The Eagles, "Take It to the Limit" (1975) Bassist Randy Meisner not Glenn Frey
5. Blue Oyster Cult, "(Don't Fear) the Reaper" (1976) Buck Dharma not Eric Bloom
6. Police, "On Any Other Day" (1979) Stewart Copeland not Sting
7. ABBA Does your mother know? (1979) Björn Ulvaeus not Agnetha Fältskog or Anni-Frid Lyngstad
8. Toto, "Africa" (1983) David Paich not Bobby Kimball or Steve Lukather
9. U2 "Numb" (1993) The Edge not Bono
10. Oasis, "Don't Look Back in Anger" (1996) Noel Gallagher not brother Liam

(There are lots of Queen contenders but no obvious one. I toyed with including Ringo Starr singing With a little help from my friends. May be Happy Nightmare on the first Focus album where Martiin Dresden sings could be added but that's pretty obscure)