One of The Best Songs Of The Year

Adele- Someone Like You (Live in Amsterdam)

This song has gone through my head lots this last few days. Something to do with the time of year.

The Friday Before Christmas

It’s the Friday 23rd December. I am at work although not much is happening. Even if something did happen I’m not sure I could summon up any enthusiasm for dealing with it. I am feeling mellow, and all pre Christmassy. You know when you are waiting for the Big Day and really are happy to let everything else slide (diet, exercise etc) until the New Year.


I’ve not run for almost a fortnight now- I hate running in the dark so have put a couple of pounds on. I am not worried about this. Come the end of January I am moving to an office 5 miles away from home. I can get a Bus straight there but I plan to walk/run/cycle/bus there and back. That should keep me fit.

Merry Christmas

It's not quite Christmas but we are nearly there. Our son is home from Bordeaux and asleep. Our daughter is, as I write this, on the train from Doncaster after spending a couple of days with Sailor Boy.

This song is by Cinerama.. Merry Christmas to you all.

Christmas Song- Cinerama 

Inspirational

After months of not featuring this series here I am posting two songs in a short time. This is what comes of having too much time on your hands and hooking up your turntable to your PC.

This song is a particular inspiration to me. When I fist heard it I was unemployed and living with my future wife in the cockroach infested concrete jungle of no hope council flats that was the Hulme estate   in Manchester.Times were so tough – even tougher than they are now- to paraphrase the song.  

I heard this song played, I think, by Janice Long, in late 1982 and Pete Wylie’s tale of rejection and refusing to accept it made me realise that I wasn't alone and that there was away through it all.  I still listen to this song often and it always moves me. I have on occasion found myself quoting it when speaking to people. This is not just pop music, this is proper art.

This song  also made me  read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, which if you haven't read then you should.

The Story of The Blues (12") - The Mighty Wah

Bleak Midwinter

The first snow of this year's winter is falling.It's grey and cold.Economic news is depressing, the most depressing its been since I was a young man. You wonder how your children will survive in this new world order of austerity and no work for the young. This Government seems to have  run out of ideas  and now keeps simply keeps repeating the cuts cuts cuts mantra. On the other side we have the two Eds and their spend spend spend mantra which we already know didn't work.  Neither side seems to be able to move on. 

Capitalism is in crisis but where is the change going to come from? The answers are in history. Good article by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian yesterday on that subject. Economics though is like religion you either believe or you don’t and  the other side  is damned to hell for eternity.


What I do know though is that we borrowed too much, paid too much to too few , regulated the financial sector too lightly, went to war too quickly, exported manufacturing jobs too readily  and  thought too easily- because we were told- that boom and bust had ended.  

Another Song You Should Hear

This song popped into my head the other day. I dug out the vinyl and played it. Still so powerful 30 years on. Maybe it is all the reports into the riots, blaming the Police and their "oppression" that made me think of this. As a middle aged, middle class white male I never have any problems with the Police. Even as a youngster my contact in suburban Hertfordshire was minimal and mainly confined to a couple of times when names were taken for being young and out late at night. I work closely with the Police in my job and my impressions of them are that they are decent men and women , not too bright mostly but very world weary and cynical.

I was moved to hook up the record player to the PC and make this the first song I have transferred from vinyl  for your enjoyment.

I saw Linton Kwesi Johnson the year this came out (1979). My memory is more of Rico and the brass section than the rather serious and sombre Mr Johnson who looked ill at ease performing his poetry to a mainly white audience at The Marquee.

This pre dates rap and is closer to "toasting" that many reggae artists did at the time. The song is from the album Forces Of Victory which is well worth buying. 

I didn't  know what happened to Linton Kwesi Johnson after this so I Googled him here.

Sonny's Lettah ( Anti Sus Poem)- Linton Kwesi Johnson