Category: Longform
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Crucial Track for 23 April 2025: Paradise by the Dashboard Light
"Paradise By the Dashboard Light" by Meat Loaf & Ellen Foley
I did not sing along to anything today, as the daily prompt asks. But I did find myself singing this Meat Loaf ditty, at least in my head. Maybe aloud, who knows?
Interesting that it appears as by Meat Loaf & Ellen Foley. Entirely appropriate, as it's a duet. But I don't think it was originally billed that way, and the modern approach would be to include 'Feat Ellen Foley' right in the title text. As I wrote about several years ago in Little, Feat...
One to One: John & Yoko, 2024 - ★★★★★
Oh my god, this film. This film is so, so good. Fantastic footage and sound from a gig that I've never even heard of before (though I think I've seen some of the footage). Great extracts from TV news broadcasts of the time, all sorts of great stuff.
Turns out there was an asylum/hospital/children's home kinda place where hundreds of kids with learning disabilities and other problems were kept in horrific conditions. Seeing the footage of it, I was reminded of the Romanian orphans that led JK Rowling to set up her Lumos charity.
John & Yoko learned about the place back in the day and set up the titular One to One benefit concert, raising money to help to provide better lives for those kids.
The strangest thing is that I've never heard about this concert before.
I will be watching this film again, you can be sure.
Crucial Track for 22 April 2025: No More Heroes
"No More Heroes (1996 Remastered Version)" by The Stranglers
Today's prompt is 'Share a song that changed your perspective on music.'
I'm gonna have to go back to 1977 for this one. That year may not surprise you, being as it was the core of the original punk days.
I was 13, as of August. 'No More Heroes' came out in September, Wikipedia tells me. I can't tell you when I first heard it, but I do know it was on a Sunday afternoon, after a week in which my friend Brendan had strongly urged me to get into punk.
It came on the radio, and it was the first punk song I heard.
The Stranglers were less punky than the Pistols, Clash, Damned, etc, of course, being older and to some extent, bandwagon jumpers. But who gave a fuck about that when they made a song as good as this?
Operation Mincemeat, 2021 - ★★½
This has a slightly interesting connection to home for me. Just last week we were walking past St John of Hackney churchyard, a common route from the Narrow Way home, when we stopped to look at a plaque outside the Hackney Mortuary. It describes the top-secret military operation the film is named after. The dead body that was used to deceive the Nazis was stored at the mortuary for three months. You can see a picture of the plaque at the Wikipedia page for the mission.
So why not watch the film? It's an interesting story, it's got an impressive cast, and it's on Netflix.
Good thing about that last, because we'd have been mildly annoyed if we'd had to pay extra for it. Trouble is, it's not very good.
It's not terrible. Two-and-a-half stars from me means it's OK, but just barely. On another day I might have given it three. The problem might be with us: knowing the story in advance could remove all tension, except from the romance subplot. But no, I think that was OK. I think it's more that sometimes the various parts of a film — which is a complex thing to create, after all — don't come together well enough, for reasons that are hard to define.
Crucial Track for 20 April, 2025: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" by The Beatles
My earliest musical memory might be this. I was well under five, maybe only three. My gran — my mum’s mum — was staying with us because she wasn’t well. I walked into her room with my big sister, singing.
Says gran, ‘Is he swearing?’ My sister had to explain that I wasn’t saying, ‘Oh bloody’ something.
Crucial Track for 19 April, 2025: London Calling
"London Calling" by The Clash
It seems wildly unlikely that I — or indeed, anyone — could have a single ‘favourite song’ throughout high school. Not least since ’high school’ itself is not a commonly-used term here in the UK. Though my secondary school did actually have ‘High School’ in its name.
Secondary school lasts six or seven years, though (true, back then, some got out after four, but even so). Who’s going to keep the same fave for that long, especially during such formative years?
At the start, if I had a single fave, it would have certainly been by The Beatles. By the end it would have been The Clash or Stiff Little Fingers.
So let's go with 'London Calling', a Clash song that mentions The Beatles, albeit negatively: 'phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust.'
Crucial Track for 18 April, 2025: Another Girl Another Planet
"Another Girl Another Planet" by The Only Ones
What is a song that instantly energizes you?
I feel I should answer that with something relating to Star Trek, but that’s the wrong kind of ‘energize’ (or ‘energise’, as I would spell it).
Although ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’ does sound like it could be about Captain Kirk.
I’ve heard it described as Peter Perret’s love song to heroin, but also seen a more recent interview where he said it wasn’t about that.
Anyway, if you want to get me on the dancefloor, this one’s chugging intro is always a good bet.
‘Space travel’s in my blood,’ after all.
Crucial Track for 17 April, 2025: If I Can't Change Your Mind
"If I Can't Change Your Mind" by Sugar
The prompt was 'What song do you wish you had written?' So many, of course, especially since I used to play guitar very badly and sing in bands, and I have written a few songs.
But for some reason, the one that popped into my mind was 'If I Can't Change Your Mind' by Sugar. Bob Mould's work after Hüsker Dü was varied, but this track off Sugar's first album is just glorious.
I'm Still Here, 2024 - ★★★★
Outstanding drama based on the true story of a Brazilian family's experiences under the dictatorship in the 70s and beyond. Eunice Paiva's husband, Rubens, is taken in by the military. She, too is detained for several days and questioned, though released. One of her four daughters is also taken, but released after a night.
But Rubens is never seen again, his body, like that of many of his countryfolk, never found.
Sad, yet life-affirming, as it's about the resilience of the family, and Eunice's strength as a mother. She went on to become a human-rights lawyer.
Recommended.
📗 Books 2025, 9: The Interpreter, by Brian Aldiss
I have loads of old SF books that I’ve picked up in various second-hand shops over the years, some of which I’ve read. This year I seem to be working through a few.
I couldn’t honestly tell you whether I’ve ever actually read anything by Aldiss before. I mean, I feel like I must have, if only out of the Balloch library, many, many years ago. But offhand, I couldn’t name any.
And if this were a prime example, I don’t think I’d bother with more, sadly. It’s not a bad idea. The titular interpreter is a human on a far-future Earth that is occupied by a tripedal alien race. Their empire has developed by trade and trickery as much as by military conquest, and it seems that’s how Earth was taken.
It’s a far-flung outpost, one of four million systems in the empire, so there’s bound to be corruption. An emissary is sent from the imperial centre to investigate reports of the Earth administrator abusing its people, which he/she/it (they’re a sexually trimorphic species) is. Our far-from-heroic interpreter might just have a chance to get the truth out.
As I say, not a bad idea, just not that well told. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the writing, except for the dialogue being stilted. Oddly, it’s fine between the interpreter and the aliens — maybe the fact that we know he’s translating lessens the effect. But between the humans, it’s just clunky.
And the plot is just about believable. Just. Luckily it’s only 126 pages; and I did sit up to finish it last night, so I guess it’s got something.