Tag: Music

7 Reasons Saint Peter Won’t Call Your Name, Chris.

Today I am not writing about marmite, but I am writing about Coldplay. I imagine you have a similar reaction to each. For those of you who now feel nauseous, let me put you at ease. When I say I am writing about Coldplay, I am actually addressing Chris Martin. Yes, I thought that might make you feel better. In what is arguably Coldplay’s finest effort, Viva La Vida, Christopher sings the lyric, ‘For Some Reason I Can’t Explain, I Know Saint Peter Won’t Call My Name’. For ‘some’ reason? No, no, no, Christopher! For ‘7′ Reasons. And they are as follows. (Includes explanations). Oh, and if you are one of the three people who have never heard the song, you can watch the Coldplay – Viva La Vida video. Here. Come back though, won’t you? You have things to read.

1. Crimes Against Music. I’m not talking about Coldplay (I actually enjoy your stuff), I am referring to your decision to take part in Band Aid 20. Your bit was alright, but couldn’t you have taken Dizzee Rascal out for a pint and locked him in a cupboard? Just for the afternoon. Perhaps you could have also taken Bono with you.

2. Distance. I suspect if Saint Peter does decide to call your name, he won’t actually ‘call your name’. I am assuming you believe that Saint Peter is in Heaven and thus he will be calling from there? Now, despite hoping – and indeed believing (no matter how irrational that belief is) – that such a place does exist, I have absolutely no idea where it is. Though logic dictates that it is a fair old distance from here. And hopefully even further from Slough. As a result, Saint Peter is far more likely to send you a letter. Probably same-day delivery.

3. House! Christopher, you seem to have the idea that Saint Peter calls out names as if he is hosting a night at Gala Bingo. While I am sure this would greatly amuse the other saints, I doubt very much it happens in such a way. I suspect he just waits until someone gracefully falls asleep and then whispers his name. Otherwise you’d get loads of people saying, ‘I thought I was going to die, then some git shouted my name and I woke up!’

4. Chris Martin! You seem to be suggesting that Saint Peter decides when it’s time you kick the bucket. And once he has decided he shouts out your name. I can’t believe this to be the case. I can’t believe Saint Peter is that selective. If he has any savvy – and as he is a Saint he no doubt has bountiful – he probably looks down on us and watches us do the deed for him. ‘There goes another one. He kicked the bucket, tripped over and fell off the cliff’. And Chris, I don’t think you’re going to fall off a cliff.

5. Lots Of People. I am not sure what powers Saint Peter has, but he’s going to have to be Paul Daniels, Derren Brown and Professor Charles Francis Xavier all rolled into one to remember every single one of the earth’s inhabitant’s names. I venture that what he actually does is have a sneaky look at your passport as you enter Heaven immigration control.

6. Rota Systems. It is generally accepted that 156,000 people die everyday. That’s about one every 1.8 seconds. I don’t believe that Saint Peter has the stamina to sit there all day everyday shouting out names. When does he sleep? He must have other saints who help him out. Probably two others so that they do eight hour shifts. And that is not to mention the 28 days of annual leave Saint Peter gets. So really there is something like a 1 in 5 chance that it will be Saint Peter who will call your name. It could well be Saint Paul, Saint Bert, Saint Bob or Paris Saint Germain.

7. Sore Throat. I am not sure if illness effects saints, but for purposes of me finding a seventh reason to write, we shall say they do. And rather annoyingly for them, they suffer from horrendously bad sore throats. So bad in fact that they can’t speak. Or sing. Or call. I don’t need to finish this reason off. You get the idea.

September 6, 2010
7 Reasons The Osmonds Were Right

Today I am offering a public service. To man. By addressing you. The woman. I know man is seen as the least romantic of the sexes, but man still likes to be loved. And, as The Osmonds so wisely stated, he likes to be loved because you actually love him. Not because he’s good with a screwdriver. Something like that anyway. Basically, what I am trying to get at is this. I’ve taken this classic Osmonds tune and edited it. So that you, the woman, will not make mistakes when you tell a man of your reasons for loving him. You’ll thank me one day.

7 Reasons The Osmonds Were Right

Don’t Love Me For Fun Girl, Let Me Be The One Girl, Love Me For A Reason, Let The Reason Be…

1. My DIY Skills. I assure you ladies, telling your man that you love him because he is great with a hammer is not the way to go. Would you like it if man told you that he loved you because you are good at ironing? No. Exactly.

2. My Memory. Don’t tell your man that you love him because he has a great memory. He’ll probably forget. Then you’ll get annoyed that he keeps forgetting. And he won’t know why you’re getting annoyed. And then you’ll split up. So don’t do it. Not if you really love him.

3. My Ability To Be Tall And Reach The Top Shelf In Sainsburys. Man doesn’t mind being tall and actually he is happy that he has some use in the supermarket bar getting in the way and trying to manoeuvre the trolley too fast. But telling him you love him because he’s tall is like him telling you he loves you because you are short enough to get in the attic without bashing your head.

4. My Hair. Facial Hair. Always a delicate one this. And actually you are probably doing yourself a favour by not using it. Man is programmed to reciprocate without thinking. “I love you” is reciprocated with “I love you too”. “I love your moustache” becomes “I love your moustache too”. Not good.

5. My Collection Of Sporting Memorabilia 1994 – Present Day. Man likes his collection of programmes and fixture lists and photos from years ago. It brings back good memories. And he also likes it because you don’t. Man doesn’t share your passion for American Idol or knitting, so don’t share his passion for signed pairs of Gary Lineker worn shorts.

6. My Dislike Of The Lesser Boyzone Version Of This Song. Man likes to think he knows about such topics as music. A woman’s job is to say, ‘Ooh I like this new one from Boyzone’. This gives the man a chance to show off and scoff and say, ‘This isn’t new. This is a cover of a far superior song’. What he does not expect is for woman to switch off the radio and say, ‘Why did Boyzone make such a rubbish cover?’

7. My Marc Fearns Mask. Seriously, man is just going to get very annoyed if you love it when he wears the mask. Unless you are Marc Fearns yourself of course. In which case you’ll probably think it’s a right result.

May 31, 2010
7 Reasons I Can Never Get Mothering Sunday Quite Right

1. The Name. My Mother is a traditional Mother. She takes two steps back if I say the wrong thing. And the wrong thing is Mother’s Day. “It is not Mother’s Day, Jonathan. It is Mothering Sunday.” Yes Mum.

2. Cards. Apart from having to ignore all the cards which say Happy Mother’s Day in the search for one that says Happy Mothering Sunday, I can never find one which doesn’t make me sound completely effeminate. I am quite happy telling my Mum she is the greatest in the world (because she is), but goodness knows what she must be thinking when I hand her something that says, ‘You are the blooming flower of my Spring, the sunshine of my Summer, the tumbling conkers of my Autumn and the turkey of my Winter’.

3. Flowers. My Mum likes flowers. I believe it’s a female thing. The problem is I can never remember which flowers my Mum likes. Sure she’ll say she likes everything, but I know for a fact that that isn’t quite true. She does have her favourites and she does tell me a day or so after the Mothering Sunday flowers have died. So why can I never remember what she said 350 days later? It’s one of life’s cruelties.

4. Music. As well as flowers I like to buy my Mum a gift. In recent years I have taken to buying her a CD. She likes The Hollies and Herman’s Hermits. My inability to mentally separate one from the other means she now has four copies of Herman’s Hermits Greatest Hits. Five if you are reading this after Sunday.

5. Household Chores. It’s not that I am bad at the ironing. Or the washing up. Or the drying up. It’s just that it is a Sunday. And on Sundays there is invariably sport on the TV. I have a habit of watching sport. Until, that is, I hear the opening of an ironing board, upon which I jump from my seat and race to the utility room where I find my Mum doing the ironing that I would eventually have started when the game had finished. On telling her to go and sit down she says, ‘No, I don’t want these being done at 7pm’. So I leave.

6. Cooking. Apparently burning doesn’t go down too well. The really frustrating thing is that when I cook for myself I never have any problems. Put a hungry woman in front of me though and I lose the plot. This year I am going to cook for myself on Friday, freeze it and reheat it on Sunday. What could possibly go wrong?

7. I’m Not There. This is probably the thing I get wrong most of the time. It is so much harder to cook the dinner, do the ironing and give her flowers when I am not actually in the same house. Ah well, there is always next year.

March 12, 2010
7 Reasons The New Radicals Should Have Done Their Research

1. Did the Captain of the Titanic cry? No he didn’t. In those days it was seen as a sign of weakness. Eye-witnesses have said he looked calm and in control. Which is quite impressive when you consider he had just smacked into an iceberg and ruined a brand new ocean liner.

2. One day I’ll go dancing on the moon. As good as You Get What You Give was, I doubt the royalties will get you to the moon. The Moon Bar in Nevada maybe, but not the moon. And dancing in gravity boots? By yourself? Seriously?

3. Someday we’ll know if love can move a mountain. No we won’t. We know now. It can’t. Only tectonic plates can do that stuff when they grind against each other rhythmically. And that is not love. It’s sluttish behaviour.

4. Someday we’ll know why the sky is blue. When light from the sun enters our atmosphere it collides with nitrogen and oxygen atoms. The colours with the shortest wavelength are scattered the most. Those colours are blue and violet. Our eyes are more sensitive to blue than violet. Thus we see the sky as blue. Next please.

5. Someday we’ll know why I wasn’t meant for you. You are a man. I am a man. You like girls. I like girls. It’s pretty straightforward.

6. I bought a ticket to the end of the rainbow. Don’t tell me, you also gave some recently orphaned Nigerian your bank details? You’ve been conned. You should pay attention to internet scams more.

7. Someday we’ll know why Samson loved Delilah. Well who doesn’t? After It’s Not Unusual, it is Tom Jones’ finest song.

March 5, 2010
Guest Post: 7 Reasons The United States of America is Better Than Great Britain

Today we are joined on the 7 Reasons sofa by Simon Best who, when he isn’t committing treason or thinking about trains, is a Youth Worker. Simon’s fantastic tweets can be found here. They are as fine a guide to tasteful living as you will find anywhere.

1. The Weather. In Britain we love talking about the weather but, frankly, the British weather is pathetic, insipid and dull. For 5/6 of the year the weather in Britain is predominantly cloudy; In America they get real weather – winters with feet of snow, scorching hot summers and spectacular fall colours. They might not make a great fuss about it but America actually has proper seasons rather than shades of grey with slight temperature variations.

2. Television. Yes, we have the BBC, and American TV is frequently accused of dumbing-down and being full of cynical product placement; It is also true that the Jerry Springer Show originated in America, but while they have given Britain television masterpieces like the Sopranos, the Wire and Sesame Street, we have given them Wife Swap and Simon Cowell. On behalf of the nation I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all Americans for this affront to your dignity.

3. Roads. As America is the nation of the automobile this might not be a surprising inclusion, but I’m not talking about the quality of the tarmac. Roads and road trips are part of American life. From Kerouac to Chuck Berry, from travelling salesmen to wandering preachers, American roads have enriched western culture; Britain has contributed Chris Rea singing about the M25. It is also impossible to imagine anyone getting excited about a road trip from Plymouth to Inverness, driving the same distance as a journey from Chicago to Memphis – a journey anyone would rather make. In America you can drive for hours and only see four guys with shotguns in a Ford pickup; you’re likely to spend most of any UK road trip stuck behind a caravan driven by someone called Maurice who wears string-backed driving gloves. Drive from Land’s End to John o’Groats and that East17 album your ex put on your iPod is bound to repeat at least 3 times. You can drive across the USA 25 times without that happening.*

4. Music. America is often derided for the schmaltz of Country and Western and the aggression of rap, but it has produced many of the finest musicians ever: The Beach Boys, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Miles Davis, Rock and Roll, Pop, Blues and Jazz were all born in America. America has given the world its record collection. Britain gave America Acker Bilk and Leo Sayer (who both amazingly reached number 1 in the Billboard top 100). Obviously we gave you The Beatles and The ‘Stones too, but they were just copying black American music.

5. Pancakes. American pancakes are, plainly and simply, superior to British pancakes; Thick, fluffy and the size of a plate, they’re delicious with maple syrup. No wonder they eat them all year round. Here in Britain we have our pathetic thin and flimsy efforts once a year – with a lemon.

6. Sporting Spectacular . Americans know how to do sporting spectaculars. The Super Bowl is the American Football equivalent of the FA Cup Final, yet as an event it is more comparable to the Last Night of the Proms and the Lord Mayor’s Show with the viewing figures of a royal wedding. Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Prince and U2 have played the Superbowl half-time; Wembley gets the marching band of the Coldstream Guards and some majorettes. The opening ceremony for the Los Angeles Olympics featured a man arriving on a jet-pack, the best Britain has achieved was the opening ceremony for the 1999 Cricket World Cup when the fireworks failed to go off, Tony Blair’s microphone fused in the rain and Prince Philip spoke. It’s a good thing that China doesn’t play cricket. There is a serious risk that when London 2012 starts, the Olympic torch will be carried into the stadium by Boris Johnson on his bike.

7. Monuments & Memorials . There’s really no contest here. The United States has the Washington Monument, Mount Rushmore and a 500 foot high statue of Crazy Horse that is being carved out of a mountain in South Dakota. Britain has Nelson’s column and what else? The Diana Memorial was a shambolic failure that had to close because people kept slipping in the water, in fact, Britain is so bad at building monuments that for much of the past summer we put living people on a plinth in Trafalgar Square; America would have taken this opportunity to commemorate a former President, a Civil War General or a Baseball star. America doesn’t just stop at statues, pretty much everything is a memorial to someone noteworthy: bridges, schools, highways, parks, buildings. Can you imagine Mansfield opening the Richard Bacon Memorial Roundabout or Norwich naming a new underpass after Stephen Fry? No, of course not. In America these fitting tributes would be a stone cold certainty.

*Unsubstantiated. To be tested during the US iPod Challenge, starts October 1st, 2011. Follow them on Twitter.

January 23, 2010
7 Reasons ‘Last Christmas’ Is The Greatest Music Video Ever.

1. The Set-up. The start of the video could very well be the start of a James Bond film that stars Jennifer Aniston. Two jeeps pull up in the snow. A door opens. A man gets out. He turns around. And that’s where is ends. You could never have a Bond villain with a hairstyle like that. Well, not unless Bond himself was played by Mika.

2. The Waving. Let’s be honest about this, it’s horrendous. It is not proper waving. It is five people auditioning for a job as a window cleaner, 0:24 – 0:30. Personally I would give the job to the woman in the middle. She was getting right into the corners.

3. The Tinsel Drop. Nice moves George. Or not. The idea is that he drops the tinsel onto last year’s lover, so that he can crouch down, apologise and stare into her eyes. Watch it though. At 1:27 there is a cut in the video. Only for a split second, but it can be seen. This is because George Michael is useless when it comes to dropping tinsel. They did 132 takes and everytime George missed his lover. In the end they decided just to chuck a bit of tinsel over her and merge the two segments. It didn’t work. But it’s lovely that George has his faults.

4. The Ice Cool Dude. Look at this guy at 1:40. It’s freezing outside yet he has been in the woods chopping up a tree without gloves or a hat. It took me a while to work out why this might be the case but it came to me eventually. He wasn’t wearing a hat because if he was he wouldn’t have been able to hear the director shout instructions at him. He wasn’t wearing gloves because he’s an idiot.

5. The Chat Up Lines. You just have to look at the two girl’s faces at 2:19 to know that they have just been asked by the smarmy git on the left if they fancy a threesome. Unfortunately they cut away from them to show George preparing to inhale wine through his nose, so no one quite knows whether the threesome happened or not. Nothing wrong with imagining though.

6. The Irony. There is quite a lot of it in Last Christmas, but the main one is George Michael supposedly giving his heart away 365 days previously. To a girl. You seriously expect us to believe that George? With that running style between 3:00 and 3:05? But that’s what’s so great about it. For four minutes and sixteen seconds we convince ourselves to believe it. Then we pretend we can’t stand this song.

7. The Skis. Oh, they had skis with them – 3:50. I am sure I am not the only person to notice that they didn’t actually do any skiing. All we saw them do is drink wine, run around in the snow, look at each other seductively and eat a birthday cake (2:11 – don’t ask me why, it was probably someone’s birthday. Jesus’ probably). But that’s fine, it means Wham! were in touch with reality. Sure, people mean to attack the slalom when on a winter holiday, but as soon as they start on the Quality Street they decide it’s just not going to happen. Real people. Real attitudes to getting fat.

December 18, 2009
7 Reasons Why Songwriting Is Easy

1. Tackle Dangerous Ground. You can take two areas that should just not work together, i.e.: sex and fire, and merge them. You couldn’t show two people having a fondle on a bonfire in a TV show, but you can write a song called Sex On Fire and it’s fine.

2. Huge Creative License. You can call something something when it’s not actually that something. Alanis Morissette’s Ironic for example. “It’s like rain on your wedding day.” This is not ironic. It’s unlucky. Or to be expected if you book your wedding for a Tuesday afternoon in January. It always rains on a Tuesday afternoon in January.

3. Endorse Nonsense. You can write things that don’t make sense and never will make sense. Yet listeners will spend ages being confused by them. “Are we human or are we dancer?” I haven’t got a clue what Brandon Flowers is on about. And are the two things really mutually exclusive? Can’t we be a human who dances? Or is he suggesting we’re puppets? I am no puppet Flowers. I’m going to go and listen to Coldplay.

4. Lack Genius. You can be a simpleton and write a song. No offence to Lady Gaga, but I am pretty sure I came up with the lyrics to Bad Romance when I was about two months old. “Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah! Roma-roma-mamaa! Ga-ga-ooh-la-la! Want your bad romance.” Just shut up you silly, silly woman.

5. Promote Drugs. You can tell people what it’s like to be addicted to drugs and, in the process, make it sound awesome. “We skipped a light fandango. Turned cartwheels cross the floor. I was feeling kind of seasick. But the crowd called out for more.” Whatever Procol Harum were on, I want some.

6. Promote Drugs. You can tell people what it’s like to be addicted to drugs and, in the process, make it sound bloody awful. “I am the eggman. They are the eggman. I am the walrus. Goo Goo g’joob.” Whatever The Beatles were on, I don’t want to go anywhere near it.

7. Promote Sex. And more to the point, promote extramarital sex. All you have to do is write the lyrics in French and get the singer to have an orgasm at the end of the song. Then Bingo! There is your hit. Between you and me I think Jane Birkin was faking it though. Je vais et je viens, entre tes reins.

November 15, 2009