Seven Songs for the Week #65 - 3rd July 24

A lot of this week's list is influenced by Johnny Marr. Last week he was doing a speaking engagement in Dublin promoting his book, Marr's Guitars. I was offered a ticket and wasn't sure what to expect, but I found myself in the third row centre with two guitars and an amp on stage. JM was introduced, strolled onstage and did Bigmouth Strikes Again for 30 seconds before giving a very entertaining 2 hour intervieew. Occasionally he would pick up a guitar and give a few seconds of a riff you've known for ever, one what he wrote, and then he'd go back to chatting.

Even though I bought Naked when it came out, because I was a cool kid, I didn't realise for some time that the twinkly, highlife guitar is by Johnny Marr. He only mentioned his Talking Heads dalliance very briefly in passing, but after The Smiths split in the summer of 1987, this track was the first thing Johnny Marr did. I love this song and video where an 8-person Talking Heads including Johnny Marr and Kirsty MacColl groove about behind superimposed words - imaging if that lineup had toured, a great "what if".

The Atmos mix of this song is quite different, by the way. Drier mix with extra extraneous David Byrne vocal noises during the instrumental breaks. Tina Weymouth is a boss on this track: her dubby introductory notes, then her propulsive melody playing during the song itself.

Johnny Marr put this down as one of the first riffs he ever learned. I have tried playing it myself this week. It's very easy, but the hard part is making it groove. Such is life.

For some reason Joel Plaskett crossed my mind this week, I have no idea why. A few years ago he popped up on a playlist and I became a big fan for a few weeks then he fell off my radar. Turns out he released a quadruple album called 44 for his 44th birthday in 2020. So that sounds like fun.

Watched Cyndi Lauper on the TV doing Glastonbury at the weekend and she was great. They started their coverage with this song. I couldn't recall hearing it before, iIdidn't know it, even though it was a hit. The next day I went to a big box hardware store and as I was looking for a drillbit, this starts playing over the tannoy. Weird.

The best Abba cover ever? I think so.

This popped up on The Current radio from minneapolis which is where I've sourced many new songs for these lists. S'nice.

Back to Johnny Marr. He told a long story about going into the band Modest Mouse and upon his first session with lead Mouse Issac Brock, when asked for a riff, played this one, before Brock improvised these lyrics off the top of his head. Not a song I knew, I have to say. Modest Mouse - one of those iPod & Blog bands.