Seven Songs for the Week #78 - 2nd October 2024

Last week the release of the 20 disc "Still Barking" Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band box set was announced for December - a perfect stocking filler if you have large boxy legs. It was first announced back in 2019 when the lovely Neil Innes was still with us. It's designed to be the ultimate final word on the band and it seems like a handsome thing. For the past couple of months the cheap & cheerful 5CD album box has been in my car getting regular spins. This track is a curio. The Bonzos were the house band on 1968 kids' show Do Not Adjust Your Set (which also featured 50% of the yet-to-exist Monty Python). The box set features all the performances from this show on DVD except this one, because they did it in blackface. It is readily visible on YouTube and there's one argument that because the Bonzos saw everything in the late 60s culture as ripe for parody, they were merely sticking it to the most popular TV show at the time, The Black & White Minstrel Show. Or maybe the patois of the song is making fun of immigrant accents, but I'm more inclined to think it's just aping the lame samba/bossanova sounds of the 1960s. The one thing that is notable is that even if blackface was part of the UK primetime tv vernacular in 1968, Neil Innes is very conspicuously not joining in - he knew. Craig Ferguson also did a lipsync to this in one of his late night talk show intros a few years back, that was possibly less problematic.

Not sure how I landed on this song this week. It's a beauty though, isn't it? I wasn't sure whether to include the demo version of just Paul on an acoustic, but the final version won out.

In other reissue news, U2 are putting out a 20th (20th!) anniversary edition of How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. I remember being in college when the 20th Anniversary edition of Dark Side of the Moon came out, and it seemed so incredibly old. Does this album seem as old now? I dunno. Anyways the most interesting part was the appearance of How To Re-assemble an Atomic Bomb, a shadow album of alternate and fogotten songs from the original sessions, due to come out in the box set. They released a preview track called Picture of You which sounded good so I went home and put on the HTDAAB album fo the first time since...ever? I never paid it any attention in 2004, my head was in a different place. It's not bad! It just doesn't seem to have a through-line like their other albums. When I got to the last song, Fast Cars (EU & Japan versions of the album only) I realised that the Picture of You song had been hiding on the original album all along. It is also known to U2 fans as Xanax & Wine and has been out there for a while. It's a pity that neither the boxset found space for Native Son, the original version of Vertigo, which I've always preferred.

My cooler offspring was playing this this week, and it got my attention.

I have been to see Elvis Costello four times this week, Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday in Dublin's Vicar St. There were many highlights. I wanted to include the song April 5th, a co-write between EC, Kris Kristofferson & Roseanne Cash, but it's not on streaming. Instead I've chosen one of the songs that hit me over the four shows. "The death of magic thinking" was a phrase used by David Simon when chatting to EC about how we move away from the do-anything idealism of childhood into whatever adults are. The magic thinking is not just removed by traditional schooling but life in general.
"I can't stand on my head / I can't let go my tears / I can't control my anger / I can't admit my fears / ... / They'll teach you well but not enough / A punching bag and all for nothing / Cartwheels you used to turn / You'll never learn, they'll never mention / The death of magic thinking"

It's something worth considering.

The purpose of these lists isn't to act as an in memoriam but it was sad to hear of the death of Kris Kristofferson this week. Elvis Costello talked about it directly at his Monday show, and while the audience could miss the man as a musician, Elvis was someone who had lost a friend. Apart from singing April 5th, when EC's show was over, EC stayed on stage with the house lights up directing the audience in a singalong while Me & Bobby McGee played on the PA. That's what it's all about really, the music gets to live.

I'm not a Tom Waits man, but again Elvis sang this song this week and it was new to me.