Edith Piaf didn't do subtle in her singing - not when a passionate bleat was acceptable. True, there's a bit of tenderness and quiet observation in a tune like 'Les Amants d'un Jour', but Edith was at her best when she gave it socks. And on 'Hymne A L'Amour' she's emoting like no other, sending out love and pure testimony to the boxer Marcel Cerdan.
The song was first performed in 1949, a month before Marcel was killed in an air crash. The recorded version appeared in 1950 and thereafter it became a thunderous adieu to the guy. It rouses you still.
BBC Radio Ulster, 92-95 FM
Online: www.bbc.co.uk/radioulster
Blog: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/stuartbailie/
Mondays, ten - midnight
David Bowie - Sorrow (EMI)
The Lost Brothers - Pale Moon (white)
Martin John Henry - Ribbon On A Bough (Gargleblast)
Liz Green - French Singer (PIAS)
Edith Piaf - Hymne A L'Amour (EMI)
Nada Surf - Waiting For Something (City Slang)
Runaway Go - Delicate Man (white)
The Dream Academy - Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want (Warner)
Jackie Leven - Elegy For Johnny Cash (Cooking Vinyl)
Our Krypton Son - Catalonian Love Song (Small Town America)
Kate Bush - Snowed In At Wheeler St (Fish People)
U2 - So Cruel (Island)
Emmy The Great, Tim Wheeler - Sleigh Me (Infectious)
Rebecca Prousky - Give Up Too Easily (NMR)
The Lost Brothers - Bells They Won't Ring (white)
Martin John Henry - I Love Maps (Gargleblast)
Levon Helm - You'll Never Again Be Mine (Columbia)
Robbie Robertson - When The Night Was Young (Fontana)
DJ Shadow - Scale It Back (Island)
Jackie Leven - Birds Leave Shadows (Cooking Vinyl)
Ruth Moody - Winter Waltz (Factor)
Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow (Fish People)
I saw Ken Russell's Tommy at the Avenue cinema on Belfast's Royal Avenue in 1975. It was X rated and I was barely out of short trousers, but I think they were glad of the trade - the picture house was chiefly showing porn films at this stage and a 'proper' movie was possibly not great for business.
So myself and some school friends were introduced to Russell's barmy manner. He used music to inflame the senses. The film was absurdly overdone and sensual without the slightest apology. Eric Clapton played 'Eyesight To The Blind' in a throbbing temple to Marilyn, as the faithful washed down their sacred pills with vodka. Elton John battered out 'Pinball Wizard' in enormous DM boots while Anne Margaret was deluged in soap suds, chocolate and baked beans. Blimey.
We congratulated ourselves for understanding Ken's use of metaphor and parody. We were transfixed by Tina Turner and her gyratory ways as the Acid Queen. Prior to this, we had only seen racey footage in the school film society, when we sat through the interminable Weekend by Jean Luc Godard, because we heard there was a hot scene somewhere. So Tommy was quite a tonic for a 14 year old. With respect to Ken, I'm not sure I'd watch it so keenly now.
Like many of you, I have a set of Xmas memories that are summoned up by the seasonal classics of Slade, The Pogues and indeed 'Wombling Merry Christmas'. Just a few opening bars of these records can deliver amazing recall and the happiest situations.
However, there's one song that bothered my childhood. 'The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot' is an alarming picture of a kid who doesn't get his modest request of some soldiers and a drum. You can feel his upset and sense the burning tears of shame. His only resort is to go home to the busted toys from the previous Xmas.
The Nat King Cole version has a lot of poise and fancy strings. But I'm not sure Nat provides the emotional payload. Vera Lynn has the compassion and the deadly phrasing. When I hear her sing the line, "I feel sorry for that laddie, he hasn't got a daddy", I'm reminded of that childhood fear of losing a parent. After all, the song was written in 1937 when missing fathers were sadly common. Indeed the war-ravaged howl that was Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' movie uses the Vera version to set the tone. You'll not hear it much on the radio these days, and today's song-hacks are not going to handle something as emotionally complex.
I'm very glad that Saint Nick never missed my house, but I'd like to think that 'The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot' gave my Xmas that bit of extra appreciation.
Back in 1991, Kate Bush released a version of the Elton John / Bernie Taupin composition, 'Rocket Man'. It was fairly bonkers, with a skanking rhythm, Kate on the ukulele and Davy Spillane and his uilleann pipes getting us ready for touchdown. Even though Kate looked rather well in a spacesuit, we forgot about the video and hoped that the exercise would never repeat itself.
Yet here we are, twenty years later, and Kate is back on an Elton John dimension. This time she is sharing vocals with the guy on a song called 'Snowed In At Wheeler Street'. It the story of two old lovers, finally reunited after decades of pain and awful complexities. The song unravels like some Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, damaged by war and calamitous timing, but hurrah, love prevails at the end of the allotted eight minutes.
The track is question comes from a very rum experiment called '50 words For Snow'. It's all about the weather conditions, man. And of course, Kate takes this conceptual throwdown and makes something unique out of it. A few of the tracks drag over the ten minute barrier and too much 'jazz' makes me fidget, but the title track is astonishing. It's both literal and also tremendous poetry, as Stephen Fry intones the indigenous terms for different kinds of white stuff while Bush excitedly counts them down. Altogether now: "phlegm de neige, mountainsob, anklebreaker, erase-o-dust..."
The new Snow Patrol track 'Lifening' is a hope list and an affirmation, the kind of thing you rehearse in your head when life takes a nasty steer. There's the comfort of a few proper friends, the future notion of parenthood, and ideally watching Ireland in the World Cup - either north or south. But the kicker for me is the idea of "the fanclub on the jukebox". I'm supposing that the author means Teenage Fanclub, champions of the Glasgow indie scene when Snow Patrol were learning their trade.
I had my own lifening moment a few Fridays ago when I walked into the Garrick Bar in Belfast and Kenny the DJ was playing 'Planets' by TFC. It's such a sweet tune from an impeccable album ('Songs From Northern Britain') and so Kenny and I clinked our glasses and savoured the seconds. The first tune I ever played on my radio show was 'Ain't The Enough' from the same TFC album, another tune to hail the majesty in small pleasures. Sufficient to uplift you, and then more.
BBC Radio Ulster, 92-95 FM
Online: www.bbc.co.uk/radioulster
Blog: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/stuartbailie/
Mondays, ten - midnight
Tim Wheeler, Emmy The Great - Marshmallow World (Infectious)
Howler - Back of your Neck (Rough Trade)
Profile piece - Shel Silverstein
Johnny Cash - Boy Named Sue (Columbia)
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show - Sylvia's Mother (Capitol)
Shel Silverstein - Freakin' at the Freakers Ball (Listening Bar)
Shel Silverstein - You're Always Welcome at our House (Listening Bar)
Marianne Faithful - The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan (Island)
Tom Waits - She Stole the Blush (Anti)
The Big Pink - Hit The Ground (4ad)
Seasick Steve - Cut My Wings (Rhino)
Kowalski - Navigate November (white)
Yuck - The Wall (Mercury)
Paul Simon - Getting Ready For Christmas Day (Universal)
Real Estate - Municipality (Domino)
The Pretenders - Kid (Rhino)
Tim Wheeler, Emmy The Great - Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing) (Infectious)
Nina Slash - Candy Box (white)
Tom Waits - Tell Me (Anti)
Snow Patrol - Lifening (Fiction)
Teenage Fan Club - Planets (Creation)
Meg Baird - Babyon (Wichita)
Ernest Tubb - Who Will Buy The Wine (Righteous)
Marsha Thornton - A Bottle of Wine And Patsy Cline (MCA)
Ryan Adams - Chains Of Love (Columbia)
Craig Finn - Honolulu Blues (Full Time Hobby)
Kate Bush - Among Angels (Noble & Brite)
Michael Kiwanuka - Home Again (Polydor)
Tom Waits - After We Die (Anti)
Thomas Truax - November In Berlin (SL)
I didn't need to hear the Xmas album from Tim Wheeler and Emmy The Great to know that it would be a good one. Both artists can turn a great tune around. They have taste and drama and an appreciation of the fun dimension of kitsch. So the record was duly purchased and played and indeed, 'This Is Christmas' is reassuringly fine.
Given their musical lineage, it's no surprise to hear the influence of classic girl bands, especially those thunderous Phil Spector Xmas recordings. Tim adds a different aspect to 'Zombie Christmas' and 'Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing)'. Emmy deals out the imperial heartache on 'Don't Call Me (Mrs Christmas)' and 'Christmas Moon' which suggests that she doesn't entirely dig the festive stretch.
Still, the pair have applied themselves handsomely, the George Jones and Tammy Wynette of indie, looking swell in their seasonal knitwear and serving the music with much affection. Ring them bells.
Georgia O' Keeffe, amazing painter and personality, features in a few rock and roll songs. She has a cameo in Robbie Robertson's 'Day O' Reckoning'. There is Dan Fogelberg's 'Bones In The Sky' and 'I'm the Girl' by Heather Nova. Good old Warren Zevon also put in a bid with 'Splendid Isolation'.
Now there is 'Georgia O'Keeffe' by Duke Special. It appears on his new collection 'Under The Dark Cloth', a suite of tunes inspired by the pioneering American photographers. In the case of this song, he is singing though the persona of Alfred Steiglitz, visionary lensman and lover of Georgia. The song notes the passion of the story and these two extraordinary people. You need to hear it.
I once saw Jackie Leven at The Borderline in London, wearing a kilt and serving up his own whisky. There was poetry and intense music, all fastened by the great physical presence of the guy who was reared in Fife, but with Irish and Romany roots.
Jackie was a cult figure in the years after punk with Doll By Doll, an act that was spiky and individual but also prone to mystical asides in the Van Morrison tradition. My old NME colleague Stuart Maconie was a big fan and Jackie was also celebrated in the sleevenotes to 'Fisherman's Blues' by The Waterboys. The latter's Mike Scott had been complaining about the stresses of life as a commercial rock star in 1986. He said he'd rather be on a bus in Ayr, savouring the fresh air of home. Jackie's response was life-changing.
"Well, get on the bus then."
Jackie had suffered a violent attack in the Eighties, almost losing his voice to strangulation. He became a heroin addict and I spent a memorable afternoon in west London in 1992, hearing his stories about the dark side, illuminated by information about his rehabilitation charity, The CORE Trust.
Jackie was friends with Robert Bly, of Iron John fame. His solo records of recent years were full of Celtic expanse, name-checking Van and Louis MacNeice, performing with Ian Rankin and also releasing music as Sir Vincent Lone. You didn't need to know him well to be impressed by the vigour of the man.
Cormac from The Answer was in for the first hour, picking the tunes, enthusing about Tom Waits and Howlin' Wolf and looking ahead to many months of taking his 'Revival' album on the road. Next up, a London video shoot and then a three day drive to Scandinavia. He'll be home for Xmas and ready for another Belfast show in March. Cormac also makes a good case for Rory Gallagher and tells of how the Europeans love this connection and are likewise blown away by the physical resemblance. His vitality is still boundless and the work ethic is keeps the engines revving.
BBC Radio Ulster, 92-95 FM
Online: www.bbc.co.uk/radioulster
Mondays, ten - midnight
First hour - co-presented by The Answer
Therapy - Going Nowhere (A&M)
Howlin' Wolf - I Ain't Superstitious (Chess)
The Answer - Trouble (Spinefarm)
The Black Crowes - My Morning Song (American)
Black Mountain - No Satisfaction (Jagjaguar)
Rory Gallagher - Walk On Hot Coals (Sony)
The Answer - Nowhere Freeway (Spinefarm)
Tom Waits - Tom Traubert's Blues (Asylum)
Second Hour
The Lost Brothers - Golden Dawn (white)
Rolling Stones - Spare Parts (Rolling Stones)
Jason McNiff - Mountain Song (Fledgeling)
Duke Special - Georgia O'Keefe (Reel To Reel)
Jack White - You Know The I Know (Columbia)
Seven Summits - I Want Somebody - (white)
Kate Rusby - Home (Pure)
Spector - Grey Shirt And Tie (Luv Luv Luv)
Bob Dylan - The Love That Faded (Columbia)
Jason McNiff - Hometown (Fledgeling)
Seasick Steve - Happy Man (Rhino)
Bill Ryder Jones - Le Grand Desordre (Lucky Six)
Duke Special - This Is All That Matters (Reel To Reel)
Forest Fire - Future Shadows (Fat Cat)
Rainy Boy Sleep was a busy guy last week, playing the all-ages gig at the Ulster Hall and then getting active in the shipyard drawing offices, welcoming the international journalists to Belfast for the MTV bash. Rainy Boy (aka Stevie Martin) is a troubadour with attitude who cites Foy Vance as an inspiration. And certainly it's about the voice, the emotion sweetly released and the unique perspective on life. Somewhere in the confection there must also be some Beck, who liberated a generation of acoustic strummers and showed them how to be wayward, funky and free. Rainy Boy is only starting to realise the enthralling promise of it all.
BBC Radio Ulster, 92-95 FM
Online: www.bbc.co.uk/radioulster
Blog: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/stuartbailie/
Mondays, ten - midnight
Paul Simon - Getting Ready For Christmas Day (Universal)
Ryan Adams - Ashes And Fire (Columbia)
Lisa Hannigan - Home (Hoop)
Bon Iver - Towers (4ad)
Rainy Boy Sleep - Shopping Centre Song (white)
Stone Roses - Don't Stop (Silvertone)
Veronica Falls - Found Love In A Graveyard (Bella Union)
The Henry Girls - December Moon (Henry Girls)
Tom Waits - New Year's Eve (Anti)
We Were Promised Jetpacks - Ink Slowly Dries (Fat Cat)
Gareth Dunlop - Find Your Way Back Home (Moraine)
Echo And The Bunnymen - Bring On The Dancing Horses (WEA)
William Elliott Whitmore - Don't Need It (Anti)
Piney Gir - Stay Sweet (Damaged Goods)
John Hiatt - All The Way Under (New West)
The Duke Spirit - Don't Wait (Fiction)
Gillian Welch - Scarlet Town (Acony)
Tom Waits - Kiss Me (Anti)
Mint Julep -Why Don't We (Village Green)
Ry Cooder - No Hard Feelings (Nonesuch)
Nick Cave - Rainy Night In Soho (Mute)
One of my most surreal Radiohead memories took place at the end of an Underworld Show in Camden, around 1993. They closed a rather bedraggled set with a version of 'Rhinestone Cowboy' by Glen Campbell. The music was hilariously out of step with the Radiohead method, but they were more concerned with the lyric: "there's been a load of compromisin', or the road to my horizon". This became a band mantra during those lost years and at frequent intervals I have also repeated them to myself.
In 2005 I was asked to script a Radio 2 documentary on the life of Glen Campbell. This was a weighty, two part production, but the singer's life was never dull and the music, especially the Jimmy Webb period, was outstanding. My colleague Helen Toland did the interviews, and so I listened to those Glen anecdotes and hung a bit of structure around them.
The script was then read by Mike Mills of REM. We did this in a dressing room at the Odyssey Arena, just ahead of the band's gig there. Again, that was a strange but satisfying moment.
The documentary has just gone out again, with some extra material to reflect Glen's experiences with Alzheimer's. It will break your heart. You can listen back here.
