the advent calendar of earworms days 9-17

Day 9

Cliff & The Young Ones "Living Doll"

Mostly the "I feel sorry for the elephants line".

Day 10

Nick Drake "Poor Boy" into the theme to Top Cat into the theme to Chorlton and the Wheelies

An audio representation of why my brain is a twat. We bought a new hoover recently and the box is in our hallway. Written on it are the words "small ball", which is why I then had that repeating in my head in a budget gospel style a la Nick Drake.

This then reminded me of a microwavable neck wrap we have. The box says "luxury heatable hot wrap" and I recently amused myself no end by singing that to the theme from Top Cat ("Hot wrap! Luxury heatable hot wrap").

For some reason this sent me along various mental side roads, eventually leading me to remember the first time I ever experienced YouTube. I was at work and we immediately used this amazing technological resource to look for old TV theme tunes. Notably this 1970s classic.

Like I said, my brain is a twat.

Day 11

Del Shannon "Runaway" and The Smiths "William, It Was Really Nothing"

Inexplicable mash-up #5012

"Runaway" is one of Little Ms D's favourite songs (I blame my parents). And I've spoken before about my love of The Smiths. 

Morrissey may well be a racist bell-end - but what a song!

Day 12

Dionne Warwick - various songs

Obviously prompted by the fact that the night before we'd watched a compilation of her performances at the BBC. I've never really considered her before but this programme taught me a couple of things.

• One - a lot of her songs are stone-cold classics
• Two - her voice was fantastic

Day 13

Jonathan Richman "I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar"

I make no apologies for talking about Jonathan Richman again.

I read recently that the reason why Jojo is so punk rock is because he uses embarrassment as his main weapon - not his own, but the audiences. He basically feels no shame, which is the reason he can do ridiculous performances such as the one below. Is the audience laughing at him? 

Or are they embarrassed by the fact that they will never be as unselfconscious?

It's like something I once read about dance. As anyone who has kids will attest, if any child (from babies and up) hears a song, they just start moving. Then as we grow we're taught not to dance in this natural way. And then as we grow, we need do be taught how to dance all over again.

I haven't used the "cosmic insight (man)" tag for a while!

Day 14

Dean Martin "Let It Snow", Led Zeppelin "Immigrant Song"

An actual, proper Christmas song! And it only took 14 days.

The start of "Immigrant Song" is a fairly regular ear worm around these parts, along with a visual memory of Jack Black singing along with it in "School of Rock".

Day 15

Pavement "Grounded"

A track from my favourite Pavement album, but not a song I've played in ages. Is this the start of Stephen Malkmus trying to transition himself into rock-guitar-god status?

Day 16

Cat Stevens "Can't Keep It In"

The sound of driving around in our first family car to have a tape deck. Cat Stevens was my dad's favourite so I can clearly hear him singing along with Cat's overly-earnest vocal delivery.

Because my dad no longer has a turntable I've now taken ownership of his two albums.

Day 17

Fleetwood Mac "Brown Eyes"

From Tusk, Fleetwood Mac's follow-up to the omnipresent uber-selling Rumours. It was always regarded as a commercial failure, because it "only" sold 4million copies. 

Imagine a record label nowadays being upset by sales of 4million!

I first heard this album during a relapse - I was burning through books so Mrs D went the library and got me the 33 1/3 book about the album. It was just fascinating to read about the bed-hopping bolivia-inhaling madness behind its creation. Especially the creative tensions between the floaty-headscarf-wearing songs of Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie, in comparison to the new-wave leanings of Lindsey Buckingham.

As noted above, my brain is a twat, hence why this morning's ear worm is a Christine McVie song, not one of the cooler songs.

Still, it's a great album - and so is the remake by American alt-rock legends Camper Van Beethoven. So here's a compare and contrast playlist I made of both versions!