Storm Eowyn hit Central Scotland on Friday with winds in excess of 100mph.
We got off relatively lightly save for a fence coming down in an area in our back garden which acts like a wind tunnel.Fortunately our nephew had cut down the Eucalyptus tree last summer as it would almost certainly come down and probably causing a bit of damage.
Our plastics bin did blow over and deposited plastic bottles and containers all over the front garden.I will be retrieving them for days. It was too light to stand up to the wind. The bottles bin had no such problem!
It got me thinking of the old Jazz standard Stormy Weather. There were three versions in the Music file on the PC although strangely none of them were by Billie Holiday. I thought three might suffice if only to save me the trouble of downloading another version.
Lest I be accused of hijacking the Single Song Sunday slot I have also included a different song with the same title by the Pixies.
I've put some more songs on the MP3 player recently so this series will go on an on I'm afraid for those of you who have nothing better to do on a Saturday.
This week we are kicking off with The Zombies and their third contribution to the Shuffle namely I Want Her She Wants Me.
The Motorcycle Boy make their second appearance with Big Rock Candy Mountain from their album Scarlet
Amazingly, and somewhat Criminally, today marks the first appearance of the great Lucinda Williams on the Shuffle. Let's Get the Band Back Together is taken from her most recent album 2023's Stories From a Rock'n'Roll Heart which is one of the recent additions.
More shuffling, recent or otherwise, next Saturday.
It would be highly dishonest of me to claim the credit for the idea of this series, that belongs to a man called Dave Roberts, who has written a highly entertaining and amusing book called 32 programmes. Those are the programmes he saved from a much much larger collection when he moved to a different country. I did a similar thing with my collection of programmes 12 years ago. In the book, Mr Roberts charts his life through his chosen programmes, chronologically. I, though, chose my programmes solely on what they meant to me regardless of the date; and unlike Mr Roberts I will ramble almost incoherently about anything that comes to mind whilst I contemplate the programme and of course shoehorn in some tunes.
Today, it’s Plough Lane, and Wimbledon FC. (That’s the club who were bought and relocated to Milton Keynes.) But On April 8, 1978, we went to see 4th Division Wimbledon play the once mighty and then fallen, or should that be plummeted, Huddersfield Town. The “we” is the four us, my Mum, Dad and wee brother. As for why, well given the time of year we must have been on our Easter holiday, staying with my grandparents (my Dad’s parents) who lived in the Borough of Merton and thus quite close to the ground - it was 4 miles from their house - and I suspect my brother and I had ants-in-our-pants, and Dad thought we should go to a game. But not to Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, or even Crystal Palace. But Wimbledon. Which sounds very churlish of me. I wonder if he was thinking there might be a hooligan problem at the larger grounds, but I also think the likely larger output of crude chants and foul language was not a consideration as a couple of years earlier me, Mum and Dad stood in the “Provie” Road end of Dens Park watching Dundee v.. Ayr United.
I have absolutely no memory of this game at all, unlike the games Mr Roberts talks about, he seems to have perfect recall. Looking at the team sheets I recognise no player despite Wimbledon having Dave Bassett on their books (and he played in 35 league games that season) and Dickie Guy (who I had heard of). The score, I have discovered, was 2-0 to Wimbledon. But I have kept the programme, because, well, if you buy one you just cannot throw it away…………..that is until you are told to by your partner, with the proviso that you can keep a few. Maybe it’s a simple reminder of a day out for the four of us. I have asked my brother about this game, but he was nae to use to man nor beast. Although he did tell me that we (the four of us) also went to the speedway in Wimbledon and also to the dogs there.
As for the day itself, the website “onthisday” has absolutely NOTHING for April 8 1978 (although why it has omitted “The Forsyths went to see Wimbledon v. Huddersfield Town” I haven’t a scooby).
As for the AITT, I instantly recognise all 10 songs, although I can quite gladly go through the rest of my days without hearing again five of them. Not this, though, it’s aged quite well - almost:
Someone who calls them self Missy Elliott has absolutely murdered that song, as has Alannah Myles. It’s criminal.
But here on 18 seconds you have one of the most sublime moments in music:
Here’s one of those 5 songs I referred to above, introduced by Kid Jensen, at no. 9 on April 8, and one place behind G****is:
We never did shake them up by winning the world cup, but it totally shook me up and I lost all interest in the national team after that.
The Top Ten Albums are barely worth a mention. Bar one,
Oh, and unlike Mr Roberts, I have fewer than 32 programmes. Hopefully I can be inspired by the next one.
Thanks for reading (and listening), and thanks to Mr CC for hosting.
CC writes:
Thanks George
Sadly the great Denis Law passed away shortly after being referenced in George's last post. I hope no-one referenced in this post suffers the same fate!
And on behalf of a Nation a very sarcastic thanks for bringing up Argentina 78!
All the people you would expect make an appearance and the music is pretty good. Dylan aficionados won't find too many surprises with the film staying pretty close to actual events.
I enjoyed it immensely. Mrs CC, who is not particularly a fan, enjoyed it as well. You should go and see it if you get the chance,
It is also a good excuse for me to feature some of his early stuff.
Is Palestine a country? It depends on who you ask I suppose. If you type that question into the Google search engine this is the top response:
Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in the southern Levant region of West Asia recognized by 146 out of 193 UN member states.
Together with the fact that it has appeared in my Blog stats of visiting Countries that is good enough for me.
I am reluctant to get too political as I'm sure most folk have there own views. I will only say that it is a bit disappointing that it has taken an American Presidential election to trigger strenuous negotiations for a ceasefire. While the discussions go on the body count keeps rising.
It should come as no surprise that the current situation has resulted in what we would describe as protest songs.
Humood Alkhuder is actually a Kuwaiti singer and songwriter who sings contemporary soul and Islamic music. However I feel that his song Falasteen Biladi - Palestine is my Land is an appropriate number to feature today.
Dana Sala is a Jordanian singer, songwriter and producer of Palestinian descent which reflects the voluntary and more often than not non voluntary dispersion of the Palestinian people. Here she sings a dance tune Ya Tal3een.
Kamilya Jubran is a Palestinian singer, songwriter and musician from a musical family who plays the oud and the qanum. From 1982-2002, she was the lead singer of Sabreen , an Arabic musical group based in occupied East Jerusalem. Since 2002, she has toured solo and collaborated with a range of European musicians. Her contribution is a song called Ghareebah
Finally we have Rim Banna who was (she died in 2018 from breast cancer aged 51) a Palestinian singer and composer who was most known for her modern interpretations of traditional Palestinian songs and poetry. Here she sings a song which translates as The Taste of Love
Next we are off to a relatively new Country , something hopefully that one day Palestine will become
Something for you today courtesy of an NME Band of the Week in May 2015 who described them as sounding like Lush on Diazepan.
Yet another band who were first brought to my attention by Drew.
I had it in my head that Kid Wave were a Danish band but it turns out that they are an Anglo Swedish Australian combo whose members were Mattias Bhatt, Harry Deacon, Lea Emery and Serra Patale.
It seems that they only had the one album Wonderlust (pictured above) in 2015 on the Heavenly label.There was an EP called Gloom in 2014 and a few singles and that's yer lot.
That's about all I've got on the band apart from it's terrific stuff. The album can by picked up for a song on Discogs. You could do much worse.
One of the good things about the Saturday Shuffle (alongside the fact that minimal effort is required) is that it throws up songs that you haven't listened to in an age and has you dusting down old records or CDs for a long overdue listen.
Such was the case when Rising Above Bedlam the title track of the 1991 album by Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart pooped up here
I duly dug the CD out for a listen and what a pleasure it was. Ten tracks and no duds among them. In addition to the title track which appeared on Saturday these are probably the most well known of the ten tracks.
I've seen him live twice with the first time at Glasgow's Garage among the best gigs I've ever seen. I wrote about it in the very early days of CCM. You will see that things here haven't improved much, if at all, since then.
