A bit of “Hey Nonny Nonny” this week. Not from the middle ages but from 1994.

(The oboe is a wee bit reminiscent of Jethro Tull’s Coronach.)

A two-for-one offer today as these songs were released as a double A-side to become Pulp’s second number two hit in a row (after Common People.)

This first song caused a rumpus, with press comment claiming it was pro-drugs, which lead singer Jarvis Cocker said was a misinterpretation. I must say I agree with him. Even on first hearing the song the claim seemed to me to be ludicrous.

Mis-Shapes wasn’t so controversial. There’s a James Bond film chord sequence in the refrain though.

The one that broke Gray in the UK as far as singles were concerned. I remember watching him playing his set (I think at Glastonbury) that year and introducing this by saying, “I suppose it’s time we played our hit.”

Another band from Sweden. Odd choice of name though.

This song had an old-fashioned feel even in 1998 when it was a big hit in the UK but it has such a good Latin-tinged upbeat swing to it you can’t help but be drawn in.

And, rather than fading out, it actually ends. What more could you ask?

A bit of all-out guitar rock from 1998.

The band’s third (equal) biggest UK hit at no 9.

Marie Fredriksson, half of Swedish pop/rock duo Roxette, died earlier this week after a long illness occasioned by a brain tumour from which she had seemed to recover but which unfortunately recurred.

Roxette’s œuvre was one of those which you recognise when you hear them but maybe can’t quite put your finger on fully. Or is that just my age? Their songs tended however to be accomplished and reasonably well-polished.

This one was a no 1 all over the rest of Europe but reached only no 4 in the UK.

Gun-Marie Fredriksson: 30/5/1958–9/12/2019. So it goes.

Another of those Beautiful South songs with a barbed lyric. See my comments on Song for Whoever.

For single release and radio play the line in this which reads, “Don’t marry her, have me,” was changed from something altogether more fruity, as was the euphemism “Sandra Bullocks”.

Part of the lyric always annoyed me, though. “Take the kiddies to the park,” doesn’t scan. “Take the kids to the park,” would.

The less work-friendly, more earthy, version of Don’t Marry Her can be found here.

It’s an unusual song, to say the least, that hymns the delights of a cross-country method of public transport. Yet that is exactly what this jaunty, tongue-in-cheek number from 1998 does.

It is also a statement of sorts to name your band after a famous poem by Dante Alighieri even though it is a bit of a pisstake.

The song contains one of pop lyrics’ immortal lines in, “It’s hard to get by when your arse is the size of a small country.”

There was just something about this that I liked.

Maybe it was because the sound reminded me of Badfinger, as I’ve mentioned before, specifically Day After Day.