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 famouspoem 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.”

The official video from the time does display a degree of casual sexism though.

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.

It’s a day early for the fiftieth anniversary of the real moon landing and the lyric actually has nothing to do with it, but hey, it’s a good song.

A typical jangly track from The Farm in the vein of Groovy Train and All Together Now. The video below may have been inspired by the TV comedy Up Pompeii! which would explain the appearance in it of that programme’s leading light Frankie Howerd. His star was more or less on the wane (not for the first time) by the year this was released. I heard he was swithering about whether or not to appear in the video and his niece – or nephew* – said to him, “You should. It’ll make you really famous.” Sic transit gloria.

*Edited to add: it may more likely have been a grand-niece or grand-nephew.

The Lightning Seeds didn’t have as much chart success as the memory of their catchy, breezy sound might suggest.

This one for instance only reached no 43 in the UK when released in 1994. A year later it got to number 15, though.

As I mentioned before Chocolate Cake was the first Crowded House song that I was aware was by the band.

This is a live performance from 1991.

This is the first Ocean Colour Scene song I consciously remember hearing. Their earlier hits had passed me by. There always semed to be something 60s-ish about their sound, though.

It’s safe to say the Prodigy’s music wasn’t really to my taste. What you couldn’t say about it was it was that it didn’t make a statement. It stands in stark contrast to the ocean of blandness into which modern music has submerged in the late teen years of the twenty-first century, where all the performers seem to merge into one generic

It was therefore sad to hear of the demise of Keith Flint who fronted the Prodigy in their mid-90s pomp. Even sadder that it seems he took his own life. Any life cut short is a misfortune but more so when it might have been prevented.

I also discovered from the obituaries a personal connection with the band as it was formed in Braintree, Essex, a town where I lived for two years during 1980 and 1981.

Listening to this (and to their only other number one Firestarter) now, I find myself warming to their work. Too late, alas.

Keith Charles Flint: 17/9/1969 – 4/3/2019. So it goes.

A bit of polished pop from 1996. With the added bonus of a Scottish lead singer in Shirley Manson.