Snippets

Today's post is just a collection of random things that have been on my mind in the last forty-eight hours. So much can happen, so many songs lodge in the mind. If it had been yesterday, I would have posted Vicar In A Tutu by The Smiths, just because. But it's not, and today sees three different songs.

Alabama 3 were first big when I was a teenager. Big in a Steve Lamacq, Evening Session kind of way, by which I mean, not very big. I'm talking pre-Sopranos, pre-Woke Up This Morning. It's a the hippie-decrying, swamp-boogie, electro-psych of Ain't Going To Goa - a song which sprung to mind as soon as I heard that familiar refrain from Woke Up This Morning advertising the new series of The Sopranos. I like mine a lot better. It smells of my youth.

'Cos the righteous truth is, there ain't nothing worse than some fool lying on some Third World beach wearing spandex, psychedelic trousers, smoking damn dope pretending he gettin' consciousness expansion. I want consciousness expansion, I go to my local tabernacle an' I sing with the brothers and sisters

Alabama 3 - Ain't Going To Goa (from Exile On Coldharbour Lane)
Alabama 3 - Woke Up This Morning (acoustic) (from Last Train To Mashville)

José Watch was supposed to be a semi-regular feature, but never took off. Less from a lack of material (far from it) but more from a lack of memory glands on my part. So I take the opportunity to present these (non a capella Portuguese) version of Jason Donovan's legendary hit. I say Jason Donovan, my research monkeys prove it to be a much earlier hit, as this bobby-soxer version by Gary Lewis & The Playboys, and the Polish Prince's version, "A Young Man With a Big Band" known as Bobby Vinton, prove. More than that, Brian Hyland's (what I think is) original.

I'll see you in the sunlight
I'll hear your voice everywhere
I'll run to tenderly hold you
but baby you won't be there

Bobby Vinton - Sealed With A Kiss
Gary Lewis & The Playboys - Sealed With A Kiss
Brian Hyland - Sealed With A Kiss

Finally, a classic from The Cure, simply because I'm pimping this week's Contrast Podcast. Here the original here, but listen to the 100 Tears tribute CD cover, and the Speedy Jay remix here.

I can turn
And walk away
Or I can fire the gun
Staring at the sky
Staring at the sun

The Cure - Killing An Arab (Speedy Jay Remix)
Electric Hellfire Club - Killing An Arab

<$>Alabama 3/Bobby Vinton/Gary Lewis/Brian Hyland/The Cure/Electric Hellfire Club<$>

Tags: Alabama 3; Sopranos; Bobby Vinton; Gary Lewis & The Playboys; Brian Hyland; Jason Donovan; The Cure; Contrast Podcast