Thursday 11th October 2007

Just to give you a little foresight into just how empty the pub was tonight. You could actually hear the Tumbleweed beating its way up to the door, or maybe it was the smokers trying to get back into the pub! So yet again it was left to the regulars to entertain the very few non singers who turned up tonight. In fact until the last few songs were sang not even 'others' turned out tonight (see Shaun's Blog for definition of others!). It is a worrying sign that the pub has taken this turn for the worse on Thursdays, although the Tuesday nights are apparently also suffering. This has got to be the fact that the landlord and landlady have now split up and this has put a tremendous strain on all the regulars and staff alike. The prices are far too expensive for an out of town pub as well.

We are advertised in the local press, and Andy is well known for his Karaoke nights, but the Thursday night is still not being advertised in the pub on the notices being put around. The pub has artists live on both Friday and Saturday nights, and most weeks these acts pack the place out with locals and their own fanbase, so I think the future of the pub is not yet too much in doubt, but our Karaoke night make be at risk if people don't start turning up to support us. Even Nicky didn't turn up this week to wail her tunes, and it has been noted that a semi new regular Raymond, has been missing for a couple of weeks after bringing his own disc in. Outrageous Pun Alert! In fact myself and Shaun were both 'Starting To Worry About Ray!' But after a bit of research on the old t'internet I think I found the real reason the pub was empty tonight. October 11th is National Coming Out Day, so everyone must of been at some of those namby pamby poncy 'clubs' for you know G.A.Y.S. Now I'm not one to mock sexual preferences in anyway, in fact I went gay myself for a bit, well apart from the sex bit I did, but if your coming out what better way to do it than by singing one of your anthems by ABBA, Erasure, Culture Club or Gareth Gates down at your local Karaoke night!

So with the lack of people it meant lots more song's to sing, and although I was only credited by The Shaunio Blogspot as having sang six songs, I actually sang seven (Details why to follow). Before we get onto the lengthy set list for this week, my lists of fun continue again this week with another little group of witty truths. Now I have been very P.C. with my lists over the last few weeks, so this week this list is strictly for the boys, complaints on a postcard please ladies!

20 Reasons Why A Beer Is Better Than A Woman

1. You can enjoy a beer anytime of the month.

2. Beer stains wash out

3. When a beer is flat you throw it out

4. HANGOVERS GO AWAY

5. Beer never has a headache

6. You can share a beer with your friends

7. Beer is never late

8. Beer is always wet

9. A beer won't get upset if you come home with another beer

10. You can always have more than one beer a night and not feel guilty

11. Beer doesn't demand equality

12. You can have a beer in public

13. A beer always goes down easy

14. A beer doesn't get jealous when you grab another beer

15. Beer labels come off without a fight

16. When you go to a bar you know you can always pick up a beer

17. A beer will always wait for you in the car while you play football with your mates

18. You don't have to wash a beer to make it taste good

19. Beer doesn't have to be wined and dined

20. If you pour a beer right, you always get good head.

Steady ladies, being a man's man all this had to be said, but fear ye not me old hearties, I'm sure I'll find a suitable list for you girlie's to get your revenge back with next time.

So onto the reason we are here again, the songs. Tonight's seven little ditty's were as follows. 1. Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins 2. So Lonely by The Police 3. Maggie May by Rod Stewart 4. I Would Walk (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers 5. Dead Flowers by The Rolling Stones 6. Lola by The Kinks and 7. Paradise By The Dashboard Light by Meatloaf.

Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins link to video

This forgotten classic was taken from the Top Gun soundtrack, and was one of Kenny Loggins biggest hits in the U.S., although it only got to number 45 in the U.K. charts. The track was co written by Giorgio Moroder of 'Together In Electric Dreams' fame. The Top Gun soundtrack is one of the most popular soundtracks to date. Harold Faltermeyer, who previously worked with both Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson on the films Flashdance and Beverly Hills Cop, was sent the script of Top Gun by Bruckheimer before filming began. Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock worked on numerous songs including "Take My Breath Away" and "Danger Zone". Kenny Loggins had two songs on the soundtrack, the other being Playing With The Boys. Berlin recorded the song Take My Breath Away, which would later win numerous awards, sending Berlin to international acclaim. After the release of Loggins' Danger Zone, sales of the album exploded, selling 7 million in the United States alone. Other artists were considered for the soundtrack project, but did not participate. Bryan Adams was considered as a potential candidate, but refused to participate because he felt the film glorified war. Likewise, REO Speedwagon was considered, but backed down because they would not be allowed to record their own composition. Loggins is probably more well known in the U.K. for his song from the title track of the film Footloose, which hit number 6 in the charts back in 1984. maybe a future karaoke night track! Luckily I had been practicing this one earlier in the night, so I kind of knew how it went, and it was a last minute request by Tina, due to it being one of her ring tones! on the night rating 6/10

So Lonely by The Police link to video

You know when you sing a song somewhere like in the bath or in the car and your convinced you could sing it live, well you can't believe me, and this was a prime example. So Lonely is a song by The Police, appearing on the 1978 studio album Outlandos d'Amour and released as a single in November 1978 and re released in February 1980. The single didn't chart on the first occasion but reached number 6 after the second release. The other singles from Outlandos D'Amour, Roxanne and Can't Stand Losing You, followed a same scenario of not charting very high in 1978, but doing very well on a re-release. This is probably due to the fact that The Police had their breakthrough in 1979. Sting has admitted that he used Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry as the basis for this song. " People thrashing out three chords didn't really interest us musically. Reggae was accepted in punk circles and musically more sophisticated, and we could play it, so we veered off in that direction. I mean let's be honest here, 'So Lonely' was unabashedly culled from 'No Woman No Cry' by Bob Marley. Same chorus. What we invented was this thing of going back and forth between thrash punk and reggae. That was the little niche we created for ourselves. " The little niche that Sting spoke of propelled The Police into one of the biggest bands in the world in the 80's, and they went on to release hit after hit in the 80's until they unofficially split in 1984. The band has recently got back together in 2007, and their reunion tour was one of the fastest selling tours in history. on the night rating 4/10

Maggie May by Rod Stewart link to video

Maggie May is a song written by Rod Stewart and musician Martin Quittenton and recorded by Stewart in 1971 as his first solo project not involving his group The Faces, although several members of The Faces appear on the album, Every Picture Tells a Story, and Ronnie Wood, now of the Rolling Stones, plays all the guitar and bass parts. The song expresses the ambivalence and contradictory emotions of a young man involved in a relationship with an older woman, and is thought to have been written from Stewart's own experience. It was initially released in the U.K. as the B-side of the single Reason to Believe, but DJs became more fond of Maggie May and, after two weeks in the chart, the song was re-classified with Maggie May as the A-side. In October 1971, the song went to number one in the UK, and simultaneously topped the charts in the United States. The album achieved the same feat at the same time, a feat achieved by only a handful of performers, notably The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and Beyoncé. The song launched Stewart as a solo performer, and remains arguably his best-known song. A famous live performance of the song on Top of the Pops saw the Faces joined onstage by DJ John Peel who pretended to play the mandolin (the mandolin player on the recording was Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne.

Stewart himself was amazed by the song's success saying, " I still can't see how the single is such a big hit. It has no melody. Plenty of character and nice chords, but no melody. " The song re-entered the UK charts in December 1976, but only reached number thirty-one. No other act has released the song as a single, though Blur, Wet Wet Wet and Ben Mills have recorded versions of it. Despite Stewart apparently writing the song about his own experiences with an older woman, the phrase 'Maggie May' has become a synonym for an older woman abusing young boys. on the night rating 9/10

I Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers link to video

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) is a song written and performed by Scottish band and brothers Charlie and Craig Reid better known as The Proclaimers. It was released on their 1988 Sunshine on Leith album, and subsequently as a single. It has become one of their most popular songs, reaching the UK top 20 at number eleven. The song has become a live staple at their concerts. The Proclaimers played it at 'Edinburgh 50,000 - The Final Push', the final of the Live 8 series of concerts held at Murrayfield Stadium on 6 July 2005, and to symbolise the conclusion of The Long Walk To Justice. The Live 8 concerts held around the world were designed to encourage the leaders congregating at the G8 meeting in Edinburgh to consider the plight of those in absolute poverty.
The song is popular in Ireland and Scotland, where, at Hampden Park, every time Scotland scores, the song is played and sung along to by the Scottish fans. It is the unofficial anthem of Edinburgh's Hibernian, the Proclaimers being fans of the team. Their song Sunshine On Leith is also played frequently at Easter Road, Hibernian's home ground. The song was featured on the soundtrack to the 1993 film Benny & Joon. As a result the music video features a young Johnny Depp, who starred in the film. The Proclaimers re-recorded the song, with Peter Kay and Matt Lucas, the latter two in the guise of their characters Brian Potter and Andy Pipkin from Phoenix Nights and Little Britain. There is a slight change in the lyrics with the words "roll 500 miles" replacing "walk 500 miles". This is because the characters Brian Potter and Andy Pipkin are both in wheelchairs. This version was released as a charity single for Comic Relief in 2007.It reached number three on the official UK Singles Chart on download sales alone, and one week later reached number one, where it remained for three weeks. It sold 126,000 copies in its first week making it the biggest selling number one of the year up to that point. Its sales were double that of the official Comic Relief single by Girls Aloud vs. Sugababes, and their cover of Aerosmith's Walk This Way. The Proclaimers' original recording also re-entered the Top 40 following the success of the Comic Relief version. When Andy and myself first sang the song in March it had just been released as the Comic Relief track, and in true Karaoke fashion we sang it as Brian Potter and Andy Pipkin. It was a hoot and got the whole pub laughing. This time we tried it aka The Proclaimers and it was an unmitigated disaster, probably due to lack of beer, atmosphere etc in the pub. Safe to say if we sing it again I'm going back to the Potter/Pipkin routine. on the night rating 2/10

Dead Flowers by The Rolling Stones link to video

Dead Flowers is a song by The Rolling Stones off of their 1971 album Sticky Fingers. Recording on the song began in December 1969 at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama giving the song a country music feel to it. According to some interpretations, the song is about a man whose girlfriend left him and because of his sadness turns to drugs to make him feel better.
The lines ' Well when you're sitting back in your rose pink Cadillac, making bets on Kentucky Derby Day, I'll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon, and another girl can take my pain away ' is said to refer to heroin. The needle and spoon are common with heroin use. The song is notable for its use of the Stones' core members each playing their respective instruments, with Ian Stewart on piano and singer Mick Jagger taking up acoustic guitar.
The Stones performed the song in September 2006 during their A Bigger Bang Tour at Louisville's famed Churchill Downs, in reference to the previously quoted line from the song. A live cut from their 1994 Voodoo Lounge Tour can be found on the 1995 live album Stripped.

The song has also inspired several cover versions by bands more associated with hard rock than country music. A version by Townes Van Zandt, is in the Coen brothers movie, The Big Lebowski, in the final bowling alley scene of the film. Guns N' Roses performed the song at a number of shows during 1993 as part of their acoustic set. Additionally, Gilby Clarke of the band released a version of this, with Axl Rose on backup vocals, on his solo album Pawnshop Guitars. The Guns N' Roses song I Used To Love Her is inspired by the main riff of the song.
Steve Earle did a version in his 1991 album Shut Up And Die Like An Aviator, and Poison did a version on their 2007 album Poison'd.

The Sticky Fingers album by The Stones is one which spawned a number of great tracks, such as Brown Sugar, Wild Horses, Bitch, Sway, Can't You Hear Me Knocking and Sister Morphine, and many of the songs can be heard as staple live tracks on the Stones tours today. Sticky Fingers may just be the band's most drug-drenched album, as well over half of the songs mention drug use, while the rest merely allude to it. It was also the bands first release on their own lable Rolling Stones Records, having formally being with Decca. on the night rating 9/10

Lola by The Kinks link to video

The recent Radio One 40th Birthday Celebrations prompted me to have a go at this classic. Robbie Williams recorded a great version for the Radio One album, but the original will always be the best. Written by Ray Davies and performed by The Kinks, the song details a romantic encounter between a man and a transvestite he meets in a Soho, London club.
One of the Kinks' best-known songs, the single was taken from the album Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One, was released in June, 1970, and reached Number 2 in the UK charts and Number 9 in the US.

In his official biography, Ray Davies says that he was inspired to write this song after the band manager Robert Wace had spent the night dancing with a transvestite. Davies said
' I remembered an incident in a club... Robert Wace had been dancing with this black woman, and he said, ‘I’m really on to a thing here.’ And it was OK until we left at six in the morning and then I said, ‘Have you seen the stubble?’ He said ‘Yeah,’ but he was too pissed to care. '

Accounts also indicate a similar incident occurred at about the same time during a Kinks European tour in the mid-1960's, cementing the song's scenario in Davies' mind for later use. In late 1969, Davies' father encouraged him to focus his energy on writing another worldwide hit single after a long dry spell for the band, and Lola was the result. Davies and the Kinks spent extra time and effort recording and crafting the song at Morgan Studios in London during early 1970. The success of the single had important ramifications for the band's career at a critical time, allowing them to negotiate a new contract with RCA Records, construct their own London Studio, and assume more creative and managerial control. Lola also became their most popular sing-a-long anthem at concerts, as they struggled to regain a footing in the US concert market after a five year absence.

The first single release of this song had to be censored slightly, not because of its controversial sexual content, but because of the mention of Coca-Cola on the original version. The BBC refused to play the single because of this trademarked commercial reference, and so it was re-recorded with the phrase cherry cola instead, which at the time was not available in the U.K. as a soft drink. Davies actually had to fly back to England from a tour in the U.S. to overdub the master tape, then return to the U.S. This true story was widely used in the song's promotion on American AM radio and as always with banned records proppelled it up the charts. A second rumour about the censorship also exists which is that the reference to Coca-Cola or Coke, was in fact an underground term for cocaine, and therefore unacceptable for play on the BBC. The BBC also initially refused to play the Beatles' song Come Together, for the same reason of mentioning Coca-Cola. on the night rating 8/10

Paradise By The Dashboard Light by Meatloaf link to video

It has been a long standing Karaoke tradition with this song that you either love it or hate it. I know most of our gang are definately in the hate it camp, but I prefer to sit on the fence with this one as, although I don't really like the song, I do love to sing it with the only person I can pull it off with, resident diva Leeane, whose dulcet tones have been around our Karaoke singing the same three songs (four if you count this one) for many a long year. She has got a great voice, probably because of the fact she has huge.....lungs, and we do seem to harmonise well on this one, probably because we are both loud!

PBTHDL was the second single of the number one selling album of all time by Meatloaf, Bat Out Of Hell, and was released in 1977 after Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad. It was dueted with Ellen Foley on the album version, but Meatloaf has performed the track with several other leading ladies, including Patti Russo on his recent tour. The song is unabashedly operatic, weaving several melodies throughout the duet, and treats its subject with lighthearted humor.

This three-part epic opens with part one Paradise with the singers reminiscing their days as a young high school couple on a date, going for a drive to the lake. Everything is well, and they are getting along just fine. " And now our bodies are oh so close and tight/It never felt so good it never felt so right.. " However, as the song progresses it's clear that the boy has a bit more on his mind than just holding his girlfriend. " Baby don't you hear my heart/You've got it drowning out the radio/I've been waiting so long for you to come along and have some fun/And I gotta let you know, no you're never gonna regret it/So open up your eyes I've got a big surprise, it'll feel all right/ Yeah I wanna make your motor run ". He continues to push the matter, and makes some progress, mirrored by New York Yankees radio announcer Phil Rizzuto broadcasting a portion of a baseball game, that serves as a metaphor at his attempts. Things are looking up, and it appears the boy is going to 'score'. " Here he comes, squeeze play/ It's gonna be close/ Here's the throw, here's the play at the plate/ Holy cow, I think he's gonna make it " when suddenly the female vocal bursts to life telling him to "Stop right there! "

The girl begins refusing to go any further unless the boy promises that he will marry her, love her forever, and stay faithful to her. Part two Let Me Sleep On It begins, as the boy can't make up his mind, begging her to continue on for the time being and he'll tell her his answer in the morning. This answer doesn't satisfy the girl and a argument takes place.
Finally, everything gives way for the boy and he yells out " I couldn't take it any longer/ Lord, I was crazed / When the feeling came upon me like a tidal wave / Started swearing to my God/ And on my mother's grave/ That I would love you till the end of time / I swore I would love you till the end of time "

As part three Praying For The End Of Time begins, things snap back to the present instead of reminiscing the long-ago date. Ironically, things are no longer perfect, but the boy and the girl are sticking to their vows, despite wanting everything to be over and done with. " So now I'm praying for the end of time / To hurry up and arrive / 'cause if I got to spend another minute with you I don't think that I can really survive/ I'll never break my promise / Or forget my vow / But God only knows what I can do right now/ Praying for the end of time / It's all that I can do! / Praying for the end of time / So I can end my time with you! " To end the song fade out with the couple both singing " It was long ago and it was far away and it was so much better than it is today. " Ah young love gone wrong, now there's a story we don't hear very often. on the night rating our gang 0/10 rest of pub 8/10

So there we have it folks a very long week of songs draws to a close. Not a bad week of songs this week, and I do have to admit to secretly liking the Meatloaf duet with Leeane, but only once a year! So until next week folks when I will come up with another hopefully great list of new songs be good out there, and I leave you again with a quote from the great man himself.

" You know boys, a nuclear reactor is a lot like women. You just have to read the manual and press the right button. "

Homer J Simpson