Thursday, April 15, 2021
30 Songs In 30 Colours (a 30-day Song Challenge Done Wrong) #Fragments
Last year I Tweeted a different song every day for a #30DaySongChallenge. Only one drawback: I’d read ahead and there were several questions I just didn’t want to think about. So I Tweeted for thirty days anyway – just answering for Day 1, thirty times (never let it be said that once I think up a terrible joke or a diversionary tactic I don’t flog both to death).
Besides, it
turns out there really are a lot of really great songs with colours in them.
I’ve picked
today (the anniversary of somewhere-in-the-middle-of-it) to collect these into
a post because (in the middle of not an easy time) the most fun of the lot is
both the colour grey – not anyone’s first choice for joy – and a car – not mine
– and yet…
1 – Goldfinger
Saluting
Honor Blackman – and because it’s so magnificent I’d have picked it anyway.
There are
several here I really don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a
time…
At the same
time last year I was Tweeting a James Bond favourite every day too, but
properly. Not all my picks were
Goldfinger… But top Bond theme was, obviously (as one Bond composer put it, “If
you’re dead, you wake up for that”). I’ve already turned that set into a blog post – worth reading for the one-liners.
1 – Tired of
Midnight Blue (George Harrison)
A brilliantly
bluesy piano number unexpectedly turns up to give extra texture.
And it’d gone
midnight, and I was tired, so…
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – The Red
Shoes (Kate Bush)
Fantastic in
several senses, with bonus colours on the same album in Why Should I Love You?
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Union
City Blue (Blondie)
Coolly
iconic. Also, their:
Put Some
Color On You
Much newer
Blondie, and a real stomper. Love it (but not appropriately social-distancing).
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Theme
from The Black Hole
Queasy
swirling weirdness underpinned by magnificently threatening ‘What A Magnificent
Vista (Were It Not Being Swallowed By This Endless Maw Into Hell)’ John Barry
strings.
[A couple of
months ago I performed a scientific observer bias test and found that I mainly
hear the unsettling weaving weirdness if I’m watching the wireframe spiral on
screen, while mainly notice the orchestral underpinning if I’m just listening
rather than getting the visual cues.]
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – The White
Tree (Howard Shore)
A
magnificent, uplifting fanfare to light the Beacons of Gondor and send flame
rushing to the West.
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Moonlight
and Gold (Gerry Rafferty)
A gorgeous
love song yearning through the night to the dawn (from North and South,
probably his best album).
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Grey
Cortina (Tom Robinson Band)
I don’t care
about cars at all, but too many car songs are just too much fun.
This is
probably the most lively and joyous of the lot.
A year ago today!
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Dazzling
Blue (Paul Simon)
Percussive,
laid back groove.
You see? I
can pick songs from the last decade.
The artist’s
been around since long before I was born, obviously.
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Yellow
Submarine (The Beatles)
(I’d’ve made
this an earlier 1, but didn’t want it to be the obvious ‘cramped in a small space
and can’t go outside’ and lose its fun)
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Old Brown
Shoe (The Beatles)
So lively!
Wowsa George fast-bubbling bass and lead. A very ‘A’ B-side.
Bonus: For
You Blue, the most bouncily happy of blues.
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Mr Blue
Sky (Electric Light Orchestra)
Because you
can’t beat a bit of ELO.
Glorious
(especially as the close of Concerto For a Rainy Day).
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Blue Monday
(New Order)
Inspired
electro-dance downbeat-beat-beat-beat-beat to get you going without admitting
you want to.
Just how I
should feel today…
Presses
repeat on ‘There are several…’ meta-gag
[And if you’re wondering why I kept in all of those, now you know. Really‽ Really]
1 – Blue
Savannah (Erasure)
A rather
lovely swirling ballad with a simple but hugely memorable video (which sends me
on my way back to Goldfinger; don’t try this at home)
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – GoldenEye
(Tina Turner)
An
outstanding Bond theme and terrific performance (great video, too).
Up there with
She’s a Mystery to Me as the best ever of Bono and the Edge.
[I compiled all 40 – no, you read correctly – into a playlist today, only to find this was the only one I’d not imported into iTunes and couldn’t find the CD single. Looking it up, though I own the single edit (technically, somewhere), there is a longer album edit, so I didn’t feel bad about buying that just now to complete the set. Just for once, the longer version’s not as good. The film edit ends with a bang.]
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – California
Blue (Roy Orbison)
Rather lovely
in its yearning (I reminded myself of it with yesterday’s).
And why not
add the other Traveling Wilburys in New Blue Moon?
[I coincidentally sequenced this for Roy’s birthday (April 23rd) and didn’t notice until afterwards.]
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Every
Shade of Blue (Bananarama)
Last night was rough [356 nights ago, but so was last night and it’s a fair bet so will the next] and I was up most of it, so despite the lyrics this is a more upbeat listen in daylight.
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Strike Me
Pink (Deborah Harry)
Melting
coolness from Debravation. Evocative song, great album title (still waiting for
Debravity).
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – White
Wedding (Billy Idol)
A roar of
excitement!
I was
scheduled to go with White Room (Cream), but that day was our semiversary [April 26th,
mid-way from October 26th]. I think I prefer this one, too!
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Morse
Moose and the Grey Goose (Paul McCartney & Wings)
A great sound
from London Town – fuzzing guitar and groovy bass. Love a track that starts big
and builds!
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Blond and Blue (Tom Robinson)
An unhappy
love song…
and
Green (Tom
Robinson)
A – much more upbeat – savage bit of satire:
“It’s an eco-revolution using market forces / As we carry on guzzling the world’s resources”
[insert daily recycled line]
1 – Gold
(Spandau Ballet)
Always
believe in your soul!
Big sound,
Lib Dem anthem, and I had this lined up before seeing Twitter full of
fancying Martin Kemp that evening [can I remember why? Did I even know at the time?].
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Grey Day
(Madness)
Doom-laden
chimes, heavy piano, distorted guitar, despairing lyrics – probably their most
downbeat hit, and possibly my favourite.
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Jack In
the Green (Jethro Tull)
Feels more
Beltane this morning [May 1st] than my scheduled The Big Bright
Green Pleasure Machine (though I could really do with one of those).
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Paint It
Black (Rolling Stones)
Black Sunrise
(Marc Almond)
And not in
the title but very much in tone, My Little Town (Simon and Garfunkel)
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Purple
Haze (Jimi Hendrix)
An incredible
sound and – appropriately purple – embraced in performance as distinctly bi:
that girl put a spell on me / ’scuse me while I kiss this guy
Several I
don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Mellow
Yellow (Donovan)
Something a
bit cheery and relaxing for a new week (same as the old week) when being mostly
more incredibly stressed and angry Yellow.
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
1 – Yellow
(Jodie Whittaker)
Rather
beautiful.
Green Grow
the Rushes…
Oh! You’re
thinking REM; I’m thinking John Steed (Patrick Macnee) resisting mind control.
And tune control.
[See The Avengers – Too Many Christmas Trees. And you should.]
There are
some here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time.
1 – Golden
Brown (The Stranglers)
Gorgeous.
Always planned for the penultimate day, alongside eerie
Blue Veils
and Golden Sands (Delia Derbyshire)
Yet suddenly
mournful.
[This was May 6th, getting the schedule slightly wrong so one day late for Delia Derbyshire, but coincidentally also having just seen the news that Stranglers keyboard player Dave Greenfield had passed away]
There are
several here I don’t want to face, but I cope (when I do) one day at a time…
When I first saw the challenges on this list, I thought:
‘Oh no; this one, this, and that would just be too disheartening to go into – I can’t do it.’
And I wouldn’t have, but immediately the old eye-roller ‘Deal with problems one day at a time!’ popped into my head…
Which is how I realised:
‘Oh, I couldn’t. Could I? That would be a terrible, awful gag, and I’d have to keep it going long, long after it stopped being funny.
‘I could!’
And so I’ve been re-setting to day one at a time every day for twenty-nine days.
One more. Just one.
Or is it?
1 – 99 Red
Balloons / 99 Luftballons (Nena)
At last, a
number – could this be Day 2?
…No.
30 days on,
it’s the end of the run and end of the world.
And one last
colour, after all.
I hope you’ve
enjoyed the songs in your ears and colours in your eyes! I did.
Labels: Fragments, Memes, Music
Wednesday, April 14, 2021
I Hope Mine Doesn’t Taste of Engine Grease – A TARDIS Vignette
“What’s
through that door, Doctor?”
Full
of the cheery confidence of showing a new companion around his Ship for the
first time, the Doctor looked across the hallway to where she was pointing. A
large pair of double doors stood off to one side, the once-welcoming wide
circular windows strangely fogged by what looked like old steam. They gave the
appearance of something once grand that had long been forgotten: very slightly
faded; very slightly askew; an incredibly faint smell of something
tantalisingly tempting hanging in the air, almost completely lost in a slightly
less faint miasma of old steam. And for the Doctor alone, who knew that the
TARDIS could have flicked away all of these traces like new in an instant, the
tiniest sense drifting directly across his mind of something very like
gimlet-eyed resentment.
“Oh
– ah – nothing very interesting,” he said evasively. “For a short while it was
the – ah – TARDIS Refectory.”
He
winced as his new friend’s nose pricked up and she expressed a sudden desire
for some food, their having been striding the corridors for so long. He
suspected the Old Girl of having wafted the subtlest hints of mouth-watering
flavours and fleeting images of favourite treats through her brain at the same
time she’d been leaning on his with that distant pall.
“There’s
a food machine, you see, close to the console room,” the Doctor continued,
starting to walk off again. “It’ll make anything you like – just enter the
numbers, ah, hope I’ve kept it filled, and a, a thing like a Mars Bar comes
out, covered in white icing, that should, ah, taste of anything you fancy…” He
lost his trail, metaphorically and literally, realising that he wasn’t doing
the best job of selling a machine that goes ‘ping’ to a companion with her nose
against the fascination of a steamy window that was right in front of her.
“Can’t
we just take a look inside, as we’re here?” she asked, one hand already at a
handle, the door opening at that merest touch with treacherous eagerness.
He
cast a petulant glance somewhere in the direction of the ceiling and followed
her in.
The
Refectory was a long, wide room with two long, slim tables running down the
middle of it. The tables looked stylish and striking from the doorway, but up
close could have done with a polish. The chairs, too, looked elegant in concept
but slightly down at heel, each just slightly out of line with the next along.
And though the wide walls should have encouraged a sense of space and cheer for
the diner, there was instead a nagging sense of oppression, perhaps because the
high ceiling was lost in old steam that somehow contrived to writhe above the
Doctor’s head and condense into the occasional droplet that would slip down the
back of his neck when he wasn’t looking.
She
rushed forward into the room and right along between the twin tables, setting
the odd chair a touch straighter as it got in the way, then paused, puzzled, at
the far end. “There aren’t any other doors,” she called to the Doctor. “Where
are the kitchens?”
The
Doctor closed his eyes. A malicious drip bounced off the end of his nose. He
resigned himself and walked reluctantly forward to meet her half-way. They took
chairs on the left-hand table, pulling them out to complementary angles so he
could sit and talk with his hands.
“Well,
this is the TARDIS,” he told her. “It’s the most wonderful Ship in the
Universe. It can go anywhere, do anything. It doesn’t need kitchens.” He glanced up for a moment. He didn’t think the
buttering up was going to work, but it was worth a try. No butter was
appearing, though. “You see, many years ago, I had to – well, we had to – well,
there was this disaster, and I was rather pressed into – well, into taking
rather a lot of people on board. It was the only way to save them all, and I
had been rather involved, and the food machine was overloaded, and the TARDIS
doesn’t look right with queues.” He sighed. “They weren’t here so very long, just as long as I took to
find their home, which really wasn’t very long at all in the scheme of things.”
He
remembered that self. Creative; inventive; a whiz with numbers. Able to hold
together an impossible string of block transfer computations each threaded
through a spaghetti tangle of open-access telepathic circuits purely in their
head. Still unable to steer the TARDIS for toffee. People spilling over the
Ship for weeks.
“So
he, ah, I, ah, we whistled up this place, serves up whatever you want to
perfection, takes it away afterwards, and all you need to do is picture it in
your mind and ask politely for a plate.” He tapped discreetly on the table.
“May I?”
A
small saucer appeared on the wrong side of his hand. He gritted his teeth. His
friend tittered.
“It’s
a little rusty now, I’m afraid. Even I couldn’t make it work immediately
without a bit of an overhaul.” And some care and attention and not taking your
Ship for granted, said a voice in his head, which may have been his.
“Oh,
but I’m sure you can manage something,” she said with a smile. “It is your Ship, and you did design this room, and there’s only
one of me now. Couldn’t you just whip up, I dunno, eggs and bacon, or
stir-fried noodles, or even a light salad?”
Maybe
they’re conspiring against me now, a wicked thought said in his mind, and it
was almost certainly his.
“It
worked like this,” he said, steeling himself. “You took your plate” – he moved
the saucer in front of him with a cursory nudge – “and held your hand beside
it.” He cupped his right hand loosely in the air. No pressure. “Then just think
of whatever you need.”
Salad,
he thought. It should be simple. Lettuce. Tomatoes. Honey and mustard. Nothing
like – don’t think it.
Nothing
happened. His friend looked at him, her head on one side. He smiled confidently
back. It was just possible that he looked like a maniac. The sullen ceiling
sent another vindictive drip down his back.
Celery.
Avocado. Ham. Chopped walnuts. Olive oil. Rocket. Cucumber. Pear! Not pear! Apple!
Cherries! No, no cherries, concentrate!
He
brought up his other hand, as if sheltering a tiny flame.
Back
to lettuce. Lettuce. Lettuce. Garlic in emulsion. Croutons. Not tellurium.
Don’t think of tellurium either. Tel – tol – tul – tuna! Tuna. Boiled eggs.
Unconsciously,
his hands began to move, short, chivvying strokes, as if as if rubbing two
imaginary pieces of wood together.
Focus.
Lettuce. Lettuce. Beans. Lettuce. Just a small salad, it’s not too much to ask.
He
could feel something slightly moist gathering between his fingers.
Then,
suddenly, it was there, in a neat swirl piled high onto the saucer, covering
his hands as he involuntarily flicked it in all directions.
His
companion started and wiped some of it out of her hair, looking at him without
enthusiasm.
Mashed
potato.
Every
time he’d tried to come in here for centuries. Nothing but mashed potato.
He
stood up, kicking the chair out of the way. He held out one soggy hand. She
didn’t take it.
“You’ve
not lived until you’ve had the food machine’s bacon and eggs. The ordinary sort
– all that – egg and bacon sort of shape. It’s such a distraction. You have to
try it in the proper bars.”
He
wiped one hand surreptitiously on his jacket and pushed the door. He sighed,
then pulled it open and held it. The old steam above him writhed in what he
could swear was smug satisfaction.
All
right, Old Girl, he thought. You’ve made your point. I know it’s another one.
You’ll always be more important to me than her. I’ll always show you more
attention. He crossed two potato-smeared fingers behind his back.
It
wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t have the distinct feeling that some showy
future incarnation was going to walk in one day and set a banquet with a snap
of his fingers.
I
write all the time, but almost never publish any more (for all sorts of
reasons I won’t go into again just now). But almost every day, notes, thoughts,
things that might be essays if that didn’t imply some sort of finality. Two exceptions.
What I haven’t done in a very long time is written any stories; this isn’t a
story, of course, just a vinaigrette, but I was surprised to find it at all
when looking around for the reverse exception – my Twitter. Most days I aim to
resist the rage and despair by Tweeting something that cheers me, and most days
that’s an anniversary of something On This Day. I’ve done many on each day in
previous years, so I read back through before changing one slightly, throwing
out another, deciding to make a one-liner into a thread that should secretly be
a blog post but if I publish in slivers I won’t notice, or spending three hours
freeze-framing just the right screenshot. On this day in 2014, there was just
one line: “I Hope Mine Doesn’t Taste of Engine Grease”. I know what it says,
but what does it mean?
I
looked, I found it, I thought, did I really write this just seven years ago? I thought it was decades since my last one, I put up a Twitter poll and ten out of eleven people wanted
to read it, so here it is before I have time to stop myself.
After
all, I didn’t want it hanging over me.
Labels: Doctor Who, Fiction
