POPTASTIC!

The Gazette Miliband Fan Club rolls on with another startling snippet of political philosophy. Asked by MTV to name his favourite environmentally friendly songs, he only managed to come up with two: “Dancing In The Streets” by Martha and the Vandellas, and “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell. Well, that’s global warming solved then!

The matter of Miliband and songs got me thinking, and in true Jimmy Saville fashion, here’s my “Miliband Top Five”;

1. “The Great Pretender” by Freddie Mercury

2. “Jilted John (Gordon is a Moron)” by Jilted John

3. “Same Old Story” by Ultravox

4. “Things Can Only Get Better” by D:Ream

And finally

5. “The Wanderer” by Dion.

OK, I know some of the links are a bit strenuous and far fetched, but it’s not too bad for a Monday! If there any avid fans of the “Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and Albums” out there, answers on a post card for a Tony Blair/Gordon Brown top five! Put it this way, can you guess which one of the dynamic duo would have Will Young’s “Leave Right Now” as his Desert Island Disc?

Staying on the theme of music, I see my childhood heroes “The Jam”, well(er) at least two of them, are pencilled in to play Newcastle’s Carling Academy this winter. For me Weller and Co were the roots of not only some brilliant and passionate music, but also my political awakening. Without “Eton Rifles”, “Going Underground” and the Motown homage that is “A Town Called Malice”, there would have been no “Ragged Trousered Philanthropist”, “1984” or “Catch 22”. Time has weathered these views and I do have worries about such obvious commercial revisionism. I have never been in favour of bands degenerating into the same league as dinosaurs on zimmer frames, and in hindsight I can understand why Weller cut the chord of The Jam when they were at their peak. They were “a time, in a place, at a moment” and I don’t think it can ever be re-created. Such is nostalgia and the drip-drip effect of eBay however, that I have dug out my old 45’s and given an airing to some long lost classics. The opening verse of “Eton Rifles” reminds me of those precious days as an impulsive youth, when the clothes did matter and the way your dad danced at weddings was a national disgrace. However, sitting here now with a cup of lapsang suchon and a Garibaldi, things seem a little more sedate, and perhaps that opening verse should be changed from;

“Sup up your beer and collect your fags -
There's a row going on down near Slough.
Get out your mat and pray to the West.
I'll get out mine and pray for myself.”

To:

“Sip on your Pimms and swallow your Viagra
There’s a sale going on at Ikea
Put on the kettle and make some fair-trade tea
“Countdowns” on followed by Richard and Judy”

Yes I know, it has no structure, it doesn’t flow, and frankly its pants, but I’m sure you get the point! Things change and people move on to a degree where the past is sometimes better left where it is.

But good luck to “From The Jam”, but just be careful that when your tempted to scissor kick or pogo, that your dentures don’t fly out!