THE 31-DAY SONG CHALLENGE – PART II of III
By Shane Pinnegar
I’ve noticed a few friends doing a 28- or 30- or 31-Day Song challenge, so I decided to rise to the challenge.
I’m rubbish at remembering to do such things every day, so here the second (of three) block of ten(ish) awesome brain farts of musical brio and braggadocio, now with added commentary bonus features…
11: A song you never get tired of: Prime Mover by Zodiac Mindwarp & the Love Reaction. Fun fact: The video clip was directed by Adrian Edmondson of The Young Ones and Bottom. Another Fun fact: not only was this song played at our wedding, but the song title featured in my wedding vows!
12: A song from your pre-teen years: When I was around eleven I discovered my then-uncle’s record collection, and such treasures as I had never known… Budgie, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple In Rock, Black Sabbath’s first two albums and Led Zeppelin II. Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman) still blows my mind to this day, with that solid rhythmic groove, slinky serpentine guitar riff, and histrionic vocals. Pure class.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mytfk3FFa_o
13: A song you like from the 70’s: Dancing Queen by ABBA. I’ve mentioned before how ABBA was my first big concert, aged 11, and I firmly recall dancing in the aisle way up in the gods to this song. Well, I say ‘dancing’ but it was more ‘jerking awkwardly like a rhythmless white kid attached to a car battery by his chicken tenders.’ I still remember the day vividly.
14. A song you’d like played at your wedding: Many songs were played at our wedding, and I have no intention for another wedding, ever, so I can’t answer this question strictly as written. I can mention one of the many songs played on our big day (in addition to the aforementioned Prime Mover) – one that remains extremely special to us. In fact, we call it ‘our wedding song.’ Imelda May’s Inside Out, which Lady Boomboom walked down the aisle to (if you can call it an ‘aisle’ because we were married on a beach!).
15: A song you like that’s a cover by another artist: There are thousands of superb covers out there, so it is hard to name the best – that’s a rabbit hole you can disappear down for days at a time. But having this exact (though unrelated) discussion recently with Gav, I will say that the live tribute to George Harrison of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, featuring Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Prince, Marc Mann, Dhani Harrison and more is stunning and hard to beat. Fun Fact: At the end of the song Prince plays a mind blowing solo, then throws his guitar skywards and it never comes back down to earth. This story shows that even drummer Steve Ferrone has no idea what happened to it! https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/tom-petty-and-others-tell-the-story-behind-princes-while-my-guitar-gently-weeps-solo
16: A song that’s a classic favourite: I’m stuck on this question and very torn – Pink Floyd, The Damned, Sex Pistols, ZZ Top, Guns n’ Roses, Motorhead, The Clash, The Beatles, Metallica, The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, Black Sabbath – my list of favourites could go on and on and on… there is literally too many to choose from and I’ve changed my mind thirty-seven times already in the past five minutes. Let’s go with Rose Tattoo for sheer visceral rawness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUAB0epkMXs
17: A song you’d sing a duet with someone at karaoke: Shane don’t karaoke. Unless you really like the sound of two cats howling whilst doin’ the do, you can thank me for that. But I WILL have a fast and loose run at Ballroom Blitz (by Sweet, but in the style of the cover version by The Damned and Lemmy from Motorhead [aka Motordamn] on the B-side of the I Just Can’t Be Happy Today single) if you’ve bought me enough top shelf tequila.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y04jar8SJog
18: A song from the year you were born: For my 40th birthday I made a five CD compilation of all the finest songs from 1966. I called it The Slinky Sexy Sounds Of Sixty Six. So there are MANY CLASSIC BRILLIANT EPIC AMAZING songs to choose from – ’66 was where it was at, man. Song 1 Disc 1 is These Boots Are Made For Walking by Nancy Sinatra, and that is as good a choice as any of them!
19: A song that makes you think about life: Life is a grind, man. No-one knows that better than You Am I’s Tim Rogers, and Heavy Heart never fails to make me feel introspective and melancholy, but warm inside and understood at the same time. It’s a beautiful song and it means so much to me personally. It’s the kind of connection that makes you feel like the songwriter knew exactly how you were feeling when he wrote it for you. Listening to it again today it brings another set of tears to my eyes and feels somehow even more appropriate in these isodays (thus again fulfilling the “makes you think about life” criteria).
20. A song that has many meanings to you: Tutti Frutti – Little Richard. Suffice to say that the legendary Richard – a closeted gay, heavily made up, black preacher from the institutionalised racist deep south – was probably not singing about ice cream.
PART I is here
PART III is here!
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