By Alaricmc
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A List From The Soft Lad – Don’t Swerve On It
Dolce far niente – the sweetness of doing nothing – is encapsulated by Going Down To Liverpool. The free, fresh optimism of the song (despite clearly being an attack on Thatcherism) creates a fascinating dichotomy. The Bangles version is excellent, but it’s Katrina And The Waves for me. The original seems to have more heart. Interestingly, the Bangles cover was briefly banned by the local radio station, presumably because it implied that Liverpool was a great place to live on the dole.
Next up, Roll Alabama Roll by Bellowhead. For those unfamiliar, Bellowhead were an 11-piece folk supergroup (John Spiers, Jon Boden, Benji Kirkpatrick and Rachael McShane, to name but four). They performed at the Proms, don’tcha know. Roll Alabama Roll is one of their best. The song chronicles the history of the CSS Alabama, a Confederate States Navy sloop-of-war built on Merseyside by John Laird and sent to the bottom of the briny during the Battle of Cherbourg (1864).
In similar style and tempo, Whip Jamboree is a coming home shanty about a ship heading for Waterloo Dock, and this version (performed by the Storm Weather Shanty Choir) is the best of many. There’s an argument about a particular line – ‘Jenny, get your oat cakes done’ – which has been modernised to ‘Come and get your oats, my son.’ – a phrase of similar meaning (probably), but a bit charmless. Folk songs do evolve – it’s part of their magic – but in this case I’m in the ‘oat cakes column.
I’d never heard the original version of Does This Train Stop On Merseyside? (by Amsterdam). I have now, and it’s wonderful – and ToffeeBoy’s staunch promotion of was something to behold). But I’m going for the Christy Moore version – perhaps because of familiarity, or perhaps because of the withering contempt in the voice during the Hillsborough section. Christy inhabits the song, a favourite for John Peel (it often left him in floods of tears). It’s a reflection on the city’s history (bad and good). Famine ships, the slave trade, Irish emigration, the awful murder of Jamie Bulger, and, as already mentioned, Hillsborough, where people died while ‘Yorkshire policemen chat with folded arms’.
Capaldi’s Café is a famous establishment originally on Wavertree Road, and one I have often frequented. Background – the Capaldis came to Liverpool in the 1920s and started out selling ice cream from carts. Who’d have thought one of them would go on to play Malcolm Tucker and Doctor Who? (Previous sentence may not be entirely true). Anyhoo, it’s a top-quality zinger. ‘Side note – Possibly a false memory, because it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing they’d do, but I swear I saw Deaf School at a local pub called the Boundary (now gone, sadly, the way of most local pubs). It had a justified reputation for quality live music, but still… Anyway, whether I did or I didn’t, they captivated me. These guys laid the ground for Teardrop Explodes and Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
Deaf School back in the day
Streets Of Kenny by Shack (Kenny is Kensington) follows a man returning to the area in which he grew up looking for people he knew – but they’re no longer around. Whether this ties in with the current problems in Kensington (a 2017 article in the Echo describes ‘a once bustling and pleasant place’ having deteriorated to the point where ‘violent crime, drug dealing and prostitution has become commonplace, with many scared to venture out of their homes’) isn’t clear, but it probably does. It’s a song that builds and strengthens, then soars.
Written by Jack Owen of Celtic Brace, Mist Over The Mersey is a beautiful lament for lost love – and who better to deliver it than one of the Spinners – Hughie Jones. I wasn’t aware until I did a bit of research that Hughie was the only born and bred Scouser in the band. Hughie has a clear, fresh-sounding voice – perfect for ballads like this one.
A Ferry Ride From Liverpool by Robb Johnson (way better than that Ferry Cross The Mersey malarkey) brilliantly duplicates both the rhythm and tone of classic Liverpool folk tunes like The Leaving Of Liverpool and In My Liverpool Home and tells a more modern story in the same emotional key.
The outrageously famous Johnny Keating And The Z Men bring to mind the golden age of British television drama with the Z Cars Theme. It’s Everton’s ‘coming out’ theme, of course. Based on the traditional folk song Johnny Todd (which was also nominated), the sudden blare of drums and fifes raises the spirits. Everton’s recent addition of klaxons is not a success.
Mike Hart was new to me, but I enjoyed Almost Liverpool 8 immensely. Segueing back to John Peel, he commented that it was the bitterest song he’d ever heard. And despite an intro that for some reason made me think of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, John, as he usually was, was spot on. It’s a stinging unrequited love song, in which Mike’s character, after a long-lasting platonic relationship, summons the courage to say those three little words, and the love of his life replies with three little words of her own. We have to guess, of course, but my money’s on ‘Clear off, creep.’
Liverpool Lullaby is a song forever associated with Priscilla White OBE (Cilla Black). It starts with a lovely arpeggio, boasting a full string arrangement. and was produced by George Martin, Originally a B-side, that perception changed quickly. Based on The Sandgate Dandling Song, written by Robert Nunn, a blind fiddler (blind fiddlers are always a good indicator of song quality), it features a rather more fearsome patriarch than the one in the lullaby, who’s only likely to belt you one. The Geordie fella rules the roost by carrying a sharp knife.
Also new to me was The Story Of The Blues Part One by The Mighty Wah. I prefer the stream of consciousness from Pete Wylie in Part 2, but that wasn’t nominated, and Part 1 deserves its place. John Peel is haunting this playlist, but it’s worth noting that this track was his single of the year. I do struggle with the Everton connection – the link between unemployment blues and Goodison Park blues seems tenuous in the extreme – but the guts of this underdog but oddly optimistic song aren’t affected by any of that.
I saw Adrian Henri a number of times (also his compatriot or competitor Roger McGough, who was less arty and much funnier). That said, I was much impressed by The Entry Of Christ Into Liverpool (credited to The Liverpool Scene, but with Ade doing the… er… speaking. If you read the lyrics (verses?) as well as listening to them, you’ll see the ‘modern’ poet experimenting.– running words together, inserting illogical spaces and staccatoing references (to Guinness, for example) – all adolescent stuff. But the piece is unique – eclectic – and worth an A-List call because of lines like the one pointing out the ‘hideous masked Breughel faces of old ladies in the crowd.’
That’s probably enough. But I’m told that if I want to I can add two or three more. And I most definitely want to. So – another two.
‘I was born in 1843, raised in Liverpool by the sea, but that ain't who I am. Lord have mercy on the frozen man.’ So sings James Taylor to start the engine on The Frozen Man. In essence this is a tale from The Outer Limits set to music. James saw an article in National Geographic (well, by his own admission he only looked at the pictures and read the captions). The real ‘man trapped in ice’ never returned to the land of the living, of course – but in this case, the truth would ruin the song.
The viciousness with which Billy Bragg delivers Rotting On Remand is stunning. You’ll remember that the then government used the nineteenth century Vagrancy Act to grant to the police stop, search and arrest powers (SUS). These powers were predominantly used against young black men, who’d be refused bail and placed on remand – a key factor in the lead-up to the riots in Bristol, Brixton and Toxteth. The song includes the immortal line: ‘This isn't a court of justice, son… this is a court of law’. It’s Billy at his most biting, flaying the legislators by peering through the eyes of a haunted, resentful man drained of hope.
Going Down To Liverpool – Katrina And The Waves (amylee)
Roll Alabama Roll - Bellowhead (Suzi)
Whip Jamboree – The Storm Weather Shanty Choir (GeorgeBoyland)
Does This Train Stop On Merseyside? – Christy Moore (Suzi)
Capaldi’s Café – Deaf School (severin)
Streets Of Kenny - Shack (PopOff!)
Mist Over The Mersey – Hughie Jones (Beltway Bandit)
A Ferry Ride From Liverpool – Robb Johnson (treefrogdemon)
Z Cars Theme – Johnny Keating And The Z-Men (Loud Atlas)
Almost Liverpool 8 – Mike Hart (severin)
Liverpool Lullaby – Cilla Black (Suzi)
The Story Of The Blues Part One – The Mighty Wah (Shoegazer)
The Entry Of Christ Into Liverpool – The Liverpool Scene (ShivSidecar)
The Frozen Man – James Taylor (Fred Erickson)
Rotting On Remand – Billy Bragg (OliveButler)
The Could’ve-Been-An-A-List B-List Playlist:
The Leaving Of Liverpool is arguably the city’s anthem. Lots of versions of this, but it has to be The Dubliners, mainly because of Luke Kelly’s magnificent voice. When you saw them live, you had to equip your theatre seat with a belt to make sure you weren’t vibrated out of it.
Got to have You’ll Never Walk Alone by Gerry And The Pacemakers, but the Landlord will have to decide who gets the accolade, Loud Atlas mentioned it, and at a later point Pop Off nominated it.
Penny Lane by the Beatles is obvious. (I don’t much like Strawberry Fields Forever). Less obvious perhaps is Maggie May, an end-track throw-off riff on the folk song.
HIstoric docks
In Swallow The Anchor, another belter from the Liverpool Fishermen, a sailor decides that a life on the ocean wave is no longer his intention and retires, keeping his departure to himself. He remembers old friends who either died or made the same choice. A melancholy but somehow rousing piece.
Discovery of the week for me was Let's Dance To Joy Division by the Wombats. The track commemorates an evening when singer Matthew Murphy and his girlfriend danced on a table at Le Bateau to the strains of Love Will Tear Us Apart. It’s the cure for a broken heart, the Wombats claim.
The Boo Radleys are also looking back on great times with New Brighton Promenade. The song is set in 1983, when (to my recollection) New Brighton was a bit dilapidated, but the Boos clearly found plenty to do, and tell us about that in gorgeous lilting tones.
‘Everybody's trying to recapture something that was never meant to last,’ Jim McNabb said in an interview, recognising that much of his work is retro. Merseybeast is an example of that, but it’s also pleasingly upbeat, despite lines like ‘He ran away to kill the pain - such a shame, he didn't see a train.’
PJ Harvey muses about life and love on Merseyside in Liverpool Tide and in the course of that contradicts the Pacemakers. ‘We walk alone against the sky,’ she sings. Never say never. I won’t say this is typical Polly, because there’s no such thing. But it is classic Polly
You won’t need me to tell you (because this is Half Man Half Biscuit) that A Lilac Harry Quinn is quite barmy. From a Reverend Jim Jones bedspread, via the Goodyear airship, we end up with an ode to bicycle components (thus justifying the title). An odd and inexplicable ride, but you’ll enjoy taking it.
More from Billy Bragg? Well, of course, in the shape the stunningly vituperative Never Buy The Sun. And more from Robb Johnson? Definitely. In When Saturday Came Robb focusses on the ‘gut feeling ‘of those watching the events at Hillsborough as they unfolded - ‘It burst the heart, that sea of red, and every lad was ours’.
And what better to lead us out of this folderol than Liverpool Judies by Maddy Prior And The Girls. Hand on heart, this has nothing at all to do with the ‘me and Maddy’ dance story that I posted a few weeks ago. Nothing at all. Absolutely nothing at all. Honest injun.
The Leaving Of Liverpool – The Dubliners (Suzi)
You’ll Never Walk Alone - Gerry & The Pacemakers (Loud Atlas/Pop Off!)
Penny Lane – The Beatles (Suzi)
Maggie May – The Beatles (Loud Atlas)
Liverpool Fishermen – Swallow The Anchor (Beltway Bandit)
Let's Dance To Joy Division – The Wombats (IsabelleForeshaw)
New Brighton Promenade – The Boo Radleys (UncleBen)
Merseybeast – Ian McNabb (ShivSidecar)
Liverpool Tide – PJ Harvey GeorgeBoyland)
A Lilac Harry Quinn – Half Man Half Biscuit (UncleBen)
Never Buy The Sun – Billy Bragg (UncleBen)
When Saturday Came – Robb Johnson (TatankaYokanta)
Liverpool Judies - Maddy Prior And The Girls (Suzi)
The Extremely Irrelevant And Self-Indulgent Guru’s Wildcard List:
Bob Dylan – Murder Most Foul (yes, really – Ferry Cross The Mersey gets gratuitous mention)
Billy Maher – Scouser Tommy (from Spion Kop to the Anfield Kop)
Jeggsy Dodd – Liverpool, So Good They Named It Once (John Peel’s favourite beat poet)
The Beatles – In My Life (a memoir of John Lennon’s bus rides)
John McCutcheon – Christmas In The Trenches (Tolliver comes from Liverpool)
Serge Gainsbourg – Qui Est In, Qui Est Out (for ‘les petits gars de Liverpool’)
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations from last week's topic: Boss! G’wed, it's songs about Liverpool and Merseyside. The next topic will launch on Thursday at 1pm UK time.
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