By DJ Bear
Hope is in the air everywhere I look around
Right out of the gate, I make no apologies the length of this on all fronts. I could not cut out so many choice licks and riffs, certainly not right now when I (and I imagine you) need a good musically puck-me-up to strut through this dirty business ‘gin on. I do a spring cleaning mix every year myself but having other voices giving input has made this the best mix yet. You are going to want to crank this, trust me.
Joseph Campbell said: “The world is a mess and it’s always been a mess.” And we as individuals have always been cleaning up that mess like the faithful school janitor. He knows the bathrooms will be a horror show again on Monday but hopefully by cleaning it today it sets an example for tomorrow.
So whether it is literal garbage or metal muck you are facing with a broom sword and dustpan shield in apron armour, if you are alive it means you are still cleaning away crap from the corners, still polishing off puke in the midst of pandemonium and that’s not nothing.
To put it in simple terms – you have hope.
Even if it is buried Grand Canyon deep under dirty dishes, filthy flannel, or teenage traumas... You have hope. So get out your trowel, root around and dig out that little nugget of hope and soap it off. Give that hope a place of honour and grow a garden of it to share.
Some of you, I can imagine, have a bounty of hope, an entire silo’s worth of seeds’ as it were. So just keep planting them and grow a hope forest.
And using that hope to get the physical, psychological, spiritual, and emotional houses in tip top make us better fit to help ourselves and by default help others.
Speaking of others, NONE of us do spring cleaning alone even if we are literally alone with a vacuum and Queen on the stereo. We all have friends, lovers, animal pals, and local communities that all give us the nourishment to get up and have a go at the grease in our lives. And since I often like to start my sets with a sort of welcoming musical incantation I can think of no better way to start this job than with John Prine’s Boundless Love, which speaks to how love is a very strong foundation for helping us get up, get down, or just get on through it.
Whether you do a top-to-bottom every-inch makeover or just get one bookshelf looking handsome. Whether you are on your first day, week or year, of recovery cleaning up your “act”. Here’s a toast to you for being here with your offering of hope. And here is some FABULOUS music to motivate, to amuse, to tell it like it is, and help you do some chores. And we have a lot of chores to do so let’s get to it.
Peace, Love, Happiness, Music, Dancing,
DJ Bear
PS: You can listen to the combined mix I assembled on the music player right below. Or listen to A and B lists and Guru Picks separately above each list. Enjoy!
All Clean A-list Playlist:
1. John Prine – Boundless Love (happyclapper)
2. Miranda Lambert – It Will All Come Out In The Wash (Ravi)
3. Elvis Presley – Clean Up Your Own Backyard (Nicko)
4. Dolly Parton – Washday Blues (severin)
5. Dr. John - Wash, Mama, Wash (IsabelleForshaw, Ravi)
6. Roche Sisters – Clothes Line Saga (BanazirGalbasi, severin, Seth Miller)
7. John Handy – Hard Work (9hairs9knots)
8. Snuff – Shake ‘n’ Vac (happyclapper)
9. Poison Girls – Jump Mama Jump (Carpgate)
10. Suzi Quatro – Suburban Superman (Shiv Sidecar)
11. John Lennon & Yoko Ono – Cleanup Time (magicman)
12. Paul Kelly and the Dots – Clean This House (Nicko)
13. John Cooper Clarke – The Day My Pad Went Mad (IsabelleForshaw)
14. XTC – Washaway (Shiv Sidecar)
15. Au Pairs – Diet (George Boyland)
16. Shonen Knife – Tortoise Brand Pot Cleaner (Tarquin Spodd)
17. The B-52’s – Housework (phillipphillip99, megadom, Nicko)
18. Robert Palmer – Housework (ajostu)
19. John McCutcheon – Spring Cleaning (BanazirGalbasi) (not available on YouTube)
20. The Skatalites – Yard Broom (Mogdog)
21. Prince Buster – Finger (IsabelleForshaw)
22. Fats Waller – Spring Cleaning (Nicko)
Busy As A B-List Playlist:
This set starts by sending us way back in time for some early 20th century sounds and sentiments regarding spring and cleaning and we start with Spike Jones & His City Slickers’ “Leave The Dishes In The Sink Ma” letting us know that, “All work and no play makes Jack (or in this case Jane) a dull boy”. And from there we run the gamut of clean-up tasks.
1. Spike Jones and his City Slickers – Leave The Dishes In The Sink Ma (ParaMhor)
2. Duke Ellington Orchestra & Ivie Anderson – Get A New Broom (And Sweep Away The Blues)
3. Sidney Lipton & his Grosvenor House Dance Orchestra – We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line (Traktor Albatrost)
4. George Formby – When I’m Cleaning Windows (Tarquin Spodd)
5. Adriana Caselotti – Whistle While You Work (Tubby Brewster)
6. Cock ‘n’ Bull – Trip To The Laundry (treefrogdemon)
7. The Corrs – No Go Baby (phillipphillip99)
8. Peggy Seeger – Housewife’s Alphabet (Nicko) (not on YouTube)
9. Maria Muldaur – I’m A Woman (TatankaYotanka)
10. Van Morrison – Cleaning Windows (Tarquin Spodd)
11. Jayme Kelly Curtis – Do The Dishes Too (BanazirGalbasi)
12. Bruce Springsteen – Jack Of All Trades (leaveitallbehind)
13. Bill Haley and his Comets – Shake Rattle and Roll (Tarquin Spodd)
14. The Coasters – Yakety Yak (BanazirGalbasi)
15. The Spaniels – House Cleaning (Nicko)
16. Sammy Jones – Sweeping Your Dirt Under The Rug (Nicko)
17. Tina & Ike Turner – Funkier Than A Mosquito’s Tweeter (ParaMhor, IsabelleForshaw)
18. Betty Wright – Clean-up Woman (9hairs9knots)
19. Laura Lee – Dirty Man (Nicko)
20. Albert Collins – Too Many Dirty Dishes (Ravi)
21. Wailing Souls – Old Broom (Nicko)
22. Tapper Zukie – Clean Up The Ghetto (Uncleben)
23. Philadelphia All Stars – Clean Up The Ghetto (magicman)
Guru Wildcard Picks:
Average White Band – Pick Up The Pieces
Yes, pick up the pieces of that broken vase or your broken life and keep on getting down in the trenches!!
Marcia Ball – Clean My House:
If Disney had written a Naw-lins stomper about getting out of bed and getting to work on your life I doubt it would’ve come close to this fired up mojo here.
Helen Boulding – Housework
It takes work and it ain’t easy but together all of us can clean up the house, our lives, and the world around us.
These playlists were inspired by readers' song nominations from last week's topic: Lockdown relief: songs about spring cleaning and household chores. The next topic will launch on Thursday at 1pm UK time.
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