Lucky 13

What’s wrong with playing ‘Louie Louie’? Nothing, what a stupid question, why even mention it? Good point. Well… sit upon my knee my son and I will begin. I’m currently demolishing in quick fire style Mike Barnes’ lovely page turning Bio of Captain Beefheart; and even though I truly love some of the Captains music (especially ‘Safe as Milk’) some of it just seems too much damn work to actually sit down and listen to. I ‘appreciate’ as much as the next Red Bull fuelled music fan but sometimes I just think music should soothe, excite, pep up and put a spring in your step rather than beat you into a confused pulp and ‘educate’ to a point where you don’t even know whether you like it or not. You think you should like it, all the magazines say you should, and it seems to be the commonly accepted position after all they’ve been correct and on the money about the other 9 best albums so why is it that this one isn’t doing it for you, your heart is staying un-fluttered and un-impressed by the ‘angular guitar’. The same can be said for Frank Zappa, for every truly great piece of work that he created there are 5 that cause a head scratching and a eyebrow raising "well that was 5 minutes of my life I’m never gonna get back" attitude to. Should music be that hard to listen to? Yoko Ono…oh NO...OH NO! Indeed. It’s ‘challenging’ and ‘outside the box’ and all the other buzz expressions to politely say annoying. Scott Walker went that way as well, from the beautiful Burt Bacharach and Jacques Brel arrangements of his earlier work he now routinely punches slabs of meat and bangs bricks together to ‘push the envelope’… spare us.

Here are a bunch of songs that will always work for me, always cheer me up and always recharge my battered psyche. Lucky 13

‘Let it Rock’ – Chuck Berry
‘Then He Kissed Me’ – The Crystals
‘Saved’ – Lavern Baker
‘I Saw the Light’ – Todd Rundgren
‘Wrap it Up’ – Sam & Dave
‘I Want You’ – Bob Dylan
‘The Rat’ – The Walkmen
‘Foxy Lady’ – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
‘Louie, Louie’ – The Kingsmen
‘Saturday Sun’ – Nick Drake
‘Tainted Love’ – Gloria Jones
‘Beast of Burden’ – The Rolling Stones
‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ – The Smiths