Title Image by Diffuser.fm

Have you ever been to a Karaoke Bar and looked quizzically at the words?

There are a few classic lyrics which have become “the official lyrics”.

One of my favourites from the 80s: ‘Prince Chow Mien’ – by Adam and The Ants:

In the meantime, get inspired by British comedian, Peter Kay: Michael Jackson’s burgers vs Celine Dion’s hotdogs and KD Lang’s arseholes …

Title Image: CBS/Epic

Nearly everyone loves music.

Thankfully, we are all different … and if you are like me, your music comes from all over the place.

Classical to Punk is my range.

But in that eclectic range are some lyrics which stay with you somehow. Here are some of my favourites.

What are yours?

My Number One:

“If Adolf Hitler flew in today, they’d send a Limousine, anyway.”

White Man in Hammersmith Palais, The Clash

Image: Columbia Records

“The Words of the Prophets are written on the Subway walls.”
The Sounds Of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel

“There’s no point in asking, you’ll get no reply”
Pretty Vacant, The Sex Pistols

“He took my childhood in his stride, but he was gone when autumn came.”
I Dreamed a Dream, Les Misérables.

“…the microphone smells like a beer …”
Piano Man, Billy Joel

Image: Columbia Records

“I was bruised and battered, I couldn’t tell what I felt. I was unrecognisable to myself”
Streets of Philadelphia, Bruce Springsteen

“It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late”
Ironic, Alanis Morissette

“If you leave me, can I come too?”
Mental as Anything

“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair. Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air”
Hotel California, The Eagles

“Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue. I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome. I took some comfort there”
The Boxer, Simon and Garfunkel

Image: Sydney Morning Herald

“I sold my soul with my cigarettes to the black market man”
Khe Sahn, Cold Chisel

“Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon”
Only 19, Redgum

“And then you took the words right out of my mouth. Oh it must have been while you were kissing me.”
You took the words out of my mouth, Meat Loaf

“I am … I said. To no one there. And no one heard at all not even the chair.”
I am … I said, Neil Diamond

“I sit and talk to God; And he just laughs at my plans.”
Feel, Robbie Williams

Image: Discogs

“It’s been seven hours and fifteen days; Since you took your love away.”
Nothing Compare to You, Sinead O’Connor

“All for freedom and for pleasure; Nothing ever lasts forever”
Everybody Wants to Rule The World, Tears for Fears

“When they kick at your front door; How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head; Or on the trigger of your gun?”
Guns of Brixton, The Clash

“They smelt of Pubs and Wormwood Scrubs and too many right wing meetings”
Down in the Tube Station at Midnight, The Jam

Image: Polydor/MCA

“My heart is like a broken cup; I only feel right on my knees
I spill out like a sewer hole; Yet still receive your kiss”
Who are You, The Who

I look forward to reading your favourites.

Chuck Berry, born in 1926, set out to emulate his great heroes, Nat King Cole and Muddy Waters. By the time he was done he had had an even greater effect on acts such as The Beatles, The Jacksons and The Rolling Stones.

Image: Wikipedia

His repertoire includes ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Rock’n’Roll Music’ and his iconic ‘Johnny B Goode’. He also sang a hysterical song … ‘My Ding-a-Ling’. Enjoy the song below.

Tributes to the great man were quick to start pouring in:

The Jacksons: “Chuck Berry merged blues & swing into the phenomenon of early rock ‘n’ roll. In music, he cast one of the longest shadows. Thank You Chuck.”

Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr: “Just let me hear some of that rock ‘n’ roll music any old way you use it. I am playing I’m talking about you. God bless Chuck Berry Chuck.”

Singer-songwriter Huey Lewis: “Chuck Berry. Maybe the most important figure in all of rock and roll. His music and his influence will last forever.”

Epic Records chairman LA Reid: “Music was changed forever by Chuck Berry’s indescribable impact. What a great life in music.”

Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash: “Heartbroken to hear of the passing of Chuck Berry. He was undisputedly the king. A moment of silence is definitely in order. RIP.”

Randy Jackson: “To the greatest rock and roll pioneer of all time RIP chuck berry. we all thank u.”

I am a bit of a music nut – music is a constant companion which entertains, excites, reminisces, inspires and so forth – most people have a quasi relationship with their music.

Youtube famously did not contain a single Prince song until his untimely passing. Prince Image Credit: Photo by Richard E. Aaron/Redfern

The reason was that the distributable proceeds were all soaked up by underserving intermediaries. The copy/paste brigade earned more than the performers.

Deezer, Spotify, Soundcloud, 123Music, Mixcloud, Youtube etc all give me access to music for absolutely nothing. My Adblocker ensures I am commercial free.

George Michael refused to record after Sony attempted to reduce his cut to a level which he found untenable. Image: NewsIn.Asia

U2 ‘gave away’ their last album on iTunes (there was a financial deal!) Image Credit: Apple

Blockchain technology can deliver a song through a ‘smart’ contract between artist and customer. It is envisaged that the artist could receive up to 95% of all revenues.

Piracy still hangs there as a threat with so many recording and distribution formats. One solution mooted is that a blockchain song can only be played on a .bc site with proof of purchase.

It cannot be too tough to record a live data file can it? Social Media platforms are seeking to circumvent this practice via alternative market mechanics.

BitTunes is seeking to reward consumers through a sort of ‘curation’ model.

PeerTracks is attempting to commercialise the fan base of an artist; there is also the idea of producing ‘Notes’ – like a cryptocurrency which is linked to an artist and gains value along with record sales and artist’s profile.

UjoMusic beta-tested their platform last year with “Tiny Human,” a song by award winning British singer and songwriter Imogen Heap, and it plans to go mainstream in early 2017.

Heap, herself a technologist, is pioneering her own blockchain-based offering, Mycelia, a fair-trade music business that gives artists more control over how their songs and associated data circulate among fans and other musicians.

One of the major hurdles which any Blockchain technology will have to address is price. We are too spoiled by free access. Why change?

Who is the techy in Github developing the music platform?

Still, much as I enjoy the access I am afforded by music sites, the current thinking that music is free is an attitude which must be wrong.

‘Money for nothing and chicks for free’, Dire Straits. Image Credit: YouTube

Punk – what the hell was that?

In October 1976, a radical new sound arrived: “Anarchy in the UK” – we were being incited to wave two fingers at the system by four blokes screaming at us.

“I know what I want and I know where to get it!” They were Punks. They were the Sex Pistols.

[Music links below, for anyone interested!]

They wore torn clothes, held together by safety pins, their faces were pinned and pierced too. Doctor Marten’s boots were mandatory; strange bum cloths which attached to the jeans belt loops and dangling braces. They looked menacing.

Funny thing is, I never met a bad Punk.

1977, The Queen’s Silver Jubilee, her celebration of 25 years as monarch; she was greeted by: “God Save The Queen” – “The Fascist Regime, She ain’t no human being, They made you a Moron, God Save the Queen, We mean it man!”

Happy Jubilee Ma’am!

From left: Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood (now Dame Westwood, Johnny Rotten, Nancy Spungeon, Sid Vicious

The 1970s was a decade of huge upheaval in the UK. The three-day week, the miners’ strike, the winter of discontent, piles of rubbish on the pavement. It was a mess.

People were angry and felt disenfranchised by the Government. No jobs, rampant inflation and a dying manufacturing sector. Add to that a very active IRA and the mixture was highly charged.

Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood; Debbie Harry, lead singer of Blondie on the right

So began ‘Punk’.

Punk was not music; the music was an expression of Punk, along with the clothes, the hair, the piercings and the snarls. Punk was a movement of people who felt downtrodden and wanted to express themselves.

Punk, itself, was a time and a place – 1976-1978, England; it was an expression of anger, rebellion and defiance.

The establishment mocked in derision. Punk sneered back, unintimidated.

[On the left is Meat Loaf as Eddie in the film version of The Rocky Horror Show, 1975]

Was it all about the Sex Pistols?

The ‘Pistols’ epitomised so much of what Punk was – but it was better orchestrated than one might think. Malcolm McLaren, the band’s manager saw an opportunity and exploited the anarchic sentiment which was inflaming much of the youth of England. Vivienne Westwood, with whom McLaren lived from the late sixties to early eighties, was the teacher who became the designer and created the “look”.

McLaren had a clothes shop called ‘Sex’ on the Kings Road, Chelsea, London. This was Punk Central. A major influence behind the clothes was The Rocky Horror Show, a rock musical playing a few hundred yards down Kings Road.

Torn t-shirts and jeans, studded leather, bum bags, piercings (often safety pins), chains and outrageous hair were all incorporated into the Punk expression by Westwood who added the tartan.

[Joe Corré, son of McLaren and Westwood founded the international lingerie company, Agent Provocateur. He burned all his Punk memorabilia in November 2016 – it was supposed to be worth about £5million or $8.5million! Punk does not do nostalgia, he said!]

The Sex Pistols was only ever going to be short-lived. Sid Vicious (bass guitarist) and his girlfriend / manager, Nancy Spungeon, were both soon dead.

Vicious was accused of Nancy’s murder in New York late in 1978; he died of a heroin overdose almost the day he emerged from rehab in February 1979.

Johnny Rotten, the lead singer and front man, had had enough of Sid Vicious long before and ended up reinventing the Sex Pistols as Public Image Limited (PiL). It was a pale imitation and the novelty waned.

The oldest punk sound I have heard is Los Saicos out of Lima, Peru in 1965.

This was not Punk, though. Sure, there was and is Punk Music.

Some of the music that resulted was and is fantastic.

Many bands migrated from Punk into “New Wave” and “Post Punk”: The Clash, The Stranglers, Generation X, Souxsie and The Banshees, Ian Dury and the Blockheads to name a few.

Bands such as The Jam, The Police, The Boomtown Rats, Blondie were grabbing the album and ticket sales.

Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979 and the country soon became obsessed with rising house prices and Dallas (soap opera).

The leafy suburbs of England succumbed to Glam Rock, Disco, Mainstream Rock and Abba.

Blink 182, Green Day and their like have kept the music alive but …

For that brief period of time there was something angry and expressive which shoved authority straight back where it came from. The expression through the music, the fashion, the attitude imparted a sense of separation from imposed diktats handed down from apparent tyranny. Government cannot be trusted. As The Clash lyrics go:

“If Adolf Hitler flew in today, they’d send a limousine anyway”

Punk is Dead; Long Live Punk Music.

Some tracks for your musical edification (YouTube links):