January 1st, 1967: The Doors race out of the starting blocks with Break On Through (To The Other Side) - a lean two-and-a-half-minute manifesto that tells you everything that you need to know about the mindset of the group; where they are in that moment and where they are going.

Four and a half years later Riders On The Storm - the last song on the band’s final studio album as a quartet – ends with Ray Manzarek’s jazzy piano chords deconstructing in a random scatter of sparkling minor keys, before dissolving altogether into the distant rumble of thunder and the soft patter of rain.

To family, friends and fans, the death of Doors’s frontman - Jim Morrison – was both tragic and unexpected. Regarded purely from the perspective of creating an enduring artistic legacy the self-styled Lizard King's early bath was remarkably timely. Seldom have a pair of songs bookended a body of work so perfectly.

The final song by a band or a singer can add poignancy to a career, summing-up what has gone before; maybe even going so far as to present previously overlooked past efforts in a new light.

David Bowie has kept a relatively low profile since the release of Reality in 2003. Should this album be the Dame’s last broadcast to the world, then its low-key coda - Bring Me the Disco King - will be a suitably enigmatic signing-off. Haunted, obtuse and downbeat, it lingers for almost eight minutes, never achieving sufficient momentum to lift itself out of the doldrums.

“Don't let me know when you're opening the door, stab me in the dark, let me disappear,” he croons, like a weary jazz singer at the close of a long set, hinting that whatever transformation he undergoes next will take place away from the spotlight.

Steely Dan’s provisional swansong - Everything Must Go - casts the band as a top-heavy corporation fallen on hard times and mired in the anachronisms of the Mad Men era, resolving to end it all “in pool of margaritas”. Even at the peak of their success Donald Fagen and Walter Becker cultivated a dual persona that was behind the times and out of step with the world. If this song stands as their joint retirement speech then it’s a good note to go out on.

Some bands reach a creative cul-de-sac from which the only options are either a slow fade or a complete reinvention. Talk Talk spent the latter half of their career meticulously dismantling the radio-friendly gloss of their early hits, cutting away any extraneous production and instrumentation in favour of a painstakingly assembled minimalism. Runeii - their cryptic farewell - ventures into soundtrack territory - guitar-based ambiance, some murmuring piano and the barely present moan of vocalist Mark Hollis. The only way forward from here was to get quieter. Something that Hollis attempted on his eponymous solo album – a collection of songs so ephemeral and understated that they hardly seem to exist at all.

It’s easier to plan for the end when you have an inkling that it might be coming: What Became of the Likely Lads was The Libertines’ premature bid at mythologizing a song-writing partnership that hadn’t really achieved enough to merit legendary status.

More successful was Nirvana’s All Apologies where Kurt Cobain sounds like a man reciting his own eulogy.

Fellow grunge luminary, Steven Jesse Bernstein, recorded the poems that were to feature on the album - Prison - a few months before his suicide:

“Doesn’t it hurt looking down the sidewalk at night? If that mountain falls on me it’s going to fall on you too.” he rants in No No Man (part 2). You can hear the resentment in his voice - a beaten man with nothing left to lose taking a parting swing at the world.

Freddie Mercury maintained a flamboyant stage persona to the end – his curtain call The Show Must Go On one final rage against the dying light. The vocal was recorded by the critically ill singer in a solitary take, following a slug of vodka and a defiant “I’ll fucking do it Darling.” It went on to become the final track on the Queen album Innuendo and the last single to be released by the group before Mercury’s death.

Not all endings are quite so choreographed or as poetic. The Grateful Dead spent three decades traversing North America, exploring the continent’s rich tapestry of musical styles, their own chemically altered headspace, the sonic possibilities of the studio, and their itinerant fan’s tolerance for lengthy onstage jams. It’s unfortunate that the group’s final studio album should end on such a cloying, unadventurous note - a saccharine lullaby titled I Will Take You Home with lyrics that would make a Care Bear vomit and Barney the Dinosaur jam pencils into his ears. While there is something pleasingly cyclical about a band who had covered so much ground finishing-up back at home, singing one of their children to sleep, none of this can negate the sheer awfulness of the song. A psychedelic blowout incorporating elements of Shady Grove and John Hardy would surely have been a more appropriate conclusion.

Many artists die leaving their final works unfinished, and dependant on their executors’ good judgement to bring their careers to a dignified end. Tupac Shakur’s last words have been eked-out over a series of posthumously released albums – a prolonged Shakespearean death scene that will continue this year with the appropriately titled: Shakurspeare.

Also enjoying a posthumous career is Johnny Cash whose new LP - Ain’t No Grave is billed as the Man in Black’s final studio album. He bows out, not as you might expect, on the back of some dusty trial song, or with a note of world-weary biblical repentance. Instead the album closes with him drifting away to the plodding Hawaiian strains of Aloha Oe. It’s like watching an old Western movie where rather than riding off into the sunset at the end, the grizzled gunfighter retires to a tropical island and enjoys a bronzed, equatorial dotage, watching the sun rise and set time after time, against a languid backdrop of pineapple plantations and swaying palm trees.

Tonight’s show at The Royal Festival Hall, in London, is a characteristically athletic Henry Rollins spoken-word performance. For almost three hours, he talks at an animated pace on a broad range of subjects, doesn’t break a sweat and forgoes any kind of liquid refreshment. He keeps his left arm locked at a severe angle, holding the mic up to his face, while his right arm enjoys a pseudo-autonomous existence from the rest of his body, accompanying his monologue with a series of expressive hand gestures that resemble the developmental stages of a new sign language. Occasionally to illustrate a point, he emits a raucous shriek – A sound not heard since giant prehistoric birds roamed the skies. The first time he does it, while imitating the angry screech of his personal assistant who he refers to as “The Demon,” the woman sitting next to me is caught off-guard and spits a mouthful of beer over the shoulders of the man sitting in front of her.

Henry’s early shows (documented on a series of great CDs released in the 1990s on the Quarterstick label) revealed a troubled man, willing himself into the role of stand-up performer, and getting better at it year on year. Tonight, his pronounced fear that he doesn’t have enough fingers to cut off and give to his audience in reparation for a bad show is dispelled by his ability as a storyteller and his drive to excel or die trying.

The pervasive anger that drove his initial spoken word performances has been replaced by an intense curiosity and motivated optimism. In 2009, Henry Rollins is an erudite globetrotter, like a punk Michael Palin, defending individual freedoms, while crusading against those who exploit these freedoms to spread misery and prejudice.

He tells a lot of stories tonight, all loosely tied together by the theme that the more you engage with different cultures the harder it is to hate:

He spends Thanksgiving with William Shatner’s family.

We hear about his role as white separatist gang leader, A.J. Weston, in the 2nd season of Sons of Anarchy, and the ensuing hate mail he received from 15 year old girls, all of it addressed to his on-screen character.

On the evening of the 2008 Presidential elections he watches Bad Brains singer, HR, take to the stage with a pair of suitcases, only for the troubled frontman to wander off at an arbitrary moment, having barely sung, through the crowd and out of the door, carrying his worldly possessions with him.

In Saudi Arabia, a terrifying, high-speed dash through rush hour traffic in a million dollar car, driven by the son of one of the world’s richest men, is followed by a tour of tastelessly furnished palaces connected by an enormous swimming pool that snakes between them.

In Bhopal, India, he creeps past armed guards and into the abandoned Union Carbide Plant – the site of one of the world’s most notorious industrial accidents. On the control console for Tank 610 where the accident originated, there is a sticker that reads: ‘Safety is everyone’s business.’

In the slums of Bangladesh he watches children eating from piles of freshly delivered garbage and witnesses the quaint cottage industry of clipping the needles from used hypodermics.

We learn the logistics of exporting a hard drive full of music to Iran, with the noble humanitarian goal of exposing as many people as possible to the music of The Ramones. During another cross-cultural exchange he is introduced to Sri Lankan Death Metal, while a teenage boy has his life changed forever by the force of nature that is Funhouse by The Stooges. Later he returns a stiff formal wave from the Burmese despot Than Shwe (who he encounters outside a hotel) with an extended middle finger.

Being a spectator at a Henry Rollins show is a strangely dual existence: The top half of your body is oriented towards the magnetic speaker on stage, while your bottom half, having been wedged in the same position for several hours, shifts uncomfortably in its seat. He acknowledges this in the final half hour, taking on the role of an imaginary audience member at his 2008 Hammersmith Apollo show: “He went on and on! He wouldn’t shut up!”

Since his last UK tour, Henry has been around the world. By the end of tonight’s performance it feels like we’ve all gone with him.

In all the far reaches of the British Empire, there can have been few careers more mercurial than that of Professor David Bowie. His rise from bare-knuckle pugilist (where he fought under the moniker Bromley Dave) to respectable man of science and intellect is a stirring tale for our age, and a timely reminder of those remarkable individuals who have been chief among its architects.

This young man’s extraordinary ascent, from what had been a base and brutal subsistence on the wharves of Greenwich, was subsidised by a series of boxing matches, arranged for the betterment of members of The Royal Society. Every Friday for two years the then teenage Bowie would climb bare-chested into a rope-bound arena measuring just 24 feet square. There he would pit his wits and strength against a succession of automata forged from raw chemical elements by the finest minds in all of England and her principalities; the end goal of these scientific pioneers: To create a Periodic Table in which the raw building blocks of the physical world were arranged not by atomic number, but in order of brute strength and guile.

During one such bout, a sharp left hook to the face, dealt by a golem composed entirely of Potassium Permanganate, resulted in a permanent violet discolouration in Bowie’s left eye. As disfiguring as this injury was to the young man, it allowed him to perceive the world in a lilac hue, paving the way for the numerous scientific discoveries that he would make thereafter.

It was before the fruits of one such breakthrough that the professor now stood. The Tin Machine was the culmination of a decade’s worth of research. At its heart was a patented Reeves Gabriels engine. Its surplus hydro-energy was contained as miniature lightning storms inside a pair of giant Sales Jars. A labyrinth of gleaming metal pipes that completely obscured the walls of the cellar wherein the device had been constructed, funnelled obliquely into the Quantum Field Chamber that occupied one corner of the room, and which contained an ornate full-length dress mirror, tilted upwards at a slight angle.

It was into the chamber that Dr Bowie, resplendent in floor-length, sequinned ball gown, now stepped, positioning himself with his back to the looking glass.

“I think that I am ready to proceed” he announced.

From across the room the Professor’s tousle-haired assistant - a man called Michael Ronson - performed a sequence of last minute safety checks. Satisfied that everything was in order he depressed the ignition button.

For a few moments a silence pregnant with anticipation filled the small cellar. Then the engine began to stir. Slowly but surely, a mechanical throb, building in pitch and intensity, spread clockwise around the room as, one by one, the Tin Machine’s components juddered into life.

Inside the dead-end street of the Quantum Field Chamber, Professor Bowie glanced at his pocket watch to find time running wild.

“515 the angels have gone,” he muttered. “I must prepare as best I can to gaze upon the strange.”

Swallowing hard, he turned towards the mirror, as if to face himself.

In that same moment the entire machine seemed to make a noise as if incredulous of the demands that had been placed upon its meagre resources and the scientific laws that it was being called upon to breach. There was (the two men later agreed) a prolonged grinding noise; the rending sound of metal sheering from metal; a loud “POP!” as one of the Sales Jars shattered, followed by a shrill whistle as an adjacent boiler blew a gasket in sympathy, sending a scalding jet of white steam into the air. A small explosion of orange flame brought the proceedings to a halt.

As pieces of plaster began to rain down from the ceiling, Professor Bowie emerged from the cloud choking on the mildly caustic vapours and feebly waving his hands in an attempt at dispersing it.

“Damn! Damn and blast!”

He staggered to the centre of the room where the fumes were at their least dense. Broken glass crunched underfoot.

“Ronson! Do you still live? Speak up man!

A head, topped by an unruly mop of shoulder-length blonde hair peered tentatively from behind the console.

“Is it safe Sir?”

“Yes, yes... Oh for heaven’s sake do come out Ronson. You are not to blame. The fault is entirely my own.”

The young assistant emerged from his makeshift refuge. Trailing in the Professor’s wake he busied himself as best he could, brushing the debris from the explosion from the pleats of the ruined ball gown. If Bowie was aware of this supercilious attempt at placating the foul mood that invariably ensued in the aftermath of a failed experiment, he chose to ignore it. Instead he paced the walls of the laboratory making a cursory study of the rent and ruptured pipe work; for the first time regretting his decision to construct the metalized parts of the machine from so flimsy an alloy.

“As you know Ronson, I devised this apparatus so that I might objectively quantify how an ordinary man, in possession of no great intellect, might perceive a faker, such as myself. Alas! If today’s experiment has taught me anything, it is that I am too fast to take that test. By the time the device has accumulated sufficient enough of a charge to document this quantum event, the desired image has long since vanished into the ether.”

Ronson continued to studiously brush the dust from Bowie’s garments, while inwardly he racked his brains for a considered response that might sum up the predicament the Professor found himself in.

“If I may say so Sir, you are renowned among your peers for your impetuous velocity.”

“Yes…Yes quite. Up until this day such god-gifted speed has served me well. Yet now my quicksilver talent hardens to reveal a double edge that impedes my research and by association hampers the very progress of science. For how am I to communicate how others see a faker, if my experiment cannot be replicated and dragged into the realm objective truths that are the currency of all rational men and a select coterie of masculine women. “

He paused in mid-step, turning on his heel to address his assistant directly.

“Ronson: You are a man who has spent long hours in my company. One might almost say that there is none better qualified than yourself to describe to the high society how an ordinary working class commoner from the north of England might perceive a creature of my singular appearance.”

Unfortunately, and in common with most men, Michael Ronson’s visual cortex was only able to interpret the rapidly occurring chain of 10-dimensional chemical reactions that constituted the physical form of Professor Bowie as a nebulous cloud of shifting primary colours, bisected by a red lightning bolt and bedecked by an ostentatious plume of ostrich feathers. In vain he searched for words that might do justice to the spectacle, only to find himself quickly overwhelmed.

“I wouldn’t rightly know how to explain it, Sir. As you have remarked on previous occasions the enterprise is beyond language.”

“Yes… Yes, of course. Clearly something must be done slow down the faker in me – a distraction of some kind that will give the machine the opportunity to…”

A spark kindled in the professors left eye, his face suddenly animated by the wild fires of inspiration.

“Brilliance! Genius incarnate! Ronson, reactivate the Tin Machine at once. There is no time to attempt repairs.”

“But Sir...”

“Now, Ronson!”

Hitching his ball gown and its underlying petticoats above his knees, Bowie hurriedly made his way over to the quantum field chamber. His assistant returned to control console at a more reluctant pace and commenced the process of restarting the machine.

“May I wait in the corridor Sir,” he called from across the room as the wounded engine sputtered into life.

“I’m afraid that will not be possible Ronson...” replied Bowie, raising his voice so as to be heard over the ascending mechanical din.

“...I will need you to join me inside the Quantum Field Chamber. My plan requires that I simulate oral sex upon your person!”

Love songs tend dwell on the extremes of human relationships: Whether it’s the resilient fury of a woman scorned in I Will Survive, the overwrought caterwauling of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross in Endless Love, or the freak atmospheric conditions that sometimes causes it to rain men.

“You’re the greatest thing I ever saw, and I’m the greatest thing ever born,” bellows Shed Seven’s Rick Witter in the chorus of Head and Hands, perfectly encapsulating the bulletproof hubris of a new relationship. Others are less aggrandising, preferring, for reasons known only to themselves, the insipid mewlings of James Blunt – in itself the musical equivalent of a Valentines Day teddy bear, the lace-trimmed, red satin heart stitched to its furry chest, acting as a noticeboard for a synthetically embroidered, simperingly-phrased declaration of affection that deliberately misspells the word ‘love.’

Florence and the Machine’s absolutely god-awful Kiss with a Fist reduces a dysfunctional relationship to a succession of cartoon-inspired acts of domestic violence, like the homicidal antics of The Simpsons’ cat and mouse duo - Itchy and Scratchy - crossed with one of the grimmer films of Ken Loach or Mike Leigh.

Madonna and Prince have both forged lengthy careers from thrusting their crotches in the direction of sexual taboos, with the end results often no more erotic than watching night-vision footage of lions humping in a nature documentary narrated in prim, no-nonsense tones by the late Barbara Woodhouse.

If there is a place where the love song still treads with trepidation then it’s the interminable minutiae of the long-term relationship: The petty over-reactions to small annoyances, whose importance is magnified by constant proximity to the object your affections; The self-sabotage, the manipulation and the point scoring; The righteous anger, so pure and incandescent that it can only be quelled by a furious accusatory letter scrawled across a trio of post-it notes and attached to various items of dirty crockery left lying in the kitchen sink; The need to redress a perceived imbalance of power by forcing a pair of pine cones into the toes of your partner’s work shoes and then feigning surprise and bafflement as to how they got there.

Rare is the songwriter who delves into this uncomfortable territory. When they do, the results can sometimes strike an unsettling chord, like being told something unpleasant about yourself that you didn’t really want to know, but would probably be a better person for acknowledging.

Willie Nelson’s Funny How Time Slips Away presents one-side of conversation between a man and his ex, following their chance meeting. It begins cordially enough with him asking her how she is, and reflecting that it seems like only yesterday that they were together. In the second verse he asks after her new lover. “Heard you told him, that you'd love him till the end of time” he remarks, adding “Now, that's the same thing that you told me, seems like just the other day.” By the end of the final verse any pretence of civility is swept aside by his parting words “Remember when I tell you, in time you’re gonna pay,” and his vaguely threatening insinuation that he’ll be back in town again but he can’t say exactly when that will be.

Tom the Model is Beth Gibbons’ deeply unflattering portrait of a manipulative woman’s last ditch attempt to hold onto her man; the pay-off in the song’s distraught chorus (“You know you don't ever have to worry about me”) supplemented by the unhinged hum of the backing vocals.

However the award for most repellent, passive aggressive song every penned must go to The Script for The Man Who Can’t Be Moved. Here the heartbroken protagonist actually beds down in his sleeping bag on the street corner where he first met his ex, and then, like Iraq war protestor, Brian Haw, resists all attempts to move him on.

“Got some words on cardboard, got your picture in my hand saying, "'If you see this girl can you tell her where I am,'" sings Danny O'Donoghue, his supposedly romantic gesture exposed as a needy act of emotional blackmail from the man who can’t be moved, to the girl who has moved on.

“Maybe I'll get famous as the man who can't be moved, maybe you wont mean to but you'll see me on the news,” he ponders, clearly anticipating that his actions might earn him a low level celebrity status on par with that of an early evictee from the Big Brother.

Love songs like to present us as people whose passions are the equal of the situations in which we find ourselves: In their soft focus glow we are magnificent in romance; able to stand bloodied, but unbowed in the face of rejection, when the stark reality is that the reverse is often true. A traumatic break-up might elicit nothing more than an emotionally-spent slump of the shoulders and the inability to change the channel during 8 out of 10 Cats. Conversely the desire to sweep the object of our desire off his or her feet and shower them with poetry, written in ink made from crushed rose petals, is often downgraded by our own emotional poverty to a perfunctory kiss of the cheek.

No one wants to admit that they invested as much energy into rehearsing comebacks to a stale, two-day old argument as they did in choosing a birthday gift for their partner. And yet these mean-spirited, uncomplimentary songs say more about the fragility of the human condition and our often thwarted attempts to rise above it, than their air-brushed counterparts.

I was intrigued by an advert in the current edition of WORD for the soundtrack to Andrew Smith’s book - Moondust.

The idea that a book requires a soundtrack is a baffling one. In films or TV, any musical accompaniment is supposed to compliment whatever is happening on the screen. When it comes to the written word, people absorb it at their own pace. Any background music is just an additional form of media competing for their attention.

Many years ago I acquired a copy of Richard Farina’s beat novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me. Having learned from the introduction that Mose Allison’s Back Country Suite was an influence on the book, I purchased the album with the intention of having it on in the background as I read. My conclusion: Been Down So Long... is an excellent novel written by a talented author who was sadly cut down in his prime. Back Country Suite is a great, if rather short, album. Attempting to enjoy both at the same time is too much for my limited concentration span.

There is an increasingly prevalent belief that daily activities are meaningless without musical accompaniment. I know someone who stopped walking to work after their iPod broke, because apparently walking without music is “boring”. I lay the blame for this attitude at the feet of the teenagers from the Channel Four show Skins, who can’t eat their breakfast without some snippet of contemporary indie that perfectly compliments their emotional state, playing in the background. This is so unlike the incongruous mismatches that occur in real life, where John Bonham’s drum avalanches from Achilles Last Stand are watered down to a tinny rattle in your headphones, while you stand in line at the supermarket waiting to pay for shampoo and margarine.

Going on the strength of unanimously positive reviews, Moondust is a very good read. I doubt that anyone who has finished the book has been taken by the urge to re-read it while listening a CD composed of songs whose titles make oblique references to the moon and outer space. Also present is the ubiquitous Hallelujah (here in its Jeff Buckley incarnation) and, for some reason, Candyman by The Grateful Dead (Did Neil Armstrong hum it on the descent back to earth?)

Soundtracks for books probably make good sense from a stoner’s perspective, offering the kind of unintended synergy that causes Pink Floyd’s - Dark Side of the Moon to synchronize meaningfully with the first 40 minutes of The Wizard of Oz.

To test the plausibility of this theory, I read the opening chapter of Jane Austin’s difficult third novel Mansfield Park while listening to Oasis’ difficult third album - Be Here Now (a.k.a: Sergeant Pepper - the gout years). I have to admit the hairs went up on the back of my neck when, as I read of Miss Frances foolish marriage to a man “without education, fortune, or connections,” Liam Gallagher sang: “Don’t look back, ‘cause you know what you might see.”

In this instance the incisive prose of Jane Austin is salt to the stodgy lyricism of Noel Gallagher, bringing forth a hitherto unforeseen capacity for nuance and elevating Oasis to the unlikely role of Greek chorus. For the first and possibly only time in my life I can say: “Yes Noel, I do know what you mean, in this context”.

Maybe all Oasis albums would be improved by listening to them while reading Jane Austin novels. Generally though, soundtracks to works of literature are a bad idea. The only accompaniment a good book requires is a glass of port, or a mug of hot chocolate if it’s a week night.

(The above was typed while listening Frequently Asked Questions by Tram)

EGG FRIDAY were a glorious flash in the pan: A boy band with a name inspired by a childhood addiction to Scotch Eggs, their career ended four years later in tragedy. In between they had to fend off the amorous attentions of the Blue Peter tortoise and the wrath of Junior Health Minister, Edwina Curry. Almost 20 years on, the band look back on their fame and explain why their children have forbidden them from reforming.

Part One: The gay Osmonds

Michael Mota (Manager): “I joined the A&R department of EMI records in 1981. By 1986 I had wormed my way into a very comfortable sinecure at the company. Eventually somebody senior in the accounting department twigged that I was taking home a substantial paycheque but wasn’t actually doing any work. All of a sudden my services were deemed surplus to requirements. I returned from lunch late one afternoon to find that I had been unceremoniously turfed-out of my office. A security guard escorted me off the premises. I thought: ‘Right, I’ll show you bastards’.

“The dirty secret of the music industry is that 90% of the bands on a major label never make any real money. Those that do usually piss it away trying to repeat their early success, long after everybody else has lost interest and moved on to the next thing. I wanted to manage a band that was going to make me rich. That meant that I needed to be the one pulling the strings. You don’t put a 16 year old school-leaver in charge of a bank, so why should this be any different?

“Back then I had a theory which I think holds true to this day: All good pop bands can be summed-up in a single pithy sentence. Anything more and you’re asking the audience to think too much. I went home and wrote ‘The gay Osmonds’ on a piece of EMI headed stationery.”

Julian O’Callaghan (Head of Digital Recoupment, EMI): “A few hours after I sacked Michael Mota, he called me at home in a very tired and emotional state, claiming that he had just signed the The Bay City Rollers. I told him that the Rollers had split up, at which point he began screaming: ‘The Osmonds! The Osmonds!’ I put the phone down.”

Continues in comments...

Bessie Smith – the incomparable Empress of the Blues - was a woman of big appetites: A voracious bisexual with a chaotic personal life, spent mostly on the road, and a lyrical gift for bawdy innuendo. The line in Empty Bed Blues that goes: “He boiled my first cabbage and he made it awful hot, when he put in the bacon, it overflowed the pot,” isn’t about the pleasures of making stew. If the title is to be taken literally then even sloppy seconds are off the menu.

In the same song, Bessie mentions her itinerant lover’s job as a deep sea diver, his talent for holding his breath and his “stroke that can't go wrong.” She also alludes to a lesson he gave that left her sore from the elbow down.

An extraordinarily unguarded interview that Chris Albertson recorded with Ruby Smith (Bessie’s niece) offers a fascinating glimpse into the world that informed these lyrics. The highlight of these reminiscences (which you can find in the 5th volume of Bessie’s complete recordings) involves a visit to a buffet flat, which according to Ruby was “nothing but faggots and bull dykers... an open house... everything goes on in that house.” In this spirit she goes on to describe how her advances towards a bisexual gentleman, who she had watched pleasuring another man, were turned down on the grounds that it wasn’t a fish day.

Somehow the wonderful lexicon of coded double-meanings that filled the songs of Bessie Smith and other jazz and blues artists of the times fell into disuse. The modern-day equivalent is witless nonsense like The Black Eyed Peas’ - My Humps – a listening experience on par with the over-sexed, hormonal cackle of an intoxicated, middle-aged hen party. It’s the song that all men dread being played at family gatherings in case their mother gets up and dances to it.

We could do with a few more euphemisms of the kind that populated Bessie Smiths best work:- A counter to the bare-faced confessional whose frankness is supposed to shock but no longer does. Something with a bit more poetry than Britney Spears' disingenuous, Secondary School playground chant - If You Seek Amy.

Bessie once sang: “I need a little sugar, in my bowl, I need a little hot dog, between my rolls.” Thanks to my antiseptic, middle-class upbringing I keep my sugar sealed inside a tall Tupperware container, where it will be safe from the attention of ants. “I need a little sugar in my airtight plastic box” lacks the implied carnality that she was able to wring out of a lyric. Only an ardent Clingfilm fetishist would be aroused.

Still, I dream of a world where girl groups sing of their longing for some locally-sourced organic carrots for their casseroles; where the winner of The X Factor invites listeners to glaze her line-caught, wild Alaskan salmon with a soy and Manuka honey reduction. A world where scowling, lemon-sucker - Thom Yorke - stops whining about the machinations of the government long enough to locate his mojo, and write a song in which he begs his woman to squeeze his un-waxed, ‘taste the difference’ lemon until the juice runs down his leg.

Please suggest other contemporary euphemisms that song writers might use in their lyrics. Do try to keep things superficially decent.

The eleventh-hour withdrawal of Michael Jackson’s worldly possessions from public sale must have left the auctioneers scratching their heads, wondering what other collection of pop ephemera could possibly fill the Titanic-shaped void in their catalogue. The career-related detritus of the average celebrity pales in comparison next to the King of Pop’s grotesque waxwork likenesses, stage costumes that resemble the heavily-braided uniforms of South American military dictators, and original works of childish abstract art done in collaboration with the actor Macaulay Culkin.

Maybe it’s time for those who make a living from hawking pop memorabilia to follow the example of other beleaguered industries and charge heedlessly into the virtual marketplace. Why waste time sourcing and authenticating real physical objects for auction, when you can cheaply obtain fictional items that have been mentioned in song lyrics for a fraction of the cost?

In the salesrooms of the virtual auction house, objects such as the leaky tarpaulin that provided inadequate shelter for a homeless Kurt Cobain in Nirvana’s - Something in the Way could be yours for a tenner. As the tarp’s new owner you will be granted licence to make a single digital reproduction for use in a computer-simulated environment. Maybe your World of Warcraft character would like it for his birthday.

Song lyrics are the ideal place to look for gifts: Perhaps you are fretting over what to buy a friend or co-worker who likes golf, but already owns a great deal of golfing equipment and a large number of allegedly humorous books on the subject. Golfers love holes so why not buy them one of 4000 currently occupying an imaginary version of the Albert Hall in the Lennon/McCartney headspace. This offer is subject to the successful negotiation for the digital rights to distribute these holes online.

If you have a sizable chunk of money to invest, then now may be the perfect time to purchase some non-real estate. Bo Diddley’s rattlesnake-hide house, mentioned in the song Who Do You love?, is made from bio-degradable materials, has easy highway access, and a brand new chimney fashioned from responsibly-sourced human skulls.

If that doesn’t appeal, then how about a weekend retreat, away from the hustle and bustle of the city? The B-52’s Atlantan ‘Love Shack’ sits in its own acreage and comes ready-furnished with a coin-operated jukebox. The property is currently in a dilapidated state: Structural weaknesses cause the whole shack to shimmy, the tin roof is badly corroded, there is graffiti on the door, and the building possesses an odour described by it tenants as “funky”. However, with a little TLC, it could be the ideal home from home.

Rocket 88, arguably the first Rock & Roll song, was an attempt by Ike Turner to advertise an Oldsmobile 88 that he wanted to sell. The tradition continues to this day and there are plenty of bargains to be had: Donald Fagen’s Kamakiri - a steam-powered vehicle, jointly built by the great automotive nations of Scotland and Bali - comes with state of the art Tripstar Sat-Nav and its own hydroponic farm in the back. The high-mileage is due to its former owner’s fondness for trans-island jazz odysseys.

If the Kamakiri is a little too smooth for your tastes, then how about a rugged off-road vehicle? The Fountains of Wayne’s ‘Survival Car’ performed well in crash tests.

Railway enthusiasts with a few million dollars burning a hole in their pocket might like to invest in The O’ Jays’ ‘Love Train.’ The amorous locomotive ended its commercial life hauling slate from a quarry in the Ukraine, but has since been restored to full working order.

Ladies: Are you planning a party this weekend and in need of something to wear? If it’s a casual evening, then Victoria Williams has a lot of very worn-down ‘Shoes’ that she is looking to offload. (On a related note she also has a ‘Frying Pan’ for sale). For the more dressy occasion why not peruse Kelly’s song ‘Shoes’ and pick out a pair that rule from the huge quantities of “shoes that suck”. The Sugababes are offering a ‘Red Dress’ made from a climate-control fabric that will keep you cool all evening. As far as accessories go, what item of clothing is more resistant to the passing whims of fashion than a ‘Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat’? This one has been hand-crafted by master-milliner – Bob Dylan. You can wear it with just about anything.

Gentlemen: The terylene shirt effortlessly modelled by Suede’s ‘Filmstar’ would be a stylish addition to any wardrobe. For the Bohemian look, mix and match it with a pair of the ‘dirty pants’ that Smog’s Bill Callahan liked to dance in. Top-off the ensemble with the dog tags that were given to Stan Ridgway at the behest of his ghostly marine saviour ‘Camouflage.’

Nothing gets a party started quite like 50,000 beers. Lightweight Silver Jews frontman - David Berman - claims that it took him 27 years to drink them all (in his song Trains Across The Sea).

If alcohol isn’t your thing then how about pooling resources with your friends and putting in a bid for ‘All The Cocaine In The World’ from The Webb Brothers’ song of the same name. Those with more conservative Class A drug habits may wish to take advantage of The Reverend Horton Heat’s more easily consumable ‘Bales of Cocaine’ which can delivered direct to your door by low-flying plane.

If you have a saucier evening in mind, King Missiles’ ‘Detachable Penis’ retails at just 22 bucks -17 if you haggle.

Finally, if you are planning a night on the tiles, then it’s wise to prepare in advance for the morning after. Why not pay a visit to the yard sale where the contents Mark Eitzel’s solo album 60 Watt Silver Lining are on sale at knockdown prices and ‘Aspirin’ is available for purchase.

Valentines Day will soon be upon us and I would like to remind everyone that there are no happy endings in love. Only the grim certainty that you will be falsely accused of murdering your life partner and will be forced to go on the lam while you hunt down the real killers. Steve Harris from Iron Maiden knew this and penned The Fugitive - a song so heart-achingly romantic that, should I ever get married, I plan to recite the lyrics in their entirety as part of my wedding vows.

This leads me to a traumatic event that occurred a couple of weeks ago when I found myself the captive audience of a bafflingly complex stereo system that was in the process of playing Escape (The Piña Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes.

Escape is a story song in the tradition of Tell Laura I love Her and Hello, This Is Joanie (The Telephone Answering Machine Song), whose key characteristics are narratives so hackneyed and implausible that even the writers of Hollyoaks and Skins would think twice about using them.

In this tale of thwarted adultery Holmes describes how, having grown tired of his lady he responds to an anonymous advertisement in the dating pages of a newspaper and suggests a rendezvous at a bar called O’Malley’s. At the bar he is both surprised and relieved to discover that the advert was written by his wife and that they have more in common than they thought (not least the fact that they are both philandering swines). Instead of escaping from each other, the song ends with them escaping together, no doubt heading for a midnight, Piña Colada -fuelled romp on the moonlit dunes of Cape Cod.

The Piña Colada Song ’s nauseatingly cyclical ending was gloriously demolished years later by a Nick Cave composition titled O’Malleys Bar. I am assuming that this is the same O’ Malleys where the cocktail-swilling couple’s reconciliation took place. Into this establishment steps Cave’s nameless, pistol-waving lunatic. Over the next 14 minutes and 36 verses he theatrically guns down the clientele, while pondering free will and whether he can be held culpable for his actions.

Among the casualties of the O’Malley’s Bar massacre I note one married couple - a Mr and Mrs Richard Holmes, apparently killed one after the other. It is my belief that Richard Holmes survived being shot in the stomach and that, after making a full recovery, he changed his name to Rupert Holmes and launched a career as a singer-songwriter, awaiting the day when his wife’s assassin was released from prison, so that he could wreak his bloody revenge.

O'Malley's Bar is, in my opinion, a rare instance of a story song by one artist being continued by another artist. I eagerly await the next instalment of the Piña Colada saga, whoever writes it.

Are there other instances of a story song being sequelised? What other songs deserve sequels?

The act of criminally underrating the work of an artist is frequently overlooked by law enforcement agencies, who consider that they have more pressing social issues to attend to.

However, I predict that as profits from music sales shrink, the record industry will seek punitive legislation on the issue, in a bid to recoup revenue lost from this increasingly common practise.

Underrating an album begins first and foremost in the mind. You might put on the newish Oasis long-player - Dig Out Your Soul - and find yourself thinking: ‘It’s a bit meh,’ or ‘It’s alright but I’d rather listen to Empire Burlesque by Bob Dylan instead’.

The problem is that when you privately underrate a record, you are less likely to pass on those all-important word of mouth recommendations to your friends and peers. You are unlikely to drive around with it playing loudly on your car stereo. You won’t be purchasing a ring tone and you probably won’t be attempting any boorish renditions of the songs on your journey home from the pub.

All of this apathy effects sales. Your despondent aesthetic judgements permeate into a general lack of enthusiasm, which in turn leads to a dearth of action. Slowly the dividing line between critic and criminal is blurred, until you are effectively withholding money from the fruit and flower budgets of major record labels!

When it comes to punishing criminal underraters, many senior figures within the music industry favour the short sharp shock of prison. They reason that the indignities of slopping-out are as good a cure as any for the massive public indifference displayed towards the second Fratellis album, or the impending debut by whichever act won that dreadful Orange Unsigned competition.

A more popular solution is a compulsory four week ‘Review Writing /Poster Creation’ workshop, in which offenders hone their graphic design skills in order to big-up a failing artist on the EMI roster. In the writing part of the course, ex Melody Maker hacks, well versed in the arts of hyperbole, would be on hand to teach offenders the verbal skills necessary to enthuse over albums that might previously have been dubbed poor-to-mediocre, and not really worth the £16 that HMV is charging for them.

Habitual underraters – those who cannot or will not change – could well find themselves forced to become Goths. This unusual punishment is founded on research proving that society expects Goths to be dolefully unenthusiastic about everything, and so doesn’t take their opinions too seriously.

In the future “I sentence you to five years of being a Goth” may become a common pronouncement in criminal courts the length and breadth of the UK, with the parents of the guilty party weeping openly, as their cherished offspring is borne away on a cloud of talcum powder, to the strains of Driven Like The Snow by The Sisters of Mercy.

- What records do you consider to be criminally underrated?

- What records are you personally guilty of criminally underrating?

- Should individuals be punished for criminally underrating a record? What about organised gangs and cartels?

- Has anyone ever forced you to become a Goth? (Terrorists perhaps, or a capricious aunt – posthumously, through the terms of her will.)

As a current non-subscriber, my first contact with the latest edition of The WORD usually occurs while standing in one of the tediously long, Friday evening checkout queues that snake into the aisles at my local supermarket.

I always begin with Mark Ellen's letter. Having confirmed that the world has been saved for another 30 days, I move on to ‘The Worst.../The Best...’, followed by ‘99% True’. On a particularly busy evening, I might read one of the opinion pieces, or attempt to gain an insight into the social make-up of the angry mob that will be camped outside Andrew Collins' place of residence over the coming weeks. (January is the turn of outraged Reverend And The Makers fans).

You can never anticipate who, or what, the main articles in WORD are going to be about, so it’s these regular odds and sods that I look forward to the most. That’s always been the case with any magazine that I have bought on a frequent basis:

The ‘charts’ in Q were an absurd attempt to quantify the unquantifiable. One highlight - “The wit and wisdom of Mark E Smith”(quoting the many lyrical gems penned by the curmudgeonly bard of Salford) succeeded where numerous album reviews and umpteen Peel Sessions had failed, in convincing me that it was time go out and purchase a Fall CD.

A more recent perennial in MOJO is the Weird Record Club, where Johnny Trunk delves into the dusty recess of the music industry to unearth such unsung eccentrics as Dion McGregor – A man whose surreal sleep talk and subsequent night terrors were once considered a commercial concern by the Decca label.

In its twilight years the indie journal Select ran a regular feature titled ‘Our Absinthe Friends’, in which 2nd and 3rd generation Britpop bands were given a bottle of absinthe, and their ensuing liquor-addled insights written down for posterity.

Another personal favourite from Select was ‘Dog Translucent:’ A three panel cartoon strip, whose hero - an abstract canine squiggle possessed by the prickly intelligence of Sir Patrick Moore - would resolve problems such as how to get bloodstains out of a carpet, or how to fix a loose gimbal joint on a lampshade.

These regular features may seem a bit throwaway, but they form an important part of a magazine’s identity. They’re like the entree before the more substantial main course; something that you can comfortably read during the ad breaks in Gilmore Girls, or when customer services put you on hold.

Does anyone else have any favourites?

Recently I’ve been listening to Amanda Palmer’s album - Who Killed Amanda Palmer? One of the more downbeat songs on the record - Blake Says - is transparently in debt to The Velvet Underground offcut - Stephanie Says, whose lyrical structure and use of Alaska as a metaphor also formed the basis of the solo Lou Reed’s Caroline Says I & II.

On Jane’s Addiction's live debut album a song called Jane Says (another third-person character study, cut from the same cloth as Lou Reed’s compositions) segues into a cover of The Velvet Underground’s - Rock ‘N’ Roll.

Since the '... says' format seems to have acquired a sluggish creative momentum I wondered if any other artists have used it as the basis for one of their songs.

Also, are there any other lyrical devices like this that have undergone cross-pollination and been used by different bands?

Blake Says

It is a truth universally acknowledged that many well-known songs of our time are in possession of lyrics based upon obscure Georgian, Edwardian and Victorian novels. See if you can identify the following songs from the literary works that inspired them:

1.

The young man of whom I speak did his very utmost to forestall the inevitable. On occasions he would tease us, implying that our dearly held Catholic rituals bore marked resemblances to those fervent outdoor ceremonies practised on the isles of Haiti; such as were recently described to us in an edifying lecture given by the dearly departed Lord Haversby.

Regrettably the children of the borough were an uncouth rabble of urchins, deficient in both in charm and etiquette. In their crude estimation the young man was the messiah, in possession of a gluteus maximus gifted to him from on high and clothed in heavenly raiment.

Alas and alak! It is my sorrowful duty to report to those esteemed members of the Royal Society assembled before me, that this poor lost soul went beyond the pale in his actions, and by association beyond the forgiveness of polite society. I will however submit that he was remarkably proficient in the use of stringed instruments.

2.

My Dearest Harriet,

This morning, while beset by melancholy, I was given to wonder how many people whom one holds in high regard as paragons in their chosen fields, suddenly undergo a near protean metamorphosis that is not always to the good.

I subsequently found myself pondering the quantity of existences that might be defined by a dispassionate observer as peculiar, or somehow out of kilter, as if their architects have been affected by the vapours, or subject to some long-dormant family madness.

Following on from these dark thoughts, and for reasons I know not, I became thoroughly vexed as to your whereabouts on the occasion that a great party of us made a bracing ascent to the summit of Penn hill, there to hear a lengthy sermon on the subject of hubris, given by the Bishop of Rochester.

I write these lines to you having proceeded along the broad corridor of the east wing at what might be charitably described as a snails crawl; although may I add that my perambulations exhibited a good deal more velocity than the lacklustre pace displayed by the shells fired at the King’s regiments by French artillery.

3.

Sir,

I feel it both good and right for me to reveal that concealed beneath this mask of soft femininity lays a contraption, mechanical in nature, whose purpose is of a wanton and amorous disposition that sets itself in opposition to the chaste values and practises of our land.

To maintain proper function this device requires, from your person, mouth-to-mouth contact of the kind ordinarily committed within the sanctity of holy wedlock and traditionally first authorised by a member of the clergy, following an exchange of vows before witnesses. This you may administer in a singular dosage, or should you prefer it, as a trinity.

Furthermore, the good function of said mechanism is dependant upon a daily act of compression. It is imperative that this be administered manually, rather than through the application of the whalebone undergarments which I now cast aside with a harlot’s abandon, while wondering what those families residing in properties adjacent to our own will make of such a display.

In the final verse of Lost in You, Rod Stewart makes an astonishing and disturbing announcement:

I'm coming home real soon
Be ready cause when I do
I'm gonna make love to you
like fifteen men!

Stewart is expressing his intention to love the object of his affections with great vigour and enthusiasm, while also advising that she take the opportunity to warm-up in advance of his arrival.

Unfortunately, when I heard this song the other day, these raunchy lyrics dredged-up the memory of a documentary titled: Sex - The Annabel Chong Story, which follows the fledgling porn star’s attempt at breaking the world gang bang record. This, rather predictably, turns out to be a joyless, glassy-eyed slog through an ever-changing parade of barely-aroused sexual partners. It should be obvious to anyone who has seen the film that “I’m gonna make love to you like fifteen men” is something that you should never write in a Valentines or Wedding Anniversary card, or say to anyone you are hoping to sleep with. Unless you are a rakishly-angled love machine like Rod Stewart, you are better off sticking to more conventional platitudes and come-ons.

This isn’t the only example of lyrics misfiring. When Elton John sang “Someday we’ll live like horses” it straddled the boundary between a veiled threat, and the vague promise of a debauched, equine-themed party, in which tiny men, garishly attired in brightly-coloured silks, would ride around on the backs of the guests, while periodically whipping their bare flanks.

No doubt there are other examples too...