The perfect verse
Posted by Handsome.P.Wonderful on 19 October 2008 - 4:44pm.
I've just been listening to Billy Bragg singing 'New England' and I'm struggling to think of a better four lines in a song. Contemporary, funny and romantic. What more could you want?
I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them, but they were only satellites
It's wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you cared
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Am I allowed to say...
...sloppy rhyming?
Maybe...
But it still sounds great.
Only if I am allowed to quote ...
... the actual words (which it appears I've misheard for many years, if www.billybragg.co.uk, whence they came, is to be believed - I looked it up just to confirm my recollection that the second couplet does rhyme, which it does, but it's the opening to the third line that has fooled me since I first heard it):
I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care
I guess it explains why Billy Bragg appears to swallow the opening words of the third line; it's not an easy one to sing, even for somebody such as himself with the voice of an angel.
And shouldn't we mention..
...the writer, Kirsty MacColl?
I thought she...
...just covered the song. I've always been under the impression that Billy Bragg wrote it.
IIRC
Billy wrote the song and the lyrics above are part of the second verse...there are only two verses in Billys song.
When Kirsty took the song into the pop charts, she added a third verse which she wrote(I can't remember whether Billy helped or simply approved).
Hardware add-on
I think Billy wrote the extra bits for Kirsty.
Thanks....
....you are correct!
I obviously didn't remember correctly.....again!
I recall
that Billy wrote the extra words for her - seemed to remember reading it. My copy of Galore gives all the credits to Mr Bragg as well.
We should
It only needs two words to sum up what a genius she was with words.
Electric Landlady
Can we have the real David Hepworth back??
Surely any fule kno that it was Bill who wrote this song? Not Kirsty?? And while I'm on the subject of "stuff everybody should know", how comes neither you nor Mark had heard of that ridiculous "four cds played simultaneously" thing that the Flaming Lips knocked out a while ago (as you both confessed in your last podcast)?
I can't help but think that those in control of Britain's premier music-and-stuff magazine really should be better informed that this.
Any more shoddy work like this, and we villagers will be seizing the flaming torches and storming Word Castle, I promise you...
Messrs Ellen & Hepworth
Never mind the fact that they were unaware of that Flaming Lips 4CD release, how about the admission (from at least one of them) that they have never heard AC/DC??? I mean, how is that possible (especially when you work in the music industry)? And, in related news, why do the Stones claim to be the 'world's greatest rock n' roll band' while AC/DC exist?
Keeping his head down
I notice that Mr H has been slow to come forward and defend himself. Very poor. And as for the claim (further down) that it was an attempt at humour, I find that hard to believe.
Mr Simon's permission
Billy did write it. I recall reading an interview with Paul Simon many years ago when he said he had received a letter from a young English songwriter called Billy who had asked permission to quote the opening couplet of "Leaves That Are Green".
Ha!
The opening two lines are the best part - I always assumed Billy just nicked them from P. Simon. My new assumption is that Paul gave him the OK?
What goes around comes around
Maybe Paul Simon agreed out of guilt from having nicked Martin Carthy's "Scarborough Fair" arrangement.
Lucas you are cruel
How about 'I had an uncle who once played for Red Star Belgrade' - Sexuality.
He's not known as the Bard of Barking for nothing
So many examples to choose from, but I think I'll go for:
In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune,
But this is reality, so give me some room.
(Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards).
BTW, I think that the David Hepworth post above was an attempt at humour.
harder to sing now that it's...
I had an uncle who once played
For FK Crvena zvezda...
I'm sure
it sounds better than it reads.
What about.....?
"Love between two people should be based on understanding,
Until that's true you'll find your things all stacked out on the landing".
From "Valentine's Day Is Over", I think.
..this takes some beating...
The people from your church agree
It's not much of a career
Trying the handles of parked cars
Whoops, there goes another year
Whoops, there goes another pint of beer
Billy will always be
the Milkman Of Human Kindness to me.
A true cover star. If he only had a beard...
For what it's worth
I always liked
'you're the kind of girl
who opens up the bottle of pop
too early in the journey'.
( Or was that by Kirsty too?? )
No no no!
You're all wrong. These are clearly the finest lines Billy ever wrote.
I confronted her about it.
I said, 'I'm the most illegible bachelor in town'.
And she said 'Yeah that's why I could never understand any of those silly letters you sent me'.
And then one day it happened.
She cut her hair and I stopped loving her.
and the added bonus of...
... Johnny Marr's heartbreaking guitar work on that track.
My favourite line from that song is: "I went home and thought about the two of them together until the bathwater went cold around me"
Any right-thinking person will acknowledge...
...that his greatest work is 'A13: Trunk Road To The Sea' (sung to the tune of Route 66)
"If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness
Take the A road, the okay road that's the best
Go motorin' on the A13
If you're looking for a thrill that's new
Take in Fords, Dartford Tunnel and the river too
Go motorin' on the A13
It starts down in Wapping
There ain't no stopping
By-pass Barking and straight through Dagenham
Down to Grays Thurrock
And rather near Basildon
Pitsea, Thundersley, Hadleigh, Leigh-On-Sea,
Chalkwell, Prittlewell
Southend's the end
If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness
Take the A road, the okay road that's the best
Go motorin' on the A13"
Countless gems
but he's also the author of the clunkingest clunker ever penned.
You're an accident waiting to happen
You're a dedicated swallower of fascism.
So bad it's truly awful
Billy's Clunkiness is part of the charm
I still love
War, what is it good for?
It's good for business
Clunky and great.
A fan of the Bard says
from these four lines, it appears that Albarn was listening to more than just the Kinks and The Small Faces.
Blur: This is a Low
On the Malin head,
Blackpool looks blue and red
And the Queen, she's gone round the bend
Jumped off Land's End
I like Billy's football-related lines...
"How can you lie there and think of England when you don't even know who's in the team?"
...is one such, pretty well matched by
"I never made the first team, I just made the first team laugh..."
this one could run and run...
"mixing pop and politics, you ask me what the use is,
I offer up vague platitudes and my usual excuses..."
ok, its not all great poetry but it is a cut above the usual stuff, and damn honest too. Billy has written some great stuff - and I recommend his book too.
Andrew Collins put me on to..
Tank Park Salute, another truly great Bragg lyric written for his dead father, which manages to be sad without being mawkish :
Kiss me goodnight and say my prayers
Leave the light on at the top of the stairs
Tell me the names of the stars up in the sky
A tree taps on the window pane
That feeling smothers me again
Daddy is it true that we all have to die
An all-round good egg is Sir William of Bloke.
Yes sir
I'd forgotten about Tank Park Salute. Heard Mr Bragg talking about writing it on a Simon Mayo interview a couple of years back. Can't listen to it now without a tear welling up. He has the absolute skill of wringing emotion out of what, at first, sound like simple, everyday lyrics.
My cap is doffed.
Tank Park Salute is
a beautiful, beautiful song.
I heard it at a family funeral recently, and the phrase "I closed my eyes and when I look, your name is in the memorial book. What will become of all the things we'd planned?" was truly touching.
Billy is a true, true poet. His turn of phrase is brilliant. He has been a part of my life for the last 25 years. Supported by Otis Gibbs this year too.
Levi Stubbs' Tears
One dark night he came home from the sea
And put a hole in her body where no hole should be
It hurt her more to see him walking out the door
And though they stitched her back together they left her heart in pieces on the floor
Trivia. Billy was the first person (outside my immediate family) I told about the birth of my daughter, back in 1984.
Some of his unrequited love lyrics...
"With my own hands, when I make love to your memory.
It's not the same, I miss the thunder. I miss the rain"
I agree
I'm with you, Handsome P Wonderful. Always loved those lines. And whenever I see a shooting star, or more commonly a satellite, I think of them.
There are probably as many
There are probably as many opinions on this as there are Wordies (next step, invent the Wordie emoticon, don helmet, hide) but as for four lines in a song...
They're selling postcards of the hanging,
They're painting the passports brown,
The beauty parlour's full of sailors,
The circus is in town...
Well done that man!
I've been waiting to see how long it would take before someone else noticed that our theme here wasn't actually asking for the best Billy Bragg lyrics. Only held back because, much as I admire Mr B, there were too many alternatives to choose from. Dylan's certainly not a bad place to start looking....
No
I don't think we've quite exhausted all of Billy's offerings just yet. here's another of my favourites.
Call it clunky if you like but this never fails to make my eyes prick.
Call up the craftsmen
Bring me the draughtsmen
Build me a path from cradle to grave
And I'll give my consent
To any government
That does not deny a man a living wage
Go find the young men never to fight again
Bring up the banners from the days gone by
Sweet moderation
Heart of this nation
Desert us not, we are
Between the wars
You're right Nigel
My original observation was not specifically about Billy Bragg, but any song verse.
Off Bragg but in keeping with the titular thread....
"I was faced with a choice at a difficult age,
Would I write a book? or should I take to the stage?
But in the back of my head I heard distant feet
Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat"
Sort of a middle eight of a verse - but still nevertheless simply Bob-like genius from the PSB's.
Can I offer a bit of Bruce?
Once I spent my time playing tough guy scenes
But I was living in a world of childish dreams
Someday these childish dreams must end
To become a man and grow up to dream again
And no one's yet mentioned my favourite Billy Bragg verse:
All my friends from school
Introduce me to their spouses
Now I'm left standing here
With my hands down the front of my trousers
Richard Thompson...
...has written some tremendous stuff, difficult to pick just four lines, but 'Beeswing' is pretty special. (Actually, it's a six-line verse, so can I add the last two? I promise not to mention Billy Bragg!)
Oh the last I heard she's sleeping rough, back on the Derby beat
White Horse in her hip pocket and a wolfhound at her feet
And they say she even married once, a man named Romany Brown
But even a gypsy caravan was too much settling down
And they say her flower is faded now, hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains you refuse
The trouble with this kind of thing
Is that it sends me into a Half Man Half Biscuit tailspin.
"Shit Sellotape, just don't know where it begins
And even when you do, it keeps on straying to the side
Good quality stationery never came to my house..."
"Mariella Frostrup does loads of voiceovers
But nothing much else
Yet she seems to get by..."
But for now, I'd have to go for
"I shout all my obscenities from steeples
but please don't label me a madman;
I'm off to see the Bootleg Beatles
as the bootleg Mark Chapman."
Aahh... the understated genius of Nigel Blackwell
"A man with a mullets going mad with a mallet in Millets.
I try to put everything into perspective;
Set it against the scale of human suffering.
And I thought of the Mugabe government,
And the children of the Calcutta railways,
This works for a while.
But then I encounter Primark FM.
Overhead a rainbow appears.
In black and white."
National Shite Day, off CSI Ambleside. Brilliant.