Progressive Thoughts - Day 31

At last we’ve reached the final day of this weird blogathon. I’ve enjoyed it – and I hope some of you have too.

My last song is currently top of the list in terms of number of times played on my iPod. To be fair, if ITunes had been available way back in 1973 the song would have been something completely different I am sure.

And yes, you’ve guessed it, the song is a progressive rock masterpiece, in my opinion anyway. It is called Drive Home by Steven Wilson and features an extraordinarily emotional guitar solo at the end by Guthrie Govan.

Steven Wilson has the uncanny ability to write sad songs and this is up there with the best of them.

The song is about a man who loses his wife in a car crash and blocks the incident out completely until, later, his wife comes back as a ghost to remind him what happened, urging him to move on and deal with the pain.

The accompanying video is equally sad – but despite this, the song is absolutely beautiful.  If you don’t want to listen to the entire song, just listen to the guitar solo from about 5 minutes into the video.

Anyway – that’s it. I’ve completed my second 31 day blogathon and I must say that it has been fun and has actually ticked off a couple of “resolutions” for 2017 (although not completely). I don’t really want to highlight resolutions but if you set yourself a target and (kind of) achieve it, you suddenly feel a warm and fuzzy feeling inside – something akin to happiness and contentment.

I moaned earlier about how dreadful 2016 was and how January as a month is dark, dismal and depressing and how I needed a distraction and this series of posts has helped a lot. I have increased the amount of writing I have done and also resurrected a 30 day challenge and this has helped me forget about 2016 and this, the worst month of the year.

As we enter into February I am content. I still haven’t lost my temper with a rant about Brexit and Donald Trump despite provocation of the highest order and I can hopefully put all that behind me and start being more positive.

It’s tough but I recommend it.

What’s in store next?

February will bring more misery in terms of the cold British weather but in terms of writing, I am going to aim to complete the first draft of my terrible novel.

I am also currently attacking my language skills, by brushing up on my German and French and taking on another language – Italian. We are thinking of a trip to Italy in September so I would like to impress the locals by at least being able to ask for things in their native language. My exploits with Spanish have shown that this is very difficult – but I like a challenge.

Whether I’ll achieve it or not, who knows – but it will be fun trying.

I will also continue with this dreadful blog and maybe try to post more regularly. Sadly, for you dear reader, that means more garbage from Manchester but it at least it will help those who want to see “How Not To Write A Blog Post”.

See you in February sometime.

And, as a footnote, I hope you’ve experienced a wider range of music and enjoyed a little bit of prog!

Welcome to my world!

Top Ten ELO Songs

The other day, I was flicking through the TV channels when I stumbled across a time machine. The TV programme was coverage of the Glastonbury Festival, an annual music event in the UK where generations of music fans stand in the mud and rain in front of a giant stage shaped like a pyramid and listen to many different bands covering many different styles of music.

And there on stage stood my very first musical hero.

That man is Jeff Lynne, the creator and genius behind the very first band I fell in love with, The Electric Light Orchestra or simply ELO for short.

I was instantly transported back to the 1970’s as a young teenage boy.

At that point in my life I hadn’t discovered the glory of heavy metal or rock music. I liked pop music but by far and away my favourite band at the time. I spent my hard earned paper round money on their albums. Given the ratio of my income then to the amount I spent on music, this was a big deal. I had to negotiate with my dad to let me have time on his music centre (usually when he was out). I played the albums to death and I still have them in my attic until now.

Back to the present, Jeff Lynne, now aged 68, was standing in front of the now called Jeff Lynne’s ELO belting out my favourite songs as if he were still in his 20’s. And amazingly the guy doesn’t look his age at all. What’s more, he’s from Birmingham – just a few miles down the road from where I was born.

Seeing Jeff bang out a load of old favourites  gave me an idea for this post and I am sadly going to inflict it on you, dear reader.

Here are my favourite ELO songs. I hope you enjoy them.

10. Here Is The News

The first song is actually a later one from the early 1980’s when I had actually started university. ELO sacrificed the orchestral side a little in favour of synthesiser but that distinctive ELO sound is still there. 

9. The Diary of Horace Wimp

At the time I heard this song for the first time, I was a weird spotty little seventeen year old with an attitude and girl problems – i.e. I didn’t have one. In many respects I was Horace Wimp, the hero of the song and the song told my story."Well he just stood there mumbling and fumbling"  was a little too close to home.. However, I loved the optimism of the song particularly when Horace finally asks a girl for a date and his amazement when she says “Yes!”. In some ways, this gave me a little bit of courage – if Horace Wimp could get the girl then so could I.

8. One Summer Dream

This is a beautiful song from 1975 and yanks violently on my heart strings. I’ve always loved the way that ELO fuse guitars and drums with violins and cellos simply because it makes a simple song sound more epic and all embracing. When I hear this song, I feel like I’m floating over the English countryside on a beautiful sunny day.

7. Rockaria!

The fusion of styles between orchestral instruments and rock guitar is probably most evident on a song about fusing opera with rock and roll. One of ELO’s most famous songs is about an opera singer, raised on Beethoven and Puccini who is persuaded to apply her vocal talents to good old fashioned rock and roll and is the quintessential ELO song.



6. Do Ya

The very first ELO album I bought was A New World Record, containing the previous song, Rockaria! as well as this one, my favourite song on the album. Sadly Do Ya wasn’t released as a single, much to my surprise. Perhaps it’s a little too much of a rock song for the tastes of the 1976 youth. That’s a shame.

5. Ticket To The Moon

This is another beautiful song from the early 1980’s with a hint of melancholy that shows just how good a songwriter Jeff Lynne is. Again, when I hear the song, I feel my tear ducts starting to work again. I simply love this tune – I can’t say more than that.

4. Turn To Stone

I am so sad that I actually learned the fast bit of this song so that I could impress my two sisters who, in typical sibling style, were no impressed at all and completely took the piss. Listen out for it:

Yes
I'm turning to stone
'Cause you ain't comin' home
Why ain't you comin' home
If i'm turning to stone
You've been gone for so long
And I can't carry on
Yes I'm turning
I'm turning

The sad thing is I can still do it – and Mrs PM is not impressed either.

3. Mr Blue Sky

After the sadness of the last song, let’s hear an uplifting tune. Mr Blue Sky is probably the band’s most well-known hit and I can see why. For me in particular, it reminds me of walking the streets of Walsall with a huge bag of newspapers, forcing them through letterboxes that were sometimes too small. At those early hours, the streets were empty and in summer, it was eerie because the sun would rise well before 6am yielding a beautiful blue sky with few people around to witness it, apart from me and a few cats. This song will make even the most miserable person feel positive.

2. Fire On High

Imagine you are walking through a haunted house in pitch black. How scary would that be? The opening of this fantastic song is quite spooky and if I were creeping through such a house and heard this I think I would quite literally shit bricks. After the spookiness, it evolves into a progressive masterpiece and is one of my most played ELO songs, even today.

1. Don’t Bring Me Down

Ultimately I love a good rock song and ELO can do that too. Don’t Bring Me Down has a fantastic drum beat and came at the time I had discovered rock music causing me to embrace it with the hope this was a future direction for the band. Sadly it wasn’t but I still love the song today.

And Finally...

I hope you liked that little collection. ELO still has a place in my heart and it is good to see Jeff Lynne still enjoying himself.

Do you remember ELO, dear reader?
Do you have a favourite song by the band?

Top Ten ABBA Songs

I have had my musical taste questioned many times but the most recent attack came from a work colleague who suggested that my favourite music genre is basically just ripping off ABBA, which of course it isn’t.

This all stems from the discovery that one of my current favourite artists, Steven Wilson, produced an album of cover versions, one of which was an ABBA song.

Regular reader may know that in the past, I may have mentioned that I kind of grew up with ABBA. When I was a young impressionable kid just about to become a teenager ABBA were the biggest pop band in the world. And I have to admit that I was a fan – and I guess part of me still is. Nobody can deny that their music was influential (just not on progressive rock and progressive metal) but in the world of pop music, it was up there with the best.

And I had a massive teenage crush on Agnetha Fältskog (which hormone-filled lad didn’t at that age?).

My musical taste is fairly wide and ABBA reside proudly on my iPod alongside many more bands that some might say are an acquired taste.

Without further ado, therefore, I present my top ten ABBA songs, knowing full well that everybody likes them (even those cynical work colleagues who deny it).

10. That’s Me

My best mate as a teenager was also a fan and owned the ABBA album Arrival which featured this song. He used to play it all the time and for a while became firmly entrenched in my head as a pleasant earworm. And on the rare occasions I have heard it since, it has once again taken up residence, taking me back to the mid-1970’s with a smile.

9. Lay All You Love On Me

Towards the end of their career, ABBA embraced a more electronic sound, as was the trend at the time. It appeared in the charts in the period between my leaving school and starting university. By this stage my musical taste had changed significantly, flipping between heavy metal and electropop. My fascination with ABBA was over, but this song appeared and took me back to those years when I liked the band and fitted in with my tastes at that time.



8. Knowing Me Knowing You

As mentioned earlier, my best mate loved the album Arrival and this was by far his favourite song on the record. It’s a great song but I can’t help thinking about Alan Partridge when I hear the chorus. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s a spoof presenter/reporter (and arguably the worst in the world) with a show called Knowing Me Knowing You and whenever he appears he yells “AHA!” at the top of his voice.

7. I’m a Marionette

I didn’t normally take much notice of B-sides and it wasn’t often that they were better than the A-side. My sister bought The Name of the Game and this was on the B-side. I remember she played her single while I was there and then turned it over to give the flip side a spin. “That’s a much better song,” I said. She disagreed and never played it again. I actually took it to my room and popped it on my current mix tape at the time. It’s a bit of a darker song, with a nice guitar piece in the middle, which probably explains why I preferred it.



6. Mamma Mia

As a rule, I prefer the rockier ABBA songs and Mamma Mia was one of the first I heard after they had won the Eurovision Song Contest. I have to confess that I have never seen the dreadful musical to which this song gives its name because to me it is an abomination to take ABBA’s music and turn it into a sleazy story peppered with their songs. I know it’s incredibly popular but there is no way I would waste my money or time on it. What a terrible, terrible idea. Anyway, rant over – the song is good!

5. Waterloo

This is the song that started it all. I hate the Eurovision Song Contest now but in the past, I actually used to watch it avidly (well until about 1978 anyway). ABBA won the competition with this song way back in 1974 and this was their big introduction to the rest of Europe and the world, in fact. It remains my second favourite ever winner – behind the more controversial Hard Rock Hallelujah by Lordi (which I will spare you). Mind you, just take a look at those costumes in the video,



4. S.O.S

This is another earworm for me, a song that burrows into my head and stays there for a while, to the point where I find myself humming it. In fact, as I type I am humming the chorus. It’s a great little song.

3. Voulez-Vous

I’m a little puzzled as to why this song wasn’t a bigger hit, as it was certainly better than most of their other high chart entries. It’s a great dance song and at the time of its release it usually had the effect of filling the dance floor. It coincides with the time I first started venturing out into the world of the night club and remained a favourite of quite a few that I frequented around that time.

2. Eagle

Eagle is a beautiful and epic song. In fact, of all the songs they have released, this is the closest to being progressive, with a fantastic orchestral keyboard sound and a great little guitar solo (around the 3:10 minute mark). It’s a very uplifting song and always puts me in a great mood. I guess I need to start listening to it at work.



1. So Long

As a lover of rock music, I had to pick what I consider ABBA’s rockiest song as my favourite. You would expect nothing less, I guess, dear reader. Again, this was one of the first songs I heard after Waterloo and, strangely it was never released as a single in the UK. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that you have not heard it, dear reader. I also apologise for being a bit of a letch; Agnetha is particularly lovely in this video – it’s probably what started it all off, to be fair.

And finally …

I hope you liked my selection , dear reader.

I am sure you are a closet ABBA fan.

Feel free to let me know your favourites – particularly if you are the work colleague who inspired this post (you know who you are!).

The Meaning of Life - What a Waste!

If Mrs PM had her way, she would clear our house of a lot of my stuff. To her, I am a hoarder and my stuff is surplus to requirements and therefore needless mess that should either be sold or thrown away.

We’ve discussed this and the bottom line is that it simply is not going to happen.

However, the difference between our philosophies on the subject of household clutter has got me thinking. Over the years, we all buy and collect lots of things, some of which we hang on to for years – in some cases most of our lives.

Take music for example.

I have a large collection of CDs but I also have quite a few old vinyl records. The problem is that I don’t have a record player and I don’t intend to actually get one either. My records are really my own family heirlooms.

I still have the very first single that I bought with my own cash, earned from my very first job as a newspaper delivery boy, purchased at the age of 13 years old. That single will never get played again, unless I sell it to a record collector.

When I see it, I see a piece of my own childhood. I am reminded of a spotty bespectacled blonde kid running all the way home from Walsall town centre back home full of enthusiasm and excitement. Nowadays, I buy CDs online and I feel that same buzz of excitement when I get home and find the parcel on the floor.

Every record and every CD is like a milestone in my life and I simply cannot part with them – just yet anyway.

It’s the same story with books, although sadly Mrs PM has had her way with those. I now only keep reference books. I’ve allowed Mrs PM to purge my paperbacks because they don’t really mean that much to me. Besides, I have a Kindle and can keep them all electronically.

Earlier this year, my mum moved from her house to a flat, mainly because she is getting a little frail and a big house is too much for her. Consequently my sisters and I had to have a big clear out for her.

It was amazing. She’s now 76 years old and she is definitely a hoarder – or should I say was a hoarder. As she’s got older I think she has started to care less about all the trinkets and keepsakes that have cluttered up her house.

My sisters wanted to be ruthless but I was the voice of reason and tried my best to check with mum what she wanted to do with things. I was surprised when she said “I don’t want that now. I’m surprised I still have it.”

She kept the things most dear to her and the rest was discarded. She now lives in a small clutter free flat and I swear there is a spark in her eye that has been reignited.

When I looked in my old room, I found lots of battered old books dating from the 1930’s and 1940’s that my grandad passed onto her. I remember devouring them as a kid and it was really weird reading them again. In fact, as a child, I had defaced a couple of them, scribbling in the corners. There were worthless and falling apart, yet a part of me wanted to bring them home to Manchester and put them in the loft.

Mrs PM would never have allowed that.

I also found a few old things of my own, including school books from my sixth form and notes my university course. I made an exception with those and chose to bring them home, where they now reside in a cupboard in the back room.

I may never use them again (they are so out of date) but they did spark great memories of that time back in the early 1980’s. In fact, when I look at the maths notes, it’s almost like they are written in a different language. There are pages and pages of handwritten formulae, theorems and their proofs, equations, derivations and graphs and I wonder now how I managed to get my brain to understand them.

I must have been very clever in my youth as an undergraduate. I’m certain that if I spent some time revisiting them I might well make sense out of them again. I have no plans to do that at the moment; it just reminds me of what a bright kid I was.

Mrs PM, on the other hand, is as intelligent if not more so than I am – but she disagrees with my need to keep my notes. To her they are rubbish and she has discarded hers and sold all of her university books with absolutely no remorse at all.

She’s happy with her choice but I think it’s sad.

One day I may think differently and change my mind, just like my mum has.

For now, I will bask in my stuff and enjoy it – even those embarrassing CDs I bought in the 1980s, containing songs like this:

I don’t care what you think – I love it.

How about you dear reader?

How many keepsakes do you have buried in yourjunk drawer or in your loft?

Are you a hoarder who can’t bear to part with things?

What worthless trinkets do you have that reignite your nostalgia?

Pop Music Through The Decades (Part Two)

It’s time for another trip back through time, from the decade of my birth to the present day. Once again, I have trawled through my ageing brain, selecting a favourite pop song from every decade I have been alive.

I hope you like them.

1960’s – Ike and Tina Turner – River Deep, Mountain High



I love a strong female voice and, let’s face it, they don’t come much stronger than Tina Turner. When River Deep, Mountain High was released, I was four years old and it had such an impact that I actually remembered loving it at that tender age. Tina Turner’s voice never seemed to lose its impact and she was still working until around the year 2000.

She has a great voice and this is one of my favourite songs from the 1960’s.

1970’s – The Stranglers – Five Minutes

It’s time for a bit of punk rock, folks.  While punk rock wasn’t (and isn’t) my favourite musical genre, I cannot deny that there were some outstanding songs from that great period in the late 1970’s. The Stranglers, in my opinion, were more than just a punk band and changed their style to match the changing fashions in music. I have to say that I really love their early songs and Five Minutes was the pinnacle for me.

The song is hard, with slightly controversial lyrics for a chart friendly 1970’s audience. If you watch the video, it makes you think that the song is really five minutes long but in reality it only lasts about three and a half minutes. Maybe they were being rebellious, but I think that I would have made the effort to draw it out to the correct length of time.

But that’s just the perfectionist in me.

1980’s – Talk Talk – It’s My Life

Talk Talk are one of the most underrated bands of the 1980’s. When this song was first released in 1984, it barely made the top 40 in England. However, it was re-released in the early 1990s and reached the top 10.

I remember it from the first time around and I loved it. And so did most of the rest of Europe where it fared a little better on the continental mainland.

I love the first line of the song:

“Funny how I find myself in love with you”.

It’s My Life isn’t the only song I like by Talk Talk and I may expose you to a couple more in future posts. However, I have to say that this song epitomises the kind of pop music I love.

1990’s – Depeche Mode – I Feel You

I remember back in the early 1980’s when the charts were full of nice electronic pop songs, produced by squeaky clean pop groups, sometimes with weird haircuts and even weirder clothes. Depeche Mode were one of those bands; inoffensive and singing radio friendly and very catchy little tunes.

I started taking notice of the band in the late 1980’s when they created my second favourite pop album of that decade.

Why did I take notice? Because they evolved into something much darker and far more in tune with my tastes.

They reached the peak with I Feel You, which is arguably my favourite song by the band. I can’t fault it and it as close to hard rock as the band have been.

 2000’s – Kasabian – Shoot the Runner

Perhaps at my age, the pop music of the 2000’s seemed to be taking a distinct turn into tediousness and monotony, with the charts being dominated by rap and computerised dance music.

Fighting the corner for more accessible pop music were (and are) bands like Kasabian, who wrote and continue to write pop songs that have some appeal to me.

In particular, Shoot the Runner has a bit of a glam rock feel to it, which is evident in the colourful and slightly psychedelic video. With bands like this around, there is hope for us yet.

2010’s – Gotye – Somebody That I Used to Know

When pop music started to be driven by the accompanying video in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, a part of me began to despair. It seemed that the video itself would become more important than the song -  and in a lot of cases this was definitely true.

I have always preferred to listen to music, not to picture the accompanying video in my mind’s eye as I listen to the words.

Nevertheless, occasionally a video has acted as a great introduction to a song as in this case.

I hate adverts and when there is a commercial break, I inevitably flick to music channels in the desperate hope that there is something new out there that is new and exciting and not being forced into our minds by those arses that are killing music.

On this rare occasion, the video intrigued me enough during that advertising break to actually listen to the song. I missed the resumption of the programme I was watching because of it – and I’m glad.

This is a well-crafted quirky little song with an odd but well-crafted quirky video.

And I may be a hypocrite – but I like it – and this is a rare occurrence with pop music these days.

Pop Music Through The Decades

This year I’ve been waving goodbye to each month with a musical interlude. The month of May is going to be treated in the same way but instead of concentrating on one particular artist, I thought I would do something slightly different and offer a song for each decade that I have been alive.

Regular readers will know that I am in my early fifties, which means that I am now in my sixth decade of walking this planet, ranting and generally being an arse. 

Rather than choosing obscure artists, I delved into my iPod library and have selected for your pleasure (or otherwise) a pop song that I love from each ten year period.

I hope you’ve heard of the songs and I hope you like them.

1960’s – The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil

Do I prefer the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?

To be honest, I like both bands because they are responsible for some terrific songs.

My dad hated them and my exposure to bands was limited until the 1970’s and by then it was all over in terms of airplay. I have listened to both since then and have edged towards the Rolling Stones in terms of preference. If I were to list a top ten of both bands then Sympathy for the Devil would be number one. I can tell what you’re thinking:

“You like heavy metal and this song is about the devil. It’s no surprise you like it.”

That’s pure coincidence, dear reader, because as you know, loving heavy metal does not make you a Satanist.

1970’s – Kate Bush – The Man With the Child in His Eyes

Kate Bush is a rather eccentric artist. I actually laughed when I heard Wuthering Heights for the first time, simply because it was weird enough to be a one hit wonder. After all, there were plenty of them about in the seventies, weren’t there?

This song was her follow up to that strange single and completely different. There’s something about the song I like – I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.

It’s difficult to admit it, particularly since I was discovering heavy metal at the time.

“You mean you like Black Sabbath AND Kate Bush?” 

The answer is yes – and I don’t mind confessing it now.

1980’s - Icehouse – Hey Little Girl

After the trauma of climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, I was shaking like a leaf. I said to Mrs PM:

"Right – let’s find a pub! I need a drink!”

We found a pub in The Rocks and I marched up the barman and said:

“Give me a beer – ANY beer.” 

As the cool, cold liquid gushed down my throat, I started to breathe more deeply and I looked into the eyes of the woman who had made me suffer, a woman who, incidentally, was very apologetic but desperately stifling a fit of the giggles.

“Do you feel better now?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

And I did feel better. I started to take in my surroundings and realised what I had just done. I was quite proud, despite my dissipating terror. I listened to the dulcet tones of the other patrons of the establishment and noticed the song that had just started.

That song was Hey Little Girl.

“Do you know, something?” I said to Mrs PM. “I really like this song.”

Mrs PM grinned but said nothing.

At that precise moment, and just for a couple of minutes, it was my favourite song in the world.

1990’s – k. d. lang – Constant Craving

This is a really nice song and not one that people would usually associate with my taste. It’s a simple pop song with a really nice tune. What I like most about the song is the voice of k. d. lang. She sings beautifully.

I don’t think there is anything more to say, other than sit back, relax and enjoy this lovely song.

2000’s – Goldfrapp – Train

There is little overlap in my musical taste and that of Mrs PM but a couple of Goldfrapp songs occupy that special place. This is essentially a dance song but there are elements of the electronic style I like from the early 1980’s and hints of the 1970’s in there too.

Of course, Mrs PM’s transient taste means that it is over for her (after all it is over ten years old now) but I will continue to fly the flag for it.

The video is slightly naughty (in case you are a little sensitive).

2010’s – Gary Numan – My Last Day

Way back in the 1980’s Gary Numan was at the forefront of the revolution in electronic music. I was amazed a few years ago to discover that he is still producing music thirty years later.

His new style is darker and the music has evolved, so much so that this year I bought his latest album (released two years ago).

You will hear more about this in my musical round up of 2015 later in the year. My Last Day is the last song on the album and is a slow burner. It builds up to an amazing crescendo with terrific keyboards and drums – just the kind of song I like.

If Gary Numan continues to produce music of this high calibre I will be buying his next album for sure.

And finally …

I hope you liked the songs.