We’re into the dying days of August, and have clearly had all the summer that we’re likely to get this year. Everyone seems to be on holiday (which is why you’re stuck with me again for the Challenge). My brain appears to have turned to mush (hence the need to come up with Plan B for the Challenge), and I have a terrifying number of different things to do and nowhere near enough time to do half of them in. The world economy is going to hell in a handcart. It would be all too easy to start feeling a bit down. However, this is also a world in which there are kittens. And box sets of Green Wing. And music. What is the song guaranteed to cheer you up, however bad things get?
I think I’ve used this in answer to a similar question, but still:
It is a really cheerful song and I am sure it will cheer anyone up! I was singing along before the end of the song!!!
The rabbits and other animals in the video are super cute!!!
I do love this
Love this one!
Glorious!
Barbryn – Was it you nommed this for the birds topic? I remember playing this everyday for a couple weeks after that ’cause it is irresistibly happy.
Well there a lots of songs that I really like to cheer me up, but one that I aways listen to if I am down and which always works is “Saa, Sassoku Moriagete Ikou ka~!!” or Lets Get Pumped Up! (More or less)
It Is by Melon Kinenbi (or Melons Akimbo as Pairubu calls them) who are my favorite J-pop girl vocal band. Unfortunately they split last year. Here is a nice clip of them doing the track live from a few years ago. I am sure even if you do not know Japanese you can join in with the audience (they just say Hey! Hey! Hey!)
I hope you like it!!
That was me, Sakura (in case you could not guess)
No, really?
Totally irrepressible, of course. Liked the purple t-shirt. Might get one myself.
Wooo hooo ! Melons ! Hey ! Hey ! Hey !
I am really happy you like it!
FUN!!!!!
That worked. I now have a ridiculous big smile on my face.
I seem to remember a similar question where I answered with Persian Love by Holger Czukay but my second choice is this:
It is a lovely track and I love it very much. It brings images of graceful back ladies dancing sexy Latin dances in exotic night clubs!!!
Oh shoot!!! Why I am keep being logged out??? That was me again Sakura!
Good choice, Mnemonic. So hopeful in a sane and elegant sort of way. Really grace-full.
Oh, Mnemosene – that was just fine.
Perhaps there simply is a finite, and relatively small, number of questions that can be asked about music without excluding people by being impossibly obscure. Sorry, everyone. Still, all of this is helping to keep me from lapsing further into gloom.
Hope we can all help to lift your mood with our song choices. Failing that, it’ll have to be that song from Annie.
It is a great idea for a challenge Abahachi!!!
I hope you are not really sad, and if you are I hope these songs cheer you up!!!
Your kitten looks like a lot of fun! I am sure he cheers you up very much also!!!
Aba – Glad to lighten the load. It’s a perfect holiday challenge & well done carrying on the baton.
It IS gloomy. Rotton economy, rotten riots, rotten weather, rotten governmental “quick fixes”. Back on the bird theme, here’s another cheerer upper.
I like this one, too! I was just thinking about it because of Ali’s post on Tiny Birds. I have the Jolie Holland solo version. So pretty!
One of my favourites, lovely.
SR – Absolutely delightful. If you’re not happier after having a listen at that you might want to start making arrangements.
This is lovely!!! I had never heard this group before and I really liked it. I love the image of the littlest birds singing the prettiest songs, it quite beautiful actually!!!
Glad you like it, Sakura. The song has a great deal of meaning for me.
Love this – one of many great discoveries from the RR “Songs about birds” week. I think I prefer Jolie Holland’s version by a whisker:
Thanks for posting the solo version, Barbryn. Jolie Holland is in both versions, as you know, but others may not. For me, the first version is a smidge more upbeat, although I agree that her solo version is a tad more delicious.
Guaranteed to blow the cobwebs away!
I liked this! I really liked the trumpet parts!
I’ve been feeling really discouraged lately, too!
I think I might have answered a similar question once with Nina Simone’s Ooh Child. But I recently discovered this track…
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/534327/3%20You%20Only%20Live%20Once.mp3
It’s You Only Live Once by Nigerian band SJob movement. I love it to pieces, it’s quite long and change-y, but it just keeps getting better and better. I posted it on the ‘Spill once, but I think maybe only Sakura listened. It’s nice because it’s not just things will get better, but that you can make them better…
Love Ooh Child. So glad you dropboxed It’s You Only Live Once. (Which is true enough.) A-W-E-S-O-M-E! It hit all the right spots for me. Sunny, upbeat, made me want to get up and dance…in fact I did. But at the same time, rational and thoughtful. Great choice.
Thanks, SpottedRichard! I’m glad you like it.
I like this too
To clear up the feeling that we’ve done this (and prove that I am less occupied than Aba), here are the picks from the original 30-day Challenge Day 3:
Abahachi: Love Will Keep Us Together by Captain and Tennille
albahooky: Music Takes Me Up by Mr Scruff
Ali Munday: Mr Blue Sky by ELO
amylee: Here I Am by Al Green
Balloonisterer: Universal Hall by The Waterboys
barbryn: Nice Weather For Ducks by Lemon Jelly
bethnoir: Painting Box by The Incredible String Band
bishbosh: Do I Love You by Frank Wilson
Blimpy: The Happy Song by The Aliens
bluepeter: Survival by Osibisa
CaroleBristol: Over The Hills And Far Away by Led Zeppelin
chinhealer: Light of Love by Music Go Music
Chris: Truckin’ by Grateful Dead
DaddyPig: The Return Of The Las Palmas Seven by Madness
DarceysDad: Big Balls by AC/DC
debby(m): Spinning Wheel by Blood, Sweat & Tears
fintan28: Grazing In The Grass by Hugh Masekela
fred flinstone: Wake Up Boo by The Boo Radleys
goneforeign: Three Little Birds by Bob Marley & The Wailers
lambretinha: Mana mana by The Muppets
makinavaja: Handsworth Revolution by Steel Pulse
Marconius7: Joy to the World by Three Dog Night
May1366: Maggie May by Rod Stewart & The Faces
Mnemosene: Persian by Holger Czukay
nilpferd: Get Happy by Art Tatum
pairubu: Banana by Shonen Knife
panthersan: Goody Goody by 1910 Fruitgum Company
rockingmitch: Sea Cruise by Frankie Ford
saneshane: The Most Fun by Brakes
severin: Feel Like Making by Elizabeth Archer and the Equators
ShivSidecar: Genius of Love by Tom Tom Club
Shoegazer: 5 Years Time by Noah & The Whale
Steenbeck: Everybody Plays the Fool by The Main Ingredient
ToffeeBoy: One Step Beyond by Madness
treefrogdemon: End Of The Line by Traveling Wilburys
webcorewebcore: The Sound Of Music by Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band
wyngatecarpenter: Waterslide by The Dickies
But a) there are some new people around now, and b) you can’t have too many songs that induce happiness.
OK then, I’m going to have another pick:
Hot song! Like it a lot. Yummy, in fact.
This is a really nice track. I did not know then before and i really enjoyed it!
This would definitely be in my Top Ten for this question – and, as you’ll see, my number one is very similar in approach.
So my new choice is Little Feat‘s Sailin’ Shoes, a nonsensical celebration that you have to smile at.
Everyone will start to cheer
When you put on your sailin’ shoes
Any song about shoes will cheer me up!!!
I have a pair of louis vuitton ankle boots that make me feel like a princess ♥
Music I love tends to give me an endorphin boost, regardless of its mood or message, but I have to say that this summer malaise is giving me plenty of reasons to search out tunes that seem especially designed to console or recharge. And, having seen your Take One challenge, Aba, and because times really are that tough, I’m going to take the liberty of posting a preliminary answer before my actual choice.
For those who missed it, Aba’s original challenge was for one-offs, which was very close to DsD’s challenge question a couple of months back so it’s no longer there but it was up long enough for me to get thinking about artists who have just one song that I would countenance in my collection – not because I’ve never got round to exploring them further or because they were one-hit wonders, but because I’m very much not a fan of the artist. Most performers that I’ve grown to dislike tend to have stuck around long enough to have done one thing that is sufficiently anomalous to the main body of their work, I can appreciate it in isolation. An example is Sting’s version of Spread A Little Happiness, which is so faithful a take on the 1929 version by Arthur Rosebery that it’s the older version I would have chosen (and sort of have, but go with me on this…). Of course, very literally, Spread A Little Happiness responds to the Take Two challenge and it is a song which can initiate a dead cat bounce in my mood. However, I’m aware it’s of a milieu which can polarise reactions (Sting’s version was recorded for the end credits of the film, in which he starred, of Dennis Potter’s Brimstone and Treacle, and Potter’s deployment of Tin Pan Alley standards in work like Pennies From Heaven and The Singing Detective, while helping to revive an interest in that music, stemmed from his own hatred of the songs) so I’ll only offer it up as a ghost answer to the ghost challenge that got taken down -
- and deal with the actual challenge in place with something that is unequivocally uplifting. This album was one of my earliest jazz purchases, the first Blue Note I bought in the knowledge that the artwork on the sleeves was supposed to denote a rich seam of unspeakably cool music. This track became one of the staples at the first jazz club night my mates and I did, and hearing it now – especially when it gets to the intoxicating piano solo by the composer, Yusuf Salim – I can still feel exactly like an optimistic 19-year-old, tumbling into a musical wonderland, flush with freedom and ready for the world.
Leo Parker – Low Brown
No, I missed Take One. I like the Be Good Tanyas. Does that mean an X Factor style elimination for me?
I loved the Leo Parker! Wowsers!
I oved both of these!!! I think they are very different of course, the first was really interesting and I loved the second. Both would definately cheer me up!!!
Thanks guys. If you didn’t know, Spread A Little Happiness is from a musical, Mr Cinders. I don’t know the story but I guess the Cinderella reference must be relevant. Also, this was popular as the Depression started to take hold so I can imagine it serving the very purpose then that I’ve given it now: to ease the pain of economic fuckery.
Hey, Sakura, Ali’s got next week but will you have a Challenge for us soon?
happy happy joy joy.
“Worries” by Gisli
always makes me happy.. listen out for the words, such as:
if you had a lawyer you’d worry who to sue,
if you had a penis you’d worry who to screw.
very simple – but effective cheerer upper – for me
First one was pretty idiotically cheerful, the second – not so much, for me.
Hi Shane
I suppose some people always worry whatever and that is message, I think it can cheer you up to think this! I liked the track, it sort of reminded me of Jonathan Richmond maybe?
haven’t watched Ren and Stimpy for ages, that is very happy making indeed.
Hmm…
Currently, I have to say that this is the one.
However, I must warn you that the video is very, very rude. Includes nakeditidy and general stupid behaviour. The song , Tabibito is something about travelers or some such. The band, The Blue Hearts, Japan’s finest 1980s punk band.
Happy and bouncy song. Definitely a mood lifter. Strange vid though.
I like this track but I think Linda Linda is the one I would play to cheer me up, but this is a nice cheerful track. also!!!
They were banned from Japanese TV for “general stupid behaviour” actually one time!!!
The video is strange indeed, the girl in it is actually Rui Sakuragi.
Well I’m not going to ask which part of her body you recognised !
I might have gone for Linda, Linda but I think I might have played the song a little too much.
It also “annoys” me a bit that the recorded versions just aren’t quite as good as a couple of the live takes on Youtube.
Especially this version
Pairubu!!!! LOL!!! I did not recognise her silly!!! I just know it is her from reading forums about the Blue Hearts!!!
I agree the live versions are much better. I wish I could have seen them but the split up a long time ago.
Hiroto Kōmoto and Masatoshi Mashima the vocalist and guitarist are in the band The Cro-Magnons in English which is a good band also. Do you know them?
This is the track Eight Beat by them
Yes, I’ve heard of the Cro-Magnons and watched the youtube stuff, really good but I can’t seem to find any downloads. There’s nothing ( as usual) on i-tunes ( our version).
As I used “Sea Cruise” last time this was asked, I’m having a change!
One of my favourite movies was “The Big Lebowski” and one of my favourite scenes is where The Dude has just got his Creedence tapes back and plays this whilst driving.
It always cheers me up
Fantastic. Top notch. Winner.
Glad you liked it. I noticed on YouTube there are a few “dislikes” clicked. Can’t understand what there is to dislike about it. Must be miserable gits!
On any desert island list there would have to be one CCR album. Problem for me would be which one. See if I’d just heard this, Cosmo’s Factory would be in my hand but I’d still be seein’ Green River & Willy & the Poor Boys on the shelf. They were so damn good!
This is such a happy song!!! I really felt like dancing round my appartment!!! Really great!!!
I do not think you be sad for too long listening to this track!!!
Ooh, I need to watch The Big Lebowski right now…no wait, I’ll have to listen to Fintan’s choice first, as that will upcheer me also.
I don’t know my amswer to this one yet, but I’ve had a pig of a day, so I’m quite desperate to hear all your choices – sickly child to settle first, though. Hope I’ll catch up with you all later…
debby – hope you got around to the songs and sickly child is perking up.
We have a snot filled 10 month old, who apart from not sleeping, is doing okay battling with his first cold. So I can feel for you a little bit – but obviously not to the extremes of Pig of a Day – hugs from the ‘spillers.
Hope sickly one is on the mend now?
Lots’a tings from the era of classic reggae, first one that comes to mind is a 12″ single I have by Bunny Wailer, ‘Jump, Jump’; that’ll get you up and dancing, and then there’s Bob’s ‘Jump Nyabinghi’. Thanks Chris for doing the legwork, my choice back then was another for this week but I’d posted it a week ago for Sakura. Here’s my two;
Bob for me.
ok – can I stop bobbing now?
I think Bob Marley is just wonderful and his postive attitude just shines through in so many of this tracks. I really loved this one!!!
Bunny Wailer track is just so great!!! This one is really one to cheer everyone up!!! You are right GF, it is impossible to sit still and listen to this track!!!
“What is the song guaranteed to cheer you up, however bad things get?”
Do you seriously mean “however bad things get”? What if we were desperately searching for scraps of food in a post nuclear landscape? I think then my favourite songs would seem hollow and pointless. I don’t think there is such a song. But then my wife thinks I tend to look on the gloomy side of things. So I’ll stick to “a song that generally cheers me up under most relatively normal circumstances”
Songs that cheer me up can be roughly translated as “songs that I like” so something like Killing Joke’s Requiem or Varukers’ Led To The Slaughter would do fine! But I suppose we’re looking for songs that are also cheerful themselves.
Apparently last time I posted silly comedy punks The Dickies so by sharp contrast here’s some silly comedy punks
Splodgenessabounds – We’re Pathetique.
Slightly at odds with the photo in the clip. This song always makes me smile not just because of the music but also the utterly ludicrous “introducing the band” lyrics. At least they rhyme.
“What do you think when you look at Tone?
I bet you think he’s like a garden gnome
On the phone
What do you think when you look at Grimble(?)?
I bet you think he’s looking very nimble
Like a thimble”
I was going to reveal my identity but I think it’ll take you all of about 2 seconds to work it out.
Must stop doing that
wyngatecarpenter, is that you? Do I get a prize?
Yes you do, not that it can have been too difficult (Killing Joke and Splodge both namechecked). Your prize is of course 2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps.
thanks very much could you make one of them a cider with a dash of blackcurrant and ready salted crisps please? Ta!
Lovely! Thought it might be you, but too chicken to out you. Shame, that, because I would kill for a Babycham and a packet of pork scratchings.
Alcoholic drinks and salted bar snacks of your choice it is.
Some great songs here, but I feel if I go through all the comments and say that I like them, people will think I’m making it up. Anyway, here’s one from me:
Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive! Sometimes easier said than done, but we keep trying.
This is great. I’ve got this song by Gene Vincent and he does it rather differently!
Ali – video blocked here but I know the song well. I’ve always liked it, even from my childhood movie days.
I love the words to this song very much!!! His voice is just so classy!!!
wonderful choice!
Reggae probably is the way to go:
Shoey: I’d totally forgotten JM’s Roots Train, I’ve got it but haven’t played in yearsl love it. Thanks for the reminder – reggae rules!
Very, Very happy horns in that, Shoey!
This is simply great!!!
Do we need a volunteer for the next weekly challenge? I’ll do it if no one else is desperate.
Aba –
Bertie is gorgeous. He looks like he’s smiling at you. And that he has the lamp chord in his mouth.
Things aren’t great on this end either. This one actually always makes me bawl, which i’m not terrible good at otherwise. And then I feel better.
Pachelbel – Canon in D-Major.
Oh, you were expecting a Stones tune? Have one of those too.
The Pachelbel is beautiful, Amy.
Glad you liked it, Ali. Dunno what it is about it that makes me bawl, and it happens in the most inconvenient places sometimes. Once when a busker quartet was playing it in Penn Station, i started to cry and emptied all of the $1′s in my wallet into their violin case.
Oh, joy. This is one of those pieces I’ve heard more than once in my life, always liked it &, daft idiot that I am, always forget to take note of. Excellent Amy! And now for a bit of the Boys.
Damn, Amy – I must confess that , though I really like Beast Of Burden, I’ve never thought of it as a feel good song but somehow it works. Cool.
I like the Stones and I really like this song….but I do not think I would listen to it cheer me up….. But it is a great track!!!
Unfortunately the Pachelbel video is blocked for here, but I will try and find it somewhere else to listen to.
Canon is a wondeful piece of music and I’ve got at least 3 versions. Pure listening pleasure………………….
The Pachebal just makes me want to sob uncontrollably, it’s so beautiful. I like the Stones, but no contest for me.
I’m sorry! But isn’t that Mozart in the picture. And I’m sorry again! I’m an early music snob, which is why I don’t comment too much on it, but try this version…original instruments, a little less syrupy.
Sorry sorry sorry!
Actually, one of the loveliest things about Pachelbel’s canon is the use of Ostinato…
“In music, an ostinato (derived from Italian: “stubborn”, compare English: obstinate) is a motif or phrase which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in itself.”
and Jordi Saval happens to have a whole album of beautifully performed examples of Ostinato, called…Ostinato! It’s on Spotify…
http://open.spotify.com/album/1kFG3gKQNnwQvf3MEcr76q
Yep, that’s definitely Mozart, quite a few people on youtube called it out. A few of them also called out the Baumgartner version i posted for being too slow. The version you posted was lovely, and the tempo it seems that i usually hear it played at. And definitely more of a feel good smile piece. The version i posted is definitely on the sweet side, but it’s that pace and the violins that wring my guts. I can’t think of a version that i wouldn’t like, but i heard one heavy on the harpsichord that set my teeth on edge a bit…
Ha! It’s nice to know I have good company among the pedants trolling youTube!
And actually again…remember back in Dissonance week I suggested Purcell’s 3 Parts Upon a Ground, because there’s this achingly beautiful moment of dissonance that repeats throughout? It’s on Jordi Savall’s Ostinato album! Hoo boy! (I promise to stop now….)
Oh, don’t stop if you don’t want to! I’m at work here and am deeply enjoying and appreciating the classical, it’s all i can really listen to now as the other usual feel good stuff is to jumped up happy to be conducive to work. A few weeks ago i put up the instrumental challenge topic to get a work conducive playlist too.
There’s a lot of snobbery attached to this piece (not meaning you, Steen) as it’s become such fixture on “Best Classical Album in the World… Ever!” type compilations, but that doesn’t mean it’s not gorgeously perfect.
Pity the poor cellist though – a sequence of 8 notes, repeated throughout – and no speeding up, or the violins will explode.
Of course, the chord sequence is responsible for a good proportion of popular music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
It also has the curse of being known and loved by the masses.
ok so Elizabeth Archer does it but this one also give me a bit of a boost. As John Peel said at the time, “an old Chris Spedding won’t ever let you down” and the title alone is kind of hopeful. Plus I like the way the music just builds and builds.
This was ye olde original choice……
WOW!! What a different version of this great song! I really love it when I hear a new version of a song I know as it makes me look at the one I know differently. This is a really summer track and I reallenjoyed it!!!
Not a huge Bryan Ferry fan (can I say that?) but I enjoyed Elizabeth Archer. Very nice, very summery and very upbeat.
This never fails with me;
I love The Byrds and the opening of this song just makes me happy.
Hi Carole! The opening few bars of this track evoke the whole summer of love vibe for me! I love the track and the words are really nice, almost buddhist actually. I love this!!
Well I love the words ( from some book called The Bible, not sure who it’s by) but, unfortunately my Mum chose it for my Dad’s funeral so it’s a wee bit off for me now.
Me that is, WordPress appears to hate me.
Allegedly it was King Solomon who wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes. So unless he had an unaccredited collaborator, the lyrics have all the wisdom of Solomon. Added to the fact that its a fair statement that everything has it’s season, it is incredibly uplifting tune. A great favourite.
Mmmmmmmmmmman
I had never heard of them before and they are an interesting mix of glam rock and also rock and roll. But the track is on whihc really gets the feet tapping and It is really cheerful! I am sure you could be sad for long listenting to this!!!
Great choice, love the Move and love this song.
Me too ! I love the Move more than you, Mr Anonymous.
I saw girls in go-go boots. How fun. That was just too much fun. I’ve heard their music, but not seen a clip before. Now I completely understand what complete rip off merchants Showaddywaddy were. (And they were crap.)
Made me laugh out loud
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPNNIVGhjRk&feature=related
So good I played it twice
every time I hear the word bounce or something bounces this comes into my head and it makes me grin from ear to ear and later in this episode Vince and Howard kiss, life is good when spent with the Boosh.
I hope your kitties make you happy too Aba
It is a nice song! Did anyone ever release it as an ablum track or single, I am sure it would be a hit!!!
I don’t think it exists outside of the show, but I would definitely buy a CD of tunes from the Mighty Boosh, they are a very musically literate pair and I believe they are working on an album at the moment.
So, it probably doesn’t count, but I wanted to make Abahachi smile.
Me and Mrs Wyngatecarpenter both enjoy Mighty Boosh’s New Romantic classic Future Sailors. “electronic castaways,digital stowaways,cyborg seadog tell me what you dream of” Always amuses us.
This will work perfectly well. I’ve never tired of it ( 45 years & counting). Zal Yanovsky’s guitar? Just the happiest guitar ever. And John Sebastian is so pleased to be telling everyone this little tale of 1352 guitar pickers (been playin’ since they’se babies), their 16821 moms (how’s that work?) & , well, hell he can barely contain hisself – pick it!
WOW!!! Is that really 45 years old!!! It sounds so fresh!!! It is a very cheerful song and sure to chase away the blues from anyone!!!
Excellent choice. Zal is one of my favourite guitar players of all time, so restrained and tasteful.
I’ve got an ..er…unusual “Jewish” version of this song called Noshville Katz somewhere.
Me , that was, Mr Anonymouse.
Great pick, Fintan, always loved this song.
But 45 years old…………..Sheeeeeeesh. How old does that make me feel right now ?
My original choice on the 30 day challenge was Osibisa with “Survival”, as it always brings a smile to my face.
But, @Abahachi, if you are looking for something a little bit more life affirming and possitive in times of chaos and uncertainty, then I would suggest a bit of this. Never fails……………
I know the song of course, but the video is blocked for here, but I love this track and the words are really nice and as you say it is ” life affirming and possitive”
Phaaa…………..Never fails !!!!!!!!!!
Why do I always have trouble posting youtube vid’s ??????????
I’ll try to find another one.
Let’s try this one…………………..
BP – For the kid in all of us. What great fun this is!
Or this one?
I used to have a giant black and white poster of a still from the film – Gene Kelly under his umbrella splashing up water and singing his head off on my wall for years – that’s how much I love this.
we should make a compilation CD of this, this challenge has thrown up a much better selection than those awful ones they sell in Tescos.
In an attempt at digging myself out of the hole created by my failure to check the 30-Day Song Challenge challenges as well as the Spill Weekly Song Challange challenges, I’m going to argue that there is a small but significant difference between ‘Songs that Make You Happy’ and ‘Songs that Cheer You Up However Bad Things Get’. It is based, one might say, on Wyngate’s Razor: how many songs that would make you smile in normal circumstances would still have the same effect in the post-apocalyptic wasteland? My original selection of Captain & Tennille, much as I love it, would, I fear, simply sound cheesy and ironic; it’s a song that makes me feel happy if I’m already on a relatively even keel, but it’s not one I’d turn to to pull myself out of the slough of despond. Instead…
It’s not that it’s a happy song, exactly, though the chord sequence going into the chorus is crafted to feel uplifting. Rather, it’s a song that perfectly captures the sensation of sunshine breaking through dark clouds, and offers a reminder of what human beings are capable of creating. Even in Wyngate’s dystopian future, I think this would give me a little bit of hope…
Incidentally, this was also a contender for the ‘Only One Record in Your Collection’ challenge – because they produced just the one album…
What happened to that, anyway? I was all ready…
Darcey’s Dad pointed out that he’d done a more or less identical challenge, so I thought I’d better come up with a fall-back plan.
Ah…
“Blissfull songs” might make a good future challenge. One Dove are just perfect.
It’s just got to be this one for me!
Eminently lovable, Shame Sharkey turned out to be so…corporate.
Two thumbs up. It’s a corker.
I don’t have too many cheery-uppy songs in my collection, but I suppose it would have to be something relatively cheesy, but also quite good at the same time, something like:
The Knack – “My Sharona”
I can’t resist a good “wooohh”!!
The one I posted is much, much cheesier, but this is great.
Good choice, panthersan!
Back again… …thanks for organising a group hug, Shane – it worked wonders, today was a definite 100% improvement on yesterday! I still haven’t managed to listen to everyone’s choices, but I’m going to be making myself a playlist of everything on here.
I’m going with wyngate & Herr hachi here: my music for picking you back up when you’ve hit rock bottom is Tehillim by Steve Reich. I’m not a particularly spiritual person by any stretch of the imagination, but this has helped carry me through dark moods and unhappy times, and is the only Desert Island Disc already packed.
I came upon this concert while I was trawling youtube for a clip to post. It’s from the Minimal Music Festival in Amsterdam earlier this year – wish I’d been there! Warning: this is longer than yer av’rage youtube clip, but I don’t think you’re going to want to stop listening
[youtube= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnVN6-Wx08&feature=related%5D
Debby, this is lovely, even if it did crash my entire system! Glad you’re having a better day today.
And, if I may recommend a really good pick-me-up for when you’re just feeling a bit slow and grumpy, probably because you’ve had to crawl out of bed at the crack of dawn to get the kids off to school on time and the tube was crowded and the bus was late and the skies were grey and gloomy [you get the picture]…
… I find the RR list ‘songs about school’ does a nice job 9 times out of 10!
It’s a ‘Spill challenge repeat for me, this is the song I chose to be played when the hippo carcass heads to the celestial ancestral swamp… and coincidentally enough I was feeling shitty this afternoon, put this on, and immediately felt tons better.
It doesn’t do much; there’s a crisp drum break intro, the drums and percussion takes off hell for leather, the bass and rhythm guitar ride on some dangerous riffs and Eddie smears colours on top with his home built amplified wah-wah sax/trumpet hybrid. Still, perks me up every time.
Eddie Harris- Instant Death.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/220076/07%20Instant%20Death.mp3
I love Eddie Harris’ Instant Death! I’m glad it cheered you up.
Well now, tfd – does listening to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers make you happy?
Yes, mystery interlocutor, it surely does.
That is a happy song. Dare anyone to wear a long face with that one on.
Plus – Nudie suit!
Never noticed until just now that this song in its intro uses the same musical motif or chord sequence or something (you can tell I’m a non-musician innit?) as Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.
Still, it’s another good cheerer upper.
TFD -Smiling!
Does any other rocker enjoy himself more?
– Smiling!
Ever notice he kinda has a thing for the Byrds?
-Smiling!
Has the Scottish happiness quotient gone up over the last year or so?
-Still smiling!
No
Yes
YES
Can I have another go? The Move video made me think of this one.
This is a band that I don’t care for so is more fitting for the challenge. I only own this one song. If I am drained, feeling low, it never fails to give me a lift. It is not particularly uplifting in the lyrics, but it does give me an energy boost. I also love to watch the video on youtube. It has a lot going on, and I always spot something else going on – the ‘dogs playing poker’ picture on the wall, or some new character or something going on in the background. The Tractors also did a Christmas version of this song. I’m sure many of you know this.
SR – That rocked! Love it.