The Proclaimers – 500 Miles
How could this not get your toe tapping?! I love how those harmonies sound both chaotically flung-out and pitch-perfect precise. With this track, for me they escaped their “Buddy Holly-lookylikey Scots-twins novelty-act” presentation and produced something magical. Oh and the song ends properly. I do love a proper ending to a song. Most satisfying.
bishbosh
Mystery Artist – Mystery Track (Give you a ride)
This track from the Peaking Lights mixtape is an inconsequential ditty about a drive-by pick up merchant in his MerSuhDeez that has implanted itself in my brain, and I’m hoping someone – like GoneForeign – can put me out of my misery and tell me the name of the performer/song. There is a whole website devoted to dozens of songs about Mercedes Benz cars – largely hiphop – but this doesn’t feature.
Glasshalfempty
Janis Joplin – Mercedes Benz
I daresay that this isn’t new to many ‘Spillers, but it is, for me, the Mercedes Benz song (it was a recurring earworm when Mr. Zala bought himself an ancient UniMog). The song is a lighthearted look at material desires and pecuniary shortage.
Zalamanda
Pearl Bailey – Easy Street
Another version of an old classic. Pearl Bailey nails it, in my opinion.
SpottedRichard
Speech Debelle – I’m With It
The first single off Speech Debelle’s new album suggests a branching out for the Mercury winner from her debut, Speech Therapy – although this is the radio version and we’ve not heard anything else from the album, which is due out some time in February.
Anonymous
Esquerita – Rockin’ The Joint
Esquerita, real name Eskew Reeder, was the guy who taught Little Richard the piano. Very popular for a time around New Orleans, he also had a massive following in France. He and Richard’s other mentor, Billy Wright (not the former England football captain) were part of the very big gay scene in 50s New Orleans. Esquerita was known for outlandish stage clothes and a foot high pompadour hair style.
Whatever, this rocks!
RockingMitch
This one sort of wandered away in a direction I wasn’t expecting. Incredibly, we even have what seems to be something close to an exclusive, courtesy of our anonymous contributor.
Please send your distinctive, catchy or otherwise memorable earworminess to earworm@tincanland.com, not forgetting to tell us why it’s so fab! Thank you!
Oh, bish, how could you? This is one of my most hated songs of all time. It’s like the episode of Father Ted in which Ted and Dougal find themselves trapped in a caravan with a happy-clappy priest (played by Graham Norton) who just won’t fucking stop being upbeat! If I had a hammer, I’d smash it into their speccy skulls, over and over and over again…..
I will listen to the others later. After my medication.
Ha ha, oops! I really like it…
Ooh, I think there’s some call-and-response going on there too… JonD, ahoy there!
OO-er, Chris! I’m not sure I threaten that much violence on any of my “Most Hated”s . . . * considers GG’s I Will Survive * . . . OK, maybe I do, but not normally in public.
I was about to say that, coincidentally, BOTH 500 Miles and JJ’s Mercedes Benz have been personal involuntary-singalong-’worms, in the last week: spooky.
On a borrowed machine at work, so can’t listen until tonight.
Cheers all.
I seem to remember it was on TOTP week after week in the days when it was still acceptable/traditional to watch it. It became relentless torture.
Threatening violence in public may also be partly your fault, DsD. Something in me feels the need to undermine that trade-marked description you applied to me…..
Eeesh, have you been talking to DsMam, Chris? Just about everything appears to be my fault at the moment, according to her!
In a relationship consisting of a male and female, everything is the male’s fault. That’s just a fact of life, DsD.
Ha, typical male cop-out.
Another interesting bunch.
I like the Proclaimers, but I have heard this a little too often.
Mystery Artist. Yep. That worked. Really like it.
I love Janis Joplin, but again, I’ve heard this track a little too often.
Pearl Bailey. Yes indeed. And I shouted when it hit me, yes indeed!
I’m afraid Speech Debelle didn’t do much for me.
Esquerita is my pick, so I’ll leave that one for others to comment on.
I actually nominated Pearl Bailey’s Easy Street last week, I believe, so apologies to anyone who listened to it then and for whom it’s not fresh now.
Stand out track for me this week is Rock This Joint. Just magnificent. How did Friday go, Mitch?
I have to agree with bishbosh that 500 Miles is a beautifully crafted piece. And it’s earwormy alright. Good choice, bish.
Give You A Ride. Very nice indeed.
Mercedes Bend. Great track.
Speech Debelle. Don’t know it. Liked it.
So, a good week for me for earworms. Lovely and varied. Thanks Zalamanda!
Sorry, that would be Rockin’ This Joint.
And Mercedes Benz?
Oh crap. Going to blame the migraine again. Just woke up from a nice nap so feeling better already!
Glad to hear you’re feeling better. Just so long as none of the earworms induced said migrane…
No the migraine is permenant. (It’s the meds that make me such a space cadet, sadly.)
Sorry, but the rest didn’t float my boat much either (although none produced murderous intent).
Janis and Pearl are fantastic voices that I could listen to singing anything. Even though I’m almost as over-familiar with the Janis track as The Proclaimers’, I still absolutely love her dirty cackle at the end.
The other tracks came across as rather vanilla examples of their genres. Good but not memorable.
Eek! I accidentally hit “Publish” when I meant to hit “Save”, so if you happen to have caught a glimpse of a post-dated Earworms, please do your very best to ignore it. And the notification e-mail. It needs editing. It isn’t finished. I need to change at least one track. (Feel free to send in helpful submissions.)
OK, even I know where Chris is coming from on The Proclaimers. I can hear that it could be kind of annoying, but it struck me as a proper earworm in the traditional sense of the word… and those can be a bit of an irritant! That said, I have always liked it.
The “Give you a ride” track is nice and chilled – will be intrigued to see if anyone can identify it. Maybe worth Shazam-ing?
Ooh, more cars. This is a bit raw for me. I worry for the state of Janis’s throat. Well, not any more, but you know. Fun but not my favourite of hers. Certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome!
Pearl Bailey is a little smooth for my tastes but ever so classy. I guess pleasant is how I’d describe it. Not totally my thing, but with a G’n'T on a summer’s evening…
I don’t think I ever heard any of Speech Debelle’s Mercury-winning album (but then, who did?). This is surprisingly – to me – accessible. Doesn’t seem to go anywhere much but I like it.
I love the intro to the Esquerita track, but then it turns into just another rock ‘n’ roll track to me. Sorry. Not at all unpleasant: great voice, great energy, but I don’t think I could really distinguish it from, eg, a Chuck Berry song. (That’s probably high praise, isn’t it?!) I guess I may be in the Chris “good but unmemorable” camp with this one.
who heard anything of Speech Debelle’s Mercury-winning album?
At least six current and past ‘Spillers, according to this,
http://readersrecommend.blogspot.com/2009/07/speech-debelle.html
and Shane had apparently boxed her music a while before that..
Not so keen on this week’s track, though.
I worry for the state of Janis’s throat.
A bit late for that, surely?
.
As for Speech, I tipped her a few months before that Spill blog Mr Nilpf. #justsaying. Speech Therapy was one of my albums of the year. I’m pretty convinced it was a one of a kind though.
Love the Proclaimers track. I’ve heard the Comic Relief version too many times but this still does it for me. Hmm. It’s about walking……..
Mystery Artist – ‘ere! It’s rude…. very catchy and a real earworm. Loved it. He wants to give you a lift in his car so you don’t have to walk. Nice chap. The car’s a Mercedes Benz innit.
Janis Joplin – Does one detect some progressing pattern here? Always loved this. Often sing it in the shower since you ask.
Pearl Bailey – And erm where does all this walking and driving happen? OK – I surrender. This is where the drift occurred methinks. Lovely song. Pearl in great voice. Love the vibrato.
Speech Debelle – I do like young Speech. The extent to which I like her is probably in exact proportion to her lack of appeal to real rap fans. This sound like a winner to me.
Esquerita – Well, the song hardly exists but it rocks and rolls along like a good one and the piano sounds great. The sax sounds pretty damn good too.
*whispers*
Magic?
Nicely followed, except you missed the link between “Mercedes Benz” and “Easy Street”. There is one, although it is where the direction changed a bit. After that, mind, it all went to pot.
Sorry just realised I was anonymous. It was me. It was me.
I tried to give a listen but gave up – will have to try again another day. Listened to Maki’s Etta James playlist first, so my meter is set differently today i think!
Although Janis is of course very familiar to me.
Evening all.
The mystery track has defeated Shazam, fwiw. It was quite nice, though I wouldn’t seek it out again.
Pearl isn’t my style at all, I’m afraid.
Speech was a slight surprise … is she trying to “do a Plan B”?
Esquerita was fun, but if I was going to pick one of this week’s worms to repeat-play, none of the newtomes can hold a candle to Janis, over-exposed or not.
Ta.
I really liked the Speech Debelle track. Has the feel of a lot of the great soul/disco stuff from the late 70s/ early 80s. May check out some more. As for the Proclaimers I agree with Chris wholeheartedly !!
Phew! Not entirely on my own, then.
I could refer to a Jerry Sadowitz comment about the Proclaimers here but in the interests of taste I will refrain.
First off, Zalamanda, give me back my rug immediately.
Proclaimers – Bish, I love this (sorry Chris). I know it has been played to death but I just like it. No idea why.
Mystery track – OK but can’t remember it at all now.
Janis – love this too, remember someone standing up on the tube once and singing it to everyone in the carriage – she got a round of applause.
Pearl Bailey – sophisticated, innit?
Speech Debelle – I love what she does with words but I hate the ’70s disco vibe in the backing arrangement, had to cut it short.
Esquerita – really good, had me dancing about.
Good mix, thanks Zala.
I pretty much agree with everything Bish said about this lot. Except for the gin, which I don’t like, but have no requirement for since maybe I’ve slightly more inclination to enjoying the smooth along with the rough than he does.
The Janis track is relatively inconsequential, I’ll admit – but it still sticks in the mind, which certainly makes it a proper earworm. And I’m afraid I couldn’t resist adding it after Mr. Give-You-A-Ride had absconded with the Proclaimers in his posh car. (Equally, I couldn’t resist turning the posh car into a UniMog in the photograph; I’m sure that, if I had searched long enough, I could have found something posher than an A Class or a bin lorry in Zalason’s immense box of toy cars.) It was Janis who turned the attention of the list from modes of transport to the lack of cash to purchase luxuries. Hence “Easy Street”. (And the chocolate money, for that matter.)
Speech turned up at the last minute and insisted that she be included, and then it just seemed like a good idea to have a good rock out to finish off.
Oh, and, um, thank you for the, um, loan of the rug, Ali.
I must say, it looks cleaner than I thought!!
Just a quick listen this week as I’ve been on actual RR and doing some worky stuff in the evenings.
I find 500 Miles to be a great tune and a lot of fun, it got a bit of airplay when Peter Kay re-did it for Comic Relief, but I hadn’t heard it much since then, so very happy to hear it again. I’m especially happy when British and Irish people sing in their vernacular and not pretend USofA.
Pearl Bailey was great. At first, having seen Annie at the West Yorkshire Playhouse recently, I was keen for it to be the different song of the same title that’s in that show. But once I got over that, great stuff.
I do love a bit of rock’n'roll piano-ology and Rockin’ The Joint is no exception.
Speech Debelle and the Mystery Personality sounded good, and Janis is strong enough to survive being actually used in an actual Mercedes Benz advertisement promotion.
Thanks everyone !