Some Songs That Make Me Feel Good!

If I’m ever feeling a bit flat, listening to one or two of these usually puts a wee spark in my eyes. Limited List of course, otherwise this will turn into a book. I am completely missing out my child hood obsession with 1950’s music (Poison Ivy, Duke of Earl!) and my fondness for certain strands of Country Music.

My Sharona,

The Knack.

This came out when I was around 7 and I loved it. Fortunately I didn’t understand what he was saying when he desperately crooned “I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind”. The rumour is that the singer went to a party with his girlfriend and she bought along her much younger friend (about 17).

The singer decided this was much more his speed, dropped his girlfriend and took up with the teenager. Thus inspired, he then wrote My Sharona. I particularly like hamming it up at the end when you imagine all his whining is the sound of him finally coming.

It Must Be Love

Madness

From the opening plinkity plink of the piano leading into the casual English accented delivery, this song had my heart. I was 10 years old and living in Whangamata. Mum’s youngest brother had just died (he had just turned 13) and my whole life had been turned inside out. Again. I loved the sound of the piano, the violin, the sweetness and sadness of this ‘love song’. When I eventually saw the video I was a bit shocked,  but in the context of my own life it made sense. Madness was the first tape I bought with my own pocket money. I played it over and over again. Other songs that had a great impression on me around that time were ‘Fascination’ by Human League,  ‘Fade to Grey’ by Visage, ‘I love Rock n Roll’ by Joan Jett, ‘Little Red Corvette’ by Prince, and of course ‘Bright Eyes’ by Bonnie Tyler.

Piece of My Heart

Janis Joplin.

The pain, the angst, the passion. I was about 15 when I fell for Janis and her troubles.

Another Girl, Another Planet,

 The Only Ones.

This also came out during my child hood, but I didn’t hear it till I was a teenager. The sex of the singer was mysterious to me, it could have been a boy or a girl. Particularly like the line ‘you get under my skin, I don’t find it irritating, you always play to win, I’m gonna need rehabilitating …”

This song was popularised (in my mind) by the movie ‘Different for Girls’ (1996). A hot manly English bloke ends up falling in love with an old school friend. The ‘catch’? The old chum is now a woman, a post operative transsexual. Definitely want that sound track if I could find it.

Rip Off

T-Rex

When I was 15 I was obsessed with T Rex and Kate Bush. This love has never left me, and though it’s hard to choose one T Rex song, I picked this because it never used to do much for me, and then one day I was listening to it again and felt like I was under some kind of spell. Not keen on the excessive sax at the end of the song, but hey, it’s worth it to hear Bolan singing about a girl in man skin pants.

Suspended In Gaffa

Kate Bush

As with T Rex, there are the songs everyone knows, and Kate will always be remembered for Wuthering Heights and Babooshka. I was a little scared of Kate when I was eight, the year Wuthering Heights hit. As with T Rex, there were songs I passed over without much consideration and Gaffa  was of them… “suddenly my feet are feet of mud/it all goes slo-mo … I don’t know why I’m crying … am I suspended in gaffa? Not ‘til I’m ready for you, not ‘til I’m ready for you … can I have it all?”

I find this song really energising and cathartic. She also looks hot and somewhat bondage orientated in the video (not known until I was all grown up of course).

Touch Myself

The Divynls -    

I was always trying to encourage people to masturbate more, especially when I was a Christian. I don’t mean that I gave sermons on it, or that I would arrive at a fellow believer’s house waving a vibrator instead of a bible.  Sometimes I’d just offer my opinion on it, that I really couldn’t imagine Jesus minding if someone released a bit of tension, especially if they were celibate. In addition to liking the fact that the song was about getting off with yourself, I loved the way the song sounded. She could have sung anything and it would have sounded good.

Crucify
Tori Amos
This came out the year I left church. Perfect.

Hey

The Pixies

This song has the power to still thrill me right to the soul and clit, it’s one that’s best sung in the car where no one can hear you screaming;

 “UGNGH! Said the lay-dee to the man she uh-dored and the whore’s like a choir, ugngh ughgh all NIGHT – and Mary aint you tired of THIS UGNGH?! Thatssss the souuuuund that the MOTHER MAKES WHEN THE BABY BREAKS!!!”

and you’re  screaming this in the traffic and it feels like part of you is breaking out, born, bloody, alive.

I first heard this when I was around 20; I lent a massive and heavy load of records from the impossibly cool Jacinda Klouens. We were on a pre-graphic design course and I was still a Christian. We went to gigs together and she introduced me to Cornelius Stone since I was into cartooning.

Going to 61 Mt Eden Rd felt like coming home. It eventually was home as I ‘put my name down’ for when the  Frank Zappa girl moved out of her huge room. I loved that flat; it was a minimalist’s nightmare. As you walked down a short dark hall way you were confronted by the fact that every centimetre of wall was covered in pictures. Photos, illustrations from old books, slogans, posters, all overlapping.  Even after living there for three years I would still go into some kind of ‘wall trance’, noticing something I hadn’t seen before. One morning I was in one such trance as I walked down the steep stairway and slipped on the threadbare carpet.

I was carrying a cup of tea in my right hand and remember seeing it flying up as I crumpled down, falling towards the window at the bottom of the stairs.  Because this was happening in  slow motion I had time to put my hand out into the window instead of my face. I have a strange deep scar on the meaty bit of my thumb, narrowly missed a major artery according to the sadistic and cold eyed male nurse that flapped open the wound and rubbed it clean.

Without a loan of Jacinda’s records, I might not have improved my musical tastes beyond my obsession with the 60’s and 70’s, and I certainly wouldn’t have ended up flatting at 61 Mt Eden Rd.

Sheila Take A Bow

The Smiths

I was a late comer regarding The Smiths. I refused to listen to them at high school as I assumed they were sort of limp and depressing. It wasn’t until I was around 21 that I ended up with a ‘best of’ tape. I’d finally left my stinky church and was deeply depressed.  I listened to this tape, and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds ‘Tender Prey’ almost non-stop. I side stepped suicide with the Mercy Seat or Morrissey’s reminder “Is it wrong not to always be glad?”. Of course there are many Smiths songs that always make me feel good, but this one still packs the same note of hope into my heart now as it did when I once contemplated hanging myself.

John, I'm Only Dancing

David Bowie

Of course there are too many good Bowie songs, but there's something so delicious and fun about this one. I feel super camp and happy singing along to this one.

This is the Day

The The

Well. Just listen to it. How could this not cheer you up? It's the best sort of 80's pop you will ever hear. Sort of real, sad, sarcastic and yet so uplifting. THIS IS THE DAY YOUR LIFE WILL SURELY CHANGE. I got the tape 'Infected' but only ever listened to this song (kept rewinding and rewinding it and wrecked it).

Chris Knox

And I will Cry (From ‘Seizure’).

 I was so excited when I bought ‘Seizure’.  I’d wanted it for ages and finally got it from the second hand record shop. ‘They’ tore down that block of shops and built The Sky Tower.  There were three of my favourite shops along that stretch, antiques, records and a really good op shop.  I nearly cried the day I saw it all demolished, and I am not exaggerating. It felt like a hole was ripped inside me. I remember saying to people ‘what are they doing? Why? Aren’t those heritage buildings?’ but no one seemed to know.

I knew that I would never be as edgy in my tastes as some of my friends, that I would not pass any kind of alternative music test, but to know and appreciate the tender and brutal beauty of Knox ‘s talents felt good enough for me.

The Ship Song

Nick Cave

So much Nick, so little time. Nick of time. Anyway, from the first moment I heard this song I knew it would always be mine.

 There are too many songs to list. I knew this would happen. How can I leave out ‘Creep’ by Radiohead, or ‘Lithium’ by Nirvana?  And what of all the songs that have saved me and changed my brain chemistry in the last year? The way felt when I heard Tom Lark singing ‘All night long’? How a song like “I’m afraid of Everyone” by The National has the power to paralyse me?

Yes, it would take a book, a book that never ends. If in doubt, get music.

This is the day, your life will surely change ...