Best of the Pogues - I blogged on at some length when I played Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, so I'll keep this short. Just a few t'oughts, as a certain Parish Priest used to say before launching into a twenty minute sermon.
The Body of an American shows the universality of Irish diaspora. 'Fiesta' was the first song ever I heard in Spain - Almeria, as it happens...
The bizarre nature of my living arangements means that I am listening to this whilst other half is watching the news. Guess who's on the news - Ian Paisley (this is Saturday 18th) making a statement about the Northern Irish constitutional talks. You can have no bizarre this juxtaposition sounds...
Jimmy says add Ian Paisley to the Dead Pool.
(Actually, you know how Paisley is a hate-filled bigoted fascist? Well, Jimmy's late father, a Tyrone Catholic held him in high regard. He is MP for my uncle (an Antrim Catholic) and he (and my late Aunt did) speak of him with praise. He's a conscientious constituency MP who fights for his area and for his constituents, regardless of their tradition.)
Alphabetically I moved onto Pulp's Different Class. There was a time, ten years ago or so, when there were three great Britpop bands. The media tended to focus on Blur and Oasis, trying to create a rivalry that may have existed in Liam Gallagher's mind, but probably not elsewhere. I always felt that Pulp were regarded as Also-Rans. I never really 'got' Blur, and Oasis let themselves down with their crpa third album. But, for me, Pulp are not the least of the three, and Different Class must be accorded a special place in my collection.
I'm afraid I never fancied Jarvis Cocker. I realise that makes me a traitor to the cause of Intelligent Celebrity Crushes, but he just never did it for me.
The liner consists of a twenty page booklet full of photo-shoped lomo-type pictures. The centre page consists of the lyrics to six songs, writen tiny and cramped in white on a black background, which rather militates against reading them, which is a shamebecause the lyrics are worth something in themselves. Indeed, theycarry a warning "NB PLease do not read the lyrics whilst listening to the recordings."
Especial favourites include Sorted for Es and Whizz. I recall there being some faux media storm about this, because it was about...shock! horror!...drugs. Even though the pig-shit ignorant so-called journalists completely missed the point. The point being:
And you wanna call your mother and say, "Mother,
I can never come home again because I seem to have left
an important part of my brain somewhere in a field in Hampshire"...
In the middle of the night it feels allright,
but then tomorrow morning ooh ooh ooh, ooh
then you come down ooh ooh ooh,
what if you never come down
So they were actually saying "Hey kids, just say no." but they were saying it with the credibility of people who've been there, not just read it in the Daily Hate.
Other fabulous songs are Common People, which just rocks!!! (nomination for my top whatever songs!) - ooh, that frantic beat getting more and more frantic; Something Changed; and, of course, Disco 2000.
Pulp - a Different Class 
