Last week, with a sparkling €25 Golden Discs voucher on offer, I asked you to name the song you sing while Hoovering.
You answered in your dozens, providing a dust-beating playlist of domestic chore-easing choonage.
But there could be only one winner.
Third Place:
Flawless – George Michael
Bertie Blenkinsop writes:
The perfect song for those of us who only dance from the knees up (and are partial to a double hand clap)…
Runner-up:
Fluke – Tosh
Clampers Outside writes:
I used to do most of my hoovering and cleaning after a big night out as I always found it a good way to get up and work off the previous nights excesses. The single came with 4 mixes – GOSH, MOSH, COSH & POSH – with the first, GOSH, being my preferred as it’s a faster track with a fuller sound that feels really lush, but yet it won’t grate on that sore head, but instead, carry you away to the night before as you run that sucker over the floors :) No better tune to lift the spirits while working off the excesses of the night before while doing the mundane of the morning after :)
Winner:
Etta James – seven day fool.
Eamonn writes
Hoover your heart out, my hearties. No noise cancelling ‘phones on my head, so……. before or after hoovering, indeed, anytime anyday, Etta sounds good. Would you rather brush the dog or Hoover? it is one of life’s imponderables…
…we’ve had better starts to the new year than 2021 has so far given us. But chin up! We got this.
Taking inspiration from regular and much valued reader Janet, this week I want to know: What’s your favourite song to dance around the room to when you’re doing the hoovering?
Last week, with a snow blown €25 Golden Discs voucher on offer, I asked you to name your favourite song about or which mentions Winter?
You answered in your dozens creating a brrriiliant playlist of chily classics.
But there could be only one winner.
Third Place:
Winter by Tori Amos
‘A Galaxy Very, Very Near’ writes:
‘Snow can wait I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart when I think of winter
I put my hands in my father’s glove
I run off where the drifts get deeper.’
A haunting and beautiful song about the relationship between a father and his daughter and the inevitable passing of time.
Runner-up:
If We Make It Through December by Merle Haggard.
Stephen Moran writes:
From the school of “we’ve got both types of music: Country AND Western” comes the original outlaw Merle Haggard with “If We Make It Through December” teaching us a way to live within the law. Surely the ballad of the current Covid lockdown.
Winner:
January Hymn by The Decembrists
Millie Bobby Brownie writes:
Now I know this might seem a bit early in the season for this pick, but January Hymn by the Decembrists is a really lovely little tune, very mellow and easy to listen to. I highly recommend listening to it of a cold miserable winters evening (not unlike this one). As it is, winter in Ireland gets worse after Christmas and continues into mid April, when suddenly it’s summer again.
That means another weekly music competition. With the solstice almost upon us, it seems an apt time to ask: What’s your favourite song about or which mentions winter?
Reply below to be in with a chance of winning a tinsel-strewn €25 Golden Discs voucher.
Last week, with a McTacular €25 Golden Discs voucher on offer, I asked for your favourite song by a Scottish artist.
The competition brought another generous response from our readers so that any number of entries would have been worthy winners.
Having mulled it over, I thought it would make sense to share the voucher between Rosette of Sirius and Slightly Bemused for their shared love of ‘Year Of The Cat’.
Their interaction showed the enduring emotional bonds we can form with a piece of music down all the days and also how this little corner of Broadsheet seems to bring out the best in our readers.
FIGHT!
Third Place:
Paul Buchanan – Mid Air
Specific Gravity writes:
‘Impossible to select just one of his/Blue Nile’s masterpieces, but this needs no justification.’
Runner-up:
The First Weekend by Arab Strap
Clampers Outside writes
‘A song that takes you, gently at first…Then the music kicks in… and you’re off on a hedonistic weekend of booze, parties and drugs…t’s a track you can listen to before going out, when out, or chill to when you get home after a night out :)
Sets you up for the story as it unfolds, just like those “roll over” weekends from my own twenties in the 90s when the moment was all that mattered…. And I cannot let this go without mentioning Aidan Moffat’s beautiful accent. As the song is pretty much spoken, its easy to appreciate it …’
Winner:
Year Of The Cat by Al Stewart
Rosette Of Sirius writes:
We’ll, let’s go with one of the greatest opening lyrics of all time…. in my opinion that is….
“On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don’t bother asking for explanations
She’ll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat.”
Al Stewart’s masterpiece.
Slightly Bemused replied:
That was my now dear departed brother’s favourite song. My sister and another brother were with him as he slipped away, and had this on for him so he would go to his favourite music.
I remember once this was on the radio as I studied in my room (amusingly on a portable radio cassette player he had given me) and he came storming in thinking I had pinched his record. He was immediately apologetic, but would not leave until the song was over.
I cannot hear this without thinking of him, and for that I do thank you.
Rosette replied:
I did not grow up in a house gifted with musical ability. My dad could play the piano but the rest of us were tone deaf as they say. Save for one thing. We all love music. And between us we grew up In a house what was open to new ideas, genres, sounds, artists and that in turn left an indelible mark on me. On my taste, appreciation and desire to grow as large a repertoire of artists as I could.
My father was an opera and classical buff. He also appreciated the great crooners and jazz musicians of the last century. My mother lived for the Beatles and 60’s pop. I possess today most Beatles original singles releases and all all their albums as heirlooms. Not all in the best of shape, but none the less original. And mine.
My two older sisters were the most influential. One consumed by pop – Bay City Rollers, the Jackson Five, the Osmonds, Abba and later the sounds of Disco.
The other, and the biggest musical influence was more artsy. It was Bowie, bolan, Roxy Music and later punk and early new wave that was my foundation and her record collection that I treasure.
She died about fifteen years ago now from cancer.
It’s a very, very strange thing when a sibling dies so young. It’s a thing you’ll perhaps never come to terms with. I haven’t. It really affected me in many ways and I’m humbled that a simple song I suggested from the 70s evoked such an emotion because I get it. I really do…
Last week, with a wintry €25 Golden Discs voucher on offer, I asked: What’s your favourite song by a Canadian artist?
You replied in your dozens – creating a collection of genuinely fine Canadian choonage. Thank you.
But there could be only one winner.
Third Place:
Qu’Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan by Buffy Sainte-Marie
Specific Gravity writes:
‘I absolutely adore this evocative and v moving song by the remarkable Buffy Sainte-Marie. The wonderful Katell Keineg did a cover version of it on NIghthawks with Shay Healy in the early nineties and it still haunts me. Love it.’
Runner-up;
The Needle And The Damage Done by Neil Young
Ragamuffin writes:
‘My favourite Neil Young track, a poignant song about the desolation caused by heroin addiction in the 70s. Undoubtedly a great song, but the reason I particularly love it is because it reminds me of driving in the car as a kid with my dad. A deadpan RTÉ Radio 1 presenter ended an otherwise boring segment about oul ones knitting with this track and my dad nearly crashed the car he was laughing so hard. The next day he went out and bought me Harvest on CD, and to this day its one of my all time favourite albums.’
Winner:
River by Joni Mitchell
Henry Porter writes:
‘A melancholy Christmas song. Perfect for these times.’
Last week, with a neighbourly €25 Golden Discs voucher offer, I asked you to name your favourite song by an artist from Australia or New Zealand?
You answered in your dozens, providing a playlist of down under beauties.
But there could be only one shrimp in the barbie.
Third Place:
Into My Arms by Nick Cave
Micko writes:
‘Because it’s just beautiful.’
Runner-up:
I Just Don’t Think I’ll Get Over You by Colin Hay
Andy Pipkin writes:
‘This song has stayed with me since I first heard it at my best friend’s funeral, she was only young and everyone was devastated. On hearing the song in the church there was not a dry eye in the house. The lyrics too this day still make me emotional.’
Winner:
Cattle And Cane by The Go-Betweens
Otis Blue writes:
‘Written on a guitar borrowed from Nick Cave, so the story goes. Grant McLennan told Cave “Every instrument has one good song inside and that was it.” Songs of adolescent yearning don’t come much better.’
