OK, it’s time for another thread about lists of songs – this time, hangover songs.
IGN music’s 2007 list of the Top 10 hangover songs was topped – very fittingly in my view – by Sunday Morning Coming Down. I have to confess that as a precocious 10 year old when the Ray Stevens version of the song broke in Australia in 1970, I had no trouble getting what the song was about the very first time I heard it – blame my older brother!
So what tunes help your Bombay Oyster to go down and stay down on Sunday mornings?
Jesus Almost Got Me by Anita Lane (it has wailing steel guitar, as any hangover song needs)
Dylan, Desolation Row
Anything on Volume setting ’2′ or lower.
Beastie Boys – No Sleep Till Brooklyn
Beasts of Bourbon – Chase the Dragon
http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/g/gillian_welch/miners_refrain.html
Song that best mimics a hangover: Queen, “Drowse”
Best song to defeat a hangover: Harry Nilsson, “Gotta Get Up”
Songs that will push you past your hangover: ELP, “Tarkus”; Velvets, “European Son” (even better is the live version by Bettie Serveert)
Ultimate hangover get-the-fuck-out-of-bed song is probably a tie between Patti Smith’s “Babelogue/Rock ‘n Roll N…” and Pynchon’s “Have a Banana” song from the opening of Gravity’s Rainbow.
When faced with trying do something/anything the afternoon after the night before I often feel like this.
Whereas right now, totally whacked out from fighting a monster cold with sudafed and hot whisky toddies, I feel more like this.
“Where is there long lips belong to the gravel?”
I loves all youse happy little dancing oysters.
It has to be Dress Rehearsal Rag:
Four o’clock in the afternoon
and I didn’t feel like very much.
I said to myself, “Where are you golden boy,
where is your famous golden touch?”
I thought you knew where
all of the elephants lie down,
I thought you were the crown prince
of all the wheels in Ivory Town.
Just take a look at your body now,
there’s nothing much to save
and a bitter voice in the mirror cries,
“Hey, Prince, you need a shave.”
Now if you can manage to get
your trembling fingers to behave,
why don’t you try unwrapping
a stainless steel razor blade?
That’s right, it’s come to this,
yes it’s come to this,
and wasn’t it a long way down,
wasn’t it a strange way down?
There’s no hot water
and the cold is running thin.
Well, what do you expect from
the kind of places you’ve been living in?
Don’t drink from that cup,
it’s all caked and cracked along the rim.
That’s not the electric light, my friend,
that is your vision growing dim.
Cover up your face with soap, there,
now you’re Santa Claus.
And you’ve got a gift for anyone
who will give you his applause.
I thought you were a racing man,
ah, but you couldn’t take the pace.
That’s a funeral in the mirror
and it’s stopping at your face.
That’s right, it’s come to this,
yes it’s come to this,
and wasn’t it a long way down,
ah wasn’t it a strange way down?
Once there was a path
and a girl with chestnut hair,
and you passed the summers
picking all of the berries that grew there;
there were times she was a woman,
oh, there were times she was just a child,
and you held her in the shadows
where the raspberries grow wild.
And you climbed the twilight mountains
and you sang about the view,
and everywhere that you wandered
love seemed to go along with you.
That’s a hard one to remember,
yes it makes you clench your fist.
And then the veins stand out like highways,
all along your wrist.
And yes it’s come to this,
it’s come to this,
and wasn’t it a long way down,
wasn’t it a strange way down?
You can still find a job,
go out and talk to a friend.
On the back of every magazine
there are those coupons you can send.
Why don’t you join the Rosicrucians,
they can give you back your hope,
you can find your love with diagrams
on a plain brown envelope.
But you’ve used up all your coupons
except the one that seems
to be written on your wrist
along with several thousand dreams.
Now Santa Claus comes forward,
that’s a razor in his mit;
and he puts on his dark glasses
and he shows you where to hit;
and then the cameras pan,
the stand in stunt man,
dress rehearsal rag,
it’s just the dress rehearsal rag,
you know this dress rehearsal rag,
it’s just a dress rehearsal rag.
Gang of Four – Anthrax
Two Velevet Underground with Nico songs – ‘Sunday Morning’ and ‘All Tomorrow Parties’. Nothing more gothic and ghastly than a bit of Nico.
Then if you want to be roused I suggest Paul Robeson’s version of the Welsh National Anthem. There’s a heartstarter for you.
Selbstportrait mit kater by Einsturzende Neubauten is a favourite of mine.
PW – not Headcleaner?
Play something stupid and do it all again
Hair of the Dog – Nazareth
Inner City Blues by Rodriguez
“cos Papa don’t allow no new ideas here….”
next to sunday morning coming down:
willin’
weed, whites and wine….
Where Do I Begin, the Chemical Brothers
“Sunday morning, I’m waking up,
Can’t even focus on a coffee cup,
don’t even know whose bed I’m in,
where do I start, where do I begin”
though I’ll echo suggestions of a bit of Velvet Underground, and Sunday Morning Coming Down. I’m also partial to a bit of Tom Waits.
Aww, jeez Jo. [that is Jo, right?]
Whadya hafta go choke me up with that Bill Payne magic for?
Thread diversion alert.
Songs that make you cry when you’re feeling a little vulnerable:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1aryx_kate-bush-this-womans-work_music
As prelude to some queasy morning listening, might I suggest Melburnians make their way to the Tote this weekend. It’s looking depressingly like it could be your last chance ever.
(oh, and Os Mutantes for me, they do good things for sore and confused brain cells)
Sorrow.
(I don’t recommend remorse, BTW. Guilt is for the soft and the hypocritical).
Aw FDB, nice. Kate is always beautiful.
is moi, FDB.
in the interests of fair and balanced youtubing:
Ride of the Valkyries, Richard Wagner.
Terry Riley, “In C”
(preferred version, Bang On A Can All-Stars)
Of course if it’s someone else surfacing with a purple throbbing hangover on your couch, you can always usher them into the new day with this played at marching volume followed by the cheery offer of “Now how about some flat sparking wine and a nice bowl of cold lard with a few black curly hairs sticking out of it?”
That’ll get their epiglottis in motion if nothing else.
In a way, the ultimate hangover song is the heinous monologue in the middle of “Street Hassle”.
Perfect hangover whole records:
T. Rex, “Electric Warrior”
Dylan, “John Wesley Harding”
Soundtrack from “The Harder They Come”
Or if you wanna be nice, the extended dance mix of John Cage’s “4’33″” followed by an asproc (Bereocca, soluble aspirin and alka seltzer in the same glass, thoughtfully left in the kitchen until the noise dies down).
Surely American Pie by whathisname, the anthem of morose alcoholics everywhere.
If you really hate yourself, play the Madonna version.
Y’know Eno was a member for a while Nabakov?
I *think* Gavin Bryars too.
Man, I’d kill to have seen those guys play. Hmm… tense trouble. Take #2:
Man, I’d love to have been wanting to kill for to have seen those guys having played.
“Y’know Eno was a member for a while Nabakov?”
Yes, once he heard “I Feel Love” which completely knocked his cotton socks off.
“This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years.”
And as usual he was right.
And it stills sounds quite timeless now.
turn it up to 11:
(lament as ultimate party anthem)
There’s been talk of giving Eno a knighthood. I reckon better by far is to ask him to come up with a true 21st title that reflects how the Brit establishment should bestow such honours these days.
“Ok, give me a moment to shuffle my Oblique Strategy cards. A ha! Give everyone a Knighthood and remove it when someone fucks up.”
“Um… thank you Brian. We’ll be in touch.”
I suspect FDB we’re getting this and the war droid thread mixed up.
As Eno would like.
Oh wait, you’re talking about the Portsmouth Sinfonia while I was talking about Munich Machine.
I can feel a mashup coming on.
Awesome idea. The mash/riceup, and the knighthood.
The ONLY thing I’ve ever envied Sydney for (having a decent estuarine upbringing out West, the harbour just seems flashy), is the Eno curatorship-of-festival thing.
Though of course he’s gone the way of all things – commercialism, mediocrity, Bono – he’s still an intellectual treasure.
Plus, y’know…
Viva Last Blues – Palace Music – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGSi7_jNp3A
I reckon the Virgin Suicides soundtrack (Air) would work to, up until the dialogue which is bloody annoying
pass us the bong.
Hmmm, let’s see. Well, provided it hadnt drifted “I think a pig shat in my head” territory, per Withnail (in which case complete silence would be in order) – Id probably go for the classic sounds of Sorrow, by the Merseys.
My sure bet…. combined with a , very cold, curative Coopers green.
‘May You Never’ and the rest of solid air ~ John Martyn
What LE said. If you got a hangover – you don’t want any idiot wailing anything.
Scratch that!
It’s Sunday morning after a hard night out on the Bunderberg ginger beer and what’s on the cd machine? The ever smooth tones of the Jimmy Little “Resonate” recording.
“Surely God Is a Lover” and “Bury Me Deep in Love” are just two of the brilliant, mellow, covers.
Strangely, I bought this cd second hand, for a song, via Ebay from someone living in the U.S.of A.