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I have a guilty secret. |
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I love Ally McBeal. |
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Keep it down, man, Keep it down! |
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I'm not proud of myself for watching it. But I do have one thing in common with the Slender Shyster: |
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I have a mental soundtrack. |
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I suppose most people do. |
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Don't they? |
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*hollow, whistling sound* |
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Anyway. I have a small selection of songs that I would like to share with you, as if you needed to go any further into my mind. Songs that reflect a certain mood I might be in, or ones that sum up a particular ritual. And they're all stored up here (wooden tapping sound), as and when I need them. |
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Feel free to mail in with your favourite songs from these categories. |
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I can't offer many soundclips - hey! I ain't Napster - but where possible, I'll point you in the direction of Amazon or somewhere that you might be able to hear them. |
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So. To the music. Please don't laugh. Especially at the first one. |
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GETTING READY FOR WORK |
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High Wire, from "Rock Reflections of a Superhero", featuring Spider-Man |
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Okay, I know, I know. Look. You didn't pay �15 for it. Nick off. |
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I have something of a collection of these songs. Essentially, they're Spider-Man theme songs. I have the famous one ("Does whatever a spider-can," except shoot webs out his ass), and most of the ones in between, all the way up to the fantastic Apollo 440 remix ("I am a man, I'm a man, I'm a Spider-Man, an' me do whatever a spider can!" Hmm. That's not much of a recommendation, is it?) |
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This is one of my favourites. It's peppy, if a little corny, and it's my favourite tune to listen to while I'm brushing my teeth. The song that follows it has a terribly painful line that sums up Spider-Man precisely: "It's like fighting both sides of a mirror." Ouch. |
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But it gets me up and at'em, so nyeh! |
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FEELING HAPPY, FEELING SEXY, OR TRYING TO EVOKE THOSE FEELINGS |
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Theme from Shaft, by Isaac Hayes |
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'Nuff said, surely. |
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Okay. Look. This is one of my favourite songs, ever. It builds up with that guitar/drum combo, and then there's that fantastic lyric by Isaac Hayes. It makes me feel good, and that's what matters. |
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The song I want played at my wedding. |
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Which is probably why I'll never get married. |
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CHEER ME UP, BASTARD |
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The Love Song.(Love, Love, Love) |
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This song I heard on the Powerpuff Girls cartoon. It was subsequently released on a PPG CD. It's another silly, light song, sung by a trio, and it brings a smile to my face every time I hear it. I'll try and link a clip to this page if I can find it. |
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GETTING READY TO HIT THE TOWN: LOOK OUT LADIES! |
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When Shaft has been played out, I reach for the magnificent Shed Seven. This band from Oldham, near Manchester, has been one of my favourites since my university days. It's almost eight years since I saw them support the mighty Inspiral Carpets. And their classic songs Dolphin (from Change Giver, their first album), Getting Better (from their second) and Chasing Rainbows have been my favourtie "splash on the Aramis" songs ever since. |
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As for the Inspirals themselves, my favourite songs are Joe, Saturn 5 (*sniff* RIP The Hacienda), and Uniform. Go you out and rent their Greatest Hits album this instant! |
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Back, yet? Good. |
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This Cowboy Song, by Sting |
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Sting, after the success of his album "Ten Summoners Tales," put out a greatest hits album with two newly-minted songs. One was a reworking of Demolition Man, for the Silvester Stallone film of the same name (Sandra Bullock in tight pants - damn!). The other was the above tune. |
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The tune evokes a little of the country and western ouvre, without actually being shite. I performed an acapella/falsetto version of this to a crowded, yet rapidy-emptying bar once. And it was for a long time my "putting on the black shirt, and putting the condom box in the side pocket" song. |
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One lives in eternal hope. |
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I try not to listen to music when I write (or, for that matter, play Tony Hawks 2, which is usually my primary distraction from writing), but my WinAmp player at the moment features: |
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Starman, by David Bowie |
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At some point, go and read the Starman series of graphic novels from DC Comics.. These are not your typical superhero books. |
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Theme from Deep Space Nine |
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Yes, yes, I'm a Trekkie. And I love this piece, probably because it's the most brass-heavy piece of all the Trek shows (I play the French Horn). Stong contrast between the broad loweer brass, and the plaintive higher instruments, and a beautiful main theme. |
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Strange Things Happen, by Klark Kent (AKA Stewart Copeland) |
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This piece appeared at the end of the remarkable Horse Opera, which featured a diverse cast in a tale about a writer from the East Midlands who became a Western Sheriff. The best song in the opera is Cowboys of Nottingham, which is one of my stored mental songs. It has a fantastic lyric, full of joy and "yee-haa." |
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Theme from Bod |
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Hmm. Bod was a programme about a little bald fellow who walked like he had something trapped in his trousers, like a rogue fart. He had a cohort of slightly sinister sidekicks (each with their own theme songs, including the ever-so-slightly over-sexed Aunt Flo), who would follow him around an empty, wilderness-like landscape, thinking about dogs and bowls of fruit. And the piccolo/voice-based theme song, written by noted Thesp Derek Griffiths, fits this programme like a yellow trouser suit. |
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And apart from a few songs from video games that I can't quite remember at the moment (such as those that I usually mute in Tony Hawks 2, if you;ll forgive the obscure skateboarding pun), and those you don't need to hear (the .mid version of the Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up, or Theme from the Fantastic Four), then that's that, for now. I'll update the mental jukebox with soundclips as and when, and as soon as you send me some of your songs, I'll add them, too. |
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Matthew Craig, 4.27am, July 25th. JukeBox Jury, Judge and executioner. |
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Click here to move to the First Guest Mental JukeBox, by Jaunty Johnny Woodward! |
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