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Day: 6 October 2012

5 Songs in the Field of: Prostitution

Written by Daniel Jones on . Posted in Music.

Roxanne – The Police

I’m not surprised that you don’t tend to hear the name Roxanne much these days.  Thanks to this song, it has very risqué connotations.  Good old Sting, ruining names and trying to single-handedly make the world a better place by persuading prostitutes to only have sex with him.  Roxanne probably paid him for the pleasure instead.

Killer Queen – Queen

Here, Freddie Mercury teaches us that not all ladies of the night hang about on street corners.  The killer queen in question owns pretty cabinets, wears perfume from Paris, speaks like a baroness and has a tendency to impersonate Marie Antoinette.  What a classy bird.

Walk On The Wild Side – Lou Reed

It’s easy to forget that this song is about transvestite rent boys.  When it was released, and due to the fact that the phrase hadn’t really taken off yet, very few radio censors managed spot the line – “she never lost her head, even when she was giving head” – so it was left in for teenagers across the globe to adopt into their vocabulary.

The Boxer – Simon and Garfunkel

If you have a browse through the entire folk repertoire, very rarely do you hear the word ‘whore’ mentioned.   For that reason, the third verse of this track has always stuck in my mind.  I don’t think it’s worth trying to reprimand a boxer for visiting ‘the whores on 7th Avenue’ though.  He’ll just punch you in the face.

Big Pimpin’ – Jay-Z

Thanks to Beyonce, Shaun Corey Carter – a.k.a. Jay-Z, a.k.a. Jigga Man – seems to have grown out of his O.G. phase.  What happened to not “giving your heart to a woman”, Shaun?  What happened to “forever mackin’”, Shaun?  Oh well.  I guess pimpin’ ain’t what it used to be.

5 songs in the field of: the Lib Dem Conference

Written by Joe Goggins on . Posted in Music.

1. Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word – Elton John

Surely Mr. Clegg’s first port of call when he finally ‘apologised’ before the conference for one of most galling political betrayals in history. He’ll likely have played the Blue version to ensure he remained ‘down with the kids’.

2. Billy Liar – The Decemberists

The line “he drifts to sleep with a moan and a weep” probably best applies to the Lib Dem voters than to the MPs who sold them down the river at their first sniff of power.

3.  Judas – Lady Gaga

At £75 a pop, not even all thirty of Mr. Clegg’s pieces of silver would have afforded him a ticket to Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Ball shows last month. Popjustice described the titular character as ‘repeatedly drawn to awfulness’. Apt.

4. Bruise Violet – Babes in Toyland

Frontwoman Kat Bjelland switches between growling “you were born with glue instead of spine” and menacingly cooing “liar, liar, liar…” amidst typically grungy mid-90s guitar work and racing drums, in a track that could easily serve as official party anthem.

5. Apocalypse Please – Muse

Given that they have let down pretty much everybody who voted for them, the sound of Matt Bellamy wailing “declare this an emergency” over stormy piano could prove appropriate as the Lib Dems are wiped out at the next election.