Jan. 14, 2016
Writer: Declan Mills (angryirishpunk)
It had been a tense week in RR-land, as we ponder our potential demise. With that in mind, the fine people of this great nation banded together and gave me a wonderful selection of songs about survival to pick from. I can honestly say that this, my third time guruing, has been the hardest topic to settle on an A-list for, so here goes…
As a child of the 1990s (literally, 1990) growing up in the UK to Irish parents, the Saw Doctors – an often tongue-in-cheek Irish rock band that wrote songs about emigration, the Troubles, trying to kiss a pretty girl at a teen disco, and pretty much everything else about growing up in pre-Celtic-Tiger Ireland – were a staple of my childhood as part of an eclectic musical upbringing that included Bach, the Incredible String Band, Cream, Bowie and the Sex Pistols. Sing A Powerful Song is often considered to be one of their songs about the Troubles, but is much more about overcoming adversity in general, with the lyrical context being kept uncharacteristically ambiguous.
Moving on quickly to another favourite band of mine, we have Jimmy Eat World with The Middle, a song explaining how adolescent struggles are all alright, because at the end of the day you will survive and grow beyond them. A song about a sole survivor comes next, as the Pogues and the Dubliners unite to perform the folk song The Irish Rover. Next comes something a lot older, as Louis Armstrong sings Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, a song about a trio of Old Testament characters who survive being tortured for their beliefs. After this we have a quick little number about surviving in the trenches of the First World War, with Bombed Again Last Night from Oh, What A Lovely War!
Another old favourite came a little out of leftfield. In the week that David Bowie went back to waiting in the sky, many Bowie noms flooded in and I couldn’t help but pick one that I first heard as a toddler on a parental mixtape: Kooks, a song in which Bowie advises his son, the ill-named Zowie, on how to survive childhood and school. It clearly worked, since Zowie Bowie is now much-acclaimed director Duncan Jones. After that, a return to the emo/post-hardcore/punk that flooded in this week (nice to see that people remember my taste after my hiatus!) with Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya as performed by the Dropkick Murphys. Fun fact, they literally got their band name by writing random words on a blackboard until they came up with a combination they liked.
So many old favourites of mine were nommed this week. I have always loved the Band, and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down – a sideways look at surviving the US Civil War on the losing side – was one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar. Something a lot more upbeat next, with the Barenaked Ladies and Odds Are, a song about how no matter what goes wrong things will probably turn out OK. Then back to post-whatever with The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Your Guardian Angel. Fun fact: the band got their name by writing random words on a whiteboard until they hit on a combination they liked.
With RR officially not running this week, we decided to carry on regardless, as did The Beautiful South in their wonderful song Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud). But no matter how many times we get knocked down, we’ll get back up again, just like Chumbawumba promise in Tubthumping. To close out the list, what better than Joan Baez singing We Shall Overcome? Because, as thoughtballoons said while nomming it, “It’s not surviving unless we all get there together.”
The A List
| Song Title | Artist | Recommended by | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sing a Powerful Song | Saw Doctors | suzi |
| 2 | The Middle | Jimmy Eat World | thoughtballoons |
| 3 | The Irish Rover | The Pogues & the Dubliners | suzi |
| 4 | Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego | Louis Armstrong | suzi |
| 5 | Bombed Again Last Night | Oh What a Lovely War Sound Track | severin |
| 6 | Kooks | David Bowie | BlackCombe |
| 7 | Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya | Dropkick Murphys | casclc |
| 8 | The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down | The Band | attwilightlarks |
| 9 | Odds Are | Barenaked Ladies | philipphilip99 |
| 10 | Your Guardian Angel | The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus | Oldiebutgoodie |
| 11 | Good as Gold (Stupid as Mud) | The Beautiful South | DaddyPig |
| 12 | Tub Thumping | Chumbawumba | vastariner |
| 13 | We Shall Overcome | Baez, Joan | thoughtballoons |
The B List
| Song Title | Artist | Recommended by | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Back From the Dead | The Adverts | severin |
| 2 | Bare Necessities | Phil Harris | treefrogdemon |
| 3 | Everybody Hurts | R.E.M. | suzi |
| 4 | Grace Kelly | Mika | ParaMhor |
| 5 | Resistance | Clock DVA | Shoegazer |
| 6 | Stand Up | Al Green | Oldiebutgoodie |
| 7 | I There Life After Breakfast? | Ray Davies | suzi |
| 8 | I Am the One | Paranoid Visions | wyngatecarpenter |
| 9 | Shelter Song | Temples | ShivSidecar |
| 10 | Dad’s Gonna Kill Me | Richard Thompson | JudgeFargo |
| 11 | Jack of All Trades | Bruce Springsteen | FunkBrother69 |
| 12 | I Will Survive | Gloria Gaynor | BeltwayBandit |
| 13 | Revolution | Flogging Molly | thoughtballoons |