troubled diva

34. This Is The World We Live In – Alcazar

1999: I Don’t Know What You Want But I Can’t Give It Any More – Pet Shop Boys
1994: She’s Got That Vibe – R. Kelly
1989: Pump Up The Jam – Technotronic featuring Felly

I like the airbrushed ersatz Studio 54 sheen. I like the self-mythologising, and the way that every time you say their name (“Alcazar!”), a little starburst of glitter detonates above your head and flutters to the ground. (It also happens every time you say “Shalamar!”, but you’ll already know that.) I like it that they’ve melded an 1980s Genesis song which I’ve never heard before (Land Of Confusion) with the Diana Ross/Chic classic Upside Down, making it sound like the most natural combination in the world. I like it that they’re a Swedish two-boy two-girl combo; always a good sign. And I like it that this song never fails to make me smile.

35. Single Again – The Fiery Furnaces

1999: She’s The One / It’s Only Us – Robbie Williams
1994: Connection – Elastica
1989: Nothing Has Been Proved – Dusty Springfield

Sometimes, they do these great long rambling episodic 12-minute epic things. Sometimes, they do these short sharp snappy rinky-dink late 70s/early 80s new wave power pop Lene Lovich Bette Bright very very early XTC things. This is one of the latter.

36. I Believe In You – Kylie Minogue

1999: Cold Blooded Old Times – Smog
1994: Nervous Breakdown – Carleen Anderson
1989: Helyom Halib – Capella

This collaboration between Kylie and the Scissor Sisters had one f**kload of a lot of expectations to live up to. Consequently, it rather underwhelmed on the first few listenings. (I was expecting more from the chorus than simply repeating the title four times over, for instance.)

But then, like the Phoenix album before it (see below), what at first seems disappointingly slight and gossamer-thin slowly reveals itself over time, as Kylie’s delicate magic touch swooshes you up into a giddy swirl of breathless delight.

(Or a breathless swirl of giddy delight. The effect varies, so I’m told.)

I Believe In You is also the first single on this year’s list which, on a clear day with a good following wind, can sometimes sound, if only for a few seconds, like the best single ever made. There will be many more.

In a recent-ish interview, Kylie explained that – after fighting against it for many years – she had reached an acceptance of the fact that, on some level or other, she would always be a little bit naff. And that, I think, is a key element of her appeal. (Conversely, Madonna won her fight against naffness – but in doing so, lost a crucial part of her appeal.)

Alan’s brief sojourn at the top of the pile comes to an end, as nascent super-blogger Joe. My. God. (just watch them Bloggies; you heard it here first!) takes over the lead.

Already listed:
#36 I Believe In You – Kylie Minogue (Joe) · #38 Love Machine – Girls Aloud (Alan) · #49 The Show – Girls Aloud (Paul) · #64 Take Your Mama – Scissor Sisters (Chig) · #85 Matinee – Franz Ferdinand (timothy)Not (yet?) listed:
Tits On The Radio – Scissor Sisters (Todd) · Babycakes – 3 Of A Kind (dave) · Filthy/Gorgeous – Scissor Sisters (asta) · Heartbeats – The Knife (Swish David) · Girls (rex the dog mix) – The Prodigy (Waitrose David) · Toxic – Britney Spears (Angus) · Trick Me – Kelis (Ben) · Common People – William Shatner & Joe Jackson (Gary F.)

Keep those guesses coming!

37. I Can Do Anything – Gene Serene & John Downfall

1999: Carrot Rope – Pavement
1994: Shinny – Elevator
1989: I Can’t Dance (To That Music You’re Playing) – The Beatmasters featuring Betty Boo

Since I can’t think of anything useful to say about this (except to say that it sounds a bit like Peaches before she went boring), let me tell you about Saturday night instead.

Saturday night. Fifteen of us are in a restaurant just outside Whitby, celebrating a fortieth birthday. The restaurant rejoices in the name of “Cross Butts”. As you might imagine, this is the cause of some amusement.

Twelve of us – the birthday boy and his boyfriend, me and K, a lesbian couple, a heterosexual couple, two single gay men (a Buddhist and an actor), a happy-clappy Christian mum and a female-to-male transsexual – are staying in a spacious, comfortable and pleasingly appointed farmhouse (ooh, another Aga!) near Robin Hood’s Bay. The house is a couple of minutes’ walk from a small bay called Boggle Hole. It almost goes without saying that this too is the cause of some amusement. In the smaller house next door, all of three feet away from the farmhouse, the birthday boy’s mother and father are staying, along with the birthday boy’s niece. Family in one place, “family” in the other.

Following the previous night’s extraordinary gales, we were without electric power for most of the day. (In this respect, the Aga was a godsend.) About twenty minutes after it got too dark to read, about ten minutes after the candles were lit in the sitting room, and just as we were wondering how to get ourselves ready for the evening without lighting and hot water, power was restored. (As this threatened to kill the cosy twilight atmosphere, we decided to stick with the candles.)

Just before leaving for the restaurant in the hired minibus, the five occupants of the house who sing in the same choral group, plus the birthday boy’s mother, arranged themselves around the kitchen table, handed out the sheet music, and treated us to a six-part harmony arrangement of a medieval elegy. The effect was spellbinding.

(Aside from the birthday boy to me and K, the following morning: “Because you live in a village at weekends, you get to be friendly with Tories. Because we sing in a choral group, we get to be friendly with Christians. It goes with the territory.”)

In the restaurant, the conversation has turned to smoking, with various ex-smokers talking about why they started. For many, it was the usual story of wanting to be cool and rebellious at school.

I turn to the birthday boy’s niece: a carefully made up young miss in a matching pink crocheted cap and poncho. I’m guessing she’s about seventeen. Poor kid must be feeling a bit left out. Must make an effort.

“So what’s the situation like for people of your generation? Do many of you still smoke, or has it fallen out of fashion now?”

“Well… um… maybe there’s one or two…”, she mutters, gazing at me with wide-eyed astonishment.

“But then, I’m only twelve.”

Uproar around the table, as I bury my head in my hands, all theatrical groans and profuse apologies. The birthday boy says I’ve made his weekend.

I’m always doing stuff like this. They grow up so fast these days, don’t they?

Back in the farmhouse, the iPod and I host an easy-listening disco until four in the morning. My debut gig with the iPod, in fact. Tune of the night: Up Up And Away (In My Beautiful Balloon). In situations like these, a DJ has to know his crowd. No point hitting them with the new stuff, is there?

(Of course, if you had been there, then I could have been as upfront as I pleased. Because we understand each other, you and I. That’s why you’re special.)

38. Love Machine – Girls Aloud

1999: Eurotrash Girl – Chicks On Speed
1994: The Wild Ones – Suede
1989: Like A Prayer – Madonna

Your call’s late, big mistake. You’ve gotta hang about in limbo for as long as I take. Next time, read my mind and I’ll be good to you. We’re gift-wrapped kitty cats; we’re only turning into tigers when we gotta fight back. Let’s go, eskimo, out into the blue.

Barking mad, I tells ya. Barking mad. Fellas: you can’t say you weren’t warned. Anyhow, who cares about lyrics when you’re digging on that ker-azy rockabilly rhythm?

(Incidentally, I reckon there’s a potential bootleg mash-up to be made here. Simply add a healthy dollop of Katrina And The Waves’ Walking On Sunshine, stir, mix and serve.)

Alan Oddverse takes over the leader board. Keep those guesses coming!

Already listed:
#38 Love Machine – Girls Aloud (Alan) · #49 The Show – Girls Aloud (Paul) · #64 Take Your Mama – Scissor Sisters (Chig) · #85 Matinee – Franz Ferdinand (timothy)

Not (yet?) listed:
Tits On The Radio – Scissor Sisters (Todd) · Babycakes – 3 Of A Kind (dave) · Filthy/Gorgeous – Scissor Sisters (asta) · Heartbeats – The Knife (Swish David) · I Believe In You – Kylie Minogue (Joe) · Girls (rex the dog mix) – The Prodigy (Waitrose David) · Toxic – Britney Spears (Angus) ·Trick Me – Kelis (Ben) · Common People – William Shatner & Joe Jackson (Gary F.)

39. You Don’t Know My Name (reggae remix) – Alicia Keys

1999: Coffee And TV – Blur
1994: Renaissance – M People
1989: People Hold On – Coldcut featuring Lisa Stansfield

This started life as an unauthorised bootleg mash-up, with the instrumental lifted from an old Gregory Isaacs cut, before being cleared for official release on a B-side. Another strong track from an artist whom I don’t generally have much time for (especially after witnessing her tedious, shallow, hopelessly misjudged live show a couple of years ago). I’ve never heard the original version – and what’s more, as great as this is, I have no desire to. Because as far as I’m concerned, this is the way the song is supposed to sound – and I’d like to keep it that way.

40. Freakin’ Out – Graham Coxon

1999: Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? – Moby
1994: The Queen Of Old Compton Street – Fruit
1989: Every Little Step – Bobby Brown

(…and 1979: Into The Valley by The Skids, by the sounds of it – just listen to that opening guitar riff.)

Snotty brat punk rock from the sulky speccy git who used to be in Blur. You might say that he’s getting a bit long in the tooth for such juvenile bursts of misanthropic phlegm. I say: you’re never too old to throw your toys out of the pram.

(As you might have gathered from some of yesterday’s posts, he added with a watery grin.)

And talking of freakin’ out: K took a phone call yesterday evening from J, an old friend who had just returned from a beach holiday in with his partner M. A beach holiday in Malaysia.

Sleeping off the jet lag on the second morning, J and M were woken by a rumble in their room on the sea front. “What’s that?” “Probably an earthquake. Go back to sleep.”

A little while later, unable to sleep any longer, M gets up and decides to go for a morning dip in the sea.

Wow, that looks like a big wave. Cool! I’ll be able to body-surf it.

That was fun. Oh look, here comes another.

The second wave is maybe twelve feet high, sucking M in and pulling him down. But M is a strong swimmer with an athletic build, and he eventually manages to save himself. Meanwhile, his stuff has all been washed away, leaving him to walk back up to the room in nothing but his swimming shorts, covered in sand and scratches.

As the resort is towards the edge of the tsunami area, damage is slight: several injuries, a few broken bones, but no casualties. The beach is restored within a day or so, and the holiday continues.

If M hadn’t been such a strong swimmer – or even, like me, a non-swimmer – the outcome might have been quite different.

The first big “it could have been me” moment.

41. Flamboyant – Pet Shop Boys

You live in a world of excess, where more is more and less is much less.
A day without fame is a waste, and a question of need is a question of taste.

Every actor needs an audience; every action is a performance.
It all takes courage, you know it.
Just crossing the street: well, it’s almost heroic.

So, yeah: what about Sleb-Bee-Bee-Three? Eh? Eh? Eh? Featuring Germaine “professional contrarian” Greer AND Brigitte “box of frogs” Nielson AND that walking advertisement for the “Just Say No” campaign, Bez out of the Happy Mondays? All my Christmasses have come at once!

As I said over at Peter’s: when it comes to the casting of these celebrity fandangos, the production companies are getting very good at widening their demographic nets. As La Street-Porter was to that recent shindig in the jungle, so La Greer will be to Sleb-Bee-Bee-Three, deftly hooking in the broadsheet set. Meanwhile, there’s male totty (oh dear God yes), female totty (although looking at the alleged totty in question, I realise I will never fully comprehend the complexities of heterosexual desire), a “refreshingly un-PC” (if we must) curmudgeon, and a rather terrified token teen. Oh, and the woman who used to do the voiceovers for that Ibiza programme.

It’s almost enough to make me wish I wasn’t disappearing to a remote cottage near the Yorkshire coast for the weekend, to help celebrate an old friend’s 40th birthday, along with a bunch of people we’ve known for years and don’t see nearly enough of. Talk about conflicting priorities!

42. My Heartbeat – Annie

Not actually released as a UK single until February or March of this year – but some promos and remixes are already out, which is good enough for me. Besides which, when this turns out to be the huge hit which it manifestly deserves to be, then I’ll be able to say, all nonchalant-like: Oh, that old thing? It was actually in my “best of 2004” list, actually actually I think you’ll find.

Just as Gwen Stefani may be the continuation of Madonna by other means (and my, what a heated debate you’ve been having about that one), so My Heartbeat is a continuation of Saint Etienne (and Dubstar) by other means. It soars, it glides, it bills and it coos. Dream-eh!

43. Whatever Happened To Corey Haim? – The Thrills

Whoda thunk it? Having been consistently beastly about The Thrills over the past couple of years (saw them before they were famous, and was distinctly unimpressed), I find myself having to eat my words. Coming on like a kind of soft-rockin’ West coast Electric Light Orchestra, Whatever Happened To Corey Haim conjures up images of cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in a gleaming red soft-top, with the wind in my hair and my best boy by my side.

44. Para Llenarma De Ti – Ramon.

The 2004 Eurovision entry for Spain. If you live in Spain, then this may well be generic, over-familiar, run-of-the-mill stuff. However, if you’re an occasional visitor to Barcelona on business trips, and if this is the only piece of mainstream Spanish pop that you’re familiar with, then it will conjure up many happy associations. (Anyway, if this is typical of mainstream Spanish pop, then I for one want more of it.)

45. The Lighthouse – Ana Da Silva

In my early teens, or maybe slightly before, I had a dream which has stayed with me ever since. It was my birthday, and I had decided to hold… A Disco!

(Never actually having been to one, the very idea of a disco struck me as deeply thrilling, faintly erotic, and just about the most fun it was possible to have anywhere.)

To this end, I had hired a church hall, hung up some streamers, and put in some sexy orange lightbulbs for atmosphere. For the music, I had brought along my father’s stereo cassette player, and some tapes which I had made off the radio. All my friends had been invited, and I was really jolly excited.

Except that in the dream, all my friends turned out to be little old ladies. They sat themselves down in the moulded plastic stacking chairs which I had arranged around the hall, and smiled politely when I passed round the rich tea biscuits.

(I remember seeing myself do this, all dressed up smartly – a white shirt with a wide tie in shiny, plum-coloured polyester – with my side parting neatly combed and Brylcreemed.)

This wasn’t the party that I had expected. It wasn’t really moving and grooving. “So, isn’t anybody going to dance?” I exclaimed in exasperation, glancing nervously down the room.

One old lady (curly white hair, turquoise raincoat, thick horned-rim glasses) spoke up for the group.

“No, dear. Look, why don’t you switch the music off, turn the lights up a bit, and make us a nice cup of tea?”

“Ooh yes, cup of tea! Lovely!” The murmurs of appreciation rippled all along the line as, masking my disappointment, I toddled off to put the kettle on.

Thirty-odd years later, and I’m having a lovely time gaily discussing “crunk” and “glitch” and “microhouse”, as part of a hugely ambitious attempt to chronicle, in what I hope is impressively learned detail, my favourite ninety singles of the year. Oh, but won’t my readers be lapping this stuff up! After all, they’re a hip crowd.

For the first forty-odd posts, my readers maintain a mostly polite silence. But by the time I start explaining the finer points of “crunk” and “glitch”, I start to sense that I am losing them.

And then… this.

– Look dear, why don’t you put all the non-musical stuff in a different colour font, so that we can find it more easily?

– Or maybe he could make a different title box for his musical posts?

– What about categories? Now, they would come in handy. But coloured font would be lovely!

– Ooh, I know! Why don’t you count down your top 90 from 1984? There was some lovely music in 1984, and I don’t really listen to the wireless like I used to.

– Ooh yes, 1984! Lovely! Then could you do 1978 for us, dear?

– 1978, yes!

– Can I say “fag bangle”?

– No you can’t dear, it’s offensive.

– Well, I don’t think it’s…

– Cup of tea?

I don’t know. You try and carve out a niche for yourself as an incisive cultural commentator, and… and… well, it’s pearls before… no, I didn’t mean that. Ladies, come back! And gentlemen!

No, I’m not telling you about Ana Da Silva’s The Lighthouse.

Which might actually be a really really good record actually, but you’ll never know that, will you?

No, shan’t.

Cross now.

No, I don’t want a cup of tea.

An exhausted Blue Witch commented:

*sobs dramatically*

Look, look, look…

I can’t keep up, and when I do try to read, I don’t understand a word.

Any chance you could post non-2004 music posts (or paras in posts) in a different colour font, for the benefit of Witches who are rather keener on punk (of the first time round) and Springsteen than they are on the whatever the genre may be known as for the next 10 minutes that they have these days? 😉

(I may or may not be joking :))

Anything to oblige. For the benefit of BW, and any other ladies of a certain age whose musical tastes fossilised in the late 1970s, I have now marked – and will continue to mark – all post titles in the “Singles Of The Year” series containing significant portions of non-musical content with the handy acronym (NMC). For I am nothing if not eager to retain the largest readership possible please.

46. My Galileo – Alexandra & Konstantin

(Or, as the artists themselves pronounce it, Magga Lee Lay Low.)

I’m not a stay-at-home, and heady, is the quest and venture mode.
Road is there for me to tread it; all-dimensional road.

Last May, I had this to say about the debut Eurovision entry from plucky little Belarus:

Utterly, utterly demented – and yet, quite, quite brilliant – this comes on like a kind of Eurodisco barndance, with folksy “ethnic” touches, a flute player who appears to be listening to a completely different song altogether, and – best of all! – yodelling. Oh joy! With quite the most eccentric vocal performance of this, or indeed of any other Eurovision, this could either sweep the board or flop completely. One of my personal favourites.

Sadly, it flopped – being eliminated at the semi-final stage – but its unique semi-strangulated cadences still live on in my heart.

Now then. Still licking his wounds from being eliminated from my exciting “what’s going to be #1” contest, Chig was moved to comment as follows:

What I’d like to know is, is there a sealed copy of this list in a bank vault somewhere? Not that I’m bitter or anything, you understand, but what if – perish the thought – you haven’t actually decided what order the other tracks are going to be in yet? What if you were to be swayed by the promise of, say, sexual favours or a Busted album, or summat? To that end, I’m diverting a team of international observers from Kyiv to Nottingham.

A fair point… and to allay any suspicions of foul practice, I have enlisted my beloved K – a veritable paragon of probity – to pose for a picture, actually holding a copy of my favourite single of 2004.

When the result is revealed, so will the mystery question mark on the above photo. Now you can hardly fake something like that, can you? Case settled!

47. Yeah – Usher featuring Ludacris & Lil’ Jon

– Mike, what’s crunk?

Hang on, let me just check this is really happening. Firstly, K has acquired – of his own accord – a relatively esoteric piece of information about modern music. Secondly, he seems genuinely interested in building on this knowledge. This is almost unprecedented.

– It’s… it’s…

Christ, what is crunk when it’s at home, anyway? I’m skating on thin ice here. Oh, but what does he know; I’ll just busk it.

– …it’s a particularly raw and rudimentary new form of hip-hop, where the vocals are all dead gruff and rasping, and the lyrics are all about getting blasted and partying. It’s an amalgamation of “crazy” and “drunk”, you see: a sort of “portmanteau” word.

– Yes, that fits. Thank you. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure that it was a real genre.

– Sorry, but why on earth do you want to know?

– Oh, it’s just that Tom Wolfe mentions it in “I Am Charlotte Church” – sorry, sorry, “I Am Charlotte Simmons”. I keep saying that, don’t I? OK, how about a rapper called Doctor Dis?

– No, he’s made up…

I do perform this occasional service for K. Although he has no real interest in emergent musical sub-genres, he does like to know just enough to be able to slag them off convincingly. Just to show he’s still au courant. Which reminds me: I must fill him in on microhouse and glitch. (*)

Anyway. Usher’s Yeah – featuring crunk’s main man of the moment, the ubiquitous Lil’ Jon (**) – is the nearest approximation to the genre to have come my way in 2004. (Actually, I have a creeping suspicion that to true “crunkheadz” – yes, I have just made that word up – it’s probably a shockingly watered-down commercial cash-in, but no matter. I have long since ceased to aspire to purism.) It’s a tune which slightly annoyed me for most of the year – that repeated four-note squawk that runs all the way through can work like Chinese water torture – before suddenly flipping itself over and becoming really most enjoyable. It’s that wilful gonzoid dumbness, you see: once you stop fighting against it, it can actually become quite endearing. (See also The Ramones, and minimal hardcore techno.)

(*) As scratching is to vinyl, so “glitch” is to CDs. In other words: “glitch” is a sub-genre of electronic music which is deliberately designed to sound like the CD is on the blink. No, don’t laugh, some of it is actually quite good; primitive and intricate at the same time, and generally fairly desolate and melancholy. Not that I’m exactly drenching myself in the stuff, but, you know.

(**) All bona fide music critics are currently obliged to preface each mention of Lil’ Jon with the approved epithet “the ubiquitous”. Them’s the rules; I don’t make ’em.

48. First Of The Gang To Die – Morrissey

…meaning that Mozza now pulls ahead of Franz Ferdinand, Phoenix, Will Young and Jamelia as the first act – and who knows, maybe the only act – to place three singles on this list.

This also represents a rare showing for fortysomething pop stars; something which MissMish tartly commented upon earlier today when making her #1 prediction:

The last Tom Waits single.
Look I know it’s a hilarious choice but I just want to see Mike with something I’ve a) heard of or b) is from someone HIS OWN age.
“She said with a sniff”

To which I replied – hastily busking a suitably convincing self-justification, and inadvertantly Stumbling Upon A Great Truth:

A-hum! Morrissey is my age! Nick Cave is my age!

And… er… Morrissey is my age!

This is my thesis on pop, such as it is. There is a certain optimum time of life, when people tend to do pop particularly well. This is generally when they are young, and emotionally open/still learning, and economically/maritally unencumbered, and still naive enough to be idealistic, and with commonly shared experiences to draw on (as opposed to standard experiences of fame and success). Hence a lot of the best pop will always be made by young people.

Similarly, a lot of the best sport is played by young people – and yet we don’t say “go and watch some sportspeople of your own age”, do we?

However, my albums list is a lot more generationally varied.

As the final withering coup de grace, I should also point out that Tom Waits hasn’t released a UK single since 1999. So put that in yer cigarette holder and smoke it!

(Oh, I shouldn’t be so catty. Mish gave us some divine Roger & Gallet scented guest soaps for Christmas, you know. Not to mention lending us her cherished Bette Davis CD. It’s just that, well,some of us didn’t freeze our musical tastes in 1979, that’s all…)

49. The Show – Girls Aloud

Should have known, should have cared, should have hung around the kitchen in my underwear, acting like a lady; you should have made me.

Should have jumped a little higher, should have fluttered my mascara like a butterfly, instead of being lazy; it would have saved me.

No, me neither. Maybe we need an answer record?

Should have run for the hills, should have flushed away her stash of happy pills; she’s such a head case, I need some Me Space.

(OK, so it might need some more work. I am open to collaborations.)

As someone said not long ago: the least interesting thing about Girls Aloud is… Girls Aloud. Unless you a) fancy them, or b) aspire to be them – neither of which apply in my case, I hasten to assure you. No; what makes Girls Aloud so fantastic is the skewed, anything-goes creative genius of Brian “Xenomania” Higgins, whose work I’ve been tracking ever since his 1997 handbag house remix of Katrina & The Waves’ Love Shine A Light added light and laughter to my world. Indeed Girls Aloud only ever go wrong when they turn their hands to soppy ballad cover versions. (Unfortunately, this is also when they get Number One singles, but then what do the general public know, huh?)

Paul – of fellow Nottingham blog 1000 Shades Of Grey – you now take over the lead position in my exciting competition. If nobody else’s guesses show up in the remainder of this list, then that triple mix CD set could be yours.

(Well, you never know. Stranger things have happened.)

Already listed:
#49 The Show – Girls Aloud (Paul) · #64 Take Your Mama – Scissor Sisters (Chig) · #85 Matinee – Franz Ferdinand (timothy)

Not (yet?) listed:
Tits On The Radio – Scissor Sisters (Todd) · Babycakes – 3 Of A Kind (dave) · Filthy/Gorgeous – Scissor Sisters (asta) · Heartbeats – The Knife (Swish David) · I Believe In You – Kylie Minogue (Joe) · Girls (rex the dog mix) – The Prodigy (Waitrose David) · Toxic – Britney Spears (Angus) ·Love Machine – Girls Aloud (Alan) · Trick Me – Kelis (Ben)

50. Everybody Deserves To Be F***ed – Sex In Dallas

So you’re at the bar, and this French dude asks your name, buys you a gin and tonic, seems cool, fancies himself, but then who are you to judge, but then he’s straight into this coked-up monologue, or whatever else he’s on, who can say, about how it’s your time, it’s everybody’s time, it’s your turn, ‘cos we’re living in a time where, you know, everybody needs to be free, so just f***ing free yourself yeah, ‘cos everybody deserves to be f***ed, and there’s this blaring techno music all around you, with a buzzing punk-rock guitar coming out of somewhere, you don’t know where, and the lights, and the gin, and the French dude going on and on and on, and you’re smiling and nodding and finishing his sentences, and giving him a cigarette, and he’s off again, pointing at the dancefloor, all those people, all alone, he wants it, she wants it, you and i should, you know, everybody deserves to be, to be, to be f***ed?

With charmers like him, who needs Rohypnol.

51. Thank You – Jamelia

Let’s remind ourselves of what the Troubled Diva Pop Panel said about this last March, shall we?