"Pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa pa ooma mow mow papa oom mow ma mow..." The Trashmen's crazed co-mingling of The Rivingtons' "Papa Oom-Mow-Mow" and "The Bird's The Word" may be the most perfect rock 'n' roll song of them all. Meaningless / beyond meaning. An atomic audio monolith. Pure drive with no purpose. A divine visitation that lives outside logic.

mean.

I still find this song as compelling as I did ten years ago. It's simple, crisp, and beautiful, opening with an other-worldly high-pitched vocal hum which is soon joined by a picked electric guitar sound and some tight drums. It's really nothing like anything else I like, but somehow the shouted vocals and indie-rock setting really appeal to me on this track. One of 20 or 30 songs which transport me back to my late teens amazingly vividly.

If someone would have asked me say ten years ago what artist's oeuvre I would take with me to a desert island, I would with dead certainty have answered: everything by Joni Mitchell, please. I'm not so sure anymore, although it could well be that I, when push comes to shove, would still make that choice. So it may not come as a surprise now that for a long time my all time best album was one of Joni's, Don Juan's Reckless daughter, where her cooperation with Jaco Pastorius really took off, for instance on this song where she's questioning her love for a man who's new sweety has already moved in while still keeping poor Joni (assuming the song is sort of autobiographical) on the side as his Off Night Backstreet. Jaco's warm bass carries the whole song and is almost like a second voice to Joni's singing, it blends marvelously with her cold metal guitar, some nice echoey and spacy flageolets too, great additional vocals - "Backstreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!"- by JD Souther and Glenn Frey, drums by John Guerrin, subtle and tight. PS Be warned that the soundfile is quite big (500 Kb).

A really really great pop song by dint of the fact it just refuses any categorisation other than 'Ace'. But I'd better give it a go. 'Mother' is a very nineties mix of genres; Gospel-ey piano, driving pop beat, terrible vocals, and great pop lyrics that soars, taking in scat, madchester, falsetto and more before exhausting itself - I can't think of any other song that could conceivably have worked as a blueprint for 90's pop - if we'd worked from this instead of 'Baby one more time' things could have been much different. Re. the song - two things then - 1. it's a fantastically catchy 'choon' with guts and attitude, 2. it's a bit revolutionary, as all good pop should be.