Hello, my fellow Londoners! Here’s a quick-and-dirty post to mash music into your minds on this Monday morning in London, Ontario, the city in the Goldilocks zone where somebody’s almost certainly eating your porridge somewhere but that’s the way we’ve always done it, ssssshhh, have some syrup.
Readers, maybe you’re also listeners
Anyways - we’re glaring at a full news agenda at a couple of council committee cavalcades, and much much more, in our buzzing city between the lakes. Because this is a multi-media journalism outlet, and because I have more silly ideas than I can handle every day, we’re branching out into MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT. That’s right - here’s a playlist to activate your week and get you thinking, perhaps.
They’re the Easter eggs in the long grass: the Earworms From The Footnotes.
And, if my web fu does not fail me, we should be seeing an embedded Spotify player showing up right about now…
Isn’t that fancy? (Phew) I will also include the full track listing (scroll down), in case you’re not a Spotifyer and would prefer to recreate this elsewhere, such as on a C90 cassette1.
And there’s a direct link to the playlist here.
TW, probably, for words. Please focus on the value of these amazing songs and remember their original context. We may have to ignore some outdated terms and attitudes, especially from dear old Noel Coward, marvellous man though he was. We’ll get along better if we don’t take everything too seriously.
Well, except Pink Floyd The Wall, which is currently coming true.
Vegetable rights and peace
Well said, Neil. Vegetable rights and peace! So say we all2.
And - all the songs on the list
Here’s the whole lot:
Mistadobalina — Del The Funky Homosapien
Lemon Pound Cake — Afroman
Pump Up The Volume — M/A/R/R/S
ABC — The Jackson 5
Hazy Shade of Winter — The Bangles
Mad Dogs and Englishmen — Noel Coward
9th & Hennepin (2023 Remaster) — Tom Waits
The Man Comes Around — Johnny Cash
Caledonia — Dougie MacLean
Rex Bob Lowenstein — T.J. White
Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 — Pink Floyd
Our House — Madness
Right Here, Right Now — Fatboy Slim
Mr. Sandman — The Chordettes
Another Girl Another Planet — The Only Ones
We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) — Tina Turner
Happy — Pharrell Williams
All You Need Is Love (Remastered 2009) — The Beatles
I like background music when I work and I’ve tried to build it that way, so you’ll see longer mixes of some songs. It’s all about having an accompaniment to your day, if music can be in your ears.
And, if you only want one record, take that last one with you to the desert island. It’s true. Love is all you need.
Maybe next time, Taylor.
Enough - let’s have a happy Monday
No, I didn’t include the Happy Mondays.
Feel free to share your own hipster tendencies in the comments. Every interaction feeds some godawful algorithm like we’re ignorant animals in a maze, but at least there’s music playing and music makes me happy. Art for art’s sake, that’s what I say.
Here we go with the week. There are almost 200 of us now, and we’re all paying attention to how our city works. We want to make a difference.
So, let’s. Knock ‘em dead, kid. You’ve got this. Pump up the volume.
- Mike
The chrome ones were best.
Commander Adama’s speech from Battlestar Galactica. It’s a four-minute clip but bloody amazing.