Friday 17 April 2009

Incompetent ignoramuses

The Guardian's Film and Music section has a weekly feature: Songs about… . This week, it's actors. I didn't contribute because I assumed that good liberal readers of a certain age would definitely pick the right one. But no. The Go-Betweens' 'Lee Remick' isn't there. It's a wonderful, eyes-wide-open ingenue piece of Australian pop-rock, featuring my favourite line of bathos ever:

'She comes from Ireland, she's very beautiful.
I come from Brisbane, and I'm quite plain'.

It just works - the scansion and the meanings work together to encapsulate that feeling of not quite making it. When Robert Forster married a German heiress from a brewing family, he quipped 'I'm living every Australian's dream. I'm marrying into beer'.

Madness also wrote about an actor: 'My Name is Michael Caine'. It's not their best, but I like it.
at

6 comments:

  1. Ewarwoowar17 April 2009 at 15:34

    Nor do they have "Robert deNiro's waiting" by Bananarama. Write in and complain, Vole.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dan17 April 2009 at 15:41

    Nor 'Robert Redford' by Distophia, nor 'River Phoenix' by Japanther.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Plashing Vole17 April 2009 at 15:50

    I think the readership will survive without enduring any of those tracks. Bananarama? How old are you? Can't we let bygones be bygones and move on?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ewarwoowar17 April 2009 at 16:18

    "Steve McQueen" by Sheryl Crow?

    "James Dean" by Daniel Bedingfield?

    You've started something here, Vole. And it probably won't end well.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Zoot Horn17 April 2009 at 17:07

    Did the Kinks' Waterloo Sunset get a mention? "Millions of people swarming like flies round Waterloo underground/But Terry and Julie cross over the river where they feel safe and sound" - allegedly a reference to Terence Stamp & Julie Christie, screen icons of the 1960s,but Ray Davies says not, but everyone thinks it is them, so it kind of is. Oooh 1967, I remember it well. What are we on about again..?

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Plashing Vole20 April 2009 at 18:25

    All good suggestions. I kept mine to songs with names in the title, but keep yours coming.

    ReplyDelete

Send me your reckons: