Artist	Song
Johnny Hartman	My Favourite Things
Ian Dury	Reasons To Be Cheerful
Pop Will Eat Itself	Can U Dig It?
Reunion	Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)
Negativland	Michael Jackson
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich	DDDBMT
Bonzo Dog Band	The Intro & The Outro
Mike Stevens & The Shevelles	The Go Go Train
James Brown	Night Train
Hamilton Bohannon	Disco Stomp
KLF	It's Grim Up North
St Etienne	Girl VII
Lemon Jelly	Ramblin' Man
Hank Snow	I've Been Everywhere
Tom Lehrer	The Elements
Blegvad / Greaves / Herman	22 Proverbs
Dave Frishberg	Van Lingle Mungo
Chris Kenner	Land Of 1000 Dances
Human Beinz	Nobody Like Me
The Temptations	The way you Do The things You Do
Nick Drake	One Of These Things First
Bryan Ferry	These Foolish Things

Comment:

Lists, catalogues, gazetteers; where would pop's lyrical lexicon be without them?

They cross genres & time scales with impunity (tho' for some reason there came a cluster at the end of the 80's/ start of the 90's).

And they come in a variety of sub-species.

There's the pure list: a straight catalogue of things that bring pleasure (tracks 1-4,22- or at least wistful remembrance in this case) .-and within this, a sub-sub-genre devoted to reeling off all the dance steps with which the narrator is conversant (thereby establishing their credentials as avatar of cool)(tracks 18,19).

There's the travelogue: a lyric comprising mostly of place names. Sometimes it's a list of geographical conquests (13,14), other times the tale told is more subtle. James Brown hollers the names of the passing cities as black music makes it's migration from South to North and when they get to Philadelphia, that John The Baptist of proto electro- minimalism Hamilton Bohannon hops on & rides the seaboard all the way to Boston before fetching up in New York Citayyy. On track 11 the KLF recite apparently at random from a Northern England Ordinance Survey map, while St Etienne's list of desirable locales displays a distinct London bias (eg Winnipeg being flanked by Pollard's Hill & Plumstead Common).

There's the show-off's charter: the list song as vehicle for feats of verbal dexterity as names are reeled off without appearing to break sweat or for a breath (4,14,15) or cerebral game-playing (16-it does what it says on the tin).

Finally there's the "How do I love thee; let me count the ways" gambit, whereby the writer deploys their mastery of simile, metaphor & what have you to ring the changes on a simple proposition; usually how happy / in love I am, or how lovely / wonderful you are. Smokey Robinson (20) was a master of this and I was torn between "Thing's You Do" & "It's Growing." It was it's role as a catalyst for Nick Drake's paddle in these waters (21) that settled matters.

And then there's those who fall between the cracks. Tracks 6 & 7 comprise a micro -niche: the jokesome band introduction. Dave Dee succumbs to apoplectic frustration as his Beaky get's entagled with his Tich but is trumped by the fruity surrealism of the Bonzos with each improbable instrument seat being filled by an even more improbabal occupant (Count Basie Orchestra on triangle *ching*).
Negativland are a lot more sinister as they issue a proclamation summoning those overdue a visit to the Judgement of The Sacred Fire ( oddly enough they all seem to be mid 80s corporate rock whores).

But over in Norman Rockwell-land, Dave Frishberg evokes a lost and allegedly more simple time by the simple expedient of reciting the names of departed baseball players.



To bring these notes to a close Mike Steven's charters a loco to take us round the mid 60's most swingingest haunts, introduces us to the on-board staff and blow me down if it isn't crewed to a man by the key faces of scene, right down to Rod Stewart as the bag-monkey -an image which always makes me smirk for some reason....

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