Tubthumping - Chumbawamba

Tubthumping, sometimes known as "I get knocked down", which is the leading lyric, is by the anarchist punk musical collective Chumbawamba. An album track, it was released as a single that came out in 1997. It charted highly not only in the UK but also in the US, Australia and Italy. It is difficult to be sure exactly what it is about, if anything, but it is all in there - a good tune or set of tunes; a football anthem chorus ("We'll be singing when we're winning"); a pleasant girl singer; a nice beat; little jokes (Danny Boy, Danny Boy); some classical music (Jeremiah Clarke's Prince of Denmark's March and the trumpet voluntary on what sounds like a trumpet); a controversial word easily altered for radio airplay; a positive message with an underlying tone of sadness, etc. Some have found the song annoying but for pop music, it is pretty good stuff. The lyrics are so minimalist you can make what you like of them (another useful quality in successful pop songs) and the band has changed them from time to time as they have espoused different causes. The album version of the song opens with a sample of a monologue performed by Pete Postlethwaite in the 1996 film "Brassed off": "Truth is, I thought it mattered; I thought that music mattered. But does it bollocks! Not compared to how people matter." There are various remixes and covers.

The Night Sky - Keane

Keane's distinctive is their use of keyboards rather than guitars, though the keyboards sometimes sound like guitars. This 2006 charity single for War Child is a heavily reverbed, nostalgic but subtly belligerent track that moves at a slow measured pace with very piano-like keyboard accompaniment. The song was composed by pianist Tim Rice-Oxley and is written from the perspective of a child caught up in war. We begin with nostalgia - "One day I will be back in our old street safe from the noise (ie of bombs) that's falling around me". We then move to the manifesto, which involves releasing the town "from the people (ie the warring factions) who are trying to knock it down". This will lead to a regeneration. The town will be returned to a previous utopian state where "only city lights will brighten the night sky and there will be no sound" or, to be exact, sounds not of bombs and artillery but of people going about their business in bars, markets, banks and (gratifyingly) churches. More nostalgia marks the later lines about longing to "stand at the bus stop"; "browse in a bookshop" or "sleep and always be still". The longing is to "be set free from the people who are trying to bury me". The final lines are powerful - "And then only fireworks will light the sky at night for all the world can see". Of course, the song offers no solutions. There is no suggestion of how all this can be achieved. It is all someone else's fault and because this is a war child speaking we cannot object. This is merely an innocent longing for peace, a longing that we can all identify with, whether we have lived through war or not. A pleasant tune, fine vocals and lyrics that are intriguing enough to provoke interest make it an excellent modern pop song.

Friday on my mind - The Easybeats

Considered by some the best popular song to come out of Australia, the Easybeats' 1966 hit Friday on my mind has been covered many times. It is a pop triumph. Drawing on the sixties beat scene, it shows (middle) eastern and jazz influences too. The guitars are great, as are the vocals. The use of the minor key for the week days ("Monday morning feels so bad ... Tuesday I feel better ... Wednesday just won't go, Thursday goes too slow, I've got Friday on my mind") then the rising, quickening beat for Friday ("Gonna have fun in the city, Be with my girl, she's so pretty, She looks fine tonight, She is outta sight to me") works well. The lyrics are dire in places ("Even my old man looks good ... Tonight I'll get mad, Tomorrow I'll be glad, 'Cause I've got Friday on my mind") but work as a unit, evoking youthful working class longings for the weekend very well. Of course, the song ends with a fade because the weekly high can only provide a cyclical thrill at best and is ultimately a dead end. Something higher than "Thank God it's Friday" is needed. It is epitomised in the contrasting Christian week, which has no weekend but begins each Lord's Day with worship and thankfulness for the resurrection, as the believer moves inexorably toward an eternal Sabbath Day of joy.

Can you dig it? - The Mock Turtles

This track shows just how far you can go in popular music with a good guitar riff properly laid down (something the song originally lacked when first recorded, apparently). As so often in popular music, the lyrics are totally inconsequential. Again, that may be because the title came before the song - it is apparently a line from the controversial 1979 film The Warriors (based on a 1965 novel by Sol Yurick). The whole thing probably took no time at all to write, although the recording may have taken a little longer. The Fat Boy Slim and Simon Thornton remix came out in 2003 (the original was a 1991 production)  and shows evidence of a lot of tinkering. The one bit of noticable inventiveness is the way the backing ceases at the beginning of the chorus and during the striking phrase "someone turned the light on". Although you could not listen to this too many times back to back without getting a little bored, it certainly makes you want to move.