It is time to leave when everyone is dancing - Tangerine Dream

The instrumental track It is time to leave when everyone is dancing by the German band Tangerine Dream is from the 2017 album Quantum Gate, the 30th main studio album by the band. It follows the death of the band's founder and leader, Edgar Froese, in 2015, and is based largely on ideas and sketches he left. The album was preceded by its companion in 2015, Quantum Key. The albums have been generally well received. This track is not a Froese track and was composed by Thorsten Quaeschning who joined the band in 2005 and Ulrich Schnauss with them 2014-2022. It is the album's sand out track with its very attractive syncopations ducking and diving throughout.

There was an old lady - Burl Ives

"There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" is what is called a cumulative song, a repetitive work with connected lines of poetry or song. It is also a children's nursery rhyme and a nonsensical song. It dates from at least the 19th century and is documented in Dorothy B. King's 1946 book Happy Recollections. Burl Ives' version is the most famous. It is also known as I Know an Old Lady or There Was an Old Woman or I Know an Old Woman. Poor Mrs Somebody is another title. The song tells the nonsensical story of an old woman who swallows increasingly large animals, each to catch the previous animal, but (spoiler alert) dies after swallowing a horse. There are many variations of phrasing in the lyrics, especially for the description of swallowing each animal.

The earliest reference to a song about a woman who swallowed a fly goes back to 1872. It credits the lyrics to Frank W. Green and the music to Alfred Lee. It seems to have been a Music Hall hit in London. Audiences loved it and laughed out loud. In 1957 an American published three versions of the story from different parts of the USA.

The origins of the song are uncertain. It's possible it was inspired by an anecdote about London surgeon John Abernethy which was widely reported on his death in 1831. A young woman came to seek medical help after swallowing a spider. "Mr Abernethy dextrously caught a blue-bottle fly as it fled by him, and told the patient to put it in her mouth and if she spit it out in a few moments the spider would come out with it." By the start of the 20th century, the story had mutated. According to the Glasgow Observer in the "celebrated case", Abernethy suggested he should send a spider down into her lungs to catch the fly. She "declared that she felt the spider walking down her throat when Abernethy was only tickling it with a feather, and declared herself completely cured when Abernethy showed her both fly and spider in a test tube." Burl Ives recorded his version in 1953 and it was released on the Brunswick label. The credited writers are Rose Bonne (lyrics) and Alan Mills (music). They had copyrighted their version the year before. Ives' rendition is on his album, Folk Songs, Dramatic and Humorous also from 1953. According to the album liner notes, the song was "derived from an old ballad", rewritten by Mills, and passed to Ives by Edith Fowke of CBC Radio. The final line cleverly stops things dead (literally) and is very funny.

Brass in Pocket - The Pretenders

'Got brass in pocket' is the first line of the third single by the Pretenders that topped the charts in January 1980 and was their first real success. Quite what the line is doing there is not immediately clear. Apparently co-writer Chrissie Hynde overheard someone use the phrase at a concert they did in Wakefield. The song seems to be describing that burst of confidence some get when they want to impress someone they themselves are drawn to. Indeed, Hynde has said that it is about cockiness. It is as likely to be about impressiing someone of the opposite sex as impressing an audience at a concert. Hynde has stated that it is nothing to do with feminism. It apparently began as a guitar progression from the late Honeyman-Scott to which Hynde added the lyrics. She thought it was trying to be MoTown but failing. Many of the lyrics are not immediately clear. Brass is northern slang for money. 'Got bottle, I'm gonna use it' is using the word bottle as in Cockney rhyming slang (bottle and glass ie ass or more appropriately here sass). 'Detroit leaning' is American slang for driving a vehicle with one hand. New skank is cannabis and reet is a nod to a trope by comic artist Robert Crumb. Hynde tends to sing a little off key and she particularly did not like her voice on this song at first but came round. The bouncing tune fits the lyrics well. The persona could offend if it was more aggressive but one is willing to accept that the singer really is special somehow and deserves some attention. She is going to use, she says, her arms, her legs, her style, het sidestep, her fingers and (and this is the give away) her imagination. The fact she's winking at us should not be missed either. Showing off is a sin but maybe in a song one can be forgiven for it.

A thousand years - Christina Perri

"A Thousand Years" is a 2011 pop song written for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 that somehow wormed its way into my psyche many years later. Perri, an American singer and songwriter, wrote it with her producer David Hodges. It became her second single on Atlantic Records, again from the film's official soundtrack.

The song was apparently what they call a sleeper hit, eventually reaching its peak position of number 11 in the UK and 31 in the US only after the release of the film sequel The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 in 2012. Perri re-recorded the song, again produced by Hodges, for the sequel, this time with added vocals from Steve Kazee. It was very successful round the world.

The song is about the love affair between Edward and Bella in the novel and subsequent film series and plays in the credits. However, you don't need to know that to enjoy the song. Every true love affair has its own version of "I have died every day waiting for you Darling, don't be afraid. I have loved you for a thousand years I'll love you for a thousand more." A beautiful tune, a clear voice, good but vague lyrics, nice piano chords, guitar and orchestration, a romantic feel - no wonder it hooked me in. Also that final "And all along I believed I would find you, Time has brought your heart to me."

Two other carols - Simon & Garfunkel

More obscurely, two other carols sung by Simon & Garfunkel can be found. Comfort and Joy is an a cappella arrangement of the carol God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. The Star Carol is a carol written by Alfred Burt and Wihla Hutson. It was first released by "Tennessee" Ernie Ford in 1958. Both are found on the album Old Friends published in 1997.

The simple but moving lyrics of the star carol are

Long years ago on a deep winter night

High in the heavens, a star shone bright

While in the manger, a wee baby lay

Sweetly asleep on a bed of hay

Jesus our Lord was that baby so small

Laid down to sleep in a humble stall

Then came the star and it stood overhead

Shedding its light 'round His little head

Dear baby Jesus, how tiny Thou art

I'll make a place for Thee in my heart

And when the stars in the heavens I see

Ever and always I think of Thee.

Go tell it on the Mountain and 7 O'Clock news/Silent Night - Simon & Garfunkel

A feature of early Simon & Garfunkel is a willingness, despite being Jewish, to sing Christian songs, such as You can tell the world. Some of these songs are Christmas carols. Go Tell It on the Mountain is an African-American spiritual song probably passed down by oral tradition but originally published by John Wesley Work Jr (1871-1925) from Nashville. The lyrics are

Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere;

go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born

(alternatively, especially if it is not Christmas, "Jesus Christ is Lord".

If it is Easter, "That Jesus lives again".)

While shepherds kept their watching o'er silent flocks by night

Behold throughout the heavens there shone a Holy light

The shepherds feared and trembled when, lo! above the Earth

Rang out the angel chorus that hailed our Saviour's birth

Down in a lowly manger our humble Christ was born

And brought us all salvation that blessed Christmas morn

"Go Tell It on the Mountain" probably refers to the shepherds described in Luke's Gospel, hence the alternate title of "While shepherds kept their watching". 

Before Simon & Garfunkel recorded it in 1964, Peter, Paul and Mary had adapted and rewritten it with specific references to Exodus and using the phrase "Let my people go" but referring implicitly to the civl rights struggles of the early 1960s.

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Also in 1966 they recorded a version of the famous German language carol Silent Night. Billed as 7 O'Clock News/Silent Night the track is a sound collage juxtaposing their two part harmony rendition of Silent Night with a simulated 7 O'Clock News bulletin featuring actual events from the summer of 1966 read by Charles O'Donnell, a then radio disc jockey. As the track progresses, the news report assumes a greater presence through an increase in volume. The very basic point is made that though Jesus has come, the world is still a mess. Jewish polemic sometimes argues that Messiah cannot have come because of this but that is to forget the Second Coming. The mix on the track purposely clashes with the piano accompaniment mixed solely to the left channel and the news solely to the right channel while the vocals remain in the middle.

Events referred to include a dispute in the House of Representatives over "the civil rights bill"; the death of comedian Lenny Bruce from an overdose aged 42 (actually 40); Martin Luther King Jr. reaffirming plans for an open housing march; the grand jury indictment of Richard Speck for the murder of nine (actually eight) student nurses; disruption by protesters at the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings into anti-Vietnam War protests; a speech by former Vice-President Richard Nixon to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (actually the American Legion) urging an increase in the war effort in Vietnam, and calling opposition to the war the "greatest single weapon working against the US".

Winter Song - Lindisfarne

Elvis Costello once called "Winter Song", the third track on Lindisfarne's 1970 debut Nicely out of tune, one of the greatest songs ever, and he may be right. There is a starkness about the presentation, appropriate for a winter song, and it sounds like a solo effort on first hearing but the bass and excellent mandolin work become evident on further listens. The contrasting harshness and gentleness of the vocals at various points is another great feature of this excellent alternative Christmas song that manages to reference snowdrops, the turkey in the oven, the Christmas presents bought, Santa and Jesus and yet remains sceptical throughout. Its message, a typical Alan Hull socialist one it would seem, is that in the midst of winter rather than just feeling sorry for ourselves we should spare a thought for homeless tramps, gypsies and even for Jesus (although even there Hull is as non-commital as he can be). What a striking song.

Do you spare one thought for Jesus

Who had nothing but his thoughts

Who got busted just for talking

And befriending the wrong sorts?