A selection of songs about real people concentrating on artists and writers but with a smattering of murderers, sports people and the odd missing person.
First heard on Beachy Head Radio 25th January 2024. If the embed doesn’t work it is here. Will this damn series never end?
Murderers
1. 00:00:00 The Adverts – Gary Gilmore’s Eyes
1977 Single. After demanding the death penalty and execution by firing squad those of his organs that remained were donated for medical use, including his corneas.
2. 00:02:20 Thin Lizzy – Killer On The Loose
1980 From Chinatown. About Victorian serial killer ‘Jack The Ripper’ who may have been one or more people.
3. 00:03:50 The Fall – What About Us
2005 From Heads Roll. Initially about rabbits living by the Berlin Wall this becomes the story of an East German immigrant to the North of England Manchester who becomes unhappy when he finds out that Harold Shipman has murdering old ladies.
4. 00:05:07 Prince Buster’s All Stars – Al Capone
1964 Single. The singer songwriter who heavily influence the West Indian music of the time and also the UK ska revival of the late 1970s. Madness where named after his song ‘The Madness’, their first single was called ‘The Prince’ and they had a top ten hit with his ‘One Step Beyond’. Both the Specials and The Beat covered songs by Cecil Campbell (for it was he).
5. 00:06:35 Brigitte Bardot et Serge Gainsbourg – Bonnie and Clyde
1968 From Bonnie and Clyde. Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut “Champion” Barrow – 1930s criminals big in the sixties after a film version of their life starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
Actors
6. 00:08:29 Peter Kraus – Hallo Brigitte
1962 B-Side of Florentinische Nächte.
7. 00:08:47 German Blue Flames – Olé Bardot
1966 Single. As opposed to the backing groups of Jimmy James and Georgie Fame of the same name.
8. 00:09:56 Dario Moreno – Brigitte Bardot
1961 Roméo EP. A Turkish actor and singer who worked mainly in France.
9. 00:10:18 Trøste & Bære – Balladen Om Brigitte Bardot Og Hakapiken Min
1995 From Rotfylt Ungdom. Norwegians.
10. 00:11:06 Digno Garcia Y Sus Carios – Brigitte Bardot
1961 EP. Originally from Paraguay and part of Trio Los Paraguayos who popularised music from their home country in Europe he settled in Belgium.
11. 00:11:46 Silvio Francesco – Ein Bisschen Von Bardot
1963 Single. An Italian born in France popular in Germany.
12. 00:13:02 De Emeralds – Brigitte Bardot
1961 . Indian Brothers. Netherlands version of the Dario Moreno hit.
13. 00:13:27 Serge Gainsbourg avec Arthur Greenslade et Son Orchestra – Initials B.B.
1968 From Initials B.B.. An evocation of his affair with Brigit Bardot quoting from Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony.
14. 00:14:47 Nosaka Akiyuki With Toshiyuki Miyama & The New Herd – Marilyn Monroe No Return
1971 Single / 鬱と躁 (1972). Japanese novelist, singer, lyricist, and politician.
15. 00:16:50 Red River Dave – The Ballad of Marilyn Monroe
1962 1973 Single but sounding like it was recorded a decade before so being a topical song I’ve guessed an earlier date for its original release.
16. 00:19:48 Junior & His Friends – Who’s Our Pet, Annette
1960 Single. About Annette Funicello who was originally a popular Disney Mouseketeer who had a pop music career and acted in a number of ‘Beach Party’ films with Frankie Avalon. This song was written by Paul Anka with his ten year younger brother Andy Anka Jr. on vocals.
17. 00:21:34 Billy Kidd – A Letter To Hayley
1962 Single. Ivan Ulz didn’t do particularly well as a singer and songwriter but as part of the West Coast folk-rock scene had a habit of being the link that helped others towards successful careers such as Michael Clarke of the Birds and Rickie Lee Jones.
18. 00:23:55 Grapefruit – Theme For Twiggy
1986 B-Side of Someday Soon. Written by Alexander Young the brother of the Easybeat and AC/DC Youngs. Originally signed to Apple Music the band were named by John Lennon after a Yoko Ono art exhibit.
19. 00:26:27 Steve Clayton – (Girls Are Imitating) Twiggy
1967 Single. Which indeed they were. Lesley Hornby, raised in glamorous Neasden, was one of the first supermodels who later became an actress. She’s also the other person on the cover of David Bowie’s ‘Pin-ups’.
Wildcard
20. 00:28:15 Richard Stilgoe with Valerie Singleton – Suffering From Inflation
1975 Single. A-Side of the better known ‘Statutory Right Of Entry’ by the comedic songwriter who later went on to write the lyrics for the Andrew Loyld-Webber musicals ‘Cats’ ‘Starlight Express’ and with Charles Hart ‘Phantom of the Opera’. But in his defence he’s given much of his royalty income to charities. This is from a period when he appeared on the early evening current affairs television programme ‘Nationwide’ with Valerie Singleton who’s best remembered as a presenter of the longest running children’s show in the world, ‘Blue Peter’, which has been broadcast since October 1958.
And for those of you who don’t like variety there’s…
Sport
21. 00:30:30 The Duckworth Lewis Method – Meeting Mr Miandad
2009 From The Duckworth Lewis Method. Neil Hannon & Thomas Walsh of The Divine Comedy & Pugwash respectively who’ve released two albums of cricket based pop.
1930 Single. About the most prolific batsmen in Cricket history.
23. 00:35:21 I Roy – Tribute To Michael Holding
1976 From Musical Shark Attack. Not to be confused with the Prince For I version of this Joe Gibbs penned number release at the same time about the West Indies and Leicester fast bowler nicknamed ‘Whispering Death’ due to his near silent run up.
24. 00:37:45 Half Man Half Biscuit – Fuckin’ ‘Ell It’s Fred Titmus
1985 From Back In The DHSS. About a chance encounter with the England and Middlesex spin bowler.
Un-bowdlerized version.
25. 00:38:38 Dejan Žujič – S tabo je Slovenija
2020 Single. There are other bands and singers in Slovenia other than Laibach. This tells ex-ski jumper and grand tour cyclist Primož Roglič’s that ‘Slovenia Is With You.
26. 00:40:04 Windinson – Carapaz Eres Capaz
2018 . Carapaz You Are Capable’ is the machine translation of this ode to Colombian cyclist Richard Carapaz who’s attacking style has won the three week long Giro d’Italia and one day Olympics Road Race.
27. 00:41:57 Ton Engels – Tom Dumoulin
2017 From Herfstkampioen. ’Autumn Champion’ is the album this song about the cyclist from the Netherlands who though successful retired early after no longer finding the sport enjoyable and losing motivation.
28. 00:44:05 Bemancio – Romain Bardet
2018 . By a YouTube rapper specializing in songs about road race cycling and its protaginists this example sings the praises of the Frenchman who’s very quick both up and down hill but can’t time trial to save his life meaning he can rarely compete for the highest honours.
29. 00:46:33 The Elton John Band – Philadelphia Freedom
1975 . Homage to Billie Jean King’s Philadelphia Freedoms professional tennis team. It was the only time Elton and Bernie Taupin set out to write a single.
30. 00:48:15 Far In Jim – Hey There Andy Murray
2013 YouTube Tribute of sorts.
31. 00:50:14 The Artisans – However Much I Love You, I Love Lloyd Honeyghan More
2015 . I’m going out on a limb to suggest they’re influenced by The Smiths and named after the Orange Juice song ‘The Artisans’ – Lyric, “Who happen to be my favourite band”.
32. 00:52:18 Chris Gaffney – The Eyes Of Roberto Durán
1995 From Loser’s Paradise. Written by Tom Russell and referencing the resolve of Panamanian boxer who fought over the course of five decades and won world titles at lightweight, welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight.
33. 00:54:56 Chaser – Red Rum
1975 Single. About the horse of the same name famous for winning the Grand National steeplechase – an annual competition to see how many horses can be killed in a single race.
34. 00:57:55 Raglan Four – Shergar Song
1983 B-Side of Eileen Alanna. A Derby winning race horse that went missing from Ballmany Stud in County Kildare where he’d been put out to stud after retiring in 1981.
Wildcards
35. 00:59:26 The Dodgems – Lord Lucan Is Missing
1980 Single. Also on the 1978 compilation Vaultage 78 – Two Sides Of Brighton.
36. 01:01:52 The Tights – Howard Hughes
1978 Single. “Malvern’s answer to The Sex Pistols” according to their manager.
Authors
37. 01:03:48 The Books – Spillane
1980 From the Expertise LP. Fronted by Stephen Betts who also also performed as Howard Hughes and co-wrote much of Peter Murphy’s first solo album, ‘If The World Should Fail To Fall Apart’. Crime novelist Mickey Spillane was best known for his series about private detective Mike Hammer who is mentioned in the song as part of the failed acronym RMASMHKMD (Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer Kiss Me Deadly).
38. 01:06:52 The Gymslips – Barbara Cartland
1983 From Rocking With The Renees. The writer of 723 books, mainly romance novels, and the fifth most translated author of all time. You might notice a mention of ‘Nationwide’ (see above).
39. 01:09:03 Lou Reed – My House
1982 From The Blue Mask. About poet and essayist Delmore Schwartz who Reed studied under at Syracuse University.
40. 01:12:03 Mark Knopfler – Beryl
2015 From Tracker. About Beryl Bainbridge. ‘English novelist known for her psychologically astute portrayals of lower-middle-class English life.’ – it says here.
41. 01:14:47 BA Robertson – To Be Or Not To Be
1980 From Initial Success. Initial and largely final success as a performer after four top twenty hits from this album including a Shakespeare inspired single which reached number nine in the UK. He co-wrote further hits for Cliff Richard, ‘Carrie’ and ‘Wired for Sound’ as well as ‘The Living Years’ for Mike + the Mechanics. And less we forget, ‘To Get A Laugh’ the B-Side to Ronny Corbett’s ‘Fanny’.
42. 01:17:57 Danny Kaye – I’m Hans Christian Andersen
1952 From The Soundtrack. A film “not the story of his life, but a fairy tale about this great spinner of fairy tales”.
43. 01:19:17 The Divine Comedy – The Booklovers
1994 From Promenade. Handily covering a multitude of authors and reducing the length of this compilation by about three weeks.
I couldn’t include Rachel Bloom’s ‘Fuck Me Ray Bradbury’ in a family friendly show and video sites want to you log in to view it so here’s just the audio.
Artists
44. 01:23:25 David Bowie – Andy Warhol
1971 From Hunky Dory. About the artist by the sometime Twiggy collaborator.
1968 From Picturesque Matchstickable Messages From The Status Quo. In the most tenuous link yet to appear in the Loud Hailers series this song played during a scene in Men In Black 3 set in Andy Warhol’s Factory art studio. Written by Francis Dominic Nicholas Michael Rossi ‘on the bog’ and referring to the paintings of L.S. Lowry who like David Bowie declined to accept honours from the British Governement.
For overseas listeners a ‘bog’ is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials. Or a toilet.
I’ve blundered and cut the song too short so here it is in all its glory.
2004 From Songs in the Key of Art. An album of ‘whimsical songs for kids (and adults) about artists and art’ by an art teacher.
1980 B-Side of Academy Fight Song. German American Frenchman.
1996 From Everything Must Go. Dutch American.
1994 From John Henry. Belgian. A keen harmonium improviser who in later life he felt he should have pursued music rather than art.
Epilogue
50. 01:34:20 The Kinks – Celluloid Heroes
1972 From Everybody’s In Show-Biz – Everybody’s A Star.
