Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Guilty?




Guilt and regret, eh? Let's turn to the expert for a summation; Woody, it's over to you!

"My one regret in life is that I'm not someone else" 

Mr Allen, your shrink will see you now... 

Guilt turns me to "guilty pleasures", an over used term and one I'm not fond of anymore, since the rise of the Guilty Pleasures compilations  and club nights. 

I've been thinking... let's just drop the hipster cool camouflage, and drop the "guilty" bit - EVERYONE! IT'S OKAY TO HAVE PLEASURES! ENJOY YOUR PLEASURES! DON'T HIDE THEM! 

I went to the record store today, with the express purpose of buying Paul Simon's "Graceland" on vinyl for a pound. Oddly, two minutes after I entered the shop, the record store chap started playing "Graceland", I managed to hear most of the record as I dug through the £1 cheapo boxes. They had every Paul Simon and Simon and Garfunkel record ever released - but no "Graceland"! The shop was busy, and when "Call Me Al" came on, I looked around the shop, people were whistling, humming, and nodding, the like of which I've never seen before in a record store. Despite this beautiful piece of public synchronicity, I left disappointed. 






"Call me Al" is a current pleasure, although it's starting to grate, I've been overdoing it a bit. 

Please leave a "Pleasure" in the comments, one that you have previously been ashamed to admit to. 
Throw off the shackles of guilt my friends!
Let's Party!



15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's see if this works!

TonNL

Anonymous said...

I too love You Can Call Me Al - and I'm not guilty at all...my brother's name is Al and when the song first came out I made him a T shirt with those crayons that you used to use before computer printing. It said I Can Call You Betty on the front and YCCMA on the back.

Walk of Life does give me a bit of guilt-feeling however. But I always do the dance.

Jocelyn

Blimpy said...

There's a dance that goes with Walk Of Life!?!?

Anonymous said...

Yes, it's the dance the Shadows do...forward and back. Dire Straits used to do it on stage to WOL.

Mnemonic said...

Milli Vanilli - Baby, DOn't Forget My Number. Are you sure I shouldn't feel ashamed, Blimpy?

Proudfoot said...

I have just found I can sing along to this word perfect. Hey, I'm Chevvy Chase. That's nothing to feel guilty about. WOL is though. Sorry but there's a line in the sand and you stepped over it. Mnemonic can feel VERY ashamed indeed.I really like Smokey 'I'll meet you at midnight' and I think thier cover of Needles and Pins' is better than the original. As Clint said in 'White Hunter, Black heart(about killing an elephant), that's not just a crime, it's a SIN. Also at least three songs by Sailor. I once met the drummer's daughter and even she thought I was sad.

Anonymous said...

Hey, Proudfoot: not fair...it's SUPPOSED to be guilty pleasures you're ashamed to admit to.

Anonymous said...

Blimpy: I'm holding in my hand the vinyl you couldn't find, I bought it the instant it came out, I think it's one of the alltime classics. If 'Al's' grating a bit go to African Skies or Bubble, they're all great. There's an album I used to like before Graceland and I read somewhere that it's what 'turned' Paul Simon on, it's 'Rhythm of Resistance'- Music of Black South Africa. If you don't know it, it's worth a listen, it came out on Virgin, it's the soundtrack to a video/film directed by Jeremy Marre.
Two things I enjoy about RR, first it causes me to go through my collections every week which rehashes wonderful musical memories, and second, there's always a pleasant surprise when there's a tiny nugget of info re. one of the family, a family we all know but don't really know. Today's was that Nilpferd's a New Zealander and treefrogdemon's a woman!
Thanks for the effort.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, what makes you think I'm a woman?

Anonymous said...

Just had a quick wander through what's been added so far, and am very, very impressed.

When I saw this posting I wondered if it would be guilty pleasures - because my one of my current ones is Mike Oldfield's "Guilty" (from the "Exposed" live album from about 1978 or so. I listen to it while walking to work (at pace, for health reasons - I could be on the bus) and it is so like a late 80s dance track it's ridiculous.

I think Oldfield has to be classed as a guilty pleasure - he's good but naff.

Like Dire Straits, Coldplay and Chris Rea, he's good in small quantities but objective assessment tends towards "No, not really me, I'm a bit cooler than that...". To me, Paul Simon is a a cut above, but looking at the videos I guess he could be in the same kind of area!

Having said that, he is one of the great live acts - I've only seen him twice, in 1990 or so and 2003, but both times he delivered the goods in less than ideal surroundings (the SECC and Edinburgh Castle esplanade respectively).

One weird thing - my "nickname" on here is in lower case, even though I typed it as "2JokersInEveryPack". Looking up the thread I guess it's not just me!

Anonymous said...

Scratch the comment about nicknames and capitals... just in "preview" mode, then!

Blimpy said...

gone foreign - i will seek the vinyl out, oh yes i will!

goneforeign said...

Oops, treefrog, I thought I saw something in one of your posts that indicated that, husbands or something, I must be mistaken 10,000 apologies!

Anonymous said...

'sall right, goneforeign, I am a woman as it goes.

But why would you think I need apologies?

BeltwayBandit said...

This whole "guilty pleasures" thing drives me mad - good music is good music and there is nothing to be ashamed of liking good music. Who arbitrates whether you should feel guilty or not - some clueless halfwit like Chris Moyles and his ilk.

"You Can Call Me Al" is a cracking track - back in the 90's it was a guaranteed floor filler at the Student Union 80s night!