“Here in my car I feel safest of all”(Part Two)

1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins

Released in 1996, as the second single from their “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” album, this is one of the Smashing Pumpkins most well known songs. I am not really a big fan of theirs if I’m honest, but something about this song spoke to me at the time. It’s not really typical of much of their other work up to that point. If the music press told me to like something I tried quite hard to do so, but their albums remained largely unplayed and largely under appreciated. I can’t pretend to understand what the lyric os about, but lines like

“And we don’t know just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below”

Don’t need much explanation. It’s not an uplifting song, but it brings warmth somehow.

Rotterdam (Or Anywhere) – The Beautiful South

Another song from 1996, and perhaps slightly more cheerful than the first song. The Beautiful South were an interesting band. The produced radio friendly songs which dealt with unfriendly subjects. Having said that, again, I have no idea what this is about. It just seems to fit with a long journey, and makes me smile thinking of Chloe deliberately singing the words wrong to annoy me!

Dr Fell – Juliet Turner

Juliet Turner was from journey a little later in our lives. This song was from her 2000 album “Burn the Black Suit”. I’m not sure how we happened upon Juliet really. The late Terry Wogan was a fan, so perhaps that is how? Anyway, she is from Northern Ireland, as will become clear on listening. This is a real celebration of an accent! It’s definitely easy listening, and we can’t play it without singing in the accent, which is of course done affectionately. Juliet stopped making more music around 2008 which is a great shame. Her cover version of Tom Waites “I Hope that I don’t fall in love with you” is beautiful, and I prefer it to the original. This is a joyous song, it makes me smile and it always seems to be sunny when I hear it. We saw her live and met her afterwards, and she was a beautiful person.

Place your Hands – Reef

Now the music snob in me is crying at this inclusion. I genuinely loathed this band, which is very unfair of me really. They were tagged in alongside many other bands as being part of the Chris Evans TFI Friday gang, this song in particular being used to introduce the letter section on the programme. However, as much as the music press at the time hated them, I will, your honour, put the case for the defence. Nobody who saw my two daughters singing along and waving their arms around like crazy in the back of the car could do anything other than include this on the list. It’s a peculiar Dad Rock song, with appallingly affected vocals, and a feel of a “white guy trying to have soul and failing” feel about it, but somehow..it just works.

Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison

I don’t get Van Morrison. I don’t get the people who like him. I once travelled back on the Tube in close proximity to people who had been to a gig of his at a small Jazz and Blues Club in West Kensington, and they were utter utter snobs of the highest order, spending the journey talking about the rest of the audience rather than “Van the Man’s” performance. I’ve tried really hard to try and get it. Anyway…this is nice. It has a la-la-la chorus, ideal for small vocally enthusiastic girls, and again, I can only enjoy it when imagining the girls joining in with it.