Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Tuesday Tunes: Reasons to Be Cheerful

Because this is a family show, I am obliged to start Tuseday Tunes this week with a Parental Advisory for naughty words. If that sort of thing offends you, you probably shouldn’t read this post, and on no account should you listen to Reasons to Be Cheerful: the Best of Ian Dury.

With that done, this week I would like to recommend Reasons to be Cheerful, double CD of highlights from the career of urban poet Ian Dury. I dare say there’s nothing here that diehard fans won’t already have at least once, but I’m not a diehard fan. I was merely aware of some glaring ommisions in my music collection – primarily Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick and (of course) Reasons To Be Cheerful – and this collection was a handy and inexpensive way to fill those gaps and acquaint myself with the rest of Mr Dury’s work.

So apart from those big hits I mentioned, essential tracks include What a Waste, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Clever Trevor, and the theme song from the 80s TV show of Adrian Mole. And for your money you also get a few tracks from Dury’s early career with Kilburn & the High Roads, plus a couple recorded as the Music Students and a whole lot more.

Including the track There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards, which sprung to mind as I wrote my previous post as it contains the lines:


Einstein can't be classed as witless;
He claimed atoms were the littlest.
When you did a bit of splitting-em-ness
Frighten everybody shitless.

There ain't half been some clever bastards.
Probably got help from their mum (who had help from her mum).

If you can live with the swear words (and there's one track on the album I always skip because of them), for five of your Earth Pounds this is well worth investing in if you don't already have the well known Dury songs on your iPod.

There ain’t half been some clever bastards. Ian Dury was undoubtedly one of them.



Sci-fi Song of the Week

Yes, there is a sci-fi related Ian Dury song; and no, it doesn't have any rude bits in it. It hasn't made it onto the mixtape yet, but hopefully I'll sort that out soon. In the meantime, track down, if you can, Superman's Big Sister by Ian Dury & The Blockheads.

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