If I Could Turn Back Time

I was sitting in a coffee shop this morning and their sound system played Cher's dramatic (perhaps bombastic) hit version of Diane Warren's If I Could Turn Back Time and I have to admit that I actually listened to it for the first time - it's v-e-r-y pretty.

FYI, I've been collating - as a low-priority project - an album's worth of reasonably well-known songs that I'm presently calling SLOW, done, well, er...slowly - guitarist Adrian Belew calls it "The Naked Song" but in my case, they'll probably just be slow!

If all goes well, these covers may see the light of day towards the end of the year. [It should be noted that this "project" has gained much energy from me being mightily impressed by the covers work of my cyber friend, Michael Thorner.]

Anyway, If I Could Turn Back Time is now one song that I also intend to mangle - the list now also comprises of:

• Do You Know The Way To San Jose '68
• This Guy's In Love With You (beautifully covered by Thorner)
• Little Green Apples '68
• Rainy Days & Mondays '71
• This Time (by New Zealand band, Dragon)
• Who Listens To The Radio '78 (by Australian band, The Sports)
• Private Eyes '81
• Like A Virgin '84
• Eternal Flame '88
• Santa Monica '95

...with probably another few to come.

So - back to the coffee shop - on returning home, I googled to see if anyone else had done a piano-based cover version.

If I Could Turn Back Time - Suzie Bradford

Washington, USA's Suzie Bradford [of The Side Project] - has posted a version, which was the only piano-based one but in my eyes, it's pretty damn good! 

I would / will do it differently but I'm presenting it because she's really made the song come alive for me. 

I hope you like her version of If I Could Turn Back Time, too!

Curating The Man Hit On Head By Flying D*ldo Story

So, one February 12, Australia's The Northern Territory News' headline reported:

Best Man Hit On Head By Flying Dildo

You can read the sorry tale at News.com.au, Flying dong dings buck party goer, but the real juice in this story is the curated commentary from Facebook:


"Front page news....it's just a cock and bull story." - Jude Dalkins


"She knocked it out her vajayjay and it flew at him from across the room like those ping pong shooting bitches." - Beth Nielens

"Modern technology with these new flying dildo's." - Kizz Jones

"Dickhead" - Owen Whitelaw

"You know your country's fucked when flying dildos are on the front of the newspaper." - Blair Jamieson

Is This The Worst Ever Commercial?

So, the question is:

Is Eagleman the worst commercial, ever?

Eagleman: Is This The Worst Ever Commercial?

We Recommend A Quiet Morning Routine

Time Magazine;s Annie Murphy Paul reports today on Why Morning Routines Are Creativity Killers - a fascinating justification for my half glass full attitude to life - and its ramifications. Indeed, I'm one of the folks reference in the article that do find morning particularly productive, being aware for most of my life that "imaginative insights are most likely to come to us when we’re groggy and unfocused" - it's great to see that Scientific research is now vindicating my beliefs.

On a less praiseworthy note, Ms. Paul also points out that "the only thing most of us do right in the morning, in fact, is drink coffee [which] increases the brain’s level of Dopamine, the neurotransmitter that..."]...makes us feel great. Hmmm, I suppose that I'm as guilty as everybody else. Ah well, it's true, waking up isn't half as much fun without coffee!

My Favorite Cover Version Of: Bacharach & David's This Guys In Love With You

As a pop music fan, I'm sure that many of you may agree that there are depressingly diminishing returns in the search for the new Great Pop Song. Folks just ain't writin' stuff like they used to. Oh, I could easily launch into my two-drinks party piece about why that is so but now is not the time. Instead, I'd like to introduce you to Canadian forty-something, Michael Thorner, who's been regularly putting his original compositions and covers up on Youtube for the last couple of years.

Checking my FAVORITES, I see that I've bookmarked four of his originals (all near-classics in my eyes) and six of his covers, of which - by the slimmest margin - my favorite is this astonishing cover of Bacharach & David's This Guys In Love With You.

According to the book Bacharach by Michael Brocken, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss owned A&M records (A = Alpert, M = Moss). The Tijuana Brass were offered a TV special and the director suggested Alpert sing a song. Alpert contacted friend and label mate Burt Bacharach to ask him for one and Hal David actually re-wrote some of the lyrics at Alpert's request:


"He wanted to do our song on a TV special he was doing. It was a song he was going to sing to his wife and the lyric was not quite appropriate for what he wanted to say. He asked us whether we could change it so it would fit what he needed..."


And interviewed by Record Collector, Bacharach said:


"Herb and Jerry (Moss)...asked me to...write the arrangement and conduct the orchestra - I did it as a favor. If you asked me when I got in my car leaving Gold Star Studios that night and thought this was ever gonna be a hit I would have said no way. Then three or four weeks later it was #1. Wow!"

Source: Songfacts

While Aussie band The Reel's cover version (apparently given the thumbs up by Hal David as the definitive interpretation) arguably improves the original, it's still derivative. However, Thorner, on the other hand, has taken this wonderful, schmaltzy classic and mostly through syncopation, reinvigorated it with such skill and passion that he seems to truly makes the song his own. His version aches with an embarrasing puppy-dog optimism and the hilarious / dramatic moments of 2.56 - 3.23 are - for me - some of Youtube's greatest moments. 

Michael Thorner: This Guys In Love With You

Michael is proudly gay and while not overtly so - within his own compositions - he nevertheless positions the male straight listener (i.e. me) in an unaccustomed space. I get around it by imagining that a female singer is delivering the lines (and may well do so if my new band Mojo Business - I purchased the dotcom the other day - ever gets off the ground), such as in the superb It Better Not Rain, a definite hit song in my niche, at least.

Thorner's Youtube channel is well worth catching, honestly, check it out, there are gems a-plenty!