Lou says you changed your pickup for a Seville

Thursday music corner: Kirsty MacColl (b.Croydon 1959, d.2000 Mexico) was a British singer-songwriter born to Scottish parents in London. Her father was notable Scottish folk singer Ewan MacColl (1915-89). She was signed to Stiff Records before her 20th birthday after impressing on backing vocals duties for punk band Drug Addix, and went on to release five albums during her lifetime, including Electric Landlady, which reached number 17 in the UK album charts in 1991, and Tropical Brainstorm, which later went gold in the year she died. 

MacColl is most famous for the 1987 UK number two single, Fairytale of New York, recorded with the Pogues; producer Steve Lillywhite was her then-husband. The single topped the Irish charts and also reached number 5 in New Zealand. MacColl was killed in a boating accident aged 41 when a powerboat moving at speed in a restricted area struck her while she was pushing her son out of harm's way.

There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis was MacColl's third single release, and the first to chart. It reached number 14 in the UK singles chart in 1981, and appeared on her debut album Desperate Character.    

Kirsty MacColl - There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis (1981)

See also:

Music: Kirsty MacColl - Days (Kinks cover, 1989)

Music: The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York (1987)

Music: Ewan MacColl - Van Diemen's Land (1952)

Come on outside, let me hear those thoughts

Thursday music corner: American singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten has released seven studio albums since 2009, including her most recent, Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory, released in February 2025. She has also acted in TV series and films. She and her band are currently touring Australia and New Zealand, and performed at Wellington's Opera House on Tuesday, along with impressive support from Los Angeles folk-punk singer Shannon Lay.

Idiot Box is an album track from Van Etten's most recent album, and was written by Van Etten and the band.

Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory - Idiot Box (live, 2025)

See also:

Music: Sharon Van Etten - Afterlife (2024)

Music: Sharon Van Etten & Josh Homme - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding (2020)

Music: Shannon Lay - Mirrors (2024)

And the ground coughs up some roots, wearing denim shirts and boots

Thursday music corner: Singer, songwriter and actor Bobby Darin was born Walden Robert Cassotto in New York, in 1936. In his early twenties he attained fame co-writing the 1958 million-selling novelty single Splish Splash, and then cemented his pop stardom with Dream Lover and his covers of Weill and Brecht's Mack The Knife and French singer Charles Trenet's Beyond the Sea (originally La Mer). He released an astonishing 27 studio albums in his relatively short career, with his second and third, That's All (1959) and This Is Darin (1960) reaching the US Billboard top 10. Darin scored 22 US top 40 singles from 1958 to 1966. He also appeared in 13 feature films, including the 1962 remake of State Fair. From 1960 to 1967 he was married to popular actor, Sandra Dee. Darin died in 1973 aged 37, from a long-standing heart condition.

Long Line Rider appeared on Darin's 1968 album Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto, which was his first album release to consist solely of self-written songs. The track concerns the discovery of unmarked graves at the brutal Cummins Prison Farm in Arkansas, where prisoners killed by the titular prison service riders were buried.

Bobby Darin - Long Line Rider (1968)   

See also:

Music: Bobby Darin - If I Were A Carpenter (live, 1973)

Music: Charles Trenet - La Mer (1946)

Music: Stockard Channing - Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee (1978) 

Maria Bamford's workplace trajectory

Given my tendency to reject those who accept me, this is the work pattern that I fight against to this day:

1. I cry in the bathroom at the impossibility or first sign that I am not good at my job (for example, upon hearing, "Did you forget to order creamer?" [receptionist], or, "Can you pace it up?" [voice-over gig]).

2. I start to see the flawed nature of my employers and the unethical moral quandaries of the job. There's a reason the animation is done in Korea! The labor is cheaper and not well-treated! There is hypocrisy in what I thought was beautiful! Now that I'm a part of it, it is BAD!

3. I start to "speak up" passive-aggressively (via comedy). At Nickelodeon, I made a satirical short film with myself and another production assistant killing off all of the Nickelodeon executives in a Masterpiece Theatre-style mystery.

4. I am well-liked but troubling to the people who have hired me. I do a good job, but those in charge sense my lack of respect. As with everything, once I am invited to be a part of it, it is BAD.

I was at Nickelodeon for one year and I was voted Employee of the Month the same month I got fired. After being fired, I won a voice-over role on their new series, CatDog. They gave me a severance of two months pay and with that, I was able to move to a nicer neighborhood, get a dog, and begin earning more from stand-up than from temping. But I would still do anything for cash. I've answered phones for comedy development executives right after having pitch meetings with them. I worked eight hours at NBC4 reception after doing The Tonight Show the night before. The weatherman walked by and said, "You were on Leno last night!" and kept walking. The gradual change into being a full-time performer took about as long as it took me to pay off my medical debt - eight years.

- Maria Bamford, Sure, I'll Join Your Cult, New York, 2023, p.146-7.

I'm burning aviation fuel no matter what the cost

Thursday music corner: Chuck Berry (b. Missouri 1926, d. Missouri 2017) was a towering rock 'n roll pioneer whose brushes with legal pitfalls (armed robbery, transporting a minor across state lines, assault, accusations of illegal filming, and drugs charges) tarnish but do not overshadow his role as a champion of rhythm and blues music and a confident, trailblazing exponent of black musical excellence for national and international audiences. 

Berry scored fifteen US pop chart (top 40) singles in three decades, opening with the effervescent Maybelline (US number 5 in 1955) and closing with the crass novelty number My Ding-a-Ling, which topped the charts in 1972.   

No Money Down was Berry's third single, released in January 1956 and later appearing on his May 1957 album After School Session, which also included Too Much Monkey Business and Brown Eyed Handsome Man. The familiar consumerism of Berry lyrics is epitomised in No Money Down's lengthy catalogue of desirable premium features sought for a brand-new Cadillac, with the loan repayments presumably to be worried about at some unspecified future date.

Chuck Berry - No Money Down (1956)

See also:

Music: Chuck Berry - Brown Eyed Handsome Man (1956)

Music: Chuck Berry - No Particular Place To Go (1964)

Music: John Lennon - Sweet Little Sixteen (1975)

Rum-tum-tum, three times she shot

Thursday music corner: Lonnie Donegan (b. Glasgow 1931, d. Lincolnshire 2002) was a pioneering singer-songwriter who led the pre-Beatles skiffle craze in Britain, interpreting American jazz, blues and folk for British audiences in a low-fi rock 'n roll ethos. Starting with a cover of the plantation spiritual Rock Island Line in 1955 Donegan had 30 UK top 40 singles or EPs through to his final success with Pick A Bale Of Cotton in 1962. Three of his singles topped the UK charts: Cumberland Gap and Gamblin' Man (both 1957) and the novelty number My Old Man's A Dustman in 1960. The latter also reached number one in Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Two of Donegan's albums were major UK chart successes, with 1956's Lonnie Donegan Showcase reaching number 2 and 1958's Lonnie reaching number 3.

Frankie and Johnny is a traditional American murder ballad first recorded in 1912 and with roots in a St Louis, Missouri, murder trial from 1899. The increasingly frenzied and incendiary Donegan version appeared as the closing track on his successful 1956 Lonnie Donegan Showcase album. This performance is from a 1961 TV special.

Lonnie Donegan - Frankie & Johnny (live, 1961)

See also:

Music: Lonnie Donegan - Rock Island Line (live, 1961)

Music: Lonnie Donegan - Cumberland Gap (1957)

Music: Lindsay Lohan - Frankie & Johnny (in A Prairie Home Companion, 2006)