The last two lines of a pop song are the perfect place to let your real feelings show. It's right there and then, as the music swells to a climax or simply drifts away into the ether, that you're given the space to say what it is you really mean – a goodbye, hello, subtle smile or frantic wave. The chorus belongs to everyone, but the last lines are yours and yours alone.
So, as we said goodbye to Paul MacInnes, there were a wealth of amazing nominations this week. The A-list was extremely hard to whittle down, but it goes a bit (OK, a lot) like this: Ballad of Forty Dollars – Tom T Hall; In/Flux – DJ Shadown; And the Racket They Made – King Creosote; St Swithin's Day – Billy Bragg; Lord, I'm Discouraged – The Hold Steady; The Late Show – Jackson Browne; Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine – Shearwater; I Don't Know What Time It Was – Billie Holiday; Goodbye – Best Coast; You're Wondering Now – The Specials
As far as the B-list, well, that's all about this lot. All are wonderful pieces, so, for the sake of blessed sympathy (and to avoid 10 repetitions of me writing, "This 'un are a bit good, I loikes it!11!"), here they are with their rather enigmatic final words:
Walk Into the Sea – Low
"And time is just a hunger, it bleeds us out to nothing and when it finally takes us over, I hope we'll float away together …"
Western Eyes – Portishead
"I feel so cold, on hookers and gin, the mess we're in ..."
Bass Culture – Linton Kwesi Johnson
"For the time is nigh, when passions gather high, when the beats just lash and the walls must smash, when the beat will shift as the culture alter, and oppression scatter …"
Slow Death – The Flamin' Groovies
"Slow death eats my mind away, slow death turns my flesh to clay, slo-o-o-ow death ..."
Heven Tonite – The Coup
"Retail clerk, 'Love ballads', where you place this song, let's make heaven right here, just in case they wrong …"
Fake Plastic Trees – Radiohead
"If I could be who you wanted, if I could be who you wanted, all the time, all the time …"
Scenes in the City – Charles Mingus
"Pretty, but not 'pretty', beautiful like a woman, a real woman …"
From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea – The Cure
"Different name, same old game, love in vain and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles away from home again …"
Charmaine – Plan B
"He asks me if De La Rosa is her surname, if she's, mixed race and her eyes are green, I say, 'Yeah', he replies, 'Blud, that girls fourteen …'
Thriller – Michael Jackson
"Hahahaha! Hahahahahahaha! Hahahahahahaha!"
Argument songs then. I think this one is fairly clear – I want tracks that are ready to pick a fight, ones that have fresh blood on the knuckles, or a dangerously throbbing vein in the neck. The blood is up and the tendons are twitching, the fight or flight mechanism has kicked in and your song is betting the house on the former.
The argument could be between partners, between friends or family or workmates or bandmates. It could be an allegorical argument, or an argument from history that the songwriter felt was ripe for revisiting. Anyway you care to slice it is good, but there should be an element of straining at the leash, an element of righteousness and a desire to see a wrongdoer roundly punished.
If you know why a particular song has a peculiar resonance, then, please, let me know. It all helps and I am, as ever, all ears.
I'll be in and out of the thread on Friday to answer any questions that may arise.
The toolbox: Archive, the Marconium, the Spill and the Collabo.
The rulebook: DO post your nominations before midday on Monday if you wish them to be considered.
DO post justifications of your choices wherever possible.
DO NOT post more than one third of the lyrics of any song.
DO NOT dump lists of nominations – if you must post more than two or three at once, please attempt to justify your choices.
Finally, for one week only, biting, burping, rifling, twisting and/or gouging are allowed.
