I was drowning in character songs last week, so thanks for those. Would have included if they weren't based on real people: Suzanne, Jane Says, Jeremy, Ballad of a Thin Man, Dory Previn's Mary C Brown and the Hollywood Sign. Would have included with twice the space: Beck's Nitemare Hippy Girl, Devo's Mongoloid, the Beastie Boys' Johnny Ryall, Joni Mitchell's Coyote, Morrissey's First of the Gang to Die, Siouxsie's Christine, XTC's Making Plans for Nigel, OutKast's Toilet Tisha, Scott Walker's Humphrey Plugg and Suzanne Vega's Luka. Tried very hard to like but just couldn't stomach: Jethro Tull's Aqualung.
I'm going to ask you to meet me halfway this week. I expect some grey area but last week produced countless suggestions that were way off base. We had characters from films (Shaft), historical figures (Jack the Ripper), instrumentals (The Girl With the Sun in her Head) and people who are barely characters at all (Louie Louie). Long lists are fine but only if they're relevant, so if you could stick to the rubric, that would help me a lot. Here's a fresh link to the A-Z of previously playlisted songs. Thanks.
Not much scope for ambiguity this week. The theme is brothers and sisters. I'm going to try to stick to blood relatives but there may be some compelling suggestions that apply other definitions -- sisters of the wimple-wearing variety, or brothers of the Brothers Gonna Work it Out type -- so I'll consider those as well. So far we've only had Sister Josephine, Sister Ray and Brother Can You Spare a Dime?
The archive of all things Readers recommendy can be found here. Deadline is midday on Monday.
