If I had a pound for every one of last week's suggestions, two for every irrelevant but entertaining tangent, and three for every in-joke, I could afford to print Sedonded T-shirts for everyone. But I've spoken to the Guardian's accounts department and they've assured me that it doesn't work like that.
I decided to stick to songs that specifically concerned poverty rather than general state-of-the-world, oh-me-oh-my issues, and tried to apply a strict definition. The characters in Common People are working class, not living in penury. Still, it was hard to pick 10 songs when there are entire genres (blues, Appalachian music, 70s soul) obsessed with the topic. Lots for me to discover, including almost half the final playlist. Loving: Townes Van Zandt's impossibly grim Marie, Kool G Rap's Road to the Riches and the Royals' My Sweat Turns to Blood. Not so much: Clarence Carter's Patches, and anything else from the unlovely micro-genre of poverty kitsch, although I assume it inspired Bobbie Gentry's Fancy so it's not all bad.
The B-list: Woody Guthrie (Talking Dust Bowl Blues), Gil Scott-Heron (Whitey On the Moon), Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five (The Message), Max Romeo (Uptown Babies Don't Cry), UB40 (One in Ten), Jackie Leven (Poortoun), Michelle Shocked (The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore), Marlena Shaw (Woman of the Ghetto), the Walker Brothers (My Ship is Coming In), Swans (Failure) and the Carter Family (No Depression in Heaven). The entire A-list is available from iTunes.
Interesting discussion about the new Guardian Unlimited rules last week. I couldn't notice any significant difference from previous weeks so let's plug on as usual and see what happens. If your post is blocked for what seems like an unfair reason, let me know. Fingers crossed it won't be an issue.
In the early days of Readers Recommend, I set the topic of songs named after women and included the Pixies' Allison by mistake. Tsk. Now I'd like to do something similar (minus the mistake) with men's names. The brief is simple: the title must be nothing more than a man's name, with or without a surname, real or invented. Relevant songs we've already featured include Nelson Mandela, Al Capone, Pablo Picasso, Kevin Carter, John Wayne Gacy, Jr, Arnold Layne, Matty Groves, Ali Baba, Bo Diddley, David Watts, Bobby James, Andrew Ridgley, Geno, Marcus Garvey and Michael. I'm particularly keen on one-word titles such as Michael or Geno. Doesn't really matter what the song's about. It's the title that matters.
The A-Z is thisaway and the Readers Recommend archive is thataway. The deadline is midday on Monday.
