As you may recall, I have been gradually working my way through the days of the week as themes for these posts, and today is the fifth in the set – just Wednesday and Thursday to come, when I can think of any good songs for them. Today’s focus is on Sunday, and I know of quite a few for this one, so I have had my usual problem in keeping them to a manageable number! Some of these are well-known, others less so, but as always the factor they have in common is that I like them.

I’m starting with one from the archetypal British band of the Sixties, with Steve Marriott doing his best Cockney act. The video quality isn’t great, and the uploader has made the usual mistake with the song’s title (no ‘Afternoon’) but this is still a great pop song:

The Small Faces released Lazy Sunday as a single in April 1968, ahead of its inclusion on the Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake album. It reached #2 in the UK but only got to #114 in the US. I’m guessing that it was far too ‘English’ for their market, and some of the slang words wouldn’t have travelled well. The band never did that well in the States, with just three chart singles there, only one of which (Itchycoo Park) reached their top twenty. The album did even better here, spending six weeks at #1 on the UK albums chart, but only stumbling up to #159 in the US. Its title was a play on the name of a popular brand of loose tobacco, Ogden’s Nut Brown Flake, and it was originally released in a large circular tin, mimicking the tobacco’s packaging, but this was soon dropped in favour of a more regular gatefold sleeve: it was expensive to produce, and the tins kept rolling off record store shelves! Given that one of its tracks is called Rollin’ Over there is a pleasing irony in that. It is sad for me that only one of the band – drummer Kenney Jones – is still with us. Steve Marriott lived fairly near to us, and died in 1991, in a house fire thought to have been caused by a cigarette. It was only when the news broke later that day that we realised what all the sirens had been for.

This next one is of similar vintage, and it has some of the most powerful lyrics I know of in a song. If you watch this on YouTube and scroll through the comments, you’ll see how much this means to people who have suffered a similar addiction:

Kris Kristofferson is a renowned songwriter and actor and, despite some health issues, is still with us at 85. This was a track on his debut album, Kristofferson, released in June 1970 and reaching #43 in the main US chart and at #10 on the Country Albums list. He is probably best known for those of his songs which have been hits for others, including this one, which was a #46 hit for Johnny Cash in the US and #30 in Canada, whilst topping both of their Country charts. He also wrote Me And Bobby McGee, For The Good Times, and Help Me Make It Through The Night, among many others. Janis Joplin had a posthumous US #1 with Bobby McGee, and also the album it was on, Pearl. Both are great, but I still prefer Kristofferson’s gravelly voice on his own version. He hasn’t had any hit records here in the UK – our loss, I think.

You may well know this one (and I know that at least one of you won’t like it!), and this is another powerful performance:

Sunday Bloody Sunday was the opening track on U2’s third album, War, released in February 1983. It was their first (of nine) #1 UK albums, and gave them their US breakthrough too, peaking at #12. It was only released as a single in the Netherlands and Germany, and reached #3 in the former. The song is clearly prompted by the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British soldiers shot into a crowd of protestors in Derry, killing fourteen, at the height of ‘The Troubles.’ U2 have often been at pains to point out that the song doesn’t take sides: rather, it is a protest about political and sectarian differences and the problems they cause. Their Live Aid performance was their first real chance to play to a widespread international audience, and helped them become for a time the biggest rock band in the world. Shame about Bono’s mullet, though…

Something a little gentler for you now. This was the title track of an album but not released as a single, so it’s an audio-only job, I’m afraid. It’s a nice little song, though:

Matraca Berg’s third album, Sunday Morning To Saturday Night, was released in September 1997, making #48 on the US Country chart and #22 in Canada. I bought the album on a whim one lunchtime, back in the days when I worked near Paddington Station and it had a branch of Our Price Records (remember them, UK readers?). It was in the remainders bin, and something about it just attracted me. I’ve never regretted it: it is a lovely album. Like Kris Kristofferson, Matraca has had more success with songs that have been recorded by others, including a #1 for Reba McEntire. I follow her on Instagram and she is a delight, always ready to support other artists, and is clearly popular among them. She has been married for nearly thirty years to Jeff Hanna, a founder member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and often shares photos of them together. As I say, she is delightful, and has made some very nice albums.

Next up is another audio-only album track, featuring another lovely female vocalist:

I’ve surprised myself by realising that this is only the second time I’ve played anything either by 10,000 Maniacs or by Natalie Merchant from her solo career. I’m a big fan of them both, so it really is about time I redressed the balance. As the shot on the video shows, this was a track on a compilation album, released in January 2004. It is a double CD, a collection of their better known songs on the first and less well known (and covers) on the second, which is where you’ll find this. The album is noted by Wikipedia as having reached #192 in the UK albums chart – I didn’t know we counted that far down, to be honest. The same can probably be said of its other listed chart position: #333 in Australia. I wonder how many it sold to reach that great height? This is a cover version of a Morrissey song – the only way that miserable, allegedly racist pillock is ever likely to feature here, I suspect.

After a couple of female vocals, this next one is from a band known for its female vocalist. However, she only sings harmony on this one:

In its original guise, this was a track on Steeleye Span’s 1986 album Stormforce Ten, which it probably won’t surprise you to hear was their tenth album. The song is clearly written from a male perspective, so the late Tim Hart (who passed away on Christmas Eve 2009) took the lead. It is a traditional song, also known as As I Roved Out, which was arranged by Percy Grainger for choir and brass accompaniment in 1912 and used in the first movement of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ English Folk Song Suite in 1923. The words were first published between 1838 and 1845, though some claim provenance going back to a Robert Burns poem of the late eighteenth century. I’ve seen the Vaughan Williams piece live in concert, as well as seeing Steeleye play it, and can recommend both. The lead male vocal here is by Benji Kirkpatrick, formerly (and now again) of Bellowhead, during a three year spell he had with Steeleye. And I think an honourable mention should also be made of Violeta Barrena, who was covering regular violinist Jessie May Smart’s maternity leave in 2019 when this performance took place, and did a wonderful job.

For today’s penultimate choice I have another cover version, with another set of lovely harmony vocals:

You probably know of Susanna Hoffs from her role in The Bangles, but Matthew Sweet may be less familiar. He has been making records since 1986: I wouldn’t count myself as a major fan but he always gives us something to enjoy. I actually saw him at the Royal Albert Hall in 2003 when he was a member of The Thorns, who were the opening act for The Chicks. The Thorns made one excellent album before the three members went their separate ways. In Matthew’s case, that included the start of his collaboration with Susanna. This is from the first of three albums they have made together with the Under The Covers title (a good name for an occasional series of blog posts, I think), which was released in 2006. His records have never set the charts alight, but this one did get to #192 in the US Albums chart. The series of three albums contained cover versions of songs from the Sixties, then the Seventies, finishing with the Eighties. They are all worth a listen: the first one includes a good cover of my all-time favourite song, so I applaud their choices. This song was written by Lou Reed and John Cale, and was the opening track on the album The Velvet Underground And Nico, which was released in March 1967, reaching #129 in the US and #43 in the UK. It was released as a single, though the only chart placing noted by Wikipedia is at #174 in France. Despite that, it has been a popular choice as a song to cover: there are many versions out there.

In my usual perverse way, I’m closing today with the song which was actually the first to come to my mind for this set, and is likely to be one that you may well have been expecting to hear. Better late than never, then:

As I’m sure you know, Sunday Girl was one of Blondie’s biggest hits. It was on the band’s third album, Parallel Lines, released in September 1978 and peaking at #6 in the US – but it got to #1 here in the UK. As a single, it was the follow up to Heart Of Glass (#1 in the US, UK and several other countries) – but not in the US, where it was never a single. A strange decision, given that it reached #1 in both the UK and Ireland, and made the top ten in a number of other countries. It was written by their guitarist, Chris Stein, and was prompted by Debbie Harry’s cat, who was named Sunday Man – the cat had recently run away, inspiring what has been described as the song’s “plaintive” nature. I guess there have been less obvious inspirations for a song, but I’m hard pressed to think of one at present.

So, that is my selection for Sunday songs. As I said at the outset there are many of them, so I’ve had to leave out a few I might have chosen – two by Counting Crows and one by Richard Thompson, for example – and I apologise if I’ve omitted any of your favourites. But I think that what has now become my regular quota of eight songs is enough!

Have a great week, and I hope that you stay safe, warm and well with whatever the weather and the pandemic throw at us. See you again soon 😊