This week’s theme is one of the hardest I’ve ever set myself, but I chose it for a good reason. Thursday will be my elder daughter and son-in-law’s tenth wedding anniversary, and I wanted to mark the occasion. But how many songs do you know with ten in their title? So I decided that I would use the theme but fall back on my usual cheat mode of including songs from bands with ten in their name. My blog, my rules! With that little bit of assistance I’ve found you eight songs I like, three of which are from named bands: not a bad compromise, I think.

I’m betting that most of this week’s set will be new ones for many of you, and this first one is one that fits that bill. Let’s get a bit of rabble rousing going:

No one sleeps while they’re around! Little Angels were a UK rock band who released five albums and seventeen singles between 1988 and 1994. Fourteen of those singles made the UK charts, twelve of them in the top fifty. This one was their final chart hit, peaking at #18 in 1994, shortly before the band called it a day. Ten Miles High was a track on their final album, 1994’s Too Posh To Mosh, Too Good To Last, which also got to #18: its predecessor, Jam, had been a UK #1 the year before. I always enjoyed the energy they brought to their music, and recall some lively appearances on Top Of The Pops. Toby Jepson, their lead singer, is still going strong: he currently fronts the band Wayward Sons, who are equally loud and lively!

Today’s second tune is one you may well know, especially if you are from these shores:

Rubber Bullets was released by 10cc as a single in March 1973. It topped the UK charts, got to #3 in Australia and managed #73 in the US. It then appeared on their debut album, imaginatively entitled 10cc, which came out in July 1973, getting to #36 in the UK but only to #201 in the US. This was really just the beginning for them, though, as their next five albums all made the UK top ten and performed respectably in the US, and amongst a string of hit singles they had two further UK #1s, Dreadlock Holiday and I’m Not In Love (which also got to #2 in the US). I could have chosen either of their other #1s to play you, but I’ve always liked this first one and it kept the energy going for this post. And who wouldn’t enjoy seeing all those dreadful 70s hairstyles and fashions again – takes me right back to my youth!

I’m slowing things down a bit with this next one. One of my all time favourite bands, so this one was always going to be played today:

The video quality on that isn’t great, but the sound is, and I preferred this to one of the static audio versions of the album track that are on YouTube. This was a performance from Knebworth in August 1979, where the band played two shows on successive nights to audiences of more than 100,000. These were among their last live shows before the untimely death of John Bonham in October 1980, and the subsequent decision of the band not to continue. It is a great version of the song, and I always marvel at John Paul Jones’ three in one guitar, which features mandolin, six and twelve string guitar elements – not your average bass player, this guy! This song is from Led Zeppelin’s sixth album, Physical Graffiti, a double album released in February 1975, which got to #1 on both sides of the pond and has sold around 20m copies worldwide, boosted by several re-releases on CD in a variety of expanded packages. As well as this track the album is notable for including Kashmir, which I’ve always thought of as one of their best.

A little bit of English folk music for you now. This is another of my favourite bands, who I’ve played several times before, though this one does owe a lot to the excellent guest vocals of Eliza Carthy:

As the video shows, this was a track on Oysterband’s album The Big Session: Volume One, which was released in 1994. It featured several collaborations like this one, but is hardly recognised now: their Wikipedia entry doesn’t even mention it! I’ve always thought this an underrated album from an underrated band, one which has given me so much musical enjoyment over the years. And Eliza Carthy – daughter of English folk stalwarts Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson – is always good value, too. And before you ask, the answer is no, there hasn’t been a Volume Two to follow this one up.

There has been a distinctly English feel to today’s tunes so far, so I think it is time for today’s token American track – the remainder are all English, too! This is one I’ve played before, but I absolutely love this song and this performance in particular:

This was part of the 10,000 Maniacs performance for the MTV Unplugged series, which was recorded in April 1993 and released as an album and DVD in October of that year. In the meantime, the band’s leader and lead singer Natalie Merchant had left to pursue her solo career, and was replaced by Mary Ramsey, who plays the incredibly good fiddle part on this. She still fronts the band to this day, though I think their best days were with Natalie, if I’m honest. The other vocalist on this is Morgan Fichter, who also plays viola on some of the tracks. The album did well, reaching #13 in the US and #40 here in the UK. I bought it at the time, and it was one of those that kept me company on my long commuter drive around London’s dreaded North Circular Road: good music was an essential for retaining sanity! Stockton Gala Days, in its studio form, had been a track on the band’s Our Time In Eden album, which came out in September 1992, reaching #28 in the US and #33 in the UK. I love all of their albums, but I think that one would just get the vote as my favourite. This live version was also released as the B-side to the band’s cover version of Because The Night – often referred to as a Patti Smith song but actually co-written by Bruce Springsteen. It gave them their highest US singles chart placing, at #11, and also made #65 here in the UK.

Back to the UK now for the rest of today’s tunes. This is another one I’ve always liked:

At a rough guess I’d say that not many of you knew that one, even though it actually made #11 in the UK singles chart when it was released in February 1995. The Stone Roses only made two albums, which in the way that record companies do have somehow been turned into six compilations. Ten Storey Love Song was a track on the second of those records, appropriately named Second Coming, which was released in December 1994. It did slightly better here than their first record – #4 as against #5 – and both made the lower reaches of the US charts, at #86 and #47 respectively. The band were one of the pioneers of what became known as the ‘Madchester’ scene, a play on the name of the city of Manchester where they came from. They suffered a lot from the hype that surrounded them but underneath that are two very good albums.

Today’s penultimate tune is the final track from one of the bands whose name counts for this week’s theme. I have played this one before but I like it a lot so you’re getting it again!

Ten Years After hit the big time when they appeared at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. Love Like A Man was released on the Cricklewood Green album, as the video shows, in March 1970, which got to #14 in the US and #4 here in the UK. The song followed as a single in May, and this reached #98 in the US but was #10 here and hit the charts of several other countries, including Denmark where it made it to #1. It was their only UK singles chart entry, though their albums always did well. Before you ask, I’ve no idea where the album title came from: it isn’t the name of one of the tracks; Alvin Lee, the band’s lead guitarist and vocalist, was born in Nottingham; and Olympic Studios, where it was recorded, is in Barnes, south west London, while Cricklewood Green is in north west London. Just a teaser for curious minds, I guess.

That just leaves one more for today. Again, I’m giving you one of my favourite bands and another dose of English folk music, tinged with lunacy:

That is simply typical of the fun and joy of Bellowhead and their music. As I’ve said before they are the band I’ve seen play live the most times – seven in all – and they are incredibly entertaining. All eleven of them are talented musicians but they don’t take themselves too seriously. They disbanded back in 2016 but have got back together again for a tour to mark the tenth anniversary of their album Broadside, on which 10,000 Miles Away was one of the tracks. The album was released in October 2012 and reached #16 in the UK charts. This was its lead single but didn’t make the chart, sadly. As well as its inclusion of ten in the title, and for the rather neat dovetailing with my own family anniversary, I’m playing this one in memory of Paul Sartin, the band’s oboe and fiddle player, and general MC at their shows, who died suddenly of a heart attack last month just prior to taking the stage for a show with Faustus, one of his other bands. Paul was a lovely guy, who had touched so many with his music, and 51 is just such a ridiculous age at which to be taken from us. Bellowhead have decided to go ahead with next month’s tour, but there will be a hole in their ranks which it will be impossible to fill. In case you don’t know him, he is the one playing the recorder at around the 1’30’ mark in this video, and kissing Ed Neuhauser’s bald head around 2’20 in.

That’s all for this week, and as always I hope you’ve enjoyed some (or even all) of them. I’m off now for my usual daily game of ‘Spot The U-Turn’ with our ever-incompetent government. At present they appear to be doing their best to give me as much entertainment as I get from music, and they are making a pretty good job of it. Words like ‘resign’ and ‘bugger off’ spring to mind. Have a great week, and I’ll see you again soon.

Happy Anniversary, Katy and Dave 🤵‍♂️👰‍♀️