The big news story last week here in the UK broke on Friday evening, with Boris Johnson’s announcement that he was resigning as an MP ahead of the imminent report from the House of Commons Privileges Committee into whether he had deliberately lied to Parliament and misled it over the Partygate scandal. Needless to say, his resignation letter was completely devoid of any sense of contrition or remorse, or acceptance of guilt, and as usual he blamed everyone else for the situation, taking swipes at the current PM and the Committee itself along the way. I could hardly let this go by without it being the theme for a Tuesday Tunes post, could I!

I did a piece in this series once before on goodbye songs, but as that was quite a while ago I thought I’d play some of them again. But songs about Boris? I knew of one, so I consulted Wikipedia for more. There is apparently a song called Boris by a band called The Melvins, but as I’ve never heard of them I didn’t pursue it. Nor did I go for the accurately, but rather offensively, titled Boris Johnson is a F…ing C..t, by the charmingly named The K..nts. So you may well be relieved to know that my first tune this week is the one I already knew. This is a live performance, complete with sarcastic introduction from Pete Townshend and heckling by Keith Moon:

Boris The Spider was a track on The Who’s second album, A Quick One, released in December 1966 in the UK, but repackaged as Happy Jack for its US release in April 1967. It peaked at #4 in the UK and #67 in the US. As the lyrics say, he was definitely ‘creepy crawly,’ which somehow seems appropriate for Johnson. The song was also included on a compilation album I had, called Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy, which was released in October 1971 and reached #9 in the UK and #14 in the US. It’s a kinda weird track, but I’ve always liked it.

In mock deference to our ex-PM (failed) I thought I would also play again the spoof version of a Beastie Boys song which was made around the time of Partygate, as it is just so very good:

In case you didn’t recognise them the other two main players in that were Cressida Dick, at the time Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London, since sacked, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was a member of Johnson’s Cabinet. He is known here as the Minister for the 18th Century, due to his old fashioned ways, and was given a knighthood in Johnson’s resignation honours list, which was also announced on Friday. This was the latest instance of cronyism, and hopefully his last, though I expect the system will continue. One of the gongs dished out was for Johnson’s hairdresser: presumably for services to comedy.

Now let’s get down to the goodbye songs, shall we? I played this one before, as I really like the band:

That one was first played all the way back in Tuesday Tunes 2 – a lot of songs have been here since then! In those days I only gave you a couple of songs, but the selections have gradually expanded to the eight I now regard as the norm. This was on Del Amitri’s second album, Waking Hours, which was released in July 1989 and was the one that gave them their breakthrough, peaking at #6 in the UK and at #95 in the US. This song was the first of five tracks from the album to become a single, reaching #59 in the UK and #28 in Australia. It was re-released in 1990, and this time around got to #43 in the UK and made the US chart too, at #35. It is an album to which I often return – so many good songs on it. After a long hiatus it was great to see the band reform and issue a new album, Fatal Mistakes, in May 2021. It reached #5 here in the UK, and its title seems to be gently mocking Johnson, doesn’t it!

This next one is another which has been in this series before. No apologies for the repeat, as I think it is well worth hearing again:

Mary Hopkin was one of the first to be signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records label and was very much a protege of Paul McCartney, as you can see from the video. Her debut single, Those Were The Days, was a #1 here and #2 in the US. As well as that single, McCartney produced her debut album, Postcard, which was released in 1969: I bought the album, which was lovely, and she had such a beautiful, crystal clear voice. This was the 1969 follow up single, which Macca also produced (and wrote). It was a #2 hit here and reached #13 in the US.

I followed that up last time with another piece of folk music, though no doubt those who like applying labels will call this ‘bluegrass’ – labelling can be so unhelpful at times! Whatever pigeon hole you squeeze it into, this is superb:

Uncle Earl formed in 2000, and released three albums and a couple of EPs between then and 2007. This is a track from the last of those albums, Waterloo, Tennessee, which was produced by John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. The line up for that album broke up in 2010, with the departure of Abigail Washburn, who sings the lead vocal on this song. They have had several reformations and still occasionally perform, but without Abigail, and they haven’t released anything since then. I think that is a shame, as they did make beautiful records. As far as I can tell they haven’t had any major chart success, apart from this album reaching #2 on Billboard’s Bluegrass chart. The band took their music to wide audiences – if you spotted the channel logo on the video you will have seen that it said ‘BBC Alba,’ which is the BBC’s Scottish channel, showing they had an appeal beyond their homeland. If you know your banjo players you may have heard of Abigail’s husband, Béla Fleck, with whom she has made several albums – he appears in lots of other collaborations too.

The ‘Earl’ link from that song to the next one I played before may give you a clue as to how my butterfly mind sometimes works:

As I have been a fan of The Chicks since their early days, I was a little surprised to find that I had only ever featured them once before then in a post, and not with this song. Long overdue! This is still one of my favourite music videos: it is beautifully acted by a well-known cast, and The Chicks simply exude sass. And anything which includes Lauren Holly is just fine by me: I still haven’t forgiven NCIS for killing off Jenny Shepard! I saw them in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 2003, and when they played this one the whole audience was on its feet dancing and singing along, as far as the confines of the seating would allow. This was a track on the band’s album Fly, released in August 1999. It was a US #1 and got to #38 here in the UK. Eight of the album’s thirteen tracks were released as singles, including this one: this achieved the highest placing in the mainstream chart, at #19, though a couple of the others were #1s in the Country chart. Only one of them reached the singles chart here, though: Ready To Run.

I haven’t played this next one before, but when I came across this live version by three of my favourites – Gretchen Peters, Matraca Berg and Suzy Bogguss – I knew it had to go in. This is gorgeous:

To Say Goodbye was originally released in April 2007 as the closing track on Gretchen’s album Burnt Toast & Offerings, then twice more in the next two years on different record labels. None of them made any impact on the charts, either over there or over here, and Gretchen is another of those artists who, for me, prove that quality and sales don’t always go together. I’ve seen her in concert and it was a truly magical experience, sadly not to be repeated as she has just finished her farewell tour of the UK and Europe: she has three more dates planned in the US and then she is retiring from performance to concentrate on writing and recording. I’ve seen a couple of videos from this tour in which she plays this one – and even without performing I hope she is still “not ready to say goodbye” just yet.

I thought I’d round this piece off with a couple of more upbeat tunes. As regular readers will know, I’m a big fan of Steve Earle, so I couldn’t resist this one:

This was a track on Steve’s debut album, Guitar Town, which was released in March 1986. It reached #89 on the mainstream US albums chart, but topped the Country chart there. It wasn’t a hit here, though: he had to wait until 1988 and his third album, Copperhead Road, before the British record buyers gave him some recognition. I’ve always enjoyed that first album, though, and this is a typically jaunty little tune. But what strikes me most is how young he looks! He was 32 when this performance aired, and could easily have passed for mid-twenties, I think. He hasn’t aged well, if you’ve seen more recent videos. But he would probably say the same about me, seeing as he is just two years my junior.

This final one for today hadn’t been a Tuesday Tune before my previous set of goodbye songs, but I did include it when I featured the band in my occasional Listen to The Band series (which may yet be returning at some point):

This is still one of my favourite Beatles singles. It was released in November 1967, and was #1 in the US, the UK, and loads of other countries. It was #1 here over the Christmas/New Year period – quite an appropriate title for that time of year, I think. It was the reason that the Magical Mystery Tour EP didn’t get to #1 here, too. I’ve always loved it, and even George seemed to perk up when the hula dancers appeared! It wasn’t on one of the band’s original albums here, though the US release of Magical Mystery Tour was in album format (as compared with the UK’s double EP), and it appeared on that. We first got it on an album in 1973, on the 1967-1970 compilation, aka The Blue Album.

So, that is my updated selection of tunes to wish Bungling Boris au revoir, adieu, adios, arrivederci, auf wiedersehen, spaff off, or whatever. I hope we never see his like again but, given what the Tories have inflicted on us of late, that can’t be ruled out. On that happy thought, I wish you a pleasant week. 😊🎶