Those of you outside the UK may not be aware of the news story behind this week’s choice of theme, but believe me it has been huge here for several weeks, and isn’t showing any signs of going away just yet. I’ve said on many occasions that I have no respect for Boris Johnson, either as a person or a Prime Minister, so I have been wallowing for weeks in schadenfreude at his pathetic attempts to lie his way out of a scandal of his own creation. Briefly, there have been reports of upwards of twenty parties being held in government offices and in No.10 Downing Street during lockdowns, which were illegal at the time. Johnson has been at many of these, has given speeches at them, and has tried to claim that he didn’t know they were parties – he thought they were ‘work events.’ Stretching the credulity of the British public, I think. It has, of course, been dubbed ‘Partygate,’ and is currently the subject of a criminal investigation by the police and an internal enquiry, but as both of those ultimately report to him he gets to mark his own homework. The chances are, though, that his party – the political one – will remove him anyway: my fingers are crossed! It’s a great theme for a set of tunes, though, so here we go with: party.

There has been a widely shared parody, which I will give you in a moment, but first here’s the song it is based on. For some reason the video is age restricted so you’ll have to click the link to watch it on YouTube – I hope you do, as it’s a lot of fun:

I’m not really a fan of The Beastie Boys, but that track was on a compilation album I bought many years ago and I’ve always liked it. This was on their debut album, Licensed To Ill, released in November 1986, which reached #1 in the US and #7 in the UK. It was released as a single in early 1987, and peaked at #7 in the US and #11 in the UK. Apparently, the whipped cream used for the pie throwing had all been acquired from supermarket rubbish bins, as there was no money in the budget for it. It was rancid, the room smelled awful after the shoot, and was deemed by one of the actors to be ‘vomit-inducing.’ That’s the way to announce yourself to the record-buying public!

I’m not counting this as one of this week’s quota, but I can’t resist sharing it with you, as it is just so very good. The guys at Politics Joe obviously know their stuff, as there is an extended mini-movie version of the Beastie Boys video, and they have borrowed some scenes from it which weren’t in the original one that accompanied the single. Have a laugh at Boris – I do it often:

Something a little more gentle for you now:

Ricky Nelson had been a teen pop idol from his early days, and had many hits in the US and also here in the UK. Despite changing his recording name to Rick Nelson on his 21st birthday (in 1961) his childhood nickname was hard to shake off, as you can see from this video – both versions are there! He formed The Stone Canyon Band in 1969, and Garden Party became a surprise hit for them in 1972, reaching #6 in the US, #1 in Canada and #41 in the UK – his first hit here for nine years, and his last until a re-release of Hello Mary Lou was a minor hit in 1991. It was also the title track of an album which reached #32 in the US. I’ve always liked its gentle feel, and the way he wrote it in response to being booed at a concert, though it is thought that the boos were actually directed at police actions at the event, not at him. He died at just 45, in a plane crash, though by then his music career was very much on the wane anyway.

This next one has a country feel to it, too, and is a reminder that things don’t always turn out how you hoped or planned. An audio-only one, as it was an album track, but this is one of my favourite artists so I wouldn’t leave her out:

As the video shows, this was a track on Nanci Griffith’s album The Loving Kind, which was released in June 2009 and turned out to be her penultimate album before her death last year. Sadly, it wasn’t a chart success but it has many lovely songs on it – as did everything she released.

This next one is also a song about disappointment – so maybe it’s fitting that I’m disappointed to have to give you another audio-only one:

The Beatles released I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party on their fourth album, Beatles For Sale, in December 1964. This went to #1 in the UK, Germany and Australia, but wasn’t released in its original format in the US until 1987. Eight of the album’s fourteen tracks were included in a North America-only release, Beatles ’65, which was a US #1. This song was one of those that missed the cut for that, though. Don’t you just love it when record companies think they know better than the musicians and mess around like this with their albums?

How do you follow The Beatles? Maybe with another of the biggest artists of all time? OK, heeeere’s Brucie:

Bruce Springsteen originally wrote and recorded Party Lights during the sessions for his 1980 double album, The River, but it didn’t make the final cut – along with a great many other good songs. As the album topped the US chart and made it to #2 here – thanks to my purchase, of course – it doesn’t appear to have suffered! This track finally saw the light of day in 2015 when it was included in a box set called The Ties That Bind: The River Collection. This comprised four CDs and three DVDs, and despite the premium price it sold for it reached a respectable #31 in the US albums chart and #49 here in the UK. It’s a measure of how good Springsteen is that something like this could be kept for 35 years in a cupboard!

I’m going country again for my next tune. Fortunately, as it is an album track, I’ve managed to find this rather nice studio performance:

Late To The Party was on Kacey Musgraves’ second album, Pageant Material, released in June 2015. The album went to #3 in the US and #11 in the UK, and made #1 on both countries’ country charts. It is a rather touching little love song, and is one of my favourite tracks on the album.

Today’s penultimate tune is by one of my favourite bands. As it was only an album track I thought I was going to have to share another static video, until I found this charming little piece from the Fort Smith FCC. It only has just over 1.6k views, probably mostly from those who feature in it and their families, but I think it is rather lovely and fits the song well:

My Parties was a track on Dire Straits’ final album, On Every Street, released in September 1991. The album was #1 in the UK and many other places, but only made #12 in the US. That still translates into good sales figures, though: it has sold more than 1m copies in the US and also in France, and more than 600k in the UK and Italy. Out of curiosity, I looked up the Fort Smith FCC, and found two possibilities for it: the Fort Cannabis Company and the First Christian Church of Fort Smith. I’m assuming that this is a gathering of the latter, but as they all look so happy and laid back, who can tell…

I think this is the first time that I’ve ever done this with a theme, but today’s final song is a blatant cheat. The party bit is in the band’s name, not the song. Still, I can make up my own rules as I go along, can’t I? If it’s good enough for the Prime Minister then why not me too? World Party was a band started by Karl Wallinger, after he left The Waterboys, and named by him after a song he wrote for them. There is a cover of that titular track on World Party’s debut album, Private Revolution, but I think this one from that album is a much more fitting close to today’s music, given where my theme comes from:

The album was released in March 1987, and reached #56 in the UK and #39 in the US. Ship Of Fools had already been released as a single in January of that year, peaking at #27 in the US and #42 in the UK. The song, and in particular its opening lines, is perhaps even more prophetic and relevant now than 35 years ago:

“We’re setting sail to the place on the map
From which no one has ever returned
Drawn by the promise of the joker and the fool“

Karl was right: I don’t want to sail into oblivion with this ship of fools either. A serious note on which to end this week’s tunes – that doesn’t happen very often!

That’s all for today, folks. I hope you’ve enjoyed the party, and will be back for the next set of tunes. Until then, keep watching the news to see more ways in which our Prime Minister has managed to embarrass himself and the country he purportedly represents: hardly surprising that the Russians called him a clown last week and said that British diplomacy is worthless, is it! Have a great week 😊