Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the first ever Tuesday Tunes post, which I made on 24 March 2020, the day after our now disgraced former Prime Minister Johnson put the country into the first of the lockdowns we endured as a result of Covid. He claimed at the time that he was “following the science,” though he forgot to mention that he was several weeks late in doing so, and could have saved lives if he had acted sooner. Still, at least it wasn’t as bad as the US, whose then (and now) President called it a Chinese hoax and recommended that his subjects inject themselves with bleach to fight the virus. I’m not sure who is more stupid: him, or those many Americans who have elected him twice (I don’t include the majority who didn’t in that criticism).

I have marked the anniversary a couple of times before, and for this fifth birthday I thought I would do so again. This time I’m reprising three of the anniversary songs from before, and adding three five songs into the mix, none of which I have played before. Imagination never was my strong point, as I’m proving by getting us going with the one I have started with previously:

You are no doubt familiar with the old standard by the name of Anniversary Waltz, of which there are so many versions, but it isn’t really my cup of tea. This one, however, which is masquerading under the same title, definitely is! That was released as a non-album single in September 1990, under the title The Anniversary Waltz – Part One, and the anniversary highlighted in the banners on the video is for the approaching twenty fifth anniversary of Status Quo first getting together as a band, originally under the name of The Spectres. Thirty five years further on and they are just about still going, though sadly we have lost Rick Parfitt since then. That was a #2 hit here in the UK but, as usual, did absolutely nothing in the US charts, though it did make the top twenty in eight countries across Europe. I’ve shared them before and have commented on their lack of chart success in the States: I’d have thought their brand of unpretentious, feelgood rock music would have done better over there. I know I can always rely on them to get things off to a rousing start, though.

I’m now immediately taking the pace right down with my second anniversary tune. This is from someone with the saddest of stories. Eva Cassidy died from melanoma in relative obscurity, in November 1996, at the age of just 33. Her musical career and subsequent success was all posthumous, beginning with the compilation album Songbird reaching #1 here in the UK in March 2001. This is beautiful, and very poignant when you listen to the lyrics:

Anniversary Song is about someone remembering a lost love who is no longer with us. You’d have to have a very hard heart not to see and empathise with the parallel with her own brief life. The song was on the album Time After Time, released in 2000, four years after her death. The album reached #25 here, but only #161 in the US, a pattern reflected in most of her recordings, which have all performed better outside her home country. The song was co-written with a guy called Steven Dignam, who wrote several others that Eva recorded, as well as being a musician and journalist. He is also credited with the invention of the ‘Glow in the Dark Luminescent Violin Rosin; manufactured and distributed by Dodson’s MFG.’ So if you’ve ever seen a fiddler with luminous strings on their bow, now you know who to blame!

I’m parking my third anniversary song till the end, and am now going to the first of my three five tunes, if that isn’t too confusing! This is by someone whose music I have loved since his first album, all the way back in 1973. This one is a little later:

Five Miles Out is the title track of Mike Oldfield’s seventh album, which was released in March 1982 and peaked at #7 in the UK, #29 in Canada and #164 in the US. The song was also released as a single, reaching #43 in the UK. It was inspired by a near tragic airplane flight Oldfield was a passenger on, in which an inexperienced pilot flew a small craft directly into a violent storm. Having later acquired a pilot’s licence Oldfield here, among other things, makes an extensive use of aircraft terminology in the lyrics, and the video is a good accompaniment to the song. The female vocalist is Maggie Reilly, who appeared on several of his albums, though that isn’t her you see in the video: she is a brunette and I guess they wanted the blonde look for it!

This next one is by a band I have played before, but not with this song:

I know it actually says ‘500′ and not five – but I like the song so call it artistic licence! 500 Miles was a track on Zig Zag, the fourth album by The Hooters, which was released in October 1989, making #115 in the US but not getting into the UK charts. They were very popular in Scandinavia, for some reason, and the album peaked at #13 in Sweden and #12 in Norway. This song was released as the lead single from the album that November: it reached #97 in the US, #60 in Canada, and #12 in Sweden (them again!). It is credited as having been originally written by an American folk singer in the Sixties, Hedy West, and has been recorded many times, including by Peter, Paul and Mary. The Hooters added some additional lyrics to mark the events in Tiananmen Square earlier that year (the man with a flower standing in front of a tank, who you saw in the video), and PP&M provided backing vocals for them.

I fancy closing out my five songs with a bit of a blast. There are several videos of this being played live but they are all ‘audience’ ones, i.e. of dubious quality, so I’m going with the official audio-only version. It’s a bit of a shame as the live shows are fantastic – the drummer plays as though his life depended on it! This is the wonderful Imelda May:

Imelda released Five Good Men on her fourth album, Tribal – as you can see here – in April 2014. The album went to #1 in her native Ireland and #3 in the UK. Only two songs were taken from it as singles and this wasn’t one – maybe we’d have had a video if it had been! Imelda is an Irish singer, songwriter, television presenter and multi-instrumentalist, known for her musical style of rockabilly revival and has also been compared to female jazz musicians such as Billie Holiday. I just love the way she throws herself into her performance, giving it everything, and I can hear why her drummer got the gig. You may recall that I have played her before, in a 2022 collaboration with The Fisherman’s Friends for their second movie, One And All, in which she had her debut acting role – and very good she was, too. If you like her maybe I can find an excuse to play her again sometime.

I said I would close today with my third anniversary song, didn’t I? I’ve played this one several times before – most recently just a couple of months ago in a Song Lyric Sunday post – but I absolutely love the song, the singer, the band, and this video, so I’m giving no apologies for another reprise. This is a lovely celebration of an anniversary that means love, and the little things that make it special. And keep an eye out for a couple of sly digs in the names that feature on screen:

Anniversary Song  is a track from the Cowboy Junkies’ fifth album, Pale Sun, Crescent Moon, which was released in 1993. They have never set the charts alight, but have made some great records. This one peaked at #25 in their native Canada and at #114 in the US, but didn’t chart here. The song was a #10 hit single in Canada, and reached #28 on the US Modern Rock chart, which is based on airplay. Their trademark sound has been described as ‘ethereal,’ largely based around the gorgeous vocals of Margo Timmins. Theirs is a back catalogue I can heartily recommend.

That’s it for my anniversary celebration – an extra song for you this week for this big event! In some ways those events of 2020 feel like they happened in another world, a strange, almost dystopian one, but they sure as hell didn’t! The aftermath is still being felt, and the pressure on our healthcare services is greater than ever (and no thank you, we don’t need American companies trampling all over the NHS: profit should have no place in healthcare).

When I began this series I had no intention or expectation that it would become a regular mainstay of my blog. That it has is due in no small part to the response it has received over these five years: I am truly grateful for everyone who has read one of these posts, enjoyed the music, hit the ‘like’ button and commented. If you’d asked me five years ago whether I’d still be playing Tuesday Tunes now I doubt that I would have said ‘yes,’ so no promises on where we’ll be in another five years!

Take care, and I’ll see you again soon 🎶🎉