It is almost unbelievable to me, but this week marks the second anniversary of when I began this series. It wasn’t intended to be a series, as I was just posting a few tunes I liked to bring a little light relief after our esteemed (sorry, I misspelled moronic) Prime Minister had taken us into our first national Covid lockdown the previous evening. But a comment suggested that I should make it a regular feature, and it just grew from there. I originally played two or three tunes each week, then that expanded to a ‘norm’ of six, before I gave in to my natural indecision and upped the quota to eight. In general, these posts have been well received and I’m grateful to everyone who has ever read, liked and/or commented on them, especially the band of you I regard as regular friends and who I have come to rely on to keep me going. To recognise the anniversary, I have chosen two as this week’s theme, and as so often I found far more than I needed, and have had the regular difficulty in keeping the play list to a manageable number! I have left out some obvious candidates, as they would have involved my falling back on those usual suspects who often feature here, and have come up with what I think is a fairly eclectic mix. I hope you enjoy them!

Not wanting to get political or anything, but this week’s opener fits the bill for me of giving us a rousing start, and it is just as relevant today as it was when it first came out in 1984:

Sadly, that feels almost prophetic now. In case you don’t remember, the protagonists in that ‘fight’ were Reagan and Brezhnev, and it does feel as though history could be repeating itself and maybe even getting worse than those latter Cold War days, when sabres were rattled but not used. Frankie Goes To Hollywood were a fairly short-lived phenomenon, and produced just two albums – though these have somehow managed to spawn thirteen compilations! This was from their first, Welcome To The Pleasuredome, released in October 1984, and reaching #1 in the UK and #33 in the US. It was a double album, comprising band compositions and several covers, including a good version of Born To Run. It went triple platinum in the UK, with sales of nearly a million, and gold in the US, selling over half a million copies. The album courted a fair amount of controversy at the time, as it included reworked versions of some tracks which had already been released as singles: this is one of those, having first appeared as a single in June 1984, reaching #1 for nine weeks in the UK, hitting the top in another six countries across Europe, and peaking at #43 in the US. FGTH were the epitome of a band that took the country by storm and then disappeared as rapidly as they had arrived.

Today’s second tune is also from a band that enjoyed phenomenal success, though it is a little more restrained than that first one:

Two Of Us was the opening track on The Beatles’ final album, Let It Be, which was released in May 1970. It was poorly received by critics but that didn’t prevent it from topping the charts in the UK, the US, Canada and Australia, as well as elsewhere, and it has sold over 5m copies worldwide. For many, though, it was a rather sad ending to the band’s career after all the highs they had given us in their seven and a half years of making records. This is one of my favourites on the album but it wasn’t released as a single, hence the audio-only version I’m playing you.

After a couple of comments I have made in recent posts about my total lack of dancing skills I felt I just had to include this next one. It is an album track, so it is another audio-only one I’m afraid:

The video gives a rather large clue to the fact that this was a track on Richard Thompson’s album Hand Of Kindness, released in June 1983. He has never been a major player in the charts, and the only placing I can find for this one is that it reached #186 in the US. He has a loyal following, though, and all of his subsequent albums have reached the UK top 100, three of them making the top twenty and one hitting the top ten. I’ve loved his music ever since he began his career as a founder member of Fairport Convention, in 1968. I’ve seen him play live with the Fairports, with his former wife Linda, as a solo act and with his band, and he is consistently excellent.

Like Richard Thompson, this next band write a lot of their own material, though this one is in fact a cover version of a traditional American song:

This was a track on the Cowboy Junkies’ album Early 21st Century Blues, released in August 2005. It didn’t make the charts anywhere, as far as I can tell, possibly due to the fact that it was largely an album protesting war and public antipathy towards the political process, which might have put off some potential buyers. As with my opening song for this week, there is a timely message here, and news reports of Russian and Ukrainian mothers losing their sons bring this right up to today. Two Soldiers is an American Civil War ballad, by an unknown author, purportedly inspired by the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, and was apparently well-known in its time. It has also been recorded by Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia and Ricky Skaggs, among others, but the beautiful voice of Margo Timmins was always going to be my choice for this one.

I’m rather hoping that this next one will complete a run of three songs that may be new to you:

The Deep Dark Woods are an alt-country/Americana band from Saskatoon in Canada, who have to date released seven albums since their eponymous debut in 2006. Like much of the music I listen to I was introduced to them by our national treasure, ‘Whispering Bob’ Harris, on his late Saturday night show on BBC Radio 2, and I love their music. Wikipedia gives no details of any chart placings for any of their records: I’m hoping that is an oversight rather than a reflection of a lack of chart success, as I think they deserve some recognition. This was a track on their 2009 album Winter Hours, which won them the ‘Ensemble of the Year’ award at the Canadian Folk Music Awards, so at least I’m not alone in liking them! I’d never heard of The Neighbors Dog, though, but from what I can find this is a Canadian tv show from 2010 onwards, which features live music performed in intimate settings, often in people’s homes or, as in this video, in a pub. It sounds like fun! Their YouTube page has a whole collection of videos – some of which are fairly recent – if you’d like to see and hear more. There is a lovely laid back feel to this song, which is perfect for the show’s vibe.

This next one is by a band I’ve always liked, in a rather special performance from an October 2008 edition of the tv show CMT Crossroads – Def Leppard playing with Taylor Swift and her band:

That show paired country acts with rock musicians and this one worked well, I think. There is a version of Def Leppard’s song Hysteria from this show on YouTube, taken as a straight duet with Taylor, and it is excellent. Joe Elliott tells the story of this song in his introduction, so I won’t repeat that. The song was originally released on their October 1993 album Retro Active, which was a compilation album that included some reworked versions of several of their songs and reached #6 in the UK and #9 in the US. As a single, this peaked at #32 in the UK and #12 in the US. I don’t think I’ve seen the movie in which it featured, Last Action Hero. Is it any good?

Today’s penultimate tune is a real pop classic. I looked long and hard to find a version of the two of them singing it live, but without any luck. At least this video has some nice pictures to look at:

Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston’s single of It Takes Two was released in December 1966: it peaked at #14 in the US in January 1967, and gave Gaye his first UK hit single a couple of months later when it reached #16. It was also the opening track on an album of duets the pair recorded, called Take Two. The album reached #24 in the US R&B chart but wasn’t a mainstream hit anywhere. This is one of those songs that says ‘Tamla Motown’ to me – they made so many great records around that time.

I’m closing today with one of my favourite bands. This is far from being their best known song, but it is still great to hear today:

This track was originally released in January 1983 on an EP called, wait for it… ExtendedancEPlay, which has been released on vinyl and cassette, but never on CD. It reached #53 in the US but wasn’t a hit anywhere else. Maybe people found it too hard to ask for in record shops? As you can see from the video the song was included on Dire Straits’ first live album, Alchemy, which came out in February 1984, having been recorded the previous July at the Hammersmith Odeon in London. This was a double album, which reached #3 in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland, whilst making it to #1 in the Netherlands. It was less successful in North America, though, only getting to #46 in the US and #26 in Canada. It is still one of my favourite live albums, and this video probably shows you why. It was recorded over the final two nights of an eight month world tour promoting their Love Over Gold album – also a favourite of mine (as are all of their albums, really).

So, that’s it for this week. Happy two-th anniversary to Tuesday Tunes. I wonder if the series will still be here for a third anniversary? Watch this space!

I hope you have a great week and avoid Boris Johnson’s trick of putting his foot in his mouth every time he opens it to speak 😊