This week, I’m returning to the idea of using a day of the week as my theme. A couple of weeks ago I started this with Tuesday, and today I’m going with Monday. With the number of songs that came immediately to mind I think this may be one of the easier ones, but I’m going to add in a few less well known tunes in addition to some you might have expected to see, just to keep you on your toes. I try not to be boring and predictable!

Having said that, let’s begin with an obvious one. I did actually play this in Tuesday Tunes 70 but it is too good to leave out for this theme:

Too ‘pop’ for my tastes? Definitely not, and it has the credentials of being written by Prince to fall back on. His take on this is rather pleasant, too, and I’m thinking of closing this piece with another version, which may be his. Or it may not. That video has the small matter of over 54m views on YouTube, so it seems I’m not the only one who likes it. And it helps when your lead singer is one of the cutest people on the planet (she still is). The Bangles were formed in 1981 and had a relatively brief period of peak popularity, which began with the January 1986 release of Different Light, the album which included this track. This was the lead single, and it got to #2 in both the US and the UK. In doing so it propelled the album upwards too: it also reached #2 in the States, and got to #3 here. They have only released five albums over their career – in 1984, 1986, 1988, 2003 and 2011 – so can’t be deemed prolific, but they make pleasant music. Somehow, their record company has contrived ten compilation albums out of their records, the first of which, Greatest Hits, was released in 1990 and reached #4 here in the UK.

At the time that was released some critics drew comparisons with this next one. I’ve never really seen that, but see what you think. This is another ‘obvious’ one:

Having just listened to that again, I still don’t get a comparison. That’s probably why I’ll never make it as a critic! This was a track on If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears, the debut album by the Mamas and the Papas, which was released in January 1966, reaching #1 in the US and #3 in the UK. They had already had one huge hit single from the album, California Dreaming, which was a US #4 and UK #9: this was released as a single in March of that year and went to #1 in the US and #3 in the UK. It has always been one I liked, probably for their vocal harmonies, which seemed to blend so well.

There is a song called I Got Stripes, which was a hit single for Johnny Cash in 1959. What he failed to mention is that it was plagiarised from a song called On A Monday, originally recorded in 1939 by the folk and blues singer Lead Belly. There are many versions of the properly named song, and as this is by one of my favourite musicians it was a racing certainty that I’d choose this one, wasn’t it (audio only, sorry):

That guy sure can play guitar! This was a track on Ry Cooder’s second album, Into The Purple Valley, as the video shows. The album was released in January 1972 and made #113 in the US chart – he has never really been a big seller, but don’t let that detract from the quality of his music, as he has a large following of people who know what they’re doing! Rather ironically, in view of the fact that the song details Lead Belly’s prison experience and then there was Johnny Cash’s act of criminality with it, the track that follows this on the Ry Cooder album is a cover of a different Johnny Cash song – one that he did actually write. It’s almost as if Ry knew, isn’t it…

Back to one which you may know, for my next selection:

New Order were an English rock band who had a series of hits from 1981 to 2005. Like many of their early singles this wasn’t originally on an album, though it did later appear on compilations. The band released two versions of the song. The first, in 1983, made #9 in the UK but didn’t chart in the US. This remixed version came out in 1988, and made it to #3 in the UK and #68 in the US, though it did also get to #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. Their biggest success here was their 1990 #1, World In Motion, which was the official song for England’s 1990 World Cup campaign (Gazza’s tears, semi-final defeat to Germany on penalties – happy days!). Perhaps unsurprisingly, that one wasn’t a US hit, though it did get to #10 on that same Hot Dance chart – clearly, their clubbers were more enlightened than their football fans!

I’m guessing this next one may be new to most of you. Sadly, we lost John Prine last year, but he has left us a musical legacy of great songs with wonderful lyrics, as this video shows. This is so heartfelt and beautiful:

He was another of those artists who was never a huge seller but, like Ry Cooder, is much respected by his peers, and has been selling records steadily since his first release, back in 1971. This one is from his album, Fair & Square, which came out in 2005 and did make a dent in the US albums chart, reaching #55 on the main chart and #2 on the Indie chart. It also won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album. This song is typical of so many he wrote: a lovely tune, intelligent lyrics, and a great performance. The harmony vocal is by Mindy Smith, who you’ll be seeing again here when she makes her annual visit to my blog in December.

This next one is another you may well know. I searched for a live performance and found several, but the sound and video quality weren’t all that great, so I’m sharing an official audio only version. The music is still good, though!

You probably don’t need me to tell you that this was the opening track on Fleetwood Mac’s eponymous 1975 album, their first after Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had joined the band: in other words, when things really took off for them. The album was #1 in the US, though it took over a year to get there, but performed more modestly in the UK, where it peaked at #23. Nevertheless, it was their first chart album here for nearly five years: things got a little better after that!

This final one is, for me, perhaps the most obvious choice I could make. I was convinced that I had already included it in this series but couldn’t find it anywhere, though I did refer to it when I featured another song by the band twenty episodes ago. There is no way I could leave this one out!

This is a song by the Irish band, the Boomtown Rats, which was written about the 1979 Cleveland Elementary School shooting in San Diego. It was released in 1979 as the lead single from their third album, The Fine Art of Surfacing (UK #7, US #73). The song was the UK #1 for four weeks during that summer and was the sixth biggest UK hit of the year. The song also made #1 in Australia, Ireland and South Africa – it only reached #73 in the US, but was actually their only hit single there. The family of Brenda Spencer, who carried out the shooting, tried unsuccessfully to get the record banned in the US – not exactly a vote for free speech – but Bob Geldof, who co-wrote it with Johnnie Fingers, the band’s keyboard player, later said that he regretted it as it helped ‘make Brenda Spencer famous.’ I think she did that on her own, Bob.

[A footnote: I did wonder if that video would play in the US, and I’ve been advised that it doesn’t. That is a shame as it is very good, but hopefully this live version of Bob Geldof singing his song with 72,000 people at Live Aid in 1985 will work for you:

I’m now off to ponder conspiracy theories about America banning videos of songs critical of its gun culture…]

I said that one was going to be my last for this week, but I lied. I also said earlier that I might play Prince’s version of Manic Monday, but I lied again. I am going to give you a bonus cover version, though. This one was originally in Tuesday Tunes 19, and also in one of my occasional Under The Covers series – I must do one of those again soon! You may have previously noticed that I am a huge fan of the English folk singer Kate Rusby, who has appeared here several times over the years, and this is charming:

That is just so adorable and Kate’s daughters, Phoebe and Daisy, steal the show. The song was the opening track on Kate’s album of cover songs, Hand Me Down, which was released in August 2020, with several videos made during lockdown to accompany it. The album peaked at #12 in the UK chart, the highest placing of her career and a remarkable achievement for a folk musician. Both this track and the album reached #1 on the iTunes Singer-Songwriter charts, another amazing achievement. But how could anyone resist this? Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles sent Kate a congratulatory note too:

You don’t get one of those every day, do you! And, as Susanna said, it was the perfect way to brighten her Monday – or any other day, come to that. It is also the perfect way for me to sign off this week’s set of tunes.

I’ll be back again next Tuesday, and may well be here again in the meantime, too. Until then, I hope you have a great week and stay safe, warm and well 😊