Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Five songs from the Five-Centres ipod No.12


I'm a big fan of the instrumental. When I was a boy, instrumentals clogged the charts like grease in a drain. These days they barely trouble them.

Here, in no particular order, are five F-C instrumental faves. (I still can't do that MP3 adding thing, so lazy YouTube links where poss, otherwise you'll have to make your own arrangements).

Scarlet O'Hara/Jet Harris & Tony Meehan From 1963, you can imagine dancing to this at the Locarno. Two former Shadows had three brilliant top 10 hits with this, Diamonds (a no.1) and Applejack. All as good as each other. Just remember which one is which.

Music Box Dancer/Frank Mills A 1979 US top three hit, I have only recently come across this. But I realise it's a tune I've known most of my life in some guise or other. It's kind of touching and warm and makes me long for the simple days of childhood. Sob. Do excuse ghastly video.

Love Is Blue (L'Amour Est Blue)/Paul Mauriat I never tire of this lilting US 1967 No.1. Quite beautiful.

No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)/The T-Bones Grooviest ever tune, cribbed from a US Sixties ad for Alka Seltzer. Soundtracks any Sixties moment you could dream up.

Wonderland By Night/Bert Kampfaert Spotted in the Barenaked Ladies One Week, the sharp trombones in this keep you awake as you gaze over the city by night. Do it.

3 comments:

Bright Ambassador said...

Of course Music Box Dancer was used on A Round With Alliss, which was a kind of televisiual Horlicks. It was one of those shows you only watched for the theme tune, like The Rockford Files or The Horse of the Year Show.

Mondo said...

I used to live within earshot of the local Marching Militaire's (who appear in the titles of 'That's Life' and in 'Octopussy') practice field. And every year you'd that summer's instrumental hit or theme being rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed, everything from 'Eye Level' to 'Star Wars' and 'superman'.

My favourite instrumental is a Northern Soul stomper 'Exus Trek' by Luther Ingram - you can grab it here

Tim Worthington said...

Scarlett O'Hara is fantastic!! I prefer Raphael's version of Love Is Blue (as Love Is, um, Grey) though...

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