WARMER MIXTAPES #555 | by Robert Andrew Shukman aka Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne
Here are my favourite songs right now. I think they'll make a good mixtape.
1. Elvis Presley | Blue Moon
I've loved Elvis since I was a kid. This is rare occasion when you get to hear his falsetto. You could call it haunting. He sounds like a ghost.
2. Cyril Stapleton And His Orchestra | Blue Star (The Medic Theme) (feat. Julie Dawn)
This was apparently the theme from a TV series called Medic, which I've never seen. It sounds like old Hollywood from some non-specific era. Like a Pan Am flight in black and white, with Anita Loos walking down the steps in LA.
3. The Five Satins | In The Still Of The Night
This is the first song I get in my head whenever I'm in New York. It sounds like a traffic jam, in a good way.
4. Priscilla | He Noticed Me
Woozy seduction on the Beach. You can probably tell this was a big influence on our sound. Jack Nitzsche arranged this. He was great.
5. Chuck Jackson | I'm Your Man
This is also how I imagine New York in my head, but this is early morning, Sunrise, in the Summer. Not quite sure what Chuck's getting at in the lyric but it works.
6. Basil Kirchin | Prelude And Dawn
Now we're in the Industrial North. Maybe on a canal bank in West Yorkshire. Mirfield? Huddersfield? Basil Kirchin was maybe the cleverest person I ever met, but he couldn't work out how to pay a bus fare. His mind was entirely tuned into making Music.
7. Blue Mink | Stay With Me
Vaseline on the lens, vaseline on the tapeheads, woozy almost Dubby, definitely lightly Psychedelic. The best bunch of British sessioneers in the 70s come good.
8. Ennio Morricone | La Bambola (Veruschka Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
From a short film about the model Veruschka. She was beautiful, but not as beautiful as this. We listened to Mondo Morricone ever such a lot while we were in Sweden recording the Good Humor album.
9. The Beach Boys | All I Wanna Do
From Sunflower, which is maybe the best Beach Boys as a group - everyone chips in. This is one of Brian's, though. The lyric's so simple. All I wanna do is always be friends with you. It circles around and around, properly hypnotic.
10. Chris Isaak | Can't Do A Thing (To Stop Me)
He's really beating himself up and doesn't even realise it.
+11. The Durutti Column | Conduct
Back to the North of England, probably Lancashire, Pendle witches round the corner.
+12. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark | Sealand
An anthem for my favourite independent republic in Western Europe.
+13. John Barry | The Glass Menagerie
Suburban music box. Creepy, and very little, and getting littler. Along with Brian Wilson, John Barry wrote my favourite chord changes ever.
+14. Luboš Fišer | Forgiveness
From the soundtrack of Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders, a vampire coming of age movie, like Let The Right One In but with more witchiness.
+15. ABBA | Like An Angel Passing Through My Room
The clock ticking down to the end of the affair.
+16. Bee Gees | Until
The flip side of Tragedy and the antithesis of the A-side, built solely out of Aero-bubble keyboards and Barry’s orphaned vocal, gently drifting over the skyline and out of sight.
+17. Hank Levine And Orchestra | Image (Part I & II)
Finally in New York again, 2am, and the best theme ever for a non-existent movie.
