Weekend Listomania (Special Brevity is the Soul of Wit Video Edition)

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental slattern du jour food taster Fah Lo Suee and I will be heading off to Wichita, Kansas, for a weekend at the recently opened Barbie Museum. Our host will be irrepressible rightwing pundit Pat Buchanan; I'm not sure why he's interested in girls dolls made by Mattel, but apparently the museum is mostly in honor of one in particular. The Klaus Barbie, which I think is an unusual name, but what do I know?

In any case, posting by moi will necessarily be sporadic for a few days.

But in my absence, here's a fun project for you all to contemplate:

Best or Worst Post-Elvis Song or Record With a One Word Title!!!

Self-explanatory, I think, so no arbitrary rules this time, you're welcome very much.

Okay, here's my totally top of my head Top Seven:

7. The Beatles -- Help!



C'mon -- according to George Martin, they learned the title of the movie was going to be Help! on Monday, they wrote the song on Tuesday, and they had figured out the entire arrangement and recorded it by the end of Wednesday. It doesn't get any more brilliant.

6. The Rolling Stones -- Think



The Aftermath song the Stones had previously given to Chris Farlowe, who had the hit. One of the best of the early Jagger-Richards collaborations, I think, and the riffage between the acoustic guitar and the fuzz electric is inspired and haunting. This is a cover by some unknown bozos or other, but it's a damn good sound-alike anyway. An honorable mention to the James Brown song of the same title, which is also pretty neat.

5. The Smashing Pumpkins -- Disarm



No, this time I'm not being snarky. I really like this one, which is the Pumpkins waxing anthemically White Album-ish, and quite convincingly too, I think.

4. Fleetwood Mac -- Tusk



The original of this is Lindsay Buckingham at his most wacky and wonderful, but I still think this MST3K sort-of version is the best one evah.

3. The Loud Family -- Aerodeliria





My favorite song from perhaps my favorite album of the 90s, and only one of the reasons PABARAT was the only genuinely psychedelic experience legally available in the decade. And if you've ever heard the EP they did right after, you know these bastards could nail the damn thing live.

2. The Moody Blues -- Stop





The follow-up to "Go Now," and in some ways even more sad and beautiful; Denny Laine really is one of the most underrated figures of the British Invasion. Incidentally, if the download thingies on the divShare links to this and the Loud Family don't work, just e-mail me and I'll shoot you the mp3s.

And the all-time coolest one word song, it's so obvious why are we even discussing this, is --

1. Soupy Sales -- Pachalafaka


Pachalafaka, pachalafaka
They whisper it all over Turkey
Pachalafaka, pachalafaka
It sounds so romantic and perky
Oh, I know that phrase
Will make me thrill always
For it reminds me of you, my sweet
Just the mention of
That tender word of love
Gives my heart a jerkish, Turkish beat

I won't say c'est si bon
Or l'amour toujours
For they can't express what I'm feeling
Even mairzydoats or
Other foreign quotes
Don't seem to be quite so appealing
But pachalafaka! pachalafaka!
Takes me back with you to passionate desert scenes
And it's there we'll stay
Till the very day
We find out what pachalafaka means!

The B-side of Soupy's great "The Mouse" single; alas, I could find no video clip or mp3 link, but sing along with this admittedly inferior cover from The Muppet Show, won't you?



Awrighty then -- what would your choices be?

[Shamless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania -- theme: crappiest film ever by a theoretically important director -- is now up over at Box Office. As always, I would take it as a personal favor if you could see your way to going over there and leaving a comment.]