Thank Goth for Music

I am eternally grateful to music and always have been. Music holds a very important place in my heart - most of the best times in life I can tie to a particular song or some musical event. From getting my first record player (I know, giving my age away a bit there) to being lead singer of a rock band. Don't believe half of what you read about sex, drugs and rock n roll - the truth is far more absorbing and debauched than that. So now, as we steam through the darkness upon the Freak Train I don't have to talk to anyone as Sir Michael of Jagger and the human skeletons blast Sympathy for the Devil into my barely awake ears.

As I said, every good time in my life can be tied to music in some way. From the very smoky recording studios where we recorded and laughed until 3 or 4 in the morning to a variety of concerts. Most of the interesting times I have shared with the fairer sex can be linked to a song, from my first Gothic encounter with a truly beautiful Gothess (Sisters of Mercy - Temple of Love) to meeting mariposa as she returned a CD I had left behind by accident. Learning to play guitar because I heard for the first time GOD i.e. the true one, Mr Hendrix. Changing how I wrote poetry after actually listening to Jim Morrison, to almost forsaking Goth getting caught up in the grunge period (which, for me started with Kyuss - not Nirvana).

This train journey could be so boring were it not for the friends in my head - well ears to be more precise. Wonderful little toys these MP3 players. It was very handy that I already had over 6,000 tracks in digital format on the computer - the transfer only took a couple of minutes. Granted I'm a little spoilt for choice but rather that than back to the older days of the Sony Walkman and a pocket full of tapes which usually managed to lop off the final track or two of an album!!

How bizarre. As my MP3 is set to random, the strangest thing just happened. The Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil has just been followed by ..... Sympathy for the Devil by Guns n Roses. Cover versions of songs is a tricky area - they range from the sublime - think Hendrix's cover of the Bob Dylan song All Along the Watchtower to the absolutely dire, should be shot on sight, such as All Saints butchering of the Chilli Peppers - Under the Bridge. I don't have an issue with someone covering a song if they bring something new to it but to make a good song sound shite is not a good reason to cover a song. Goth - I even liked Rolf Harris's version of Stairway to Heaven - quirky but that's Rolf for you.

The Good

• The Man who Sold the World - David Bowie -> Nirvana
• Mad World - Tears for Fears -> Gary Jules
• Tainted Love - Gloria Jones -> Marilyn ?anson
• Solitary Man - Neil Diamond -> HIM
• Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana -> Tori Amos

The Bad ('ish)

• Whisky in the Jar - Thin Lizzy -> Metallica
• Sweet Child of Mine - Guns n Roses -> Sheryl Crow
• Smooth Criminal - Michael Jackson -> Alien Ant Farm
• Born to be Wild - Steppenwolf -> The Cult
• Wonderwall - Oasis -> Mike Flowers Pops

The Damn Right Fookin Ugly
(aka what the Fook were you thinking???!!!)

• Under the Bridge - Chilli Peppers -> twatty All Shites (Saints)
• Mr Tambourine Man - The Byrds -> William Shatner
• If - David Gates -> Telly Savalas
• Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones -> Britney Spears
• Chop Suey - System of a Down -> Avril Lavigne

Feel free to send suggestions on a postcard to somewhere...

a luego,
S