Below is this week’s playlist – the theme and tunes picked by a reader from the comments on last week’s callout. Thanks for your suggestions. Read more about the format of the weekly Readers Recommend series at the end of the piece.
Anticipation has a habit to set you up
For disappointment in evening entertainment but
Tonight there’ll be some love
Arctic Monkeys
Yes, indeed there will – and the wait for love seems a sub-theme running through this week – but not without some anxiety and trepidation first.
So then, we begin the playlist with Arctic Monkeys’ View From the Afternoon, watching the “lairy girls hung out the window of the limousine” as it makes its way through scenes of urban desolation. Could one of those girls be Magda Giannikou? No, for she’s providing the vocals for New York collective Snarky Puppy as she sings of her search for love in the enchanting Amour, T’es La. She’s sure it’s around, and is, as nominator untergunther says, “waiting for a favourable answer … to the question: ‘Love, are you there?’” but it seems so elusive.
Meanwhile, Buddy Holly, in Everyday, has his sights set on someone in particular …
Everyday, it’s a-gettin’ closer
Goin’ faster than a roller coaster
Love like yours will surely come my way
Buddy Holly
PJ Harvey will be glad to hear that. Picturing herself as Snow White gently steaming up her glass coffin, she tells us that she can Hardly Wait. Meanwhile, Madness are paying a visit to the chemist. They’re 16 now (so they tell us) so it’s welcome to the House of Fun.
Jethro Tull are on their way Up the ‘Pool. That’s Blackpool of course, with all the delights it has to offer. They may well find Canadian rockers Triumph there, singing I Live for the Weekend, though it’s a long way to travel just to whoop it up. But who’s that Leaning on a Lamp-post? Yes, it’s George Formby, waiting to see if “a certain little lady passes by … Oh me, oh my!”
But when a couple who fancy each other eventually do get together, nervousness and awkwardness may threaten to take over, as is so beautifully expressed in Hazel O’Connor’s Will You?
And I’m feeling all fingers and thumbs
Spill my tea, oh, silly me
Hazel O’Connor
Will the relationship continue? That’s also what worries Johnny Mathis. On his way to see his beloved, and 99 Miles From LA, he’s reminded of her by everything that he sees. The same uncertainty besets Ryan Adams, in his achingly tender song named after the Starlite Diner, where he awaits his love: “Is it possible to love someone too much?” he asks … “You bet.”
But all is well. Saint Etienne’s joyous Nothing Can Stop Us looks forward to a happy future. So how better to end this playlist than with a song written by George Harrison, The Beatles’ sublime classic, Here Comes the Sun?
The A List in full
1. Arctic Monkeys: The View From the Afternoon
2. Snarky Puppy with Magda Giannikou: Amour, T’es La
3. Buddy Holly: Everyday
4. P J Harvey: Hardly Wait
5. Madness: House of Fun
6. Jethro Tull: Up the ‘Pool
7. Triumph: I Live for the Weekend
8. George Formby: Leaning on a Lamppost
9. Hazel O’Connor: Will You?
10. Johnny Mathis: 99 Miles From LA
11. Ryan Adams: Starlite Diner
12. Saint Etienne: Nothing Can Stop Us
13. The Beatles: Here Comes the Sun
New theme
The theme for next week’s playlist will be announced at 8pm (UK time) on Thursday 30 June. You have until 11pm on Monday 4 July to make nominations.
Here’s a reminder of some of the guidelines for RR:
- If you have a good theme idea, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions and write a blog about it, please email matthew.holmes@theguardian.com or add it here via GuardianWitness.
- There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars.
- Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog.
