Here is this week’s playlist – tunes picked by a reader from your suggestions after last week’s callout. Thanks for them all. Read more about how our weekly readers recommend series works at the end of the piece.
A volunteer can be defined as one who “freely offers to do something” and the offerings from the RR community this week produced a fine variety of takes on the “something” in question.
The community angle gets our list off to a boisterous start with the exhortations of Canned Heat in Let’s Work Together …
Come on now people
Let’s get on the ball and work together
Come on, come on, let’s work together
… underlining that it can be important to organise and enthuse potential volunteers for maximum benefit and enjoyment all round. While on that subject, I’m eager to echo a fellow reader’s timely comment from earlier in the week:
Well spoke, as they say.
On with the list and selflessness was much in evidence this week, vividly portrayed as it is in Jacob’s Dream by Alison Krauss. In the spring of 1856 two boys aged five and six became lost in the Pennsylvanian forest wilderness. Several hundred volunteers searched for two weeks for the children, but it was apparently only after a man named Jacob Dilbert dreamed of their location that their bodies were eventually located.
More understated, but still oddly poignant selflessness features in A Postcard to Nina by Jens Lekman. The video is a touching animation by Nathan Heigert, telling the story of Jens going a significant number of extra miles to help his friend Nina avoid some parental relationship-approval issues. Things don’t progress entirely smoothly, which adds to the song’s general charm.
A much shorter journey next, but still one with positive benefits for a companion. Reader Pairubu sums up Fats Domino’s My Girl Josephine: “When it rained, for some reason, Ms Josephine ‘couldn’t walk’ so Fats would ‘Tote you on my back’. What a picture that conjures up in one’s mind.”
Fats’ selflessness thus saves the day, albeit only from the effects of inclement weather. Contrast this positive outcome with the travails that ensue for a volunteer placing themselves in the less than expert hands of Warren Zevon’s protagonist in For My Next Trick I’ll Need a Volunteer:
I can saw a woman in two
But you won’t want to look in the box when I’m through
Volunteering conjures images of “signing up” for causes, or conflicts, and there were a number of fine nominations in that vein. One of the most hauntingly memorable included the lines:
We all volunteered, and we wrote down our names
And we added two years to our ages
Eager for life and ahead of the game
Ready for history’s pages
In making the suggestion, SpoilheapSurfer observed that the singer’s voice is “like a windchime made of six-inch nails”. It’s worth listening to 1916 by Motörhead just to check how wonderfully accurate that description is.
Viva la Quinta Brigada was the pick of several songs referencing the Spanish civil war. Powerful storytelling, given added resonance by Christy Moore’s elegant name-checking of specific volunteers “from every corner of the world” standing beside the Spanish people. Sublime. And from the sublime to, well, to something else – Paper Lace, with Billy, Don’t Be a Hero.
In fairness, this earns its place on grounds both aesthetic and dramatic; not only is Billy embroiled in battle to begin with, he’s the one who unflinchingly volunteers to ride out and seek reinforcements. That extra mile again.
Conflict exists even in the title of Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s Volunteered Slavery. Much historical and philosophical discourse is available online and elsewhere about the concept. The song itself is a remarkable sax-driven amalgam of jazzy, bluesy, gospelly call and response goings-on.
A tad more accessible is Let’s Hear It for the Volunteers, a celebratory round-up of ways to be helpful. Mustard’s Retreat sing the praises of cookie makers, hall openers, chair putters-away and all those others whose efforts help small town community activities to thrive.
I’m hoping there’s already something to appeal to most tastes this week, but there’s surely room in any list for a public information film backed with an hypnotic electrogroove soundtrack, so our penultimate selection is Dig for Victory by Public Service Broadcasting. It admittedly takes a bit of time before the tune kicks in, so it’s worth persevering with the initial “garden implement and community spirit” footage.
The one issue that remains is how the vital foodstuffs secured by digging for victory are to be distributed among those who most need them, and luckily Vic Reeves offers the solution: Meals on Wheels.
New theme: how to join in
The new theme will be announced at 8pm (GMT) on Thursday 10 November. You have until 11pm on 14 November to submit 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.
- There is 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.
I think it's worth saying this week's topic presents the perfect opportunity to recognise the man who has freely volunteered more of his time for RR (and related sites) than any other, absolutely tirelessly and with constant excellent humour - our very own Marconius.
https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/3092202