Below is this week’s playlist – the theme and tunes picked by a reader from the comments below 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.
The A-list
So many songs that look back are about regret, but often it’s the simplest that express it best. The person is sitting alone, reflecting on what their lover correctly predicted, and how badly they treated that person. It was a topic much covered in your nominations this week. Miles Davis evoked the mood skilfully and palpably with It Never Entered My Mind – and begins our playlist.
Next is Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with Love Letter, which also looks back on a relationship. As you hear the lyrics you might ask: did I ever say the wrong thing? Something that came out askew? Foot in mouth is one thing, but losing the love of your life because you said something you shouldn’t have ...
Whether or not this next song is true, and its author has a lifetime of experience, it tells the tale of many an adopted child. There are stories of this artist looking back to seek her mother at the age of 45 – and still being rejected. The Foundling by Mary Gauthier is a Cajun masterpiece.
What to say about Shane MacGowan’s lyrics for the Pogues? Inspired by the 12th-century Book of the Dun Cow, The Sickbed of Cuchulainn celebrates drinking at home and fighting fascists abroad. It epitomises the band: raucous, funny, serious, head-turning and devil-may-care.
I used to know a Bobby McGee. Ex-SBS. Trained killer. Gentleman. Massively influential on a bunch of roughneck kids. Just mentioning – but also listing Me and Bobby McGee. This is an iconic song by Kris Kristofferson: if it hadn’t been written, I’d be waiting for it. Sometimes you meet people who change your life. Maybe they don’t stick around, but how can you ever forget them?
Next up, a little bit of synthing at the start followed by a lovely couple of bars of Tony Joe White-style wobbly Telecaster. Diana Ross and the Supremes were getting down with the kids, man. Tripping! But they pulled it off. This is the first single with Diana’s name in front of the band’s – and the last featuring Florence, who got sacked. But this floor-filler of a song, Reflections, speaks for itself.
Not a particular fan of PSBs, but when they knocked it out of the park, they knocked it into orbit. This was an absolute stormer.
When I look back upon my life
It's always with a sense of shame
I've always been the one to blame
With the line “Father, forgive me” the Pet Shop Boys are beating themselves up unnecessarily. We’re all only human. This song appears to be about sexual orientation, but we’re all just the way God made us. Who cares as long as there’s enough love in the world? The music on It’s a Sin is superb.
Isn’t it great when rappers sing? This guy Grieves shows he not only has a master’s in lyrics but can drop his voice down to a mellifluous baritone at the chorus. With his sombre tone, it’s hard to tell if he is championing his past or condemning it in Lightspeed. Sounds to me like he had it easier than some of us, but everything’s relative.
Even at 25, John Lennon was able to reflect to such poetic depth for the Beatles’ In My Life. It’s hard to believe. At the time people said they had ghost writers: yeah right. His mother was run over and killed just as he was getting to know her, and she was teaching him to play stringed instruments. Going through such emotions must surely rush some people to maturity – and here is the result.
Oh one more then.
The Mamas & The Papas tell the story of their formation as a group.
The lyric “Greasin’ the American Express cards” apparently refers to being skint in the Virgin Islands with no money for a plane ticket home. The Mamas and the Papas’ Papa John was a gambler, though. Taking the band’s last few dollars to the casino, he won $10,000 at blackjack and flew them all home first class. This song namechecks almost the entire west coast of America while propagating a possibly spurious history. Creeque, a word not mentioned in the song, is pronounced “creaky”.
This next tune has been much covered – because it’s a thing of beauty. Jeff Buckley’s version of A Satisfied Mind is the one that was nominated, so it made my A-list. A friend of mine who has a bunch of kids once said: “I’ll never be rich, but I’m rich in other ways.” And that’s true. We should all learn from that; I don’t care what people have got, as long as they’re happy.
Another song regretting a failed relationship: Malia closes our playlist for the week with Yellow Daffodils. Still, it’s human nature, history and the way of the world. We all cock things up occasionally. The biggest pity is when you hurt someone else and then have to live with the consequences. What might have been.
New theme
The theme for next week’s playlist will be announced at 8pm (UK time) on 22 September. You have until 11pm on 26 September 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.
What we're looking for this week is not specifically the past, nor history. We want songs that look back at the composer's life, for good or bad, for better or worse. We want events that changed their lives. This week the protagonist rules; even if it is fictitious, it will be judged equally with fact.