An interesting one this, and ideal for mulling over in the period between Hallowe’en and Remembrance Day.
1. Daddy’s Gone – Glasvegas. Well then! Let the angst commence!
2. Love Is Stronger Than Death – The The. Written after the death of his brother.
3. My Culture – 1 Giant Leap. Included mostly for the idea of culture being remembrance of our ancestors, and the spoken word sample from the Maori guy at the start; not really for the bit where Robbie Williams turns up and moans about his dad.
4. Flushed Chest – Joan As Policewoman. Written about her late boyfriend Jeff Buckley (who wrote ‘Everybody Here Wants You’ about her).
5. Needle & The Damage Done (Unplugged) – Neil Young. I realised as I was making this compilation that it includes a lot of musicians that cause my better half to get up and leave the room. Embracing that theme completely, I have added some Neil Young.
6. An Irish Airman Forsees His Death – Shane MacGowan. Words by W.B. Yeats, of course. I still haven’t recovered from learning that Shane MacGowan is (a) English, and (b) a public schoolboy.
7. Lay Me Low – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Here Nick laments himself. Of course these days it’s not about “informative six page features” when you go, it’s all about getting your own hashtag.
8. Flowers Grave – Tom Waits. Here iTunes antagonises my inner pedant by not including an apostrophe in the title, a situation made worse by my inability to decide if the ‘flowers’ is intended as singular or plural.
9. Death Is A Disease – Clint Mansell/Kronos Quartet. From the soundtrack to The Fountain.
10. Memorial – Michael Nyman. From the soundtrack to The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, a film which I have not seen for nearly twenty years but which I suspect has not aged well.
11. I Can Remember This Life – Julian Cope. Make of this one what you will!
12. New Grass – Talk Talk. I don’t think I have ever heard anything else remotely like this.
13. There Is No Death And There Are No Dead – Cadaverous Condition. Really, there is no excuse for not including any Scandinavian Black Metal on a compilation such is this. ‘There Is No Death And There Are No Dead’ is a title that will one day be stolen for a novel, mark my words.
