This is an enjoyable interview with Paul McCartney on Richard Osman’s and Marina Hyde’s ‘The Rest is Entertainment’ podcast. Macca is on good form, and Osman is clearly starstruck, but if you can stomach the contractual endorsement of Lloyd’s Bank halfway through, it’s short enough not to overstay its welcome. McCartney looks frail but sprightly, and although his singing voice is clearly not what it was, I’ve read nothing but good vibes about his new album.

9 years since her last album of original material Tift Merritt has a new album, Sugar, out on 26th June. First single ‘Finest Feelings’ is in the comments below. Any love for Tift and her brand of country soul on here? Never the most prolific of artists she gives the impression of never quite realising her full potential. Sugar follows a self-imposed musical sabbatical to enable her to focus on other things including being a mother. Last year she released Time and Patience (handy attributes for being a Tift fan) which brought together acoustic demos from the Tambourine album. ‘Finest Feelings’ takes a few listens.

According to Google the longest song ever recorded is “Shri Ramcharitmanas”, recorded by Dr. Jagadeesh Pillai, which lasts 138 hours, 41 minutes, and 20 seconds, released in April 2023. To the best of my knowledge nothing by Yes, Jethro Tull or The Grateful Dead comes anywhere close to that, but all three have form in cramming as much as possible onto a side of vinyl. So what’s your favourite long song? Let’s see if we can crash the Forum by posting the longest and best.

For starters, here are a couple of blistering performances by Neil Young, acknowledged master of the lengthy jam. For your delectation I give you a barnstorming “Ordinary People” and the full version of “Sixty to Zero”, clocking in at just shy of 20 minutes. Over to you.

…but in a fairly subtle way. There aren’t enough artists nailing their colours in this way in my view. The song maybe doesn’t have the righteous anger of Streets of Minneapolis, but Rodney Crowell is in fine voice, and it’s great to see Emmylou Harris duetting. The song first surfaced a year ago apparently, but Crowell has now reissued it in the light of recent events. YouTube link in comments.

It’s a long time since the mid-70s, which is probably the time I first heard The White Album. It’s always puzzled me why it regularly tops polls as the Fabs’ best piece of work. For me it lacked the poppiness of Revolver and the sheer chutzpah and cohesion of Sgt. Pepper. Until recently. Maybe it’s the new remix by Giles Martin, maybe it’s just because I’ve not actually sat and really listened to it for a while….but suddenly it clicked. It’s a truly wonderful piece of Fabness, the band at the peak of their imaginative powers.

See also, Born to Run. It’s been a blind spot for me for many years. All that overblown sax playing and strangulated vocals just hadn’t ever made it work for me. It sounded contrived, lacking the integrity of Darkness on the Edge of Town or Nebraska. And yet, I’ve recently listened again in another moment of epiphany, and boy is it good!

So come on, which albums, or indeed artists, have been a blind spot for you for years on end, suddenly to be revealed as a masterpiece?

Now where did I put that copy of Exile on Main Street?

It’s only a few weeks since the EVRi thread established beyond reasonable doubt that Britain’s least favourite delivery company is responsible for off-the-scale levels of incompetence. Since then I’ve had numerous occasions to rethink my previously sanguine view of the delivery company from hell, and feel duty bound to share the misery.

Okay, it’s Christmas, it’s Black Friday, it’s Cyber Weekend or Virtual Wednesday or whatever, and delivery companies are stretched, parcels will be late. Late yes, but lost? Again and again and again? But there’s more! EVRi have begun trialling something new to speed things up – drive-by deliveries. When I found my first delivery dumped at the bottom of the drive and tried to work out how it got there, only one conclusion seemed to fit the evidence. When it happened for the second time I saw the driver slow down, wind down the window of his van and hurl Mrs B’s Christmas present over the gate where it landed crushed and broken in a puddle. He slowed down long enough to take a delivery photo then sped off without even getting his feet wet.

And so to EVRi’s customer service. Impossible to speak to a human being » Continue Reading.

I need some technical advice from one of you IT boffins out there. I have an Apple iMac, approximately 12 years old, which runs incredibly slowly. There is still plenty of memory on it, and very few apps. To be honest I hardly use it, but when I do it is excruciatingly slow. We’re talking a good 10 minutes to boot up, every app takes an eternity to load, and the cursor whirrs interminably during the simplest operations. It’s been like this for a good few years. I have assiduously kept up to date with each OS update, but each time it seems to get slower and slower.

I should add that I have zero technical knowledge. It’s made of grey metal with a black plastic screen is about as detailed as I can get.

Anyone got any ideas?

On the day when a monstrous dictator, and Putin, are meeting in Alaska to decide the future of Europe, I thought it would be nice to focus closer to home on anything heartwarming and uplifting that has happened to you recently. I know we’ve done this before, but what the heck….

A busy road near me currently has a sign advising motorists that swans may be crossing. There is a river on either side of the road, but no bridge (just a pipe) so the swans have to escort their young across the road during the breeding season. Today there was a long queue of traffic while the parent swans, one at the front, one at the rear, escorted a group of 5 cygnets across the road in single file. They took their time, stopping and sitting down in the middle of the road at one point. And here’s the thing. No one lost their temper, no one revved engines or beeped horns. People waiting patiently, leaning out of their cars watching the procession. A couple of young lads using bikes on a cycle path stopped by the swans, dismounted, crouched down and watched the swans until they had all » Continue Reading.

It’s going to be hot in the UK for the next 2 or 3 days. Consumption of cold drinks will increase accordingly. So what’s your favourite tipple, alcoholic or otherwise to cool you down on a hot day?

I’m quaffing a glass of sparkling Highland Spring as we speak. Ice cold from the fridge, with a dash of Robinson’s Mini Focus – lemon, lime and ginseng. There’s no more refreshing drink. Or is there? After some strenuous lounging about in the sun later (yes, I know we need the rain) I may succumb to a glass of ice cold Sauvignon Blanc.

Drinks are on me. What’s yours?

I first read Georges Simenon’s Maigret novels some 45 years ago, and have dabbled in and out of them ever since. Now, inspired by admirers on here, I’ve decided to try to read all 75 of them. Around 10 years ago Penguin Books commissioned new translations of most of the 75, making all the novels widely available for the first time in the UK. On the whole the translations seem pretty good from those I’ve read so far, although there is a regrettable tendency to update language into 21st century idiom, which can sometimes feel clunky, and jars with the ambience of 1930s Paris that you are trying to lose yourself in.

For those unfamiliar with Simenon’s writing style, it is distinctly spare to say the least. Sentences are rarely troubled with similes or metaphors, and a rumour long persisted (not true) that all Simenon’s writing was created from a vocabulary of just 2000 words. He was reputed to check his work after completion to ensure that it was as unliterary as possible. The plots of the novels, such as they are, are more impressionistic than intricately woven. There is a big emphasis on dialogue, to the extent that » Continue Reading.

52 years after its original 1973 release the Buckingham Nicks album is finally to get a re-release on 19th September. Long assumed to be a permanent casualty of Nicks’ and Buckingham’s toxic internecine infighting, the no frills re-release on Rhino Records will finally be available on CD, as well as on LP and streaming platforms (there are no extra tracks included). Although the original LP version still turns up regularly on eBay and has sourced many CD bootleg variants over the years, it has been so long out of print that the wheel has turned full circle and a new LP version is imminent. The last CD bootleg I bought for the predictable king’s ransom came with a professionally printed Polydor label in a fancy enhanced jewel case and could have easily passed for the real thing. Bolstered with extra tracks it sounded pretty good too.

The reissue may have been prompted by the forthcoming Apple Fleetwood Mac documentary film. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham have both quoted lyrics from ‘Frozen Love’ on their Instagram accounts in recent days, and Mick Fleetwood, known to be working with Buckingham on a new album, has also posted a clip of himself » Continue Reading.

There’s nothing like a piece of music to provoke a rush of emotion and a tearful response. Scientists will tell us that it’s linked to the release of dopamine, a sense of awe, or a triggering of strong memories and connection to past experiences. In my case it can be all of the above, and there’s nothing like a wailing guitar solo to bring it on. The last time I cried at a song was on hearing Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Farewell Party’ from The Philadelphia Sessions on Tracks II (see the Favourites of 2025 thread). Springsteen has form here. ‘I Wish I Were Blind’, ‘Long Walk Home’, ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’, ‘Downbound Train’, ‘Stray Bullet’ and many others have all been known to reduce me to a blubbering wreck for a variety of reasons. In his tenderer moments Bruce is a past master at tugging at the heartstrings with both music and lyrics. ‘Farewell Party’ scores on both counts in a completely irrational way.

Women’s voices often do the trick. Far too many to mention, but try listening to Margo Cilker’s ‘Wine in the World’ without feeling something pricking the back of your eyelids. But it’s those wailing guitar » Continue Reading.

Interesting article in The Guardian suggesting that with Brian Wilson’s passing and after the demise of the last members of sixties acts, music will be devoid of geniuses. Is that true? And if not, who are they? I’m struggling to think.

I think I stopped listening to Ryan Adams around the time that allegations of sexual misconduct against him first surfaced. This wasn’t particularly due to those allegations, but because I had grown tired of the endless slew of releases and a seeming lack of quality control. There is, after all, only so much Ryan Adams music that anyone needs, and a lot of his albums just weren’t to my taste any more. Since then of course, any criminal proceedings against him have been dropped, Adams has apologised and time has moved on. In the intervening years he has predictably become persona non grata, effectively dropped by all mainstream media, unreported and unsupported. You could be forgiven for thinking that his career may be finished, except that Adams has gone into productivity overdrive in a way that makes his earlier proliferation of albums feel like a test run.

In the post-cancellation years since 2019 Ryan Adams has released some 15 albums, making sifting the wheat from the chaff an arduous task. Being an Adams completist has never been easy, his punk sensibilities and predilection for churning out rock’n’roll stodge sitting uneasily with his singer-songwriter confessional side and his jangly country-rock output. » Continue Reading.

So, it looks as if maybe, possibly, we might just have found signs of life on another planet, and it’s not even April 1st. If so, it’s trillions of miles away and any life is probably swimming around in a huge ocean. What message should we send them in greeting? What song or musical act best describes how we would want them to think of us?

Apparently Putin is already making plans to invade.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39jj9vkr34o

Has anyone noticed the similarity between Queen of Nashville Emmylou Harris and mistress of leather The Repair Shop’s Suzie Fletcher?

Time to share your unexpected pop star looky-likeys, the more bizarre and off the wall the better.

Never heard of Peter Bruntnell? For shame! Well, he has a new album out on 4th October called Houdini and the Sucker Punch, which is his 15th. He’s Britain’s most unsung, underrated, under the radar potential superstar who specialises in sensitive singer-songwriter fare of the highest calibre. Houdini is chock full of Beatlesque, Byrdsy ringing guitars in mostly upbeat songs with a strong element of minor key melancholy. Unlike many who’ve been around for a while, Peter Bruntnell’s albums just get better and better, and this one is a real cracker. It’s available on pre-order from his website or from Bandcamp. Treat yourself.