Ok my post title is a West of Scotland in-joke but please post your best message songs here.
I’ll kick off with an absolute belter…
Goin’ for the messages…
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Mrs M, a Northumberlander, tells me “messages” was in use in Amble in her childhood – but they’ve got much more to do with Scotland than the rest of England anyway.
More startlingly Alexei Sayle was sent by his mum for the messages in 1960s Liverpool.
Perhaps that’s where the OMD got them from…
Interesting. Well, strong links between the three areas anyway…
Dad’s fae Fife, and it’s common usage there too
Speaking of ‘fae Fife’…
https://youtu.be/DM3f-pRidnU
Also in use on the east coast, at least in Aberdeen. Mrs F still refers to the supermarket trip as “going for the messages”, despite living in Cambridgeshire for 25 years… and being raised in France.
Also in use in Norn Iron, perhaps unsurprisingly.
And the Republic also…
https://www.hairybaby.com/bag-for-messages-tote-bag
Message To My Girl is peerless but here is the 5th single I ever bought with my own money:
The Police – Message In A Bottle
Yep. Still diamond-hard. What a trio they were…
‘Owz about a bit of 80s Synthpop?
Oi!
Stop your messing around
https://youtu.be/IbqiCxEIeEo
When I was at primary school I assumed that this was addressed to a boy who went around saying “Bum” and drawing winkies on people in library books.
Great versh, but I prefer Dandy’s.
A gem from Wilco –
The best British funkateers this side of Giles Giles & Fripp.
World Party – Put The Message In The box
Not that you should care but this was the sound that emanated from a certain corner of Tooting circa 1990-1992 when Jimmy White used to turn up late in a tuxedo in the house opposite / leave early in a tuxedo from the house opposite. It was one of the few songs that made it through the acid/house/post-acid/post-house music on repeat. But why oh why did Jimmy keep appearing…..
Pot the yellow in the pocket…
Eggxacterly
This is ace from Benny and the boys
‘Kinell, that’s ace!
Hamish and the lads would have been sent for a few messages in their time.
Pick up the pieces? Haud yer wheesht
That’s one of those rare occurrences when the funk actually flows over, around, in and out of the beat as well as meeting it face on.
When we ran out of blue WKD we sent for messages:
That’s a great album, very underrated.
Has to be this….
Now the reason we’re here
Had, shamefully and inexplicably, forgotten about this. Brilliant.
Yup, on many days when you need a 3 minute burst of musical rush that’s dynamic, melodic, sexy and effortlessly heavy and harmonic this sounds and looks like the perfect pop song.
Absolutely love the Pretenders. Basic video but somehow more effective than an ‘acting out’ type.
Definitely. It’s a great snapshot of that version of the band. It’s one of the few songs that came together in the studio rather than brought in fully formed by Hynde so it’s an apt video in that sense. Fantastic rhythm section. Within the space of 2 years of that being shot Honeyman-Scott and Farndon would be dead.
Like…BRIGITTE BARDOT!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6p_7Y1Q-gI
Love…
To Hell and Bacharach
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPaUswm71Nw
Replacements…Message to the boys
Don’t forget your line when you away out for the messages. (Or, for sassenachs, list.)
https://youtu.be/6u9FrXBWu_I
As good a reason as any to post this strange and beautiful song – a message to (and a reply from!) aliens I tells ya, aliens! I remember this from childhood when something gets to you at an impressionable age. And as we age, we recalibrate and reassess our childhood tastes but this song retains its bizarre charm. It’s not a guilty pleasure – I have given up guilt (and pleasure for that matter) for Lent.
Calling Occupants (of interplanetary craft) – The Carpenters
Properly bonkers but in a good way.
The Bee Gees, before they discovered that drum loop that was on every disco record from 1974 to 1978
A short paranoid (or not) message from M.I.A. Nice touch connecting the message to “Dry Bones”:
The Villagers – Passing a Message:
Soul music is full of “message songs”.
While looking for this mighty hunk of “conscious” soul, sung by jazz trumpeter Nat Adderley under the auspices of the great David Axelrod, I also found a jolly good version by Miriam Makeba which I didn’t know about. Adderley and Axelrod’s is still the best version though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8oCMH7rRFY
(Quit It)
While we’re here, Sam Dees has a few words to say as well.
(Child Of The Street)
can’t quite place what this reminds me of:
Not as bad as I remembered…