The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / The One True Tune To Rule Them All – RESULTS!

The One True Tune To Rule Them All – RESULTS!

by 61 Comments

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, no doubt.

After a week long process of intensive debate, and a voting process that has baffled pollsters, tried the patience of the electorate and lead to the permanent shattering of several friendships, and at least one marriage that we know of, we have finally arrived at the very Apex of all Afterword culture: The One True Tune To Rule Them All.

Henceforth, from this day on, when we discuss music let us do so united in the common recognition that there is one song that stands apart from all its brethren. A tune that pleases all ears, and confounds none. A song that has the entire Afterword singing along, arms aloft, with nary a nay-sayer in sight, and only brotherly love and bonhomie in evidence.

There are those who said it could not be done. That such a tune, quite simply, did not exist – COULD not exist. To those people, I say: Ha! Read herein, without your own eyes, the evidence that musical consensus is not just an arcane theory, or an ancient rumour, but an actual, practicable science, with results you can touch and feel. Recognise that man can finally live as one, and that there are no boundaries which can contain us, nor walls divide us.

Ahem.

After carefully tallying the votes, it gives me enormous pleasure to announce that the Official Afterword OTTTRTA is none other than….

….. a tie. Shit. What do we do now?

Okay, so it appears that the two songs with a claim on the crown are Ghost Town by The Specials, and Heroes by David Bowie. Each had 7 votes, far in advance of the third placed entry, Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone.

My initial thought was that we could use this thread as a run-off vote between the two contenders, to democratically establish the bona fide top dog.

But then, I thought – you know what, Bingo; you live in London. You have a job that involves sitting at a desk. You moisturise daily. You keep books on shelves at home. You use five syllable words, for cryin out loud! You’re exactly the sort of hoity-toity, up-his-own-arse metropolitan knobhead who would probably just ignore the will of the electorate and decide what’s best for them anyway.

So that’s what I’ve done.

Ghost Town is officially proclaimed the OTTTRTA, on account of the fact that multiple people on the voting thread mentioned it as being their second choice or a strong contender for their vote. And also because I quite like seeing polls on here that aren’t won by the usual bloody suspects.

Please address all complaints to Kid Dynamite, who will be handling my mail this week. Alternatively, if you’d like to go ahead and vote below, feel free to do so, although I can’t promise it will change the overall result.

Beyond that, let’s all lock arms in celebration of our new dark overlord. ALTOGETHER NOW: “This town…. aaah-ah….”

Cheers,

BL

Final Voting Was As Follows

(I’ve ignored all the songs that got zero votes, to spare the enormous shame which would be no doubt be felt by all those who originally nominated them)

1 Vote

Just For You – Sam Cooke
Bring It On Home To Me – Sam Cooke
Be My Baby – The Ronettes
Do Right Woman, Do Right Man – Aretha
King of Rome – The Unthanks
Northern Sky – Nick Drake
Free Your Mind – En Vogue
Be My Wife – David Bowie
Pop Muzik – M
Pick Up The Pieces – The Average White Band
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
I Want Your Love – Chic
This Woman’s Work – Kate Bush
September – Earth, Wind and Fire
Loaded – Primal Scream
Sweet Jane – The Velvet Underground
Wonderful Remark – Van Morrison
Heartbreak Hotel – Elvis Presley

2 Votes

Up The Junction – Squeeze
A Change Is Gonna Come – Sam Cooke
Baby I Need Your Loving – The Four Tops
Unfinished Sympathy – Massive Attack
Every Time We Say Goodbye – Ella Fitzgerald
Sinnerman – Nina Simone
Uptown Top Ranking – Althea and Donna
When You Walk In The Room – Jackie DeShannon
I Feel Love – Donna Summer
Woolly Bully – Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs
Trenchtown Rock – Bob Marley
Kiss – Prince

3 Votes

Voodoo Child – Jimi Hendrix
You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman – Aretha
Mrs. Robinson – Simon and Garfunkel
Raspberry Beret – Prince
Louie Louie – The Kingsmen

4 Votes

Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone – The Temptations

7 Votes

Heroes – David Bowie
Ghost Town – The Specials

2

Comments

      • Glad you brought this up.

        If the intervening nine years since this thread have taught us anything, it’s that democracy does not work. Or it works, but we can just ignore its outputs. One or the other. Or perhaps both.

        With that in mind, I am taking your dislike of Ghost Town as sufficient cause to disqualify that song. I am also disqualifying Heroes due to the gradual creeping Beatlesfication of David Bowie discourse in recent months. Offputting.

        As a result, the newly crowned Afterword OTTTRTA, that one song that unites literally every living soul on this blog in mutual admiration, and in respect of which even grudging affection is marked as unforgivable calumny is….

        You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman by Artetha Franklin

        And quite bloody right too. Mods – lock the thread and assemble security please.

  3. Ghost Town – an anthem for miserabilists everywhere. Is is rather drab isn’t it? It probably ticks (most) of the right political boxes, but you’d hardly start a party with it.

    • Back in 2009 when I was working on the construction of Terminal 5 at Heathrow, I vividly remember an elderly West Indian carpenter getting quite excited and jiggy when this came on the radio.
      He looked like he was ready to party..

  4. Does this mean the IDEAL party that would unite the entire massive would be that disco from the Father Ted episode? Where the DJ forgot his record collection APART from Ghost Town??

    Good grief.

    • By popular demand, this will be the second track at the Afterword disco, immediately following on from Ghost Town.

      What scenes! Chiz, stood on the bar doing the mashed potato, eyes ablaze. Twang, topless and angry, doing the Status Quo “elbows out” dance through the middle of the room, mouthing the names of much better songs that only he knows. KFD doing the Swim across the pool table. Moose popping and locking like his life depends on it, which it sort of does. An enormous mosh pit in the centre of the bar, with Afterworders slam-dancing furiously, many of them wearing crude war paint fashioned from items raided from the kitchens. The sound of breaking glass, the faint smell of burning. Somewhere in the middle distance a car alarm sounds plaintively and then…. sirens, lots of sirens. No one here gets out alive.

  5. Congratulations to The Specials. It’s the perfect song for the Afterword.

    Everyone’s at the party, happily dancing to the latest pop hits. In comes the Afterword – he (it’s definitely a he) earnestly insists that Ghost Town is put on next. As the song kicks in, the previously packed dancefloor thins out and as the jaunty middle 8 (“do you remember the good old days before the Ghost Town?”) kicks in, the Afterword realises he is dancing alone. He spends the last minute red faced but defiant. He closes his eyes and shouts along to the lyric, word-perfect. He attempts to dance “at” girls, who laugh in embarrassment and run from the room. As the song ends he shouts something incoherent about “civilians” and storms off home.

    The dancing resumes.

  8. I refuse to accept this vote on the grounds I don’t believe the electorate understood the question. We need to understand the full ramifications of making this the one tune to rule them all as it obviously wasn’t clear despite the original question. I’m taking this to the Lords and will never give up until we have a second vote. This will be known as Ghostexitgate as long as I can draw breath, The real result as any fool knows is Voodoo Child

    • When will you Voodoogooders learn to shut up and accept the will of your superiors?

      We’ve had years of rule by horny-handed sons of the soil, such as yourself, and what has it brought us? Nothing but misery and prog rock.

      It’s time for a new broom to sweep this place clearn. For too long the blog’s slightly effete polymath community have bitten their tongues and watched on in horror as you and your sort have committed to print all manner of logical fallacies and egregious typos. Well, no more. From here on in, it’s gonna be Math Rock, Decemberists records and music that people actually dance to, as far as the eye can see.

      Bowexit means Bowexit. Rule Afterwordtannia, and if you don’t agree that this new path is for the best then – by god, sir – you simply do not believe in this blog enough.

  12. Pretty much your typical plebiscite. 33% didn’t vote, 33% didn’t understand the question, and 33% understood and voted but didn’t like the result. Which leaves 1% who are happy

  13. So let’s get this straight – out of the 4532 (?) people who regularly peruse this blog 7 voted Ghost Town the one tune that binds us all together? Ghost Town is a mighty fine record but c’mon, it’s nothing Special is it??
    I demand a recount and a rethink (and the exclusion of Heroes – in the Bowie canon it ranks No 37 so how can it be No 2 here???)

    • Sorry, old bean. The voting public have spoken, and it’s no good moaning after the fact, it only marks you out as a freedom-hating Enemy of the People.

      Going to be exactly the same story when we all vote Big Hero 6 the blog’s favourite movie. Buckle up.

    • This demonstrating the weakness of a first past the post voting system, conferring a ruling majority for which there is no mandate based on percentage of the eligible electorate in favour. Mind you, the system whereby any candidate was eliminated merely by one voter muttering ‘don’t’ like it’ took a refreshingly responsive approach to democratic participation. If the same rules were applied to parliament our only elected representatives would be David Attenborough and a picture of a kitten.

      • If we went for a Proportional Representation result, we’d have to somehow construct a mashup consisting mainly of “Ghost Town” and “Heroes”, with a decent bit of “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” and incorporating snippets of “Voodoo Child”, “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman”, “Mrs. Robinson”, “Raspberry Beret” and “Louie Louie”.

        Now that would be interesting.

  16. A couple sit down in a restaurant. The waiter approaches and says “Good evening and welcome. Would you like to hear the specials…….”

    I told this joke a couple of weeks ago in a restaurant with friends. They looked at me as if I was mental. Not everyone is familiar with Ghost Town it seems.

Leave a Reply