Listening to the new Mogwai album and staring into space the way you do, I found myself pondering one of the song titles, Ceiling Granny.
The ‘Gwai’s tunes are nearly all instrumentals which means a bit of lateral thinking must be employed when it comes time to name that tune. For most of their career they have favoured conundrum style titles with the occasional tidy, comprehensible one (No Medicine For Regret) thrown in. They’ve generally eschewed puns, so often the first choice of the instrumentalist, although lately they have been creeping in (aka 47).
I had the thought that while Ceiling Granny could just be a standard Moggie cryptic/in joke, it’s a fact that Ceiling Fanny is a mildly amusing pun. So I wondered whether one of the group had proposed it as a working title and then when it came to listing the tracks for the LP they had thought better of it.
Last minute revisions based on taste or other considerations do arise: Happy Mondays had a song called Some C*nt From Preston which, understandably, became Country Song on Bummed (still called Bummed, though); Manic Street Preachers’ SYMM is a timid abbreviation of South Yorkshire Mass Murder; having spent some time delighting to Moving Heart’s lovely instrumental The Storm and, in my mind’s eye, seeing images of gathering clouds and crashing waves, I was snapped out of my reverie upon hearing the song’s working title was The Storm In A T Shirt, being a less-than-gallant reference to the physical attributes of a lady of the band’s acquaintance.
There must be more examples of “thought better of it” titles – over to you, if you can be arsed..
“Thought Better Of It” Titles
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If the authoritative sounding Oxford Encyclopaedia of Popular Music is to be believed Teenage Fanclub were originally to be called Teenage Fanny. Caution prevailed, but I suppose that makes it ironic that they are commonly referred to as the Fannies.
The Teardrop Explodes’ debut album was originally due to be titled “Everybody Wants To Shag The Teardrop Explodes”, but they went with “Kilimanjaro” instead, though the “Shag” title was resurrected for a posthumous work-in-progress collection…
Yes, I remember seeing EWTSTTE in the shops..
There are a couple of Caravan album titles that wouldn’t see light of day in this century. They know who they are.
Wasn’t the original title of Help! (the film, rather than the song) going to be Eight Arms to Hold You? You can see why they rejected it – if they’d kept it, people would have thought it was a film about an octopus.
in a garden?
Sounds like a Liverpool thing. The Liver Birds theme song by Scaffold discusses a four legged beast that walks peculiar- “ann-seh is two liver berds” – i.e. two women walking together.
When recording an album in 2001 I read that Depeche Mode were working on a piece called “Vinegar tits”, I assume as a nod to the character so named in Prisoner Cell Block H. Possibly/probably retitled – the internet makes no mention of it.
Let us nod sagely as we remember that Motörhead thought better of calling the band Bastard.
Ceiling Granny (a highlight of the new album!) is named after the relevant scene in Exorcist III, as I understand it.
By Jove, you might be right!
(also: there’s an Exorcist three?!!)
It’s a bit rubbish, but it does contain possibly the very best example of a way overused (and overabused) technique that lesser horror films tend to be full of. My advice, watch it, don’t take your eyes off it and then when you have to pause the film to go and change your trousers don’t bother putting it back on.
It was on the Horror Channel last night, and I flicked onto it 5-10 minutes before the bit you’re referring to Paul. It’s brilliant.
It’s one of those bits of cinema I wish I could unsee, so I could see it again for the first time, like when the albino first speaks in the Princess Bride, or when Alvy sneezes in Annie Hall or when the head pops up in Jaws.
i don’t have it to hand, but I seem to remember that etched into the runoff groove of ‘Viva Dead Ponies’ by The Fatima Mansions is the legend “The real name of this album is ‘Bugs Fucking Bunny’ “
Didn’t Chris Difford say that John Cale wanted Squeeze’s debut album to be called Gay Guys?
Skin wanted Skunk Anansie to call one of their albums Clitorally Speaking. The record company weren’t buying it, and soon neither were the punters.
‘When The World Was Flat As A Pancake And Mona Lisa Was Happy As A Clam’.
John Prine said the above was the original title of ‘Big Old Goofy World’.
It’s a song mostly of similies. Anyway, I don’t believe him.
Obviously the original query appears to have been answered above so I’ll just chip in with my own theory that the track “Richie Sacramento” on the recent Mogwai album is a reference to the great Ryuichi Sakamoto.
It would be a very Mogwai thing to do.
Cat Stevens’ “Mona Bone Jakon” album was originally to be named “The Dustbin Cried The Day The Dustman Died”, hence the illustration of the crying dustbin on the sleeve, which of course makes no sense with the new title… Mona Bone Jakon is supposedly a reference to Cat’s, er, “old chap”, so an illustration of that was somewhat out of the question…
I once had a B.A. Robertson single which opened to a pop up image. Perhaps there’s a gatefold version of Cat’s album?
That was Cool in the Kaftan – the pop up was a hand giving a peace sign IIRC. I didn’t buy it, a friend of mine did. He brought it in to show it to us.
Yes, and it cost bloody extra, back in the days when every bean made a difference..