missprint

Another rainy Sunday, once again summer is tantalisingly dangled in front of our faces only to be snatched away again. Yesterday was such a glorious day, I decided to abandon any thoughts of work and went to meet my dear friend, Lindsey, for lunch. We had already arranged to meet after work in fact, as I had agreed to ferry her to Laura Ashley to pick up a mirror for her flat. However, after a huge lunch and running our errands, we ended up just collapsing on her sofa and spent the evening talking and singing at the top of our lungs to the soundtrack of her youth, which unfortunately entailed a lot of hair-rock, bands with names such as Poison and Slaughter. All of which resulted in me getting home at 1:30am and completely missing my weekly fix of Doctor Who. Thank God for the BBC3 repeat, hurrah!

In tribute to today's inclement weather, I present to you dear readers, my...

All-Time Top Five...Rainy Sunday Anthems
Rainy Sundays are a godsend. They're an excuse to stay curled up in bed all day, preferably watching back to back episodes of DVD boxsets and reading the paper. Beautiful, warm, sunny Sundays make you feel guilty for Sunday laziness. As you lie in bed, there's a little nagging feeling that perhaps you ought to be out frolicking in the park with an M&S lunch (along with the thousands of other Londoners with much the same idea). So you get up and get ready to go by which it's 2pm and the sun has retired, leaving a rather forlorn you, valiantly attempting to eat a chicken pasta salad in a rather chilly, rather blustery patch of grass. So, Rainy Sundays are the guilt-free, diet version of Sunny Sundays if you will. So, go forth and put your favourite Rainy Sunday anthems on and climb back into bed and indulge in some duvet karaoke.


One // Travis Writing To Reach You
Everything about this track screams Rainy Sunday. From the low-frequency hum of the introduction to Fran Healy's melancholy lyrics and vocals. It even namechecks Sunday which gives it that extra boost of Sunday-ness: "Everyday I wake up and it's Sunday." If my memory hasn't been irrevocably damaged by this week's events, I seem to recall a story about Fran Healy writing this song in his unheated flat in Glasgow in the depths of winter and hearing Wonderwall on the radio, decided to steal off with Noel Gallagher's chord progression.

Two // Take That Back For Good
"I guess now it's time for me to give up / I think it's time / Got a picture of you beside me / Got your lipstick marks still on your coffee cup." Dear readers, could these be the Greatest Lyrics That Mention Coffee...EVER?? Listen as the opening chords strum down your hearing canal much as rain courses down your window! Feel the raw emotion as Gary Barlow's heart breaks into a thousand little pieces! Mourn the last rattling breath of the Greatest Boy Band that ever were. (And please try to refrain from laughing at Howard Donald's unfortunate sartorial choice of deer-stalker hat and dreadlocks.)

Three // Oasis Half The World Away
Noel Gallagher's finest moment I think, this is as stately and elegant as Oasis will ever get I think. This is tea and nostalgia rolled up into a pop song: "So here I go, I'm still scratching around in the same old hole / My body feels young but my mind is very old." But instead of sitting and wondering 'what if?', sit down and immerse yourself in 4 minutes and 23 seconds of the Gallagher's finest moment with a mellotron.

Four // Natalie Imbruglia Torn
For what it's worth, I think that Natalie Imbruglia is rather underrated. Just listen to her voice...it is by turns warm and heartbreaking and treacle-y and vunerable. As many will delight in telling you, this is actually a cover and the track was originally by some EuroChick but it doesn't matter because you have the definitive version right in front of you. Ignore the somewhat risque lyrics about lying naked on the floor, ignore the rather dishy (objectively speaking) Jeremy Sheffield as love-rat/interest in the video. I find that this goes down best with the volume turned up to 10 (or to 11 if you're that way inclined), duvet wrapped around you and bellow along as loud as your neighbours can stand it. If you're feeling energetic, you can even engage in some of the pixie-esque dancing that Natalie exhibits in the video.

Five // Michael Buble Home
This seems to be on permanent rotation on Heart FM along with S Club's Never Had A Dream Come True. If there is any radio station that is the epitome of Sunday-ness, surely it's Heart FM with it's easy-listening playlist and radio DJs headhunted straight from Watford FM. Anyway, I must admit that I do have a weak spot for Heart, especially when I'm driving home late at night and I know, I know that Michael Buble is kind of skidding towards the precipice of the Kingdom of Blunt (it's a slippery slope and an even more slippery metaphor) but I just can't seem to be able to resist country-tinged ditties.

Other tracks that were considered for today's list were: "2 Hearts", Sugababes; "Holding On For You", Liberty X; "Blame It On The Weatherman", B*Witched; "Other Side Of The World", KT Tunstall; "I'll See It Through", Texas; "La Vie En Rose", Louis Armstrong; "Eleanor Rigby", The Beatles and "Song For The Leftovers" A Camp (which was actually left out because of it's inclusion on All Time Top Five...Songs About One Night Stands, which is where it really rightfully belongs.)

Well, what with only waking up at 1pm, going out to Millets in order to acquire my coveted Cath Kidston sleeping bag and trying to cook dinner in time for the Doctor Who repeat, I haven't even managed to finish reading the last 40 pages of Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut. So, a proper entry to come gentle readers, along with the Doctor Who review (with 10% extra All New Tennant Adoration included!)