Put Up Your Ukes! (or: 'Ukes of Hazzard')

Two ukulele-penned songs inspired this blog entry,

Pete Townshend's Blue Red & Grey (mp3) from 1975's The Who By Numbers

and its contemporary offspring,

Eddie Vedder's Soon Forget (mp3) from Pearl Jam's 2000 album Binaural.

Both songs take the line that most folk deny themselves happiness by focussing their sights on what'll only leave them feeling cheated: Pete attacks vapid nightlife whilst Ed sticks it to that old chestnut consumerism. I like both of them equally, I have to say: Pete's is more wistful, Ed's more bitter; but both are lovely songs with sweet melodies and some corker lines (try this one):

"Sorry is the fool who trades his love for high-rise rent

Seems the more you make, equals the loneliness you get

and it's fitting, he's barely living a day he'll soon forget"

And for the hell of it, here's some extras:

The Who: Squeezebox (mp3)(1975, The Who By Numbers) - Because too few classic songs are quite this vulgar.

Eddie Vedder: Creep (mp3)(2000, The Birdman Sessions [bootleg]) - Ever wanted to hear a drunk Eddie Vedder trying to warble his way through a barely-competent cover of Radiohead's Creep with a bunch of guys he supposedly met in a bar?...Eh?!

- Spencer

(I wasn't going to write anything here but when Spencer told me he had a post for me, this song coincidentally came up on my iTunes (courtesy of The Inferno Music Crypt) and I had to post it:

Hallo Spencer! (mp3)

Sorry.

Oh, and those goddawful puns in the title of the post were my idea too.

Sorry, again.

- Ringo)