5 of 10

Although I ran Saturday and Sunday I am also going out for a short one tonight, an easy 5km at the most. I have decided to wear my lightweight trainers. I was looking down at my poor feet clad in giant motion control shoes yesterday, I have skinny little calves and ankles and they looked swamped by my shoes. I know I need them for most runs but I don’t think it will hurt to do a short run once a week in lightweights, it will give me a chance to work on my form because I’ll be able to feel the ground better.

I finally put in my votes for Hottest 100 of all time in today, my top 10 was by no means a definitive list but ultimately I had to stop thinking about it and go with the first songs the jumped into my head.

This is the first half

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
Of course Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds were going to feature and with such an accomplished body of work to choose from it was going to be a pretty difficult selection to make. It’s for that reason that I have gone for a recent release, I love the energy and it proves that there is plenty of life in the old dogs yet and besides, he calls Lazarus “Larry”, I love that.

But Larry grew increasingly neurotic and obscene
I mean he, he never asked to be raised up from the tomb
I mean no one ever actually asked him to forsake his dreams
He ended up like so many of them do, back on the streets of New York City
In a soup queue, a dopefiend, a slave, then prison, then the madhouse, then the grave
Ah poor Larry

If you have time read the transcript of a lecture he gave on Love Songs

Special mentions – Just about everything from The Birthday Party onwards

The Cure – A Forest
As with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds it was really a matter of eeny meeny miney mo, because there are so many songs I could have chosen. I ended up with A Forest because the one and only time I saw them play live this song was on the play list and it was magnificent.

suddenly I stop
but I know it’s too late
I’m lost in a forest
all alone
the girl was never there
it’s always the same
I’m running towards nothing
again and again and again

Special mentions – Pretty much everything up to and including Disintegration, everything that came after should be locked into a vault and never let out ever again, Friday I’m in Love, hang your head in shame……

Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah
I read an interview with Leonard Cohen recently where he said there have been up to 80 verses of this song, it has also been covered over 200 times.

Baby I have been here before
I know this room I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Special mentions – Everybody Knows (though I HATE that it is now being used in an anti smoking ad because I hear the song, go “Awww, I love this”, then look up just in time to see cholesterol being squeezed out of an artery), Bird on a Wire, I could go on…….

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
This takes me back to when I was an angry and confused, flannelette shirt wearing (hence, angry and confused) grunge queen, JFK was way before my time but I do remember where I was when I heard the news that Kurt Cobain has killed himself.

The song lives on as a reminder of a turning point in my life, finishing high school and starting uni.

Not to mention that eponymous stroke of sartorial genius, the long sleeved top UNDER the T-shirt, paired with a pair of black stussy pants (do they even still make those) cut off just below the knee and my black doc martens, man, how cool was I

With the lights out its less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us

Special mention – Lithium, Come as you are

The Velvet Underground – Venus in Furs
More for John Cale’s spectacular work on the violin (oh, 6 degrees of separation, he has also covered Hallelujah, I think he might have been one of the first) than anything else, this lends a haunting atmosphere to the song.

There is a clip of him on You Tube singing and accompanying himself on violin that is incredible, watch it!

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears