5 of the Best - Home

I've recently moved into a new home back down in London. Clearly apathy has taken over my ability to conjure up anything mildly relative to what's actually going on in the world, so here's 5otB to do with home.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - Our House: I had to, didn't I? This absolutely magnificent confection of a song is stuck in my head due to Grand Designs being on the box 24/7 (the sponsors, B&Q, use it as their sponsor's advert song). David Nash's simple harmonic movement offset by the dreamlike vocal melody and lyrics which force home that idyllic, faux aspirational nonsense Channel 4 seem to love all work to create a song which is half social parody, half Beatles-esque pop perfection.


Our House

Simon & Garfunkel - Homeward Bound: Paul Simon's dreary-cum-happy ode to being back in New York when stuck at a listless train station in Northern England should resonate with anybody who has had the misfortune of being stuck in such a pickle. Up there with S & G's finest.

Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues: In truth, this song does not need my endorsement on a post on a blog read by a handful of people. Its power, influence and place in time are cemented whatever I say, however, when one is trying to place homey imagery and the sheer poetic chaos of it all, one need look no further. The basement, the pavement, the bed, the alleyway, the raw wonder of the Beat-cum-Eliot-cum-Blues-cum-Guthrie brutality of this song's lyric and musical signifiers throw caution to the wind and stupefy anybody faced with it.


Dylan at his mercurial peak

Sam Cooke - Bring it on Home to Me: Sam Cooke's voice against the sound of a pneumatic drill ripping through a pavement while somebody rubbed sandpaper against one's cornea would still delight, soothe and dumbfound. Against this song it does all that and more. Yeaheyah.

Tame Impala - Music to Walk Home By: Tame Impala are one of my favourite bands of 2012. Their '66-'67 era Beatles style with a modern inflection has a trippy, throwback-yet-relevant appeal unlike anything I've heard in recent years. This song, much like Lonerism, the album it comes from, is a superb, psychedelic ride that nobody could want to get off of.


Music to Walk Home By

5 of the Best - Newspapers

With the abhorrent actions of those under a certain Australian tycoon's wings still fresh in the mind and causing passionate outpourings of scorn the World over, here's 5 of the Best songs ever made to do with newspapers.

The Clash - The Leader: This track off of their wonderfully varied fourth LP Sandinista is a humorous riot, with its refrain line of "the people must have something good to read on a Sunday" being its focal point. Very apt today, the first Sunday without the News of the World available in newsagents since 1843.

The Jam - News of the World: An equally apt song, if not more so. Paul Weller's sarcastic, snarling commentary on Britain's best-selling Sunday newspaper is also one of his best songs.


The Jam - News of the World

The Beatles - A Day in the Life: The last song on Sgt. Pepper's... is quite simply astonishing. No song on this list, or any other maybe, will match its brilliance and its impact.

Billy Joel - New York State of Mind: Though not directly about a newspaper, this song's mentioning of The New York Times and the Daily News justifies its entry here. Joel's best ballad? Maybe, I think Piano Man just wins that one though.


Billy Joel - New York State of Mind

Bob Dylan - Ballad of a Thin Man: Dylan tells it like it is on this track and once again tells it better than anybody else. Might have to rethink that Beatles statement, this is up in that pantheon. Its brilliance and impact are also immeasurable.