missing dust jacket

song of the week: jackie jackson

Franz Ferdinand - Alex appears to have aged somewhat

apologies - I'm cheating a bit as it's been a busy week and I haven't had time to put together my argument for Cansei de Ser Sexy's 'Music is my Hot Hot Sex' - count youself lucky - so here's an old discarded, re-worked song of the week from December 06 when I was on my blog-holiday

One of last year’s most underrated little albums is Colours are Brighter a Save The Children charity album of unarguable quality, and a boon to parents of tiny people who wish they didn't have to listen to ruddy Bob the Builder all the time (see my brother and sister-in-law).

A selection of original and re-worked children’s songs from some of the finest names in indie-pop and dance, Colours are Brighter was bought firstly for me, and secondly for my insane three-year old nieces (I think they preferred the squishy dinosaurs I also bought them). The track list includes the fabulous Divine Comedy’s Pooh Trilogy (Three Cheers for Pooh! sung by Neil Hannon - that man has a voice for bedtime stories) and the surprisingly heart-snuggling offering from Snow Patrol ,‘I am an Astronaut’. Beware the brilliantly alarming Tidy Up! from The Barcelona Pavilion, guaranteed to bully wayward tots into clearing up their toys on pain of techno-death, and Half Man Half Biscuit’s David Wainwright’s Feet, teaching kids never to wear ill-fitting shoes. Special mention should also go to album-curator’s Belle and Sebastian’s ‘The Monkey’s Are Breaking Out the Zoo’, an unashamedly pre-school nursery tale, and beautiful for it. My uterus gurgles just thinking about it. However, it is Franz Ferdinand’s skiffley country-bumpkin morality fable of greedy boy Jackie Jackson that takes the song of the week accolade – mainly because I looked in the mirror this morning and, following a weekend with my cake-happy aunt, saw a whale.

Light-hearted strumming, subtle rinky-tink piano and cheeky girl-group backing vocals make this a class act all in its own right, but it is Alex Kapranos’s flawless narrative performance that ices this big yummy cake of a song. Spot-on comic timing, delivered with a deftness of touch and a subtle, yet decidedly, grown-up sense of humour make for arguably the greatest song ever released by those trendy Scots. The entire song is peppered with incredulous gasps and comments from Alex’s little backing group (rapidly counting and repeating 'one cake, two cake, I like the taste of tasty cakes'), and as Jackie Jackson eats more and more cakes (over 200 cakes!!) the track speeds into a delirious counting-game matched with all the fun of the assonance of ‘tasty cakes’ and ‘my belly’s overloaded!” There’s even a childish parp sound when Jackie Jackson explodes from bakery butchery. It’s deliriously, deliciously good - so good in fact that I demand you head out and get yourself a copy and have a good-old knees-up sing-along. I, meanwhile, shall cultivate my large expanding gut.

posted by raspberry beret @ 6:30:00 PM