Rafael Behr

You can't always get the mashup you want

But if you try sometimes you just might find you get the mashup you need.

(By DJ Moule. And yes, I do remember a Tribe Called Quest basically did the same thing in, like, 1990. But they weren't called mashups in ye twentiethe centurie.)

Post script: Things I didn't know until I just googled 'A Tribe Called Quest': After they split in 1998, one of their number, Ali Shahid Muhammed, went on to form 'Lucy Pearl' and record 'Don't Mess With My Man', which is one of my all time favourite secret R 'n' B guilty pleasures.

Not so secret now, I suppose.

So what exactly does the bell on the bus do?

File under: things for the edification of children that bother me, but I don't know why.

I've been to toddler music groups. I've listened to nursery rhyme CDs. I've sat around while my daughter plays at nursery. And it annoys me that there is no standard version of 'The Wheels on the Bus'.

Sure, everyone can agree that the wheels go round and round. There is also consensus on the horn. It goes beep, beep, beep. But after that, accord breaks down. Sometimes the bell goes ting, ting, ting; sometimes it goes ting-aling-aling. Sometimes the conductor is after tickets, sometimes he's just there for crowd control: 'Move along please, move along please, move along please.'

And as for the babies on the bus, are they bouncing on the knee, bouncing up and down, fast asleep, saying 'waah, waah, waah'? What?

How are we going to have a harmonious, well-integrated, cosy national consensus if we can't even celebrate bus life in song with consistency.

The last word on the McCann case ...

... from a colleague, poring over yet another multi-page spread in a newspaper:

"This is Middle Class parenting's 9/11".

In which I reveal myself to be hopelessly behind the times

My new favourite song turns out to have been released in 2003. It is You can't hurry love by The Concretes.

It bears no relation to Diana Ross or Phil Collins. But the video owes a lot to Eleanor Rigby as depicted in Yellow Submarine.

What the world needs now (II) ...

... is a Dandy Warhols-B52s-ACDC mashup by DJ Moule.

Actually, what the world needs now is to stop what it's doing for a moment and listen to Love Shack again.

Normal blog service resumed soon.