May 022010
This may be the shortest Last Man Standing we’ve ever had, but then again, we frequently say that, don’t we? The goal is not to list any old song about horses; the song has to be about horse racing, or have a definite reference to horse racing. Simply riding a horse doesn’t count, so don’t bother suggesting The Rolling Stones‘ “Wild Horses” whenever that day comes when you ride them.
Because there may be so few horses in this race, I won’t kick things off with the one obvious entrant that comes to mind.
The horses have entered the starting gate…they’re off!
Enjoy the following promotional message, courtesy of one of our very own Townsmen!
Molly and Tenbrooks – Bill Monroe (also done by Tom T. Hall and hippie band Hearts and Flowers).
It’s about a famous 1878 match race between the top horse from California (Molly McCarty) and the top horse from Kentucky (Ten Broek).
Judges? The whole song isn’t about a race, but Up On Cripple Creek by the Band has the verse about the horse race and then she tears up the ticket just for a laugh. Real funny!
The judges have accepted your entry. chickenfrank is Last Man Standing…currently.
“Dead Flowers.” Makin’ bets on Kin-tucky Durrby Day.”
You are lucky this isn’t a Battle Royale. The Race Is On by George Jones.
Well, the race is on
And here comes pride up the backstretch
Heartaches are goin’ to the inside
My tears are holdin’ back
They’re tryin’ not to fall
My heart’s out of the runnin’
True love’s scratched for another’s sake
The race is on and it looks like heartache
And the winner loses all
Peter, Paul & Mary: “Stewball”: “Oh, Stewball was a racehorse/And I wish he were mine/He never drank water/He always drank wine. . .”
“Bottle of Smoke” by The Pogues.
The chorus:
Twenty fucking five to one
My gambling days are done
I bet on a horse called the Bottle of Smoke
And my horse won
I know it’s a little vague…..
cdm — You’re right! If this were a Battle Royale, you’d win by a mile. That’s one of my fave George Jones numbers. Great song!
Wait a sec! Here are ALL the lyrics to “Bottle of Smoke”:
Thanks and praises
Thanks to Jesus
I bet on the Bottle of Smoke
I went to Hell
And to the races
To bet on the Bottle of Smoke
The day being clear
The sky being bright
He came up on the left
Like a streak of light
Like a drunken fuck
On a Saturday night
Up came the Bottle of Smoke
Twenty fucking five to one
My gambling days are done
I bet on a horse called the Bottle of Smoke
And my horse won
Stewards inquiries
Swift and fiery
I had the Bottle of Smoke
Inquisitions and suppositions
I had the Bottle of Smoke
Fuck the stewards
A trip to Lourdes
Might give the old fuckers
The power of sight
Screaming springers and stoppers
And call out coppers
But the money still gleams in my hand like a light
Bookies cursing
Cars reversing
I had the Bottle of Smoke
Glasses steaming
Vessels bursting
I had the Bottle of Smoke
Slip a fifty to the wife
And for each brat a crisp new five
To give me a break on a Saturday night
When I had the Bottle of Smoke
Priests and maidens
Drunk as pagans
They had the Bottle of Smoke
Sins forgiven and celebrations
They had the Bottle of Smoke
Fuck the Yanks
And drink their wives
The moon is clear
The sky is bright
I’m happy as the horses shite
Up came the Bottle of Smoke
It is specifically ABOUT winning at betting on the ponies. No metaphors (though, I am a big fan of Mr. Jones song)- this one is really about horse racing. I, therefore, am LMS….at this point.
No More Workhorse Blues by the Palace Brothers. “I am no more a workhorse, I am a racing horse…”
Spike Jones – William Tell Overture (a.k.a. Beetle Bomb)
The Angels Took My Racehorse Away by Richard Thompson (on Henry the Human Fly LP)
Mikey Dread is LMS, taking the one song I first had in mind!
“Horesrace” by Michael Nesmith. C’mon, people…
TB
Not “Horesrace”, but “Horserace.” I think you guys got the point. Although we should write a song called “Horesrace.”
TB
I’d like a clarification.
I know this is supposed to be about horse racing but dogs have four legs and are covered with hair too. Does dog racing count?
If so, White palace by the Pogues.
Sorry, cdm, there are horses that are dogs but not dogs that are horses.
Then what about “Cut Across Shorty”? From what I understand, Miss Lucy’s interest in Shorty winning the race is that, contrary to his name, he was hung like a horse.
Prefab Sprout – The Venus Of The Soup Kitchen
“’cause it’s clear you got the gift
for pickin’ the wrong horse, Charlie.”
Correction: “Backin’ the wrong horse, Charlie.”
Though it’s more metaphorical than literal.
I also love The Race Is On, the spring reverb on that lead guitar is totally happening!
The verse in “Your So Vain”
about going up to Saratoga
What’s that Big Audio Dynamite song with the sampled voice saying, “The horses are on the track?” – The Bottom Line?
Stephen Foster, “Camptown Races”
Prince wondering about the “pictures of the jockeys that were there before me” in Little Red Corvette?
George Jones again. The song “These Days I Barely Get By”
“put my only two dollars on my favorite horse, he lost by a nose, and I cried”
I propose (the great) “Junior’s Farm” by Wings, for the verse:
“Ollie Hardy should have had more sense
He bought a gee-gee and he jumped the fence
All for the sake of a couple of pence.”
“Gee-gee” being slang for a horse, of course.
Great live-in-the-studio version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKZINkaWrbA
Alright, then.
“The Galway Races” trad. Irish, recorded most notably by The Dubliners:
And it’s there you’ll see the jockeys
And they mounted on so stably
The pink, the blue, the orange, and green
The colors of our nation
The time it came for starting
All the horses seemed impatient
Their feet they hardly touched the ground
The speed was so amazing!
bobbybittman is currently LMS.
I wish I had thought of this earlier: can we limit ourselves to songs written after the time when handlebar moustaches and suspenders were no longer the norm? 🙂
Then I’ll take the mount. Strange, but true: The Coasters also have a song called “Stewball” written by Leiber & Stoller that is not the same song as the Stewball mentioned earlier. It is completely about a racehorse named Stewball.
Seems hard to believe there wasn’t a novelty hit about Seattle Slew back in ’77. There ought to have been.
Shouldn’t that count–what ought to have been? For example, in the list of great covers by Elvis Presley of other rock greats, the version of “The Long and Winding Road” that he OUGHT to have done instead of “Hey Jude” should be there, if only he had done it.
Is this a digression?
“Slewball”
The Specials “Longshot Kick De Bucket”, originally by The Pioneers…
“Where the Turf Meets the Surf” by Bing Crosby:
Where the turf meets the surf
down at old Del Mar
take a plane
take a train
take a car.
There is a smile on every face
and a winner in each race
where the turf meets the surf
at Del Mar.
If that’s not worthy of inclusion, then
Los Rolling Stones, from “Hang Fire”:
“Give me $10,000 we’ll have some fun/
put it on a horse 100 to 1″.
Bob Marley, “Rat Race”
“Rat race!
Oh, it’s a disgrace
To see the human race
In a rat race, rat race!
You got the horse race;
You got the dog race;
You got the human race;
But this is a rat race, rat race!”
Richard Thompson, “Both Ends Burning”:
I took her to the race-track one fine day
They couldn’t believe their eyes
They said, if that nag even stays on her feet
We’re going to give you first prize
Ah, Both Ends Burning, Both Ends Burning
That’s how she got her name
Both Ends Burning, Both Ends Burning
I never will sleep again
Midnight Oil’s “Minutes to Midnight” contains a reference to the Australian race horse…”Phar Lap floating in a jar,” thought it doesn’t really mention horse racing… So, I’m just sayin’
Oh all, right. I didn’t want to play the obscure Aussie race horse card but cheguevarra has provoked me. (Did you know that Melbourne, my home city, gets a public holiday on the first Tuesday of November every year? It’s for the Melbourne Cup, an occasion so splendid that even Mark Twain remarked on it. But I digress.)
Randwick Bells by Paul Kelly and Messengers. The story of two junkies sprawled out, roused by the sound of “Randwick Bells a’ringing, must be Saturday, put a blanket on the window, come on back to bed”.
Randwick is in Sydney, and the home of the Royal Randwick.
Here’s a so-so version by Steve Kilbey of the Church, a man not unaccustomed to the odd lie-in himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFiwAQI6DWI
I feel comfortable claiming that I am the leading authority on Paul Kelly and the Messengers in the US. I base this claim on the fact that I own 6 of his albums, and I only know one other person who has one of them. As with British bands, I occasionally have no idea what he’s talking about because I don’t get the references, so thanks for contributing to my ongoing education.
I have four Paul Kelly albums: Gossip, So Much Water.., Under the Sun and Comedy. At least that’s more than one!
I knew my claim would smoke some people out…
Did you see them live? I don’t think they toured here very much but I saw them in Philly on the Under The Sun tour and that band was great, like an Aussie Heartbreakers, really good players with really good taste.
As a native Iowan, I have to stick up for “Ya Got Trouble”, from The Music Man:
I say, first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon,
Then beer from a bottle.
An’ the next thing ya know,
Your son is playin’ for money
In a pinch-back suit.
And list’nin to some big out-a-town Jasper
Hearin’ him tell about horse-race gamblin’.
Not a wholesome trottin’ race, no!
But a race where they set down right on the horse!
Like to see some stuck-up jockey boy
Sittin’ on Dan Patch? Make your blood boil?
Well, I should say.
Friends, lemme tell you what I mean.
cdm and cher, if either of you have a 1986-or-so Paul Kelly and the Messengers album with a blue cover (if memory serves) could you burn me a copy? I used to own one of his albums and liked it a lot, finding that it helped fill the void left by post-Rumour Graham Parker albums other than The Mona Lisa’s Sister (a winner!). Eventually, in my impoverished, pathetic days circa 1988, I think I sold the album, figuring Parker would eventually bounce back and start making the albums I’d expected of him. That did not happen, and I’ve regretted selling that Paul Kelly album ever since. I never see it around these days.
I have Gossip in the single LP U.S. form. Never got into that much, but haven’t listened to it in probably twenty years so I’ll give it another chance.
Maybe we were at the same show – were they opening for Crowded House?
“So Much Water…” has a blue cover, though my copy is on vinyl so I’d hold out for somebody with a copy on CD before offering to make a transfer.
Under The Sun is still my favorite, though I’m not sure I could say why.
It turns out Gossip is the album I used to own. I’ll see if I can buy a copy – I don’t want to cheat the man out of his money. Then I’ll see what else I can find. Thanks.
I wonder if I was thinking of Midnight Oil with a royal blue cover and a little line drawing in yellow or orange…?
I just checked, and I’ve got Wanted Man and Under the Sun. I think I used to have Gossip. I always liked the sound of his voice, but I haven’t listened to these albums in years.
Gossip and Under the Sun are my favorites. So Much Water is really good too. I think he would really benefit from a Best of compilation because his albums always have a few duds on them but the good stuff is really deece.
Some key tracks:
Gossip : Before the Old Man Died, Darling it Hurts, White Train and the Execution
Under the Sun: Dumb Things, the title track,To Her Door and Don’t Stand So Close To The Window
So Much Water: You Can’t Take It With You, Sweet Guy, Careless, Pigeon
Mod, let me know if you need a mix.
Meanwhile, back at the original question posed in the thread:
Dan Fogelberg, “Run for the Roses”.
I am the man standing last.
“Fugue for the Tinhorns” from Guys and Dolls. I had no idea my parents subjecting their children to musicals on long car rides would ever be useful.
DAMMIT!!!
That’s great about Paul Kelly. We’ve really scratched an itch there. Kelly remains in demand in Australia and is one of those diamond types.
If you can track down the early album called Post it’s worth the effort. It’s the first record that really announced what he is about.
Oh, I have Wanted Man also, I guess that puts me at 5 Paul Kelly albums, though it qualifies me for nothing. Honestly, I played that album abut two months ago and thought I didn’t really need to hear it again. Am I unfair?
My sister moved to Adelaide, Aus. and I mentioned Paul Kelly to her before the move – she had no idea. I presume she knows about him now.
I haven’t heard Wanted Man. Was that with the Messengers? They’re a big part of the appeal for me.
You should let your sister know that the Hoodoo Gurus are touring now to support their latest album. They were fantastic live the few times I saw them about 20 years ago.
Chiming in late here but I’ll claim the Paul Kelly crown with 9 albums. And I can add 4 more by the deep soul singer also named Paul Kelly.
Mr. Mod, I have Gossip on CD so… (btw, So Much Water So Close To Home did have a blue cover)
Nice work Al. I gladly cede the title. Prompted by this discussion, I’ve been listening to a lot of Paul Kelly lately and he is as good as I remember. Strong songs and a fantastic band.