If it’s Christmas at You Ain’t No Picasso, that means it’s Mixmas! These twelve days give me a chance to turn You Ain’t No Picasso over to the musicians I cover and allow them to showcase some of their favorite songs through a themed mix.

MP3: The Boy Least Likely To – I Box Up All The Butterflies

In 2005 I considered The Boy Least Likely To’s Best Party Ever as serious competition for Sufjan’s Illinois for album of the year. Not quite sure I’d wager the same these days, but the fact is that I still love that album with parts of my heart that have never been reached by other pop musicians. So now that TBLLT are ready to release their sophomore record early next year, I’m incredibly excited.

Fun fact: Jof was one of the first musicians I interviewed for YANP, way back in 2005. Read the cute result here.

“Top Five Songs About Named Eateries” by Jof Owen of the Boy Least Likely To

I’m not sure if anyone’s ever noticed, but I seem to write about food quite a lot. Nine of the songs off The Best Party Ever include a mention of food and ten of the songs off the new album do, and I haven’t counted up how many times I’ve written about food on b sides and songs that have never been released. So I thought that perhaps I would do a list of songs about places where you can buy and eat food, which is something I haven’t written about that much. As far as I’m aware I’ve only ever written about a place where you can buy and eat food once, and that was in “Rock Upon A Porch With You” in the bit about the “cafe with an ocean view.” Here it is then, my Top Five songs about eateries. I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “eatery” before now.

Kenickie – “Lunch at Lassiters”
Lassiters is a fictional hotel complex in my favourite soap opera, Neighbours. I’m not too sure what the relevance of it is to the rest of the song, but it’s one of my favourite songs off the second Kenickie album, ‘Get In’, which also happens to be my all time favourite album ever. It’s such an amazing pop record, full of existential doubt and homesickness, If the first Kenickie album was all about being young and going to parties with your friends and drinking alcopops in the park then ‘Get In’ was like waking up in someone else’s bathroom with bruises in weird places and sick in your hair. It kind of reminds me of ‘This is Hardcore’ by Pulp in that way. They’re both quite sad records I think because the lyrics sound so drained of enthusiasm for everything that they were so hopeful about on the albums before. Still no idea why they’re having lunch in a fictional hotel restaurant though.

MP3: Saint Etienne – Mario’s Cafe
This is another song off one of my favourite albums, ‘So Tough’ by Saint Etienne. Mario’s Cafe isn’t fictional at all. We’ve even been there a few times because it used to be round the corner from our old manager’s offices. It’s in Kentish Town in North London. It’s quite small but it’s quite famous. I think it’s the song on my list that probably sums up the atmosphere of the eatery best. It used to do regular greasy spoon cafe food as well as an Italian menu and it probably still does. I haven’t been there for a while, but whenever we used to go there I’d always end up having this song in my head afterwards. I never saw Saint Etienne in there though.

YOUTUBE: Wesley Willis – “Rock n Roll McDonalds”
The first of two songs on my list about probably the biggest eatery in the whole world. It is so damning of McDonalds, when he sings “McDonalds will make you fat” and “McDonalds hamburgers are the worst”, but then sounds so celebratory at the same time. It is also quite factual, which is one of the things i like most about Wesley Willis’ songs. I like that he always begins by establishing the facts about whatever he’s writing about, and especially when he’s writing about a singer. He always begins by clarifying that they are “a rock star” before going on to tell them to what extent they are good at it. And it’s great that this song ends with the his familiar “Rock over London, Rock on Chicago” line before going on to suggest Wheaties as a healthy alternative.

MP3: Jad Fair & Daniel Johnston – McDonalds On The Brain
The second song on my list about McDonalds is this beautiful duet off the ‘It’s Spooky’ album about two co workers who are obsessed with the restaurant. I particularly like the bit where it describes how they “sat around on their fifteen minute break, showing the scars on their arms”, while boasting about how quickly they could prepare the food and how often they got injured in the process. A lot of my friends used to work in McDonalds when I was younger and they often behaved like that sometimes. They used to be quite weird about teamwork and they’d spend all their time together outside work. They’re not still weird about McDonalds though. They all went back to being normal once they stopped working there. I’ve always really wanted my own McDonalds name badge with no stars on it, but I guess i’m going to have to work there to get one.

MP3: The Specials – Pearl’s Cafe
When it came to my last choice it was between this song and ‘Vegetarian Restaurant’ by Aberfeldy, and I love both songs, but in the end i decided to go for this one because the Aberfeldy one seemed to be a bit vague about the specifics of the restaurant and I did want this to be a list of songs about named eateries. This song has one of the greatest and catchiest choruses in modern popular music. It’s also got Rhoda Dakar on vocals with Terry Hall, and I love the way they sing together on ‘More Specials’, especially on ‘I Can’t Stand It’. It doesn’t really describe the cafe in much detail though and I’m not sure if it’s a real place or not.

And that’s it. Thank you for setting me such a fun task. I began about ten different top fives over the last week, but I went for this one in the end. I hope it’s okay.

Lots of love and Happy Mixmas

Jof

You Ain’t No Picasso Mixmas 2008
Ivana XL | Henry Clay People | These United States | Cotton Jones | The Bicycles | Pas/Cal | Parenthetical Girls | BOAT