Danger falling stars

In my favourite (and consequently top secret) charity shop for these things I acquired Echo & the Bunnymen's Crocodiles the other day (nice copy, original inner bag and all that). I was a bit too young (or uncool maybe) for Echo & the Bunnymen in their original incarnation, I only remember Bring On the Dancing Horses from the time, and I thought that was rubbish.

However when I got my first little record player I thought I ought to get a record to test it out and so popped round to a record shop just around the corner (the short lived Play It Again Sam, it's all about location, location, location). For some reason I picked out a 12" of Seven Seas. It's a good single but I was soon infatuated with the b-sides, acoustic versions of Stars Are Stars and Villiers Terrace (and the Killing Moon but that's not from Crocodiles).

Far better than the album versions, lots of interesting instrument choices: a harpsichord, double bass, a sitar or some other churning, ringing thing. And all somehow very autumnal (probably suggested by nothing more than the lyric about the stars shining so cold).

Echo & The Bunnymen Stars Are Stars

There was an horse in the early Seventies

I don't go in for compilation albums much but I'm very fond of the first Greensleeves Sampler, for the very straight forward reason that it's got loads of great tracks on it (Ganga Smuggling, Dematerialize and Zungguzunngguzungguzeng for three).

Despite how wonderful they all are it's only the work of Eek A Mouse that I've investigated further, ages ago buying Wa Do Dem and then last week picking up Mouseketeer (I really liked the cover). It's never been a question of vital importance to me but over the years I'd probably pondered his funny name, but no more.

Eek A Mouse How I Got My Name

In the dark night that is very long

For a quid I'd have bought this for the cover anyway, so imagine my delight when I saw there was a reading in anglo-saxon on there. Read along (from line 304) here.

Unknown Bard The Battle of Maldon