I think I defected from Radio 1 to 2 around the same time as Mark and Lard did. However, I was gratified last week when Mark Radcliffe was sitting in for Steve Wright on the afternoon show. He had a feature called ‘CD CV’ where a listener sends in songs that chart their lives from the first single they bought to the song that reminds them of their mates.It’s better than Steve Wright’s oldies, which I do enjoy, but like the little girl with the curl, they can be very, very good - or they're horrid. The other day, someone chose Melanie’s version of Ruby Tuesday, a song I love – when it’s sung by Mick Jagger. I’d forgotten how bad the Melanie version was. It was so bad, I had to turn the radio off.
Bad music offends me. At the moment, I’m turning off the radio when that awful Jamelia effort that mashes up The Strangler’s Golden Brown comes on. I’m not overly keen on what I consider classic songs being mixed into modern rubbish, but my biggest bugbear is the bad cover version of a song I love.
Some blokes are currently crucifying The Smiths’ Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One before. I was also upset by the BBC’s mass-voiced effort of Lou Reed’s Perfect Day (the switch off point on that one was Heather-I’m-singing-through-my-nose Small). Similarly, there was no need for Sheryl Crowe to cover The First Cut Is the Deepest (I love the PP Arnold version). Anyone who messes around with The Doors’ Riders on the Storm also earns my ire.
Occasionally someone will cover a song I love and actually do it well: Siouxsie and the Banshees’ version of Dear Prudence, Japan doing All Tomorrow's Parties, The Scissor Sisters and Comfortably Numb, and staying with the Pink Floyd theme, David Bowie’s Arnold Layne. Bowie is such a hero he can even get away with a whole album of it.
And I must confess, that along with The Beatles’ A Day in the Life, I want Sid Vicious’ cover version of My Way played at my funeral …
