Post one of your favorite ballads.

I'm not proud of myself for this. It doesn't say good things about my character that I take nearly as much pleasure in the failures of the Arsenal, as I do in the success of Chelsea, but there you are.

Also, David Seaman seems like a good chap. I should be ashamed of myself.

This hardly qualifies as a 'track', but I know it as 'The Ballad of David Seaman', and it is a good song.

The scene is set at the end of the European Cup Winners Cup final in Paris in 1995.

It was in the 98th minute and the game was nearly gone And Seaman stood upon the turf and urged the Gunners on The crowd expecting penalties were whistling for time But one cruel Zaragozan saw the keeper off his line Oh, and up stepped Seaman's nemesis and his name it was Nayim He kicked a mighty lofted ball so high above the scene And Seaman scrambled backwards to face a final card To be beaten by a cannonball from over 50 yards

Marvellous stuff! 😀

The poets website is https://www.murraylachlanyoung.co.uk/

Post one of your favorite sad songs.

This is an anti-war song. It's sad and angry, and relentless.

A song that you like in multiple versions

I believe kids sing this in school in Ireland. I don't know what the words are about...I did look it up once but instantly forgot.

I've heard a bunch of versions of this song. The Dubliners did it. The Fureys do a version with re written words. Sinead O'Connor had a great reggae version. I previously posted Pauline Scanlon's recent-ish brilliant rock-y version .

This is an accompanied vocal version....I'm not sure if you'd call it 'sean-nós' or not.

Which lyric always gives you goosebumps?

"And somewhere in the darkness The gambler, he broke even"

A song by a band that you haven't yet posted anything by

I looked at last.fm to see which is my most played act of last year that I haven't posted anything by.

I hesitate to post anything connected to FIFA....but there are at least a couple of great world cup tunes (and, clearly, I'm fully expecting England to win it in the summer)

A song that represents where you live

"our accents and our colours change From the city to the farmland From the moorland to the mountain, From the river to the sea.

And the echo from the green hills Runs through the city streets The rain that falls on England Well it washes care from me."

A song by someone you've met, or would like to meet

Cornershop were friends of friends. We had a beer with some of them when they were supporting Boy George at the Hammersmith Odeon.

This was maybe a couple of years before Brimful of Asha, and they were still quite punky. They had gone down like a lead balloon with Boy George's audience.

A song that's largely acoustic

Many of the tracks I've posted already have been acoustic, so I thought I'd pick some brass band music, just to vary it a bit

So.... what song?

I was messaging an old mate yesterday and he's moving to a place in the far south west of England, called Helston

In Helston there's a tradition of a dance that goes through the streets and in and out of people's houses. He was looking at one house and found out that it was one of those that the dancers could go through. He was fine with that...but wasn't so sure his dog would be.

This is the song about the dance.

There's more about it here - The Floral Dance - Wikipedia

A song by a band whose merchandise you've bought - what was the merchandise

This song came out in 2005. I think sometime after that various enterprising entrepreneurs made the Joy Division Oven Glove a reality.

I bought some last month as a birthday present for an aging indie kid who is very keen on cooking.

(Joy Division were a great Manchester indie band. They became New Order after the death of their singer.

The picture is a doodle from my diary. The real thing is a lot more Joy Division-y)

What song would you play to counterbalance the world when it feels like a broken and unrelenting monolith designed to bring terror and tragedy?

Bernard Cribbens was always a reassuring presence, and this always makes me smile.

It was produced by George Martin, not long before he first heard The Beatles