Songs
The Hit Parade's songs refer to specific locations in England, Japan and Mexico including "See You In Havana" (Zihuatanejo, Mexico), "Huebos Mexica" (Zona Rosa, Zocalo, Mexico City), "Road To Beaconsfield" (Beaconsfield, Bull Lane Tennis Club Gerrards Cross), "Wipe Away the Tears" (Acton, London), "So This Is London" (London, Regent's Street), "Born In St Ives" (St Ives, Cornwall), "The Queen Of Mousehole" (Mousehole, Cornwall), "Westbourne Terrace W2", "Autobiography" (Goodwin Sands, Kent), "Gunnersbury Park", West London, "So Said Kayo" (Nagoya TV Tower, Mr Donut, Tokyo Hands Dept Store). The Hit Parade song, "Grace Darling", tells her heroic story, and appeared on their fourth album, The Sound of The Hit Parade.
Several Hit Parade songs refer to populary literary figures and their work, including "The Road To Beaconsfield" (George Orwell, Enid Blyton), "As I Lay Dying" (William Faulkner), "House Of Sarah" Evelyn Waugh Brideshead Revisited), "Huebos Mexicana" (Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, Malcolm Lowry, Ken Kesey), "See You In Havana" (Hemingway) and others. The artwork to the band's singles feature literary locations including Eric Blair (George Orwell), Wordsworth (Grasmere, Cumbria), Derek Jarman (Dungeness), Colerige (Alfoxden Park), Ian Fleming & Noël Coward (St Margarets Bay). Several of the Hit Parade's songs reference other indie pop landmarks including "Harvey", "House Of Sarah", "Are You Scared To Be Happy?", "Boy Who Loves Brighter" and others. Julian Henry discusses this in The Guardian in June 2011.
The band's 10th single 'I Like Bubblegum' features a duet between Julian Henry and Cath Carroll.
Read more about this topic: The Hit Parade
Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“Blues are the songs of despair, but gospel songs are the songs of hope.”
—Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972)
“When we were at school we were taught to sing the songs of the Europeans. How many of us were taught the songs of the Wanyamwezi or of the Wahehe? Many of us have learnt to dance the rumba, or the cha cha, to rock and roll and to twist and even to dance the waltz and foxtrot. But how many of us can dance, or have even heard of the gombe sugu, the mangala, nyang’umumi, kiduo, or lele mama?”
—Julius K. Nyerere (b. 1922)
“Music is so much a part of their daily lives that if an Indian visits another reservation one of the first questions asked on his return is: “What new songs did you learn?””
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)