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:
“O women, kneeling by your altar-rails long hence,
When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer,
And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air
And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;
Bend down and pray for all that sin I wove in song....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget.”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)