THE FT TOP 100 SONGS: 100, Sultans Of Ping FC - “Where’s Me Jumper” (1992)
An OLD MAN and a WISE MAN are sitting on a bench.
WISE MAN: Tell me, Old Man, if you had one piece of advice to give young students, what would it be?
OLD MAN: I would tell them to be neither too proud or too ashamed of their music taste. The music you hear when you are young will expand to fill the space you provide for it, regardless of how good or bad it is. Perhaps you will be lucky, and you will find that the music you hear at 18 remains excellent. Perhaps you will be unlucky, and your bloom of youth will be wasted on awful novelty indie records that if you screw up your ears sound a tiny bit like a Wedding Present B-Side. But do not congratulate or blame yourself - it is not your choice.
WISE MAN: Hmmm.
OLD MAN: You disagree?
WISE MAN: I would say that the music you use to accompany good times becomes good through them. Don’t be so quick to discount or belittle pleasure. The time you spend alone, weighing and measuring music with the benefit of hindsight, is surely worth less than the time you spent belting its nonsensical lyrics out on walks back from the pub.
OLD MAN: Preposterous! Next you’ll be telling me not to be ashamed of remembering all those lyrics word for word.
WISE MAN: What lyrics?
OLD MAN: (takes deep breath) “My! Brother! Knows Karl Mark! Met him eating mushrooms in the People’s Park! He said what do you think about my manifesto? I like your manifesto, put it to the testo…”
(exit pursued by an angry dog)
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fivelongdays on September 10th, 2006
But isn’t that true of pretty much every “great” record ever? It’s all about context. Which you’ve summed up brilliantly, so I’ll shut up now.
FT's Drucius on July 20th, 2007
Wouldn’t a “Top 100 Song Of all Time, Ever, Ever” always be a “Top Song” rather than a bit of an embarrasment? At the time I thought it was a tedious novelty song with all the charm of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Please.
Dale Carlin on July 20th, 2007
Do you know, we all thought that was going to be a big hit, it was played to death everywhere…
(pause)
…but it only got to number 67! But they did have six more hits, only one of which made the Top 40.
(pause)
Good band, though.
FT's Alan on July 20th, 2007
a
tedioustremendous novelty song with all the charm of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Please. That is to say, IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF CHARMfixed
also, note, this is number 100 in the top 100.
Marcello Carlin on July 20th, 2007
Ta.
I expect he probably preferred “Goodnight Girl” at the time.
FT's Drucius on July 22nd, 2007
No, definitely tedious. I saw them once and they were bloody awful.
Marcello Carlin on July 23rd, 2007
Wet Wet Wet certainly were bloody awful.
FT's Drucius on July 23rd, 2007
I saw them once too, and they were worse.
lizzy on September 17th, 2007
grrr; woof ……
Mark G on July 3rd, 2008
When I first met Dawn, I thought “What do I do? Take her to see all my favourite bands? Or just carry on seeing the new bands that I would?”
Opted for the second, as it would be terrible going to see various bands in an attempt to say “This band is part of what makes me me”, and also it’s more about being open to new and interesting things not settling for the comfort of what you know.
So, we went to see the Sultans of Ping FC, after hearing “Where’s me jumper” on the radio and buying the single and deciding all three tracks were fine.
Their first song on the night was “Kick me with your leather boots”. I was alarmed briefly. Would she think I was ‘into’ S&M or something?
She smiled.
We never looked back.