Day 65: Ceylon City
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 LOUSY TUNES

One Night In Bangkok is all I could take. Ping Pong balls shooting out of the windows of every cheap knocking shop, and all the other stereotypes which suggests the only experience I really had of Thailand was cheap Channel Five documentaries. But I like cheap Channel Five documentaries, they are much better than the I Heart 1976 and all of its cunting music. YES I KNOW GLAM WAS SILLY, THAT IS WHY IT HAD TO DIE.

But I had painted myself into a bit of a corner. I missed Crispian, not so much for his whining about remakes of classic sixties horror films, but more because he had the Atlas. I kind of knew the shape of the world, and where bits were, but suddenly it was clear that I had been traveling south, rather than the requisite east. The only way around it would be yet another trip by plane, and the cheapest I could muster was a twin prop jobbie to Sri Lanka.

CEYLON CITY – Cat Stevens

Imagine how bad Ceylon City by Cat Stevens is. Start off with all the other Cat Stevens songs in you head and then multiply them together. Then consider the following evidence:

Exhibit A: The following lyrics:
My daddy will be waiting there
My sister will be combing down her silver hair
My mamma will be waiting there
Serving lunch to my brother, but he’s nowhere

Exhibit B: Cat Stevens changed his name to Yusef Islam shortly after its release in a bid to disassociate himself from the song. Considering he made the jump from one persecuted minority (singing songwriting hippie) to an even more reviled one (born again Muslim’s) shows how poor it could be.

Exhibit C: Not only did Ceylon change its name to Sri Lanka to remove any association with this song, but Ceylon City also changed its name to Columbo. It also changed its job from being a capital city to a shaby, one-eyed homicide detective.

That is how bad this song is.