One of my favorite Boomtown Rats songs incorporated into a “To Sir, With Love” parody from SCTV, circa 1982. It’s Disneyland under martial law. And remember, you’re guilty ’til proven guilty … isn’t that the law?
I always thought this Irish version of 1970s Bruce Springsteen was pretty cool. The Boomtown Rats would never earn points for originality, but they did produce a lot of great singles during the mid-late 1970s / early 1980s, many of which were very popular in the UK and Ireland. Their greatest hits album released in the early 2000s has been one of my most played albums for the past 10 years.
My favorite Boomtown Rats song and one of my favorite songs about paranoia of all time. This is a truncated version, but it still contains my favorite verse in full: “And I wish you’d stop whispering … don’t flatter yourself, nobody’s listening … but it makes me nervous, those things you say …” before exploding into a hateful and angry invective at a perceived (possibly imaginary) adversary.
One of my favorite songs from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” and one of the sequences from the movie that I continue to find the most powerful. First of all, I love the song’s 1950s doo-wop feel filtered through a 1970s Quaalude fog. However, the way this sequence was shot and edited by Parker is consistently amazing to watch. The transition from horrific war footage to the lead character’s trashed hotel room as the vocals change from David Gilmour to Roger Waters as the camera pans over to the pool is a sequence that always gives me goosebumps.
Break out the Bushmills! Geldof gives the Pogues a run for their money with this rollicking ode to apathy and nihilism. Despite the subject matter, I guarantee it will get your toes a-tappin’.
Dave's Strange World 