Josh Ritter>Thin Blue Flame

I've only just discovered Josh Ritter and I'm very glad to have found him. Not least because you can legally download a few of his tracks on his website - and I don't mean just the ones not worth listening to. I became interested in his music after reading an article describing him as a 'new Bob Dylan' - probably not a title Ritter would choose for himself and even though I can see why parallels are drawn (American, folk, guitar, poetic lyrics), whilst Ritter is good he's not that good.

However, his cracking song, 'Thin Blue Flame' (The Animal Years, 2006 and legally downloaded here) would grace any Dylan album. The lyrics are great - written as if a vision or dream. The protaganist takes a look at heaven and concepts of judgement found in religion. He concludes that the kind of heaven he's interested in, isn't the traditional one in the sky but the one on earth - the people, the land and the world around him. Ahhhh - and of course this is the very discovery Christians are suddenly awakening to. Tom Wright is busy educating evangelicals in the idea of a heavenly and earthly union - the breaking in of God's reign. Josh Ritter seems to have got there somehow, too.

'I wondered what it was I¹d been looking for up above
Heaven is so big there ain¹t no need to look up
So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air
Only a full house gonna have a prayer'

The Pogues>Summer in Siam

The Pogues have written some fantastic songs, not least 'Summer in Siam' from the album Hell's Ditch (1990). How they managed quite such an impressive output with the chaotic Shane MacGowan at the helm is to their credit. Like many creative individuals, staying on the straight and narrow is rarely a prerequisite for producing quality art. You have to question, though, how can someone who looks... well, so rough... produce such a great version of 'And the Band Played Waltzin' Matilda'?

The irony of a now religiously-convinced teetotaller discovering this beautiful song on the occasion of his first legal pint of lager, wouldn't be lost on MacGowan who was brought up a strict Catholic before adopting a hedonist lifestyle. I must confess I was already a Pogues fan, so I didn't go through any conversion process that night in the Munro pub in Villars, Switzerland on my 17 birthday (drinking limits are earlier in Europe). What stood out, however, was the way the whole pub went quiet when 'Summer in Siam' came on the juke box (how on earth it got on the playlist I'll never know). Admittedly it was complete 'euro-drivel' that normally blared out from the speakers, but there's just something about that song that transports you into a heavenly world.

Ask MacGowan and this is all he can come up with about it: ' I write simple songs that people can sing along to. Like, there's no point explaining what 'Summer In Siam' is about...' Shane rolls his eyes skywards in exasperation, '... because the bloody thing's about what it says it's about.' Hmmmm! Not that helpful - but who cares what it is really about, it's a fantastic song and when I hear it 'Then all I really know Is that I truly am.'

PS If you can work out the lyrics from the song then you're more attuned to the singing of a drunken man that I am. Easier just to check here...