This month’s playlist is all songs about countries. Broadly speaking.
As per usual, you can follow the playlist on Spotify.
- Athlete – “El Salvador”. This is Athlete’s second single from their Mercury Music prize nominated first album, Vehicles and Animals. Admittedly, the lyrics are “Fly to El Salvador, I don’t know why and I don’t know what for”.
- Sash! – “Ecuador”. This is the third time a Sash! song has appeared in a Playlist of the Month. This may have something to do with me running an unofficial Sash! web site on Geocities back at the turn of the millennium. There’s an old Jon Richardson joke about the Ecuadorian Embassy in London having sash windows.
- Rammstein – “Amerika”. Rammstein famously sing primarily in German, but this incorporates some Denglisch. It’s also not particularly complementary about the USA.
- Madonna – “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”. Madonna sung this version when she starred in the film adaptation of the musical Evita in 1996, and as such it’s more well-known than the 1976 original by Julie Covington.
- Kim Wilde – “Cambodia”. I actually know the song better as the 2001 cover by Pulsedriver, but Kim Wilde released the original as her fourth single in 1981.
- David Bowie – “China Girl”. Not one of Bowie’s better known singles, but it’s typical Bowie with a smooth guitar solo.
- Men at Work – “Down Under”. Whilst this doesn’t specifically mention Australia in its title, it’s all about an Australian travelling across Europe and Asia.
- Alestorm – “Mexico”. Alestorm is another band that has appeared before in these playlists (unsurprisingly in the Alcohol playlist). This is from one of their later albums and isn’t among their best songs, in my opinion, but it fits the theme.
- Bangles – “Walk Like An Egyptian”. This is also a song that I know more from a cover version – specifically, a novelty 1998 Christmas single featuring Yo-Hans, a professional yo-yo champion, called Walk (The Dog) Like An Egyptian. There’s a YouTube video.
- Monty Python – “Finland”. Every time someone talks about Finland in the presence of me or Christine, the chorus of this song normally gets sung.
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