28 Jun 2024, 00:00

Readers recommend: songs about trash – results

Richman to Wonder, beachcombing at the coast to the city dump or ghetto, RR’s sonofwebcore finds some true treasures in a big clear up from last week’s topic

The trashball effect; one little wrapper dropped in the street caught Jonathan Richman’s eye in the gathering litter. Faded by the rain, dried by the sun, he was entranced by its transmogrified colouration. Corroded, cruddy little thing, full of dirt and grit, but colours like that you just can’t git. Must have been one of Owsley’s. In Chewing Gum Wrapper, Jojo wants to take it home, save it from the dump. Hope he did, because badness starts small.

A windy beach, a skittering dead leaf hitching the wind. Robert Wyatt discovers a plastic bag caught on a rail, bloated with breeze, raring to go. Should he set it free? He does, and it takes off to join a page of last week’s news. Otherwise the beach is completely deserted; the invisible flying sand brushing the beach clean. In The Sight Of The Wind, it is “a day for the rubbish to dance”.

The plastic bag may be the most common symbol of our consumerism, but but under your sink cupboard there are loads you’ll never use. The polish aerosol with the rusted cap, the little tin of Brasso, the lemon Flash, 1001 carpet cleaner that’s been there since you got married, the smell of pine and damp. Trash. The trash one of the Punch Brothers crawls into to escape his irate wife in a jaunty tune called Next to the Trash.

Some people embrace rubbish, simply because they have nothing else but each other, love, and nowhere else to be alone but an old bomb site pocked with the detritus of the city. In a Betjemanesque narrative, the Jam bring to life in Wasteland, the image of a couple shining like angels of the back streets; and just as beatific.

Anyone recall Mr Trebus? kd lang knows a chap who not only collects rubbish and brings it home as items gained, but sometimes he eats it, too. Of course, his partner is knocked sick, literally, leaving him having to attend to her bodily reactions. Hooked on Junk appears to deal with the serious psychological problem of hoarding somewhat flippantly, however, she uses her sense of humour to powerful effect, drawing our attention to the interior agony of the sufferer.

Myles na gCopaleen (aka Flann O’Brien) told us of the child of the ashes, the filth he lived in immunising him against all diseases except for poverty and the British. If only that were true. I tend to go along with the Cramps on this one. Don’t Eat Stuff Off the Sidewalk implores us to leave things where they are.

Two negative imperatives on the bounce! Don’t Go Near the Water say the Beach Boys. Ironic, or what? But they have a powerful and important point to make. Liquid detritus such as used toothpaste and shampoo ends up in the sea, and is then washed ashore on the next tide. The Pacific Trash Vortex is the largest manmade object in the world. It is comprised of plastic trash which, once caught in the Pacific currents, is taken north where a circular current holds it in place, it is being constantly added to, and is now the size of Texas.

A young Arlo Guthrie had a few things to say about trash in Alice’s Restaruant. Photograph: Dezo Hoffmann/Rex Features

Some people try to do the right thing… and fail. But at least Arlo Guthrie in Alice’s Restaurant gave it a shot. Alice lived in the bell-tower of an old church. The pews were gone, so she and her husband dropped all their rubbish into the old nave. Arlo thought it would be a good idea to shift half a tonne of the trash into his VW minibus and take it to the city dump, which was closed for Thanksgiving. Listen to see what happens next …

But there are solutions, at least on a personal level. And as there are 7bn persons out there, there could be 7bn efforts. Aware of this, I suspect, Jack Johnson wrote The 3 R’s. We should all heed his words: Reduce, reuse, recycle. A litany for our times, “funky for the kids”, and very cleverly written, too.

Our first strike of the day: the disposal operatives didn’t take The Stylistics’ rubbish away. Those hard-working chaps want more pay. Well who can blame them? They do a fine and essential job. Where would be without them? They need paying properly, dammit! They need respect. And more money, even if they are in the midst of a depression. But this is one band that is too polite to go out, demonstrate and fight The Man. Instead, they don their piped Vegas suits and sing People Make The World Go Round . . . to some effect.

But now for your big butch strike. Lou Rawls and Teddy Pendergrass lead the Philadelphia International All Stars into Clean Up the Ghetto. The band is comprised of a plethora of 70s soul superstars. They describe the garbage piled two, three storeys high; the rats, cockroaches and, ugh, waterbugs. Everybody do a bit and clean the place up. Good in theory, but you’d have to agree on where to create the new dump. Big fat funk, though.

The people of Douala, Cameroon, took the above advice to heart and set about cleaning up their town. Cite Propre put it all into one fantastic song, Gagner De L’Argent Par Les Deches, which roughly translates as “earn money through giving”.

Stevie Wonder. Village Ghetto Land. You can clean the streets of rubbish, but you can’t clean politicians. You can’t erase poverty of the mind, deprivation, babies born to babies, young mothers buying Pampers and baby food with their bodies in the back of a shop. I won’t go on. Stevie has the skill to describe the life, and the streets where these children are obliged to play, and the filth they have to live in. They have nothing but trash to play with. Nothing to look forward to. Nothing.