Random Thinking

Here’s the song of the week from my iPod. Beth and I heard this group on the radio and it reminded me how much I like them. In fact, I have three of their songs on my iPod. It was hard to pick which one to make the song of the week.

Crowded House is a rock band formed in Australia by Neil Finn and Paul Hester when their group Split Enz broke up in 1984. The members of the group are from Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. The band has gone through various incarnations over the years but the current members are Neil Finn (vocals, guitar, piano), Nick Seymour (bass), Mark Hart (guitar), and Matt Sherrod (drums).

The group’s first album was released in 1986 and received worldwide praise and success. The album had five hit singles and went platinum in the US and Australia (6X platinum). They have never been able to recapture success in the US and their albums have failed to reach Gold status. However the group has continued to have huge success in the UK and Australia with all of their albums going Platinum “down under.”

After the group’s failure to make a dent in the US charts with their second album, the group was ready to try again with the album, “Woodface”. The first single from the album, “Chocolate Cake”, is a humorous look at American excesses (“The excess of fat on your American bones will cushion the impact as you sink like a stone”). But it sealed their fate in the US as it offended some people and failed to make the Billboard charts in the US. It was very successful in the UK and Australia however.

Chocolate Cake
Not everyone in New York
Would pay to see Andrew Lloyd Webber
May his trousers fall down
As he bows to the queen and the crown
I don’t know what tune that the orchestra played
But it went by me sickly and sentimental

Can I have another piece of chocolate cake?
Tammy Baker’s got a lot on her plate
Can I buy another cheap Picasso fake?
Andy Warhol must be laughing in his grave

The band of the night
Takes you to ethereal heights over dinner
You wander the streets
Never reaching the heights that you seek
And the sugar that dripped from the violin’s bow
Made the children go crazy, put a hole in the tooth of a hag

Can I have another piece of chocolate cake?
Tammy Baker must be losing her faith
Can I buy another cheap Picasso fake?
Andy Warhol must be laughing in his grave

And the dogs are on the road, we’re all tempting fate
Cars shooting by with no number plates
And here comes Mrs. Hairy Legs

I saw Elvis Presley walk out of a 7-Eleven (that’s right)
And a woman gave birth to a baby and then bowled 257
The excess of fat on your American bones
Will cushion the impact as you sink like a stone

Can I have another piece of chocolate cake?
Tammy Baker, Tammy Baker
Can I buy another cheap Picasso fake?
Cheap Picasso, cheap Picasso fake
Can I have another piece of chocolate cake?
Kathy Straker, boy could she lose some weight
Can I buy another slice of real estate?
Liberace must be laughing in his grave

Can I have another piece of chocolate cake?
Can I have another piece of chocolate cake?
Can I have another piece of chocolate cake?
Can I have another piece of chocolate cake?