Blog: STAT ATAK: What?

Happy New Year one and all - all does INDEED seem to be very quiet around here today, WELL DONE BONO, although I have to say things were very different overnight. I was woken from my slumber - it must have been around MIDNIGHT or something - by EXPLOSIONS and SHOUTING. I've checked on the news pages, but nothing seems to have been noted. What on EARTH could have been going on?

Anyway, today we're looking at WHAT was played during all these gigs, so here's the TOP THIRTY songs I played this year:

Position	Song	Gigs (%)
1	The Lesson Of The Smiths	55 (76.39)
2	Easily Impressed	45 (62.5)
3	It Only Works Because You're Here	44 (61.11)
3	Do The Indie Kid	44 (61.11)
5	The Peterborough All-Saints' Wide Game Team (Group B)	43 (59.72)
6	Boom Shake The Room	33 (45.83)
7	I Did A Gig In New York	30 (41.67)
8	Hey Hey 16K	26 (36.11)
9	The Gay Train	24 (33.33)
9	Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid	24 (33.33)
11	Billy Jones Is Dead	20 (27.78)
12	Sod It, Let's Get Pissed	19 (26.39)
13	Professional, Competetent, Rocking And Tight	14 (19.44)
14	(theme from) My Exciting Life in ROCK	13 (18.06)
15	Mental Judo	8 (11.11)
15	My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once	8 (11.11)
15	We're Old And We're Tired (and we want to go home)	8 (11.11)
18	Payday Is The Best Day	5 (6.94)
18	I Come From The Fens	5 (6.94)
18	Red & White Sockets	5 (6.94)
21	(theme from) Dinosaur Planet	4 (5.56)
21	Back For Good		4 (5.56)
21	The Advent Calendar Of FACT	4 (5.56)
24	Work's All Right (when it's a proper job)	3 (4.17)
24	If You're Too Turned On	3 (4.17)
24	Better Things To Do	3 (4.17)
24	The Fight For History	3 (4.17)
24	Fucking Hippy	3 (4.17)
24	The Stores Of Not To Be	3 (4.17)
24	Looking At My Hands	3 (4.17)

No MASSIVE surprises at the top of the chart - it's THE USUAL from gigs, rather heavily WEIGHTED towards the songs that appeared in My Exciting Life in ROCK. That said, I AM slightly surprised to find that even The Lesson Of The Smiths was only played at three quarters of gigs, and that the next few only managed to be in around 60% of them. It FELT like I was playing pretty much the same set wherever I went this year, but maybe I mixed it up a little bit more than I thought?

Also of note is that FIVE of the Top 30 are songs from the new album, which BODES well, and that there's oddments like (theme from) Dinosaur Planet LURKING near the bottom. And who know I played "Back For Good" FOUR times this year? NOT ME.

But how has this CHANGED over the years? Let's see the ALL TIME (well, since 2005 When Records Began) TOP 41!

Position	Song	Gigs (%)
1	The Lesson Of The Smiths	188 (82.1)
2	Easily Impressed	166 (72.49)
3	The Peterborough All-Saints' Wide Game Team (Group B)	136 (59.39)
4	Hey Hey 16K	108 (47.16)
5	Boom Shake The Room	105 (45.85)
6	The Gay Train	104 (45.41)
7	It Only Works Because You're Here	87 (37.99)
8	Billy Jones Is Dead	84 (36.68)
9	Do The Indie Kid	79 (34.5)
10	The Fight For History	50 (21.83)
11	Clubbing In The Week	48 (20.96)
11	I Did A Gig In New York	48 (20.96)
12	Better Things To Do	42 (18.34)
13	My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once	40 (17.47)
14	Never Going Back To Aldi's	38 (16.59)
15	Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid	37 (16.16)
16	Red & White Sockets	36 (15.72)
17	Fucking Hippy	34 (14.85)
18	Leave My Brother Alone	31 (13.54)
19	Sod It, Let's Get Pissed	30 (13.1)
20	Things'll Be Different (when I'm in charge)	29 (12.66)
21	Quality Of Life Enhancement Device	25 (10.92)
22	The Perfect Love Song	23 (10.04)
23	Mental Judo	20 (8.73)
24	We Only Ever Meet In Church	19 (8.3)
25	Payday Is The Best Day	18 (7.86)
26	I Come From The Fens	17 (7.42)
27	Professional, Competetent, Rocking And Tight	14 (6.11)
28	(theme from) My Exciting Life in ROCK	13 (5.68)
29	The Advent Calendar Of FACT	12 (5.24)
29	Breaks In The Journey	12 (5.24)
30	Work's All Right (when it's a proper job)	11 (4.8)
31	Tell Me Something You DO Like	11 (4.8)
32	Dino At The Sands	10 (4.37)
33	We're Old And We're Tired (and we want to go home)	9 (3.93)
33	Born With The Century	9 (3.93)
33	The Symbol Of Our Nation	9 (3.93)
33	Chips And Cheese, Pint Of Wine	9 (3.93)
34	Good Luck In Your New Job	8 (3.49)
34	Leaning On A Lamppost	8 (3.49)
39	The Saturday Lunchtime Wrestlers	7 (3.06)
39	Looking At My Hands	7 (3.06)
39	Ctrl-Alt-Delete	7 (3.06)

It certainly LOOKS like I've been mixing the songs around a LITTLE bit more, and you can also see the difference My Exciting Life In ROCK has made to the RANKINGS, especially pushing up some of the newer songs. But OH! Look at some of the old favourites that have pretty much DISAPPEARED from the setlists of today, like Never Going Back To Aldi's or Things'll Be Different (when I'm in charge). I used to play those ALL the time but now, hardly EVER.

And talking of songs hardly EVER played, JUST FOR FUN, let's have a look at the songs I've only played ONCE. There's a LOT of them, so first of all here's the songs what I wrote that have made a SINGLE appearance in the past four years:

Dinky Doo
Dinosaur Planet
Everything's Turning Out All Right (everything)
Good Cooking
Hell On Earth
Hey Hey 64k
Honey Honey You Work Too Hard
It Isn't Jetpacks
Never Been Superstitious
Nobody Believed It
Praise The Traffic Warden
Save A Meadow
The Ballad Of Alan Moore
The Mystery Train
The Story Of My Life
We Can Start Having Fun
We'll See What We Can Do
Where Do All The Women Go To?

There's some PROPER old favourites in that list - Good Cooking, Praise The Traffic Warden, We'll See What We Can Do and Where Do All The Women Go To? used to be STAPLES of the live set at the the turn of the century, and now they're reduced to mere CAMEOS. I must dig some of them out of the BRANE again! Some of the REST of the songs, especially those from off of A Million Ukeleles have never really had their CHANCE in The Live Arena, whilst some of them... Well, some of them are unlikely to be heard in the open ever again.

And with that in mind, here's a list of the COVER VERSIONS which I inflicted ONCE and ONCE ONLY upon a delighted/surpised/APPALLED (delete as applicable) Universe:

All Of Me
Ask
Brickbat
Country House
Do They Know It's Christmas?
Don't Dilly Dally On The Way
Dress Sexy At My Funeral
Friday 13
In The Rain
I've Just Seen A Face
Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
St Swithin's Day
The Last Of The Gang To Die
Theme From Sparta FC
To The End
Walking In A Winter Wonderland
Who's Sorry Now?
Wondeful Christmas Time
World Without Love

And that's the FACT for today - I'm away for the weekend from tomorrow morning, so our next STAT FACTS will be, hopefully, on Monday. I'll be back at WORK then - whoo - so in keeping with the theme of EARNING we'll have a look at how the SALES went this year. Early indicators show that they were SOMEWHAT in line with The Economic Downturn!

posted 1/1/2009 by MJ Hibbett

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