Random Treats Pt. 3

It was 1998 and I had just spent an excruciating year or so working in an office WITHOUT MUSIC. It was awful. If anyone spoke about the latest thing music-wise I was clueless; I felt like I was constantly pulling at other people's sleeves going "Whaaaaat?". And being in an office without music makes you aware of every IRRITATING office noise. Just attune yourself to the mouse clicks and you'll see exactly what I mean. Click, click, clickety, click, clickety. Like battery hens mad on Pro Plus.

That's why, when I found myself in an office with the radio on, it was like being pulled out from under a stone. These days I'm so blasé about having the radio on permanently, I can slag it off. Daily rants about Jo Whiley (Radio 1's mid-morning comatose DJ) is a jolly sport I'd highly recommend. And smelly old Edith Bowman with her rubbish features is a particular favourite. A friend of mine once emithered her during the show to ask, quite rightly, why on earth they were talking to an Elton John look-a-like... on the radio. Bowman replied, "Use your bloody imagination", to which my friend emailed back "Don't you swear at me, madam. I pay your wages!". How we laughed.

Then there's the dreaded 'playlist'. Radio 1, whilst to be commended for playing music other stations wouldn't touch with a shitty stick, still has a size zero playlist: skinny and slim pickings to be had! It always starts the eternal office argument about which station to have on when, inevitably, you've heard Keane/Coldplay/Black Eyed Peas/Natasha Bedingfield for the 57th time that day, only to switch over to, say, XFM and find that you'll hear The View/The Fray/Just Jack and Paolo "One for the laydeez" Nutini 57 times that day.

Anyhoo, all of which brings me to Random Treat pt. 3. A track on perma-repeat on every playlist when I came out from under said stone was this one, Legend of a Cowgirl by Imani Coppola (no relation). There's a bit of cheating going on with the huge cut and paste job on the original Donovan track (no I didn't know it either until the Magmers Cider ads last summer) but with lyrics like "Spend all my money on absolutely nothing, 'cos there ain't no thing like a chicken wing" and her genuine kookiness, I love it. Head over to her myspace where she's still banging out the tunes and there's a download available of a lovely ditty called Desert of a Jungle (which I'm sure is a cut 'n' paste of some classical thang). Enjoy.
Imani Coppola - Legend of a Cowgirl (mp3 download)