List Songs are a category all of their own: songs whose lyrics recite things – usually names – like, for example, My Favourite Things from The Sound Of Music. But not that.
Here’s one I remember and love: I’m not sure I can name another song by A House. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard one, though I shall be investigating their debut single for its title alone – Kick Me Again, Jesus.
They came from Dublin and consisted of Dave Couse (vocals), Fergal Bunbury (guitar), Martin Healy (bass), Dave Dawson (drums), David Morrissey (keyboards) and Susan Kavanagh (backing vocals).
Their debut album, On Our Big Fat Merry Go Round (on Blanco y Negro) flopped, as did their next, I Want Too Much. After a move to the Setanta label, Endless Art came out on their 1991 Bingo EP and went on to be included on their ambitiously titled third album I Am The Greatest.
It’s produced by Edwyn Collins and I must have heard it on the radio where its novelty value made an instant impact on me with its opening line: “All art is quite useless, according to Oscar Wilde.”
It’s essentially a list of artists’ dates – their births and deaths, spoken by ‘singer’ Dave Couse over a circular guitar figure – punctuated with the observation that “All dead, but still alive” over a melody borrowed from Beethoven’s Fifth.
Following complaints of sexism because all the artists are male, the band recorded another version – More Endless Art – listing female artists, and subsequently made a third version, Endless Art ’06, with a different arrangement and a new list of artists who had all died since the original recording.