Thanks Herbs, and finally Iris is off the mark!

Oh wow thank you @Herbs for those 10 points, pushing me up to within striking distance of the top 10!!

Phew! Now I can finally talk about it after Matto has been fangirling my song all week!

It is one of my all time fave songs and is my fave Alanis song. I thought it was a risk sending it, as it's not as instant as some of her other songs. But those lyrics and that instrumentation never fail to give me the feels. And I am the acoustic king after all.

Also need to apologise to Matto - I literally had his entry as my 11th place :(

Thanks to all who showed Alanis love. Also - I had to rush send my votes, my commiserations were:

Stina

Ani DiFranco

Scott Walker

Jewel

Fish

Buffy Sainte Marie

Well done @Herbs , great song choice

Thanks for sending the Alanis Morrisette song @Herbs I've always been a fan of her but somehow never come across that one, I did enjoy it very much!

Oh my, a point!! We are on the way, thank you Herbs <3

NINETEEN

On 24/08/2026 at 18:12, Popchartfreak said:

Hi Thom, thanks for hosting this and choosing the category!

Plenty of faves on offer, and some new ones, but these are the best 10 for me, just Exuma and Scott Walker I dont know:

12 POINTS: Buffy Sainte-Marie - The Big Ones Get Away - (1992)

10 POINTS: Melanie - Lay Down (Candles in the Rain) - (1970)

08 POINTS: Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhattan - (1988)

07 POINTS: Dolly Parton - Coat of Many Colours - (1971)

06 POINTS: Iris DeMent - Let The Mystery Be - (1992)

05 POINTS: Laura Nyro - Captain For Dark Mornings - (1969)

04 POINTS: Exuma - Dambala - (1970)

03 POINTS: Scott Walker - Such a Small Love - (1967)

02 POINTS: PJ Harvey - 50 Ft Queenie - (1993)

01 POINT: Gabrielle - Forget About the World - (1996)

The Comic Strip Presents enlisted Kate to write the very tongue-in-cheek Ken for their episode based around an imaginary Hollywood-isation of the Ken Livingstone story getting elected in GLC: The Carnage Continues. The 1990 mickey-take imagined the late great Robbie Coltrane as Charles Brosnan playing Ken, Dawn French as Cher playing Joan Ruddock, Jennifer Saunders as Brigitte Nielson as The Ice Maiden/Thatcher, the late great Rik Mayall as the previous Mayor Of London, Ade Edmundson as Prince Charles starring as a Tory and much more. Kate showed she had great taste in knocking off a total romp of a song exclusively for the show - though it did turn up on an extended maxi-CD single in the USA, which is where I bought it. The key to making something funny is to go OTT with earnest commitment, and Kate obliged beautifully as an outlier during a period when she was more Sensual World as an artist.

When she later granted permission for Stranger Things to feature Running Up That Hill, that became a justified sensation. Kate, as ever, great taste by not making a habit of these sort of things!

cheers!

You wait a long time and then two people vote for Iris! She'll be top 10 before we know it... but in order to do that she'll need to get past most of the songs that are in PCF's votes as they are heavily quite concentrated towards tracks in the top part, our top 3 are all seemingly heading towards the 100 point mark. Buffy Saint-Marie bags a second 12 pointer so is in the slightly odd position of having two people give her nearly all the points.

Rollo up next!

Thanks for the points, John!

I kept my fingers crossed after you said Laura was your back-up artist

Was about to say I'll graciously accept 4th (over the moon with that), but there are 2 voters coming up who could bring closer to the top 3 again! Loooving that top 3 though

To go off from @dhwe's voting PM, Sibylle Baier's story (which I'd read about before) reminds me a bit of Linda Perhacs (who I entered to BJSC last year) - she worked as a dental hygienist and wrote some folksy tunes in the 60s/70s as a hobby on the side. One of her dental patients found out during small talk that she wrote songs, and he offered to get them recorded, which they did.

The album Parallelograms (a really beautiful and slightly psychedelic album!) was released in 1970 but Linda hated the way the vinyl was made to sound like, she threw the vinyl in the trash. The album also went completely under the radar back then and in simple terms was unsuccessful.

Then in the 2000s a guy tracked Linda down by post, asking if he could re-release the album, which they did, and that's when it started getting noticed and appreciated. 🥲 She then released her second album in 2014 and her third in 2017. That's a gap of 44 years between albums one and two!

Thanks John for a bronze!

Well I might just be keeping my podium run going in this contest after all, although a lot can happen quickly...

TWENTY

(Hmmmmm I wonder where his 12 points could go?)

On 27/08/2026 at 15:11, King Rollo said:

Thanks to Dandy for hosting this edition. My own entry by Elvis Costello was released as a single in 1986 but only got to number 79 in the UK. It's about an obsession with a former partner who has moved on with someone else and wanting to get back with her. The lyrics are quite dark and menacing and delivered in just the right way by Elvis with minimal instrumentation from the guitar and organ and some light drumming.

I think most of you would have guessed that I entered the Fish song. It's certainly one of my favourites by him but I don't really think of him as a singer/songwriter as he only writes lyrics and always needs help with the music. Some of the other entries in the contest also had co-writers so he wasn't the only one. He gets my 12 points and the songs by Scott Walker and Laura Nyro were great discoveries. This is my vote:

12pts Fish - A Gentleman's Excuse Me

10 Scott Walker - Such a Small Love

8 Laura Nyro - Captain For Dark Mornings

7 Exuma - Dambala

6 Buffy Saine-Marie - The Big Ones Get Away

5 Melanie - Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)

4 Jewel - Foolish Games

3 Dolly Parton - Coat Of Many Colours

2 Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhattan

1 Alanis Morissette - That I Would Be Good

Yep Rollo's maximum goes to Fish and lifts WoW73 over the 20 point barrier. Rollo's votes help form the entirety of the current top 7 with Scott Walker, Exuma and Laura Nyro all leaping up to new highs!

AH Gold will be calling next...

I'm delighted to read that my entry was a good discovery for you, Rollo! Thank you for the bronze / vaulting me into the top 10

I love how intense your Elvis Costello pick was.

The way I am refreshing this page over and over to see the results lol, I've never been so invested! 😂

Thanks Rollo for some points. I'd heard that Elvis song before but it was a great opportunity to revisit it, a very intense lyric and performance.

TWENTY ONE

On 29/08/2026 at 16:55, AH Gold said:

12 Fish - A Gentleman's Excuse Me

10 Jewel - Foolish Games

8 Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhattan

7 Gabrielle - Forget About the World

6 Aimee Mann - Stupid Thing

5 Stina Nordenstam - Little Star

4 Melanie - Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)

3 Rufus Wainwright - April Fools

2 Dolly Parton - Coat of Many Colours

1 Noriyuki Makihara - Mo Koinante Shinai

Something fishy is definitely going on as A Gentleman's Excuse Me takes back to back maximums! (terrible pun, I apologise). Highest points in a while for Gabrielle and she moves back up the top 10 and more solid points for Aimee Mann lifts her into the top 10! Jewel also continuing to stealth points.

I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want... votes from Spiceboy!

(ALTHOUGH I don't want them that much now I know Melanie was your least favourite grrr ha!)

3 minutes ago, Spiceboy said:

The way I am refreshing this page over and over to see the results lol, I've never been so invested! 😂

Hope your investment falls at the final hurdle

Thanks to all those who have given points to Elvis Costello so far, especially Jim for the 12. I'm stuck in mid-table now so it could be worse and could be better.

Damn, these current votes are leaving me drier than the recent heat waves we've been having....

2 minutes ago, dandy* said:

I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want... votes from Spiceboy!

(ALTHOUGH I don't want them that much now I know Melanie was your least favourite grrr ha!)

I'm giving you everything! 😘

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by Spiceboy