We’re watching the Italian X Factor in the Pink Hotel. A trio of girls has just performed a weird version of ‘Sail Away’ by Enya. It’s word perfect, although there are only two words.

Yesterday evening I had a night off — a concert was cancelled, and I’ve finally had time to face up to all the things I have been putting off for the past seven weeks or so — including telling you how it’s all been going.

The Italian X Factor host has a smooth white suit and a bad moustache – thin like RUC man at roadblocks used to have.  He’s introducing a group where the bass player is dressing as a  ‘comedy’ Native American. It’s really bad, and just as I say so, it turns out the singer is ‘molto famoso’ and not just a contestant.

In fact, in turns out that the contestants on the Italian X Factor are better than the special guests. The first special guest appeared out of a beautiful mist, a thousand candles lighting up her exquisite profile. Then sang a very dodgy version of ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’.

The most well-known singer in Italy, Vasco Rossi, has just put out a version of ‘Creep’ by Radiohead which is dividing the populace down lines of taste. You either love him, as 99% of the populace do, or you can’t believe why this dreadful cover, featuring a ‘sex-tourist’ vocal performance, is being played on the radio at all.

VR, one of the Big Four Italians, has ‘translated’ the words, and turned the song into the croaky lament of a dirty old man declaring his love for an unattainable woman. I haven’t seen the video yet, but since it’s VR, it’s a dead cert that she’s gorgeous, forty years his junior, and and becomes a lot more attainable around the time of the penultimate chorus.

When I heard last night’s concert was cancelled I knew immediately what to do — call the Pink Hotel. Antonio was at the end of the line in seconds, I could picture him staring at the computer screen, just as I’d left him a couple of weeks ago. Just as I’d left him this time last year. Hypnotised by the Microsoft Word calendar, with its blocks of colour, moving the mouse up and down the screen with no apparent effect.

Last night I drove a hundred kilometers in the rain to find a whole different scene in the lobby to the one I am used to. I’ve never been in the Pink Hotel in the evening — I am always playing a show and get in too early. I have never seen another guest here — I get in after everyone’s in bed, and get up so late that they’ve all left. 

Then, just as I suspected that no one else ever stays at the Pink Hotel, I am thrown into the midst of an early evening party. Football is always on the TV in Italy, but when Inter or AC Milan are playing, the stakes are racked up and people gather in bars and dining rooms murmuring and gesturing at the screen. Before last night, I’d never seen as many people in the whole town, never mind the Pink Hotel itself.

This morning, the next X Factor contestant is a boy band refugee. He’s whistling a merry tune, wearing a red designer hoodie. Giuseppe tells me the lyrics mean, “Today eets raining, but outside for me, eets the sun,” and that seems about right. In this country of Dante and Boccaccio, where Giuseppe keeps up a running commentary on just about everything in super-fast Italian, I’m happy that this is all I have to cope with. To my ear, it sounds like the last line of the song is, “It really is fantastic to be stuck outside this lift,” although I could be wrong.

Giuseppe stopped talking for a few minutes to play my guitar this morning. He’s great at playing the intro of seventies classics — this morning, a Boston song and (without irony) the start of ‘Stairway to Heaven’. He only has time to play the intro, since he has to get back to talking after thirty seconds of silence — right now he’s practising saying ‘Thees ees sheet!’, as the panel gives their verdict on Red Designer Hoodie.

I watched the X Factor in England, one late night in the poshest hotel of the tour. We’d just played a wonderful show in the Liverpool Philharmonic, and were staying fifty yards away from the stage, in palatial circumstances. Lying on an ultra-comfotable enormous bed, the walk-in shower/bathroom peeking out of an open door down the corridor, I ran my finger across the remote control and a cinema-sized flat screen TV sprang into life. It flicked automatically to ITV, the goddesses on reception having programmed it to find a show closest to my interests, which they had listed as ‘music’ and ‘fashion’ (!)

Watching the X Factor that night, I reached some kind of moment of what I thought  at the time was pure insight. Either that or the smooth glass of whiskey the guy at the bar had poured me. For a couple of pounds the night porter not only filled my glass, but let me into the news that he had served in the (notorious) paratroop regiment in Belfast during the Troubles.

Not only that, but he told me in detail about the affair he had with the (married) daughter of the boss of the most well-known bus company in the city. That he took so much cocaine with her that he had to ‘get rid of her’. I am not making this up. I asked him if she had a special number she could call and a bus would appear to take them home. ‘If only, lar,’ he sighed, ‘the only buses came for her were full of f*ing droogs.’

I made it out of the paratrooper’s range to my room, and that’s when I flicked on the TV. The moment of insight I attained that night? I though maybe a talent show like this is where everyone’s dream of being Elvis reaches its apotheosis. Sure, music isn’t a competition, but isn’t this a place where everyone can be the truck driver walking into Sun Studios? Except that ten million people are watching your audition.

The only problem is that if we’ve returned to the fifties, it’s going to take another ten years until the singers start writing their own songs. Maybe it was just being in Liverpool that night, but what seemed clear in that early morning hotel room doesn’t seem such a good idea right now, watching a guy with a NYPD police helmet judgng the ‘Sail Away’ girl trio’s performance.

The house band strikes up the Zep’s monster ‘Kashmir’ riff, and the trio disappear in a flash of light. Giuliano is the next contestant. He’s got the hoarse voice and designer stubble of a guaranteed Italian superstar. But, on the other hand, maybe Marco will be even better. I’m hooked. Giuseppe tells me Marco’s intonation is perfect — and that he is gay. ‘Securo,’ he tells me, with a serious face. But then last night he said the same thing about George Clooney. 

George Clooney? Maybe the girl by the coffee machine was right all along, being more interested in getting a cup of bad coffee off of aul’ Georgie, than having him sign her arm.

Marco ‘steps up’ (people are constantly ‘stepping up’ on these talent shows, usually to a ‘bar’ which has been ‘raised’), and I must get round to telling you about how the tour has been going so far. Just a moment, while I sink this heavenly cappucino and bite into this sugar-coated brioche…

Boys like lists. Top 5 hot female bass players. Girlfriends from Wales (a very short list). Leeds Utd first team, 1973-74 (a very embarrassing list), Suzi Quatro’s Top 10 singles (another short one). That kind of thing

So when I was asked for a list of my Top 10 songs "of all time", and to come in to a Radio Ulster studio to talk about them, I knew the only problem would be cutting "all time" down to 40. A Top 10 seemed impossible.

Might as well say ‘Top 10 Shakespeare lines’, ‘Top 3 Martin Amis novels’ (OK, that one not so difficult), Top Sister. Top 3 movies where Julia Roberts looks good, Top 10 Dinners Made By Mother, Top Breakfast Cereal available in more than 3 continents.

The other problem was a practical one – the train to Great Victoria Street station left in twenty minutes. All I had was a pencil and the back page of the Irish Times. Well – people have survived in the wilderness on less.

My first decision – I would have to take the Beatles out of the equation.

Not because of the fuss going on about the remastered albums, not because of that video game where if I could only remove the numbers and whizzing plastic guitars I could see what’s going on. 

No, it’s just because there isn’t room for much else in a Top 40 with the Beatles included. Since hearing ‘Revolver’ playing on a Black Box record player at an early birthday party, they’ve always been in a list of their own, for me.

At the height of punk, walls covered in pages torn from the NME, I remember asking a girlfriend if it was still OK to have the White Album photographs stuck above my bedroom window, “Yes. They’re like church,” she gasped, shocked, inserting another safety pin into an artfully-ripped T shirt.

So here it is – Top 40 No Beatles, as scribbled down on the back page of the Irish Times while waiting for the train from Holywood to Belfast. It’s a true list – these songs are the soundtrack of my life so far. Old wave, new wave – any wave is OK.

They are In sort-of chronological order – or at least, this is how they happened to me:

1.         Froggy Went A-Courtin’                  Burl Ives

2.          Chitty Chitty Bang Bang                  Film soundtrack

3.         Metal Guru                                    T. Rex

4.         Life on Mars                                    David Bowie.

5.         Working Class Hero                  John Lennon

6.         My Sweet Lord                           George Harrison

7.         Heartbreaker                           Led Zeppelin

8.         I Know What I Like                           Genesis

9.         Band on the Run                           Macca

10.       Walk on the Wild Side                  Lou Reed

11.       Sheena is a Punk Rocker                  Ramones

12.       Marquee Moon                           Television

13.       Teenage Kicks                           The Undertones

14.       Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick         Ian Dury

15.       Heroes                                    David Bowie

16.        Another Girl Another Planet         The Only Ones

17.        Subterranean Homesick Blues         Bob Dylan

18.        Tangled up in Blue                  Bob Dylan

19.        Rainy Day Women                           Bob Dylan

20.        Beasley Street                           John Cooper Clarke

21.        A Forest                                    The Cure

22.        Almost With You                           The Church

23.        You Can’t Always Get…                  Rolling Stones

24.        The Big Music                           The Waterboys

25.        When Love Breaks Down                  Prefab Sprout

26.        Don’t Give Up                           Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush

27.        Waiting For The Man                  Velvet Underground

28.        Bang on the Ear                           The Waterboys.

29.        Losing My Religion                  REM

30.        Nothing Compares To You         Sinead O’Connor

32.        One                                             U2.

33.        Way Down Now                           World Party

34.        Persuasion                                    Tim Finn

35.        Human Behaviour                           Björk.

36.        Wonderwall                                    Oasis

37.        Crazy World                                    Aslan

38.        This Year’s Love                           David Gray

39.        Chasing Cars                           Snow Patrol

40.        Madame George                           Van Morrison

As we passed George Best international airport I had got the 40 in the right hand margin. On the left, 10 which just missed out:

GPT - Martha Wainwright

Out of Reach – Gabrielle

Big Time – Rudi

Rio – Duran Duran

Enola Gay – OMD

Here Comes The Rain Again – Eurythmics

You Never Can Tell – Chuck Berry

White Riot – Clash

China Girl – Bowie

Bus To Baton Rouge – Lucinda Williams

The train clunked into into Central Station, which meant I had about five minutes until Botanic and then Great Victoria Street the BBC. I still had the front cover of the G2 section of the Guradian to get the Top 10 sorted. The train heaved its way through, under and around the Markets:

Top 10 no Beatles:

1.          Heroes

2.          Tangled Up In Blue

3.         Waiting For The Man

4.          Losing My Religion

5.          Wonderwall

6.          Hey Jude*

7.          A Day In The Life**

8.          Madame George

9.          Subterraean Homesick Blues

10.        Life On Mars

* OK, there had to be one

Times of my life in other peoples songs, you could say. It's not even just the songs, it's where you are, where you remember them playing.

Just made it, passing the Crown I thought for a moment I’d left the ’papers on the train. No worries, these songs are in my head anyway

See you on tour, album's out tomorrow.

Andy

Sept 27

PS I am putting these occasional blogs online at wordpress and our website as well - see which one you gravitate to - maybe you like this one best!

WOMAD was amazing. It’s world music festival in the middle of Wiltshire, complete with UK summer weather—this weekend, it’s either the prospect of rain, or (later) continuous showers. Luckily, it doesn’t rain hard enough to make it a mudfest and, as is usual in the UK, the weather is busy starting a thousand conversations. People are shrugging it off and displaying blitz-with-anoraks spirit. I arrive from Australia on the Saturday morning of the festival. Outside Heathrow Terminal 2, sitting on my guitar case looking through the Grauniad I spot a pic of Amy Winehouse walking out of court a free woman on page 3, acquitted of punching one of her dancers. Also on page 3, a fooball player walking out of court a free man, acquitted of punching a man in a Southport bar. All this plus Jeremy Clarkson calling the Prime Minister a "c*nt". Welcome to the UK. Plus ça change. Before long a minibus whisks me to the salubrious confines of the Swindon Hilton. This pearl in Paris’ dad’s empire nestles beside a roundabout and has a beautiful view of Junction 14 of the M4. Jetlag in a wet English summer is a weird feeling—the temperature coming from Australia is the same, but the season has definitely changed. I take a ride onsite with a group whose leader sits beside me pounding txt messages into his phone and telling me about a dangerous tour they went on in the 90s. I’m not listening that carefully until I realise he’s talking about a tour of Iraq, "between the wars". His group were welcomed into Baghdad theatres for shows as the first band to tour Iraq after the Americans invaded from Kuwait. Up at the back of the bus the guys are smoking weed and as the white van careers around leafy green English B roads I can feel myself gearing up for another WOMAD experience by leaning back, taking in his wild story. We enter the site and pass hordes of recyclers, music fans, percussion players. That evening, Peter Gabriel's live set builds and builds towards 'Biko', which is outstanding. It's dedicated to murdered Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova who the 'Witness' programme supported in her work. Have a look at their site here. There are photos of her behind him as he sings the song and it’s as powerful and as overtly political as I want things to be at a festival like this. Listening brings me back to sitting in a student room smoking cigarettes, simultaneously trying to play the bass to this song and get through Prospero's really long speech at the start of The Tempest. Tonight there's a fine drizzle, but things are staying dry. I've been up for about 36 hours now, so I catch the bus back to the Swindon Oasis. This time I am sitting with a 14-piece band from Extremadura in Spain. They have not only played, but made paella at the Taste The World stage. This is where you get to cook your favourite meal while being interviewed by Roger the host, act like a TV chef, and play a couple of songs while whatever menu you have dreamed up is cooking, simmering, roasting or baking. I am going to go through this baptism of fire the following evening, and I have not been as nervous about any performance since putting together the WOMAD 2005 Gala Finale which featured such 'piece of cake' collaborations as: - a Russian instrumental group who told me at the first meeting that they didn't collaborate with any other musicians. They had written a special version of 'Summertime' for the occasion and at 4pm they said they would relax this rule if I could find a concert pianist for them to audition before 6.30. Luckily Rad came to the rescue and they debuted the piece, unrecognisable from the original, at the start of the show, as another UK deluge started..... - a segue between two bands made up of different kinds of Muslims. Neither had ever played with the other kind before, and a religious guy was summoned to work out if playing together would be allowed. Cue for prayers and not a lot of rehearsing..... - a Birmingham reggae band whose 9 members were all called Steve, stoned out of their minds and playing so loudly at the Gala that they scared off a gentle Indian tabla group who were waiting backstage. Two minutes before their cue to appear, the Indians had disappeared, only to be discovered crouching in trees with their hands over their ears, reciting from Holy Scripture. Meanwhile, back on stage, the Steves continued the ganja groove—drummer Steve had told me that if I held up 3 fingers meaning “3 minutes left” they would play for 5 more minutes. If I held up one finger they would play for 3, and if I managed to ostentatiously build and light a joint side of stage, they would be off in less than thirty seconds. The next WOMAD morning dawns, with a hangover built in the Belfast shipyards. After a couple of hours of tablets, marmalade and toast, I'm waiting for another minibus to take me to the site. This time I am riding with Africans, CDs by my side. I have a rendez-vous with Jamie Oliver's magazine at 12.30. With any luck the photo session featuring a tube of Vegemite and a Marmite pot will be forever shrouded in mystery—or perhaps you’ll see it in the next issue of ‘Jamie’. At the afternoon performance, rain is threatening, but just about holding off. I play a set made up mostly of songs from the forthcoming album. I’ve practised them for a couple of weeks in a wee studio high on a Melbourne hill, dry and parched trees all around. Now I’m looking out at a thousand friendly faces, we’re surrounded by friendly trees and damp and beautiful countryside. It truly is summertime in England. I turn on all my effects pedals, amp, and play. It’s not just a performance—I’ve been asked to hold a question and answer session about the Summer School as well. Improbably, this works. One guys asks for 'Birds Of Passage' from the third album, which I can't remember all the words of, but love playing. It sets the rest of the set alight, really. For me, anyway. Because someone's handing round a mic in the crowd, I can't pretend not to hear the questions, or the requests if I have forgotten the words. 'Whole Thing', the song I wrote with Peter, is at the heart of my WOMAD experience, and is the highlight of the set for me. However, I realise at the CD signing that all anyone really wants to know about is my appearance at Taste The World this evening. I find the tepee tent, where Roger is surrounded onstage by a bevy of beautiful women wearing aprons. There’s a singer from Louisiana singer at the side of the stage handing out exquisite jambalaya. I later bump into her behind the tepee, she’s breastfeeding her kid and handing out sweet potato pie to everyone. Back onstage, Roger has the air of a man who knows that even though he has been interviewing musicians cooking for the past three days without a break, things could definitely be a lot worse. My menu? I sent it in to the WOMAD office a while ago, and in their typical modus operandi of organics and email, it has well and truly entered the Real World system. Every last ingredient has been rounded up—each spice comandeered from the Orient, each vegetable torn screaming from the brown earth of old England. Every bottle of alcohol purchased from Malmesbury Spar. Although people imagine rock tours as being situated in fancy hotels, and a hotel breakfast an enormous spread of posh food, as you and I know by now, the reality of a 21st Century Troubadour's breakfast is very different. Foraged from a friend's fridge, discovered in a dark corner of a downtown dive, unearthed from the back of an underground cupboard, let me present you, dear reader, with the menu: