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10 Canine Connections

Here we have ten Towser-related connections, all referencing man's best friend (that's a dog, dummy, what were you thinking?!)  Wet nose? Check. Wagging tail? Check. So quit yer whining, roll over and prepare to have you tummy tickled while munching on your marrow-bone jelly calcium enriched Winalot. And no, I haven’t included the classical composer Offenbach- woof woof! I’ve also avoided using any song by Drooper (bass, vocals, right in picture)) from the Banana Splits since it was revealed that he was actually a man in an ill-fitting dog costume. I was devastated.

1. Gilbert O’Sullivan-Get Down

"Get Down" is a song by Gilbert O'Sullivan, from his album I'm a Writer, Not a Fighter. Released as a single, it spent two weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart in April 1973, and was also a number-one hit in Ireland and a top-ten hit in the United States and Canada. The song has nothing to do with getting down and dirty on the dance-floor. It is an order from O'Sullivan to his dog. The clue is in the line “you’re a bad dog Rover/I don’t want you around”.

2.  Bonzo Dog Dooh-Dah Band

Fronted by Viv Stanshall, a textbook English eccentric, and including Neil Innes, sometime performer with Monty Python in their live shows, this much-loved band first played at my local pub in Lewisham, South East London- the Old Tiger’s Head. They went on to achieve notoriety and a degree of commercial success with their wacky songs and undoubted musical ability. I’m the Urban Spaceman was their biggest hit, but for me the B side of that single was the best- “In the Canyons of Your Mind (I will wander through your brain)” including a deliberately excruciatingly bad guitar solo. Also has the best verse ever in a song: “In my cardboard coloured dreams/once again I hear your laugh/ And I kiss, yes I kiss your perfumed hair/with that sweet essence of giraffe.”

3. Led Zeppelin- Black Dog

Headley Grange is a three storey house in a Hampshire village that was built in 1795 as a poor house for the local infirm and orphaned folk. Genesis, Fleetwood Mac and Bad Company have all recorded there but the biggest band to have stayed there is undoubtedly Led Zeppelin. It is supposed to be haunted and was used by Occultist Aleister Crowley. While recording there a large black dog wandered in one night, allegedly with red eyes, and Robert Plant names the song they were working on after it, and included in the song the line “..eyes of fire, burning red…”

4. Elvis Presley-Old Shep



 

“Old Shep he has gone Where the good doggies go And no more with old Shep will I roam But if dogs have a heaven There's one thing I know Old Shep has a wonderful home.”

Oh Purleeeze! This shaggy tale of a faithful dog being blasted by a shotgun for having the temerity to grow old, was sung with real feeling by The King. No wonder the dog in the photo looks unhappy… he knows what’s coming… lock n load!

 5. Bow-Wow-Wow




 

Bow Wow Wow was a 1980s New Wave band, fronted by Annabel Lwin and managed by former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren during 1980. The group's music was described as having an "African-derived drum sound". Bow Wow Wow has many famous admirers including members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and No Doubt. They never made the big time, nor appeared at the Hollywood (Dog) Bowl….

6. Elvis- Hound Dog

A second entry for Elvis the Pelvis, once again highlighting the myth of dog being man’s best friend, when this dog is going out on the town instead of sitting by the fire chewing his master’s slippers. What? It’s a reference to a woman? Oh.. that’s ok then! No dogs were harmed in the making of this tune- only Old Shep. But then he was old…



 

7.  AC/DC Dog Eat Dog

A crackin’ rocker by the Aussie band that has the world’s oldest schoolboy on lead guitar, Angus Young. In this clip, the lead singer Bon Scott, was still with them, before he drunk himself to death in Dulwich, South London.

 8.  Baha Men –Who Let the Dogs Out?

The Baha Men, (featuring the rapper Pitbull), covered this song and placed it in the movie Rugrats in Paris: The Movie and on its soundtrack album and then released it as a single in 2000, when it became the band's first hit in the US and the UK. It reached  #2 on the UK Singles Chart in the United Kingdom. It was the 4th biggest-selling single of 2000 in the UK, and went on to become the highest-selling single of the 2000s not to reach #1. However in a poll conducted in 2007 by Rolling Stone to identify the 20 most annoying songs, this song was ranked third!




 

 9. David Bowie-Diamond Dogs

Released June 1974, Diamond Dogs was a single by David Bowie, and the title track of the album of the same name. Didn’t have great commercial success. I think the band has Mange at this time, and Bowie looked like an under-the-weather Ziggy Stardust in need of a good Wormer.




 10. Cat Stevens-I love my dog (more than you)!

Released in September 1966, Stevens later acknowledged that the song has been inspired by Yusef Lateef's "The Plum Blossom" (from Eastern Sounds) with which it shares a melody- Bad Dog! Stealing sausages! Judge for yourself...