Substack Sunday

8 Actors Who Have Had Post- Punk Songs Named After Them

The recent death of the great Gena Rowlands reminded me of this overlooked musical gem and then I had a mini-ponder about Actors Who Have Had Post-Punk Songs Named After Them. There have probably been oodles, of course, but here are a few of my favourites-

The professionally ‘wacky and weird’ Julian Cope once wrote a song about a true maverick- the ever-splendid Robert Mitchum. Arch and angular Australian post-punk character-actors The Go-Betweens turned out a super catchy ditty about many a young soul’s first crush Lee Remick. If ever there was a British band that were perfectly shadowed and shaded with Andy Warhol’s Factory, then The Monochrome Set were that band. Quite fittingly, they wrote a song about Warhol’s superstar Joe Dallesandro. The song ‘Goodbye Joe’ was also covered by that nice Tracy Thorne. Cartoon concept band Gorillaz gave us a tribute to Clint Eastwood, which has a nice accompanying film, too. Northampton’s Goth pioneers Bauhaus told us Bela Lugosi’s Dead, which featured nicely in the Tony Scott film The Hunger. And Tom Courtenay by Yo La Tengo is achingly nostalgic and decidedly off-kilter, just as it should be. This, in turn, reminded me of Lorraine Bowen’s marvellous Julie Christie, which I first heard as a demo on Chris Evans’ GLR radio show in the ‘90s. And on …

(c) Paul D. Brazill