Seasons of the Ukulele

A weekly song challenge for ukulele players - all welcome. Find out more here

Season 756 - Complete Madness

DelGriff

Hello everybody, and welcome to Season 756 - Complete Madness.

On Sunday 9th August, the first day of this Season, I’ll be heading to Canterbury with my 3 fabulous brothers and their wives, for a Madness gig. Madness were, and still are, one of my favourite bands of all time, so I’m very, very excited to be seeing them for the first time, nearly 50 years after I first heard their music!

For those who don’t know of them, this is what Wikipedia says about the band:

“Madness are an English ska and pop band from Camden Town, north west London, who formed in 1976. One of the most prominent bands of the late-1970s/early-1980s two-tone ska revival, they continue to perform with six of the seven members of their original line-up. Madness's most successful period was from 1980 to 1986, when the band's songs spent a total of 214 weeks on the UK singles chart, jointly holding the record with English reggae group UB40 for most weeks spent by a group in the UK singles chart during the 1980s.”

The challenge this week is simply for you to:

Either… play and sing any songs that Madness recorded/performed;

Or… play and sing any songs with a title and/or lyrics that contain the word ‘madness’, or any derivative or synonym of it - eg crazy, bonkers, nutty, insane, lunatic… the list goes on, I’m sure you get the gist.

One, and only one, of your entries can be a re-post of an entry from a past Season that fits the theme.

All the usual rules apply - see Edwin’s marvellous FAQ here if you’re unaware of the details.
Original songs are particularly welcome.
Multitracking and collaborations are also very welcome.

There is no song limit this week!

Don’t post until it’s Sunday 9th August in Hawaii, and don’t post after it‘s Sunday 16th August in Hawaii.
Most of all: HAVE FUN!

I will listen to every second of every entry and post a comment for every entry on YouTube. If I accidentally miss one, please let me know.

Instead of giving a prize, I will make a donation of £1 for every entry to the Season to a mental health charity - I will choose which one later in the week. I will, however, select and announce my three favourite entries at the end of the week, just for the mad, crazy fun of it.

PLAYLIST

Thank you all for everything you bring to every Season - I appreciate each and every one of you!

LimousinLil

DelGriff Hope you all have a great time, Del!

UkeCan1

"House of Fun" by Madness seemed like it might vaguely fit the 755 jug band aesthetic if I subbed in a kazoo for the horns.

Sung by a young lad on his 16th birthday, who thinks he's cleverly hinting at a certain product he is finally mature enough to buy, but the saleslady doesn't understand his metaphors … and then the neighbor lady walks in…..

Seemed apt too since I just celebrated a birthday that is a multiple of 16.

YorkSteve

I'll get in quickly with this one - not written by Madness, but one of their biggest hits. And I too might be seeing them in a couple of weeks, as I am working as a steward at a festival they are headlining. Hope I'm not working that night.

xommen

Here is my take on Bed and Breakfast Man. I had some multitracking fun, and even got out my melodica.

dr_mitch

I love a spot of Madness. Here's one of mine from last year, following in @YorkSteve 's footsteps.

uke4ia

It's worth mentioning that while Madness had 15 Top 10 hits in the UK (according to "The Great Rock Discography" book my wife gave me), they're considered one-hit wonders in the US. Their only Top 10 hit here was "Our House" (#7), and the only other singles that cracked the Top 100 were "It Must Be Love" (#33) and "The Sun and the Rain" (#72). The "House of Fun" video got played on MTV after "Our House" was a hit, but it never cracked the charts.

The one album that ever made the US Top 100 was a compilation called "Madness" that included 6 songs from "Present the Rise and Fall", 5 earlier singles, and "Night Boat to Cairo". I've played three and a half songs from this album for the Seasons, but don't know any of their other songs. I'll probably find another song on this album to play this week, and if I have time, maybe look into their other songs.

AlanDP

Most people know this song as "She's Funny That Way," but the full title on the sheet music is "(I Got a Woman, Crazy For me) She's Funny That Way." My favorite version was as sung by Lieutenant Gruber on the British comedy 'Allo, 'Allo. His version had a couple of lyrical differences.

Threebird

uke4ia This sounds about right. They probably got a bit more love in Canada on MuchMusic, we're part of the Commonwealth and MuchMusic played a lot of UK videos in the 80's. Ska based music wasn't in the mainstream much, but songs like Our House, Rudy by The Specials, and some others had a moment.

One crowd they were popular with over here were "The Mods". Smartly dressed, trench coat & desert boot wearing, Vespa riding folks who were very tuned into UK music like The Jam, The Style Council, Madness, etc…

CanadaJim

WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE (aka CRAZY WORDS CRAZY TUNE) -1926 by Jack Yellen & Milton Alger

I don't often think about twofers, but this one just seemed too easy. Please don't feel compelled to listen to it twice.

TCK

We used to have a Seasonista who played bass for the Nuttiest band around…was his name Mitch? I forget now.

Way too hot to wear my battle jacket, also way too long since I played a tune over here.

I love Madness- excellent choice! As a fan, check out Buster Shuffle. They have definitely captured the sound.

TCK

An earthquake is erupting…

Melissa said no Vespa in the living room…sigh.

Noted discussion above. While never enormously popular in the US, Ska, Rocksteady and Reggae were staples of late night college radio, at least where I was in the 80’s. Punk/Alternative until 10pm and then off to the Island for bedtime. While all of us had heard “Our House” when it came out, this opened us up to a whole different world.

At about the same time, Neo-Nazis were popping up at every show. As kids, we all started dressing smarter, wearing boots, cropping our hair and gobbling up all the Trojan label and Studio One sides we could find, as well as the Two Tone stuff. Marauding around on scooters and looking like England in 1970, but being in California in the 80’s. Whole point, be the antithesis of the Neo Nazis. While this confused our parents (my mother never quite understood why a racist Skinhead had black friends and listened to reggae), our numbers were HUGE, and the Nazis got really quiet. My crew all had “Nutty Skins” on their flight jackets, and “Nutty Boys” for the young ones we were corrupting. Lol. An homage to Madness.

I was also very lucky to have a Tower Records in town. We would wait every Thursday for the imports to come in and buy what we could (we all had jobs…kids don’t have jobs anymore), never duplicating within our group so we could share. Even held a few dances around town, and talked the local artsy theater into playing Quadrophenia once a year.

Still my music of choice, I ride around my tiny town introducing the citizenry to “rreeeegggggaaaayyyy, from the ghetto… and ONE STEP BEYOND” on my electric trike. I get lots of smiles and waves, and a few dancers as I roll by. I still have my scooters, but gas in California is way too expensive to run even those.

Anyway- great theme! Took me back.

DelGriff

Morning All!

I was at the gig all day yesterday (there were four or five brilliant support bands playing shorter sets before Madness took to the stage), hence I haven’t even begun to watch/listen to your videos - I’ll do that through the course of today. I cannot wait! Thank you all!

The whole day yesterday was sublime. Any time I get to spend with my 3 fabulous brothers is too rare and very special - and yesterday was one of the best. My oldest brother and lifelong hero, John, is facing some potentially very serious health issues, which made it all the more poignant. And the shared memories of Madness’s music and the times when it was the backdrop to our younger lives (late 1970s and through the 1980s), made yesterday’s whole gig experience even more special and highly emotional for all of us. One of the best days of my life!

Me and my brothers at the gig yesterday. Left to right: me, Phil, John and Alan.

xommen

As I like madness a lot, I thought I'd take a stab at another one (which was harder song then I expected), here is my take on my girl.

DelGriff

uke4ia

uke4ia It's worth mentioning that while Madness had 15 Top 10 hits in the UK (according to "The Great Rock Discography" book my wife gave me), they're considered one-hit wonders in the US. Their only Top 10 hit here was "Our House" (#7), and the only other singles that cracked the Top 100 were "It Must Be Love" (#33) and "The Sun and the Rain" (#72). The "House of Fun" video got played on MTV after "Our House" was a hit, but it never cracked the charts.

Personally, I think this is one of the beauties of the Seasons - being introduced to new/old fabulous music that you may have originally missed due to the timing or geography of its original release. And for those that don’t have the time/inclination to explore and learn this new (to them) music, there is almost always a sub-theme to keep everyone engaged, in this case:

DelGriff Or… play and sing any songs with a title and/or lyrics that contain the word ‘madness’, or any derivative or synonym of it…

I’d hate to think anybody would feel excluded from participating in any of the Seasons that I host.

DelGriff

TCK

Firstly, welcome back Dave - great to see you here again! I was hoping this theme would prompt your participation! 🙂

And secondly, thank you so much for the back story of how you became acquainted and engaged with Madness’s music. I always enjoy hearing your stories, especially as our musical tastes seem to greatly overlap.

AlanDP

A quite different version of "Crazy Words - Crazy Tune" that I arranged from the old sheet music. Also a brief commentary video below.

P.S. Unless someone think "black bottom" is some kind of racist term, it's not. It refers to the black, muddy bottom of a dry creek in which a cow has become mired in the mud. The dance was supposed to mimic the movements of a cow stuck in the mud.

dr_mitch

Well, time to play the one Madness song that was a hit in the US then…yes, Our House. And it's a great song.

DelGriff

I’m invoking host’s privilege to post two blasts from the past here.

I will extend the privilege of an extra blast (two instead of one) to anyone that posts more than three new entries this week!

Here’s the first one from 3 years ago - I slowed it down a lot from the original, which gave it quite a different and sadder feel:

My Girl (SOTU 579) - Madness cover

⬇️ This one below was more recent - just 3 months ago. If anyone wants to use the backing track I created for it to play along to as a Season entry (or just for the fun of it), please PM or email me:

It Must Be Love - Madness cover (SOTU 740)

jon

thanks for this week Del!
a new recording i did yesterday. a Darren Hanlon song
"butterfly bones"