A Month all about Names – #4 –Barney

Barney (….and Me) – The Boo Radleys (1992, Creation Records, Taken from ‘Giant Steps’)

Fred Flintstone is a complete idiot.  Every night he puts his giant sabre toothed tiger out for the night.  The tiger then jumps back into the house through the gap where a window should be (this being the stone age (of sorts) glass seems not to have been invented, even though drive in cinemas, cars and according to one episode, cigarettes all have).  The tiger then picks Fred up and puts him outside instead. 

Fred is apparently totally oblivious to the fact that he doesn’t have any glass in his window and stands there hammering on his door shouting for his wife to let him back in the house.  Fred, mate, look to your left, there is a massive hole in the wall big enough for a tiger to get in.  What makes this even worse and pushes Fred up the Grand Order of Idiocy to the Top Three idiots ever, is that the sabre toothed tiger that he is putting out for the night, isn’t even his tiger.

Idiot.

Fred’s best mate however, is a diminutive little dude called Barney Rubble.  Barney Rubble is the Sheldon Cooper of prehistoric men.  He is a genius (compared to Fred at least).  Not only does he work as a top secret spy but he also invented the worlds first (and possibly only) human powered helicopter, an advanced sports car, is an accomplished pianist and talented drummer (yup the prehistorc folk of Bedrock have pianos and drums, but not, glass).

This, folks, should I need to give you a reason, is why, we are featuring songs that feature Barney in this series, and not Fred.  That and ‘Barney and Me’ came up on the random playlist shuffle this morning and I don’t own any songs that have Fred in the title (apart from this one, obviously), but I prefer my reason.

‘Barney (….and Me) was the third (second?) single to be taken from the all-conquering and recently featured Nearly Perfect Album ‘Giant Steps’ by the Boo Radleys. It is a terrific song with choppy, jangly guitars, a perfect flute bit, and a mad bit that brings about a massive chorus.  Brilliant, all of it.  Most of you already knew that I would imagine.

There are two other songs in my music library that feature the name ‘Barney’ in their titles.  Neither of them are the theme tune to a programme featuring a huge slightly phallic looking purple dinosaur.

First up, rather fittingly is this stomping piece of guitar pop from Birmingham’s The Twang.

Barney Rubble – The Twang (2009, B- Unique Records, Taken from ‘Jewellery Quarter’)

My music library tells me that I have played this track precisely once in the past.  Having listened to it again, I’m not massively surprised.  The Twang have rather sullied the great Rubble name here (Rubble is rhymed rather sixformishly with “Double” and “Trouble” in the chorus) .   If you are interested in The Twang they released a ‘Best Of’ album (who knew..?) back in 2017 which contains ‘Barney Rubble’ and several other of their songs, none of which I actually own or remotely care about.

Finally for today a bit of long forgotten excellence taken from ‘Workshy’ the debut album from London’s much missed Animals That Swim.  An album that some shite student reporter once called “intellectual brass led indie pop for people who have badges on the straps of their record bags….”.  Workshy’ comes highly recommended by the way.  Animals That Swim may also feature in another series later this year, if that’s not giving too much away.

Barney – Animals That Swim (1994, Elemental Records, Taken from ‘Workshy’)

Up tomorrow – Charlie