My Aim Is True

I was listening to "Alison" (the Slowdive one) on AccuRadio's "High Fidelity" the other day and thought to myself, "Hey, this is a pretty great song."  Then as the day wore on, I started to wonder just how many songs titled "Allison" or "Alison" there were out there...  and it didn't take me long to realize that it was kind of a dumbass thing to waste an afternoon on, but by then I'd been to Allmusic.com and was working on a speadsheet and there was no turning back.

The bottom line?  I count 105 recordings of "Allison" and "Alison" -- 74 Alisons and 31 Allisons.  I'll break it down by songwriter, (primary) performer, genre, and number of versions, but if you want specific album info you'll have to figure that out on your own.  Like anybody cares.  Or will even read this far.  Sometimes recognizing nobody gives a crap is the most liberating thing you can do for yourself.

Title	Performer	Songwriter	Genre	# of Versions
Alison	Babik Reinhardt	Babik Reinhardt	Jazz	1
Alison	Whitmore	Robb Blake	Rock	2
Alison	Budgie	Burke Shelley	Rock	1
Alison	Jordy	Clerget, Patricia, Claude Lemoine, Alain Maratrat	Rock	1
Alison	Stranglmartin	David Butler, Stranglmartin	Rock	1
Alison	Elvis Costello & the Attractions	Elvis Costello	Rock	47
Alison	Copperpot	Jarrett Randazzo	Rock	1
Alison	Joe Pass	Joe Pass	Jazz	2
Alison	Melvern Taylor	Melvern Taylor	Rock	1
Alison	Blue	Mikael Nordgren	Electronica	1
Alison	Slowdive	Neil Halstead	Rock	4
Alison	Nerve Twins	Nerve Twins	Rock	1
Alison	Phil Woods	Sean Smith	Jazz	3
Alison	Stephane Grappelli	Stephane Grappelli	Jazz	1
Alison	Baby Bird	Stephen Jones	Rock	2
Alison	Tom van der Geld	Tom van der Geld	Rock	1
Alison	Arcacy	[uncredited]	Rock	1
Alison	Future 3	[uncredited]	Electronica	1
Alison	Smudge	[uncredited]	Rock	1
Alison	Frank Vignola	[uncredited]	Jazz	1
Allison	Garageland	[uncredited]	Rock	1
Allison	Jimmy Holiday	[uncredited]	R&B	1
Allison	Ahmad Jamal	[uncredited]	Jazz	1
Allison	[unknown]	[uncredited]	Easy Listening	1
Allison	[unknown]	[uncredited]	Reggae	2
Allison	Alphonse Mouzon	Alphonse Mouzon	Jazz	3
Allison	Andrew Hyra	Andrew Hyra	Rock	1
Allison	The Wednesdays	Jamie Barrier, Joey Barrier, & Jeremy Barrier	Rock	1
Allison	Pixies	Black Francis	Rock	8
Allison	Sandwich	Chad Jenkins, Jason McKnight, & Jeff Quay	Rock	1
Allison	Blood Drained Cows	Gregg Turner	Rock	1
Allison	Hayman Hartman	Hayman Hartman	Rock	1
Allison	John Darnall	John Darnall		1
Allison	Kyp Harness	Kyp Harness	Rock	1
Allison	Matt Otto	Matt Otto	Jazz	1
Allison	Stereo Fuse	Jeff Quay	Rock	1
Allison	Randy Stonehill	Randy Stonehill	Gospel	1
Allison	Sonny Rollins	Sonny Rollins	Jazz	2
Allison	The Jelly Jam	The Jelly Jam, Ty Tabor	Rock	1
Allison	The Lost	The Lost	Rock	1

Obviously, E.C. takes top prize, as far as the writer of "Alison" goes.  If you're interested, and even if you're not, here's a list of performers(w/ genres) who are listed as having recorded Elvis' "Alison":

Bobbie Gentry	Rock
Charles Walker	Blues
Elvis Costello	Rock
Elvis Costello & the Attractions	Rock
Everything But the Girl	Rock
Holly Cole	Vocal
Holly Cole Trio	Vocal
Janas Hoyt	Rock
Joe Goldmark	Folk
Linda Ronstadt	Country
Patrik Tanner	Rock
Vic Chesnutt	Rock

And let's not forget the Pixies, who boast the most recorded versions of "Allison" (w/ covers by Fastback and Eve 6).  Actually, we should probably just forget about this whole thing.

Update!  More random thoughts -- listening to some semi-recent Superchunk ("Sexy Ankles" from Hello Hawk) for maybe the first time and I swear this might be one of the worst songs I've ever heard.  Crimony, how the mighty have fallen.  Worse than horrible. 

Also, I think Guided By Voices might be (along with post-'78 Ramones) the absolutely definitively best "greatest hits" band of all time.  You know, little or no apparent control over the impulse to keep putting out suss records with a handful of brilliant songs per...

Comments

[Becky]

Did you use Excel for this? If so, you should make a pivot table. That way, you can summarize your findings genre and # of versions.

[very metal]

you're totally right. i spent my break messing with pivot-y things, but i need a little time to get my bearings and hammer something out. stay tuned!

[tom]

Sexy Ankles is a mediocre song, but to call it one of the "worst songs I've ever heard" is melodramatic.

The funny thing is that "Come Pick Me Up" is one of my favorite Superchunk albums; the rock is mature but still twangy and energetic. Songs like "Good Dreams", "Pink Clouds", "June Showers".

I had a similar "How the mighty have fallen!" moment regarding Superchunk's more recent release ("Here's to Shutting Up") -- there isn't a truly excellent song on that album. No 'horrible' songs, as you'd put it, but certainly nothing that knocks my socks off.

There's no accounting for taste. For instance, your favorite album of the year (Mike Watt -- The Secondman's Middle Stand) is considered by lots of folks to be the biggest disappointment of the year.

[very metal]

Two points:

First, to say that "lots of folks" have even heard The Secondman's Middle Stand is a fairly generous assumption. It hasn't exactly done Punk in Drublic numbers.

Second, I first heard "Sexy Ankles" without knowing it was Superchunk -- my gut reaction was, "this song is absolutely horrible". Then to find out that it was a Superchunk number, well, that was simply mind-blowing.

Of course, I think each of the post-breakup records (where the band stayed together only by Mac agreeing to let Laura, et al., put more songs on records) has followed clearly recognizable downward spiral. The bottom line? There's nothing quite as bad as good spoiled, and Superchunk were almost a perfect band for a few years there ('90ish-'93ish).

Another note: Holy canolli -- Green Day's American Idiot is the number one record in America! And apparently it has been for a while now. I'm really happy for them, but it doesn't seem like they're the number one band in America -- I guess I don't really listen to the radio or watch MTV or anything, but other music just seems to be everywhere.

[Steve Green]

I'm Steve Green from Arcacy. I googled us and found your table of "Alison" songs, and saw that the songwriter was uncredited, so I wanted to take credit. I wrote the music and lyrics for Arcacy's song "Alison", and sang and played guitar.

It's a pretty good song I guess, although the lyrics are a little dumb, aren't they? And we could have used a lead guitar. But we were a trio back then, so we did what we could. Our new album, scheduled for release in early June, will be much more polished.

You can hear Alison and a few other tracks from the old CD for free now at http://www.myspace.com/arcacy . Thanks for the mention.