My Crucial Track for 16 May 2026 - “A Girl Named Johnny Cash” by Jane Morgan

Share a song released 2+ years ago that you recently discovered.

I love this song.

I like funny songs, and this one is an answer record to one of my favourite funny songs, A Boy Named Sue

It’s very witty, there are musical references to other Johnny Cash songs throughout, and it’s got a happy ending.

You can’t ask for more than that :)

“A Girl Named Johnny Cash” by Jane Morgan on Apple Music

This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.

• we didn’t seem to get refereeing decisions going our way. Lots of minor ones favoured City

• Cucarella was daft to get booked for dissent, though

• watching the Cup Final on telly I get weirdly emotional during Abide With Me. I didn’t at all in the Stadium. I don’t know why not, but it’s probably just as well

• I’ll still have it at my funeral though. Not Angels, not Atmosphere ( either the Joy Division or the Russ Abbot), nor Monty ruddy Python

• we looked a zillion times better than we did when City beat us 0-3 at the Bridge

• they pressed really well

• it was the first time I’ve seen a royal since 1977

• McFarlane set us up really well. It worked in that we went to to toe with the best team in the country and only conceded a very good goal

• a big name manager is only important because fans and players think it is

• …..but that’s probably reason enough why you do have to get one

• I used to laugh at Pep’s justification for selling us Cole - they had to sell Cole to get Doku. Doku does now look that good

• their bench was quite a bit stronger than ours

• Sanchez is a good keeper. He kept us in the game against Leeds, and didn’t put a foot wrong against City

• Caicedo is one of my favourite ever Chelsea players, but he looked 50% of what he was earlier in the season

• a bloke next-but-one to us was telling the players to shoot all the time. A couple of times when it would have needed a 30-yard backheel

• I think we’ve recently paid the price for playing in the World Club Cup last summer. Partly physically and partly mentally.

• I wonder if part of the reason that some of the players didn’t get on with Rosenior was because they were a bit fed up, and tetchy, and generally in need of a decent break

• we didn’t see any pro Palestinian marchers

• we did see some of the Unite the Nation people at Waterloo. Odd coves, as Wodehouse might say. The Christian -type ones were very sinister

• I think it was probably called Unite the Kingdom. It couldn’t be more misnamed, whatever.

• we were sat near some flag-y people on the train on the way back. Couldn’t help hearing what they were saying….nothing racist, or unpleasant, but just deluded about all sorts of stuff.

• They were probably good people in many ways, but the way they came up with weird ideas about things fitted with the notion that Tommy or Nigel are people to trust

• I know it sounds patronising but I did feel sorry for them

A disappointing result, but we gave it a go against the best team in the country. Could have easily gone the other way. I was lucky to be there ⚽ #ChelseaFC #cfc

I’m not sure whether I’d prefer to be the next Prime Minister, or the next Chelsea manager.

Neither role seems to have a great deal of job security, tbh

Six in eight years vs ten in ten years, according to the internet. Possibly not counting interims.

⚽ #ChelseaFC #cfc

There was bit on the radio this morning about the Saints spying scandal, and then another bit about the new James Bond.

Surely the bloke behind the tree with the video camera is the ideal person to take on the role? ⚽😇🕵️‍♂️

I’ve been to see Jude Rogers talk about music, and both memory and memories at Salisbury Cathedral. Really interesting….will read the book

The Big Church always looks particularly good when it’s slightly damp

My Crucial Track for 14 May 2026 - “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles

Share a song you call something other than its official title. What do you call it?

For a long time I called this song ‘Eleanor Rigsby’….I did think that was what it was actually called.

I did most of my growing up in the 1970s, and their was a sitcom called Rising Damp which featured a character called ‘Rigsby’, He could have been Eleanor Rigby’s comical, but malevolent cousin. He was the landlord of a shabby house and the only people he ever interacted with his equally lonely tenants.

I had a nose around the internet and I can’t see that Rigsby was named in reference to the Beatles song, but it does resonate.

“Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles on Apple Music

This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.

My Crucial Track for 13 May 2026 - “Cumann na Mná” by Christy Moore

Share a song you discovered via another artist’s song (cover, sample, featured artist, etc)

Going slightly off-prompt - this is a song that made me re-evaluate another song.

The song I listened to again is Celtic Symphony by the Wolfe Tones. Celtic Symphony has a chorus / chant of ‘Ooh, aah, up the RA’. RA is ‘Republican Army’.

I’ve got a complicated, or probably more accurately, confused view of ‘the struggle’. There are lots of reasons for that which I won’t go into here,

Anyway, this is Christy Moore singing Mick Blake’s song about Celtic Symphony. It’s a great song in its own right, I think

“Cumann na Mná” by Christy Moore on Apple Music

This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.

Louisa May Alcott, after seeing Dickens

“Youth and comeliness were gone, but the foppishness remained, and the red-faced man, with false teeth and the voice of a worn-out actor had his scanty grey hair curled.”

I think she was implying that he was ‘mutton dressed as lamb’

I got this originally from Lee Jackson on Dickensland - The lost world of Dickens London - History Extra podcast

The Guardian Long Read - Pretty birds and silly moos’: the women behind the Sex Discrimination Act

An interesting read. It’s jarring how recent much of this is. I very briefly met one of the women mentioned and it’s weird to think she was involved in this stuff that feels like it should be way in the past

There was a bloke on the radio yesterday morning who’d been David Attenborough’s sound guy at the North Pole.

The crew had left them on their own there, and they chatted about what time it was, saying that there was no time of day, as all the time zones converge there.

This hasn’t occurred to me before.

Perhaps when it’s nine o’clock in the evening for your face, it’s nine o’clock in the morning for your backside?

Pic: Johan Isaaksz Pontanus, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

My Crucial Track for 10 May 2026 - “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina (Miami Mix Edit)” by Madonna

Post one of your favorite Broadway songs.

“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina (Miami Mix Edit)” by Madonna

I saw two champion level ballroom dancers dance to this, very close up, at the wonderful Rivoli Ballroom in South east London.

It was athletic and spectacular and cool, all at the same time. It would have been a couple of years before Strictly Come Dancing, and then Dancing with the Stars started.

I’ve often wondered whether there was someone there from the BBC who thought something like ‘this should be on the TV’.

“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina (Miami Mix Edit)” by Madonna on Apple Music

This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.

There’s a nice tribute to the just-retired Irish president Michael D Higgins, on the extended version of Christy Moore’s last LP

Not many politicians get such warm words

You are a voice for the voiceless Like thunder in the plain An empathetic ear for the afflicted Selfless, humble, never vain

youtu.be/bGIlXDFV6…

I came quite late to the Beatles, and I don’t really listen to LP’s all the way through.

However I feel that it’s one of these things you ought to have an opinion on. Like proportional representation, or dogs vs cats, or marmite

I’m not sure whether tracklistings and spreadsheets would be involved.

Perhaps the Sage of North Norfolk has the right answer - the best album by the Beatles, and by every other band, is their Greatest Hits

Of course I disapprove….but I can’t help finding this funny

Some kids are bypassing age-verification checks with a fake mustache | TechCrunch

I played football for the first time in a few weeks last night, and today I am feeling my age

Pic by Francisco Goya, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

My Crucial Track for 01 May 2026 - “Listen to the Radio” by Nanci Griffith

Post one of your favorite country songs.

“Listen to the Radio” by Nanci Griffith

There are a bunch of things that I really like about this song. I like songs which mention other singers, and I think this is a great line:

“where would we be at times like these without the songs Loretta wrote”

I also like the tempo, and the piano bit, and the way Nanci sings “I am” as “I-yam”. I like the mention of places like Tennessee, and Louisiana and the Pontchatrain - it’s all very exciting and kind of glamorous to an English bloke who has barely ever left Wiltshire.

“Listen to the Radio” by Nanci Griffith on Apple Music

This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.

I did a manual import of my twitter archive into matt penny tweets archive on micro.blog, and a bit of editing. It took a while…but having done all of that now I think I want to merge it in with my main micro.blog.

I’m an idiot.

I took this last night. It doesn’t really work as a photo, but it’s one of my favourite views of Salisbury Cathedral. It’s across two lots of water meadows - so it’s as far again away as Constables painting

It’s from close to this bit on Google Maps. Be careful of the tree roots.

May those who love us love us. And those that don’t love us, May God turn their hearts. And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, May he turn their ankles, So we’ll know them by their limping.

An Irish blessing, from iausa - Irish Sayings, Proverbs, and Prayers for St. Patrick’s Day

I also went to see my old pals Christopher the Giant and Hobnob in Salisbury Museum

The Salisbury Museum is outstanding and I urge you to go there at once’. Bill Bryson, in ‘Notes from a Small Island'

This is Barbara Hepworth’s ‘Crucifixion’ in the cloisters of Salisbury Cathedral

My dad was a welder. He did a bit of a fix-up on it. Bless him.

Very much enjoyed What the Night Brings.

Spotted a minor muck-up. Michael Healey’s name changed to Martin Healey at one point. I’m 99.9% sure I only noticed because my much-missed father-in-law was Michael Healy.

Editing is hard.

Finished reading: What the Night Brings by Mark Billingham 📚

The 53 best series on BBC iPlayer to stream right now

A good list of stuff to watch on the Iplayer