Pop music for grown-ups

She literally was, believe it or not. In September 2025, Martin Gordon’s latest song cycle ‘His Mother Was a Woman’ was released, it being a riotous musical romp through some of the most significant semantic jumble of the Twenty-Twenties, thanks in no small measure to the Insane Philosopher-King referred to in the album title.

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Greatest Sh!ts of fire! As the world is increasingly run by Sh!ts, isn’t it about time that they were smashed on the head with a musical rubber chicken? Gordon singles out a selection of the current Toppermost of the Sh!t Poppermost for scrutiny. Their utterances, whether demented, deluded or frankly bonkers, provide the basis for new compositions and revisitations. CDs, lyric sheets, sleeve notes, stickers – all your favourite toilet requisites are now in stock.

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Basing ‘Another Words’ directly on the unedited telephone conversations of the Orange Lump, Gordon composed and recorded 31 odd-metered snapshots, none over 1 minute in length. The song cycle uses Trump’s ‘inarticulate cries and gibbering screams’ as the central and unaltered text. Herr Trump’s original lyric poetry is set to music and rendered by a chamber quartet plus DJ. Appeared, albeit briefly, in the Apple Music classical chart.

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Can you believe it? We can’t! We simply cannot believe it! You cannot be serious! It’s the new album. Ooh, a al-bum, what a quaint term. Tunes included on the OMG al-bum point the finger of scorn at idiots (‘Will of the People’), excoriate the absurdly rich (‘Coming Over’)and document the process of ageing (‘Wild Old Men’). So there’s nothing new there then. There’s even bass clarinet. Clarinet? OMG!

And finally, all your stupidity needs concisely assembled in one place. The album ‘Thanks For All the Fish’ features 15 new tunes, a wealth of guitars and drums, along with ukuleles, cellos, lutes, melodicas and fish. PLUS you get a real lyric sheet, and the sad Tale of Percy as a PDF. Neil Postman once said that everything is entertainment, including politics, science and reality. But blimey, who needs reality, let’s see what’s on the other channel.

It’s Gilbert, it’s Gordon, and it’s that bloke with the silly haircut and nae trews. Gordon revisits hugely successful comic operas created by wordsmith WS Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan and rearranges them for the contemporary ear. A raucous selection of the finest G&S compositions re-imagined as a cross between the Small Faces and Winifred Atwell, ranging from the well-known (‘Modern Major-General’, ‘When I Was a Lad’, ‘Lord High Executioner’) to the obscure but exquisite (‘Make Way For the Wise Men’, ‘Go Away Madam’).

This recording of Gordon’s US debut as a solo performer (along with Pelle Almgren and the Tristan da Cunha boys) is only available as a CD accompanying Radio Stars’ ’Something For the Weekend’ release – see below. Recorded live in Boston in 2008.

Part IV of the Mammal Trilogy. This Nobel Prize-winning former stand-in for Charles Atlas and personal friend of James Bond once again lays it fearlessly on the line. He wrestles with la condition humaine in his accustomed manner, but will never really come to terms with it. His existential angst is merely disguised as joi de vivre.

Part III of the Mammal Trilogy. God dropped in to give the project His blessing. Assisted by singer Pelle Almgren from Stockholm, Chris Townson on drums and boy wonder Enrico Antico making his debut on guitar and terminal vowels, it’s service as normal for our happy-go-lucky purveyors of why-oh-why-must-we-fling-this-filth-at-our-pop-kids. Gordon touches upon foreign holidays and cargo cults who worship Queen Elizabeth’s consort Prince Phillip as a god, warns against relaxation of the thinking laws in the UK, and more.

Part II of the Mammal Trilogy. Erotic details and love-making tips for Spaniards can be found by clicking on the cover. Included on The Joy of More Hogwash (Gordon’s proposed title for a series of real-life-TV talent-free casting shows), are 13 new compositions from the pen of the ‘smart-pop meister’ (Tangents) which deal with such topics as misogyny, idiots, Nigerian banking fraud, falling in love with aliens and falling in love with sheep. The Joy of More Hogwash is pop music, even though pop currently seems to cater exclusively for emotionally-retarded pre-teens with reading disorders and attention spans in the range of 1-10 nano-seconds.

Part I of the Mammal Trilogy is loosely based upon Jung’s theory about cheeky monkeys. Or was it beavers? We all have a baboon in our basement, somewhere – you too. Featuring 13 new songs and three covers (Jagger/Richard, Roy Wood and Marc Bolan), lashings of flambe vocals and oozing extrovert guitar and drumming, it’s a paradigm of perfect pop. Buy this CD or else the baboon gets it.

A live extravagonzo! This is a double CD release. Radio Stars ‘Something For The Weekend’ / Martin Gordon “Hello Boston!’ special edition features Radio Stars live in the 70s. They steamroller through all their faves and also include songs which were restricted to live performance only. Unfortunately, the atonal version of ‘Mull of Kintyre’ does not make it onto the final release. It does however include Martin Gordon’s ‘Hello Boston!’ CD, recorded live at his US debut in that city in 2008.

John’s Children/Jet/Radio Stars (what’s the difference?) They play stuff from all three bands. Oh, and a Sparks tune. Recorded live in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. Order it now then!

An insanely ambitious world music project. Mira performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival and then collapsed, leaving only a CD behind them. The download contains extra tracks, including a stellar version of Todd Rundgren’s ‘Tiny Demons’ featuring Chandru on Indian violin.

The original Dirty Pictures poster, reprinted in hi-res. Do not mention the word ‘beaver’. Size – 20 x 13 inches (508 x 330 mm) – now that’s what I call a large one. Based tremendously loosely on a photo session by the Goons featuring luscious, pouting Barbara Goalen, the Goalen role is played by luscious, pouting Kelly St John.

All Gordon’s lyrics down the eons, from then until now. This updated edition contains all the words to 160 published Gordon tunes, ranging from Jet via Radio Stars and the entire Mammal series to more recent Trumpery and Gilbert Gordon & Sullivan-ness.

Literally balancing the words are Gordon’s anecdotes and musings about the origins and significance of each song. The illustrated book has 174 pages, and copies can be signed on request. It goes without saying that every order also includes the Thanks For All the Fish and OMG lyric sheets.

Another book. Martin Gordon (words) & Chris Townson (illustrations), and it’s the ’God’s on his Lunchbreak Companion Volume’. The volume contains all lyrics from the God album, full background info to all tunes and is lavishly illustrated by Chris. You can’t download a book, you know. Well, you could, but not this one.