Today’s Top 40: The Stories Behind Today’s Biggest Hits…Glastonbury Music Festival Edition: Part II.

In this edition of Today’s Top 40, I am going to wrap up our look at the recent Glastonbury Music Festival by introducing you to two young performers who stole the show there, as well as reacquainting you with two dear old friends who gave, arguably, the most memorable performance of the entire festival. Here we go! This is Glastonbury Part II!

I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend by Girl in Red. *Lyrics video is here.

Girl in Red is a band from Norway that is fronted by a charismatic twenty-three year old woman named Marie Ulven Ringheim. Like many of this generation’s most popular acts, Girl in Red came to the attention of the public via performances on social media. In this case, Ringheim was given a guitar as a teenager and started writing her own songs and uploading them to the file sharing platform known as Soundcloud. It was while on Soundcloud that people first heard her song, “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend”. This song captured the more inclusive mood of today’s youth by being unabashedly about Ringheim’s desire for a girl named Hannah. The song is a guitar driven bit of jangle pop and is a hoot to listen to. In 2017, Girl in Red was signed to a record contract and released their debut album called Chapter 1. Since then, the video for “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” has been streamed a quarter of a billion(!) times. Girl in Red was voted as Best New Act and “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” as Song of the Year in Norway in 2018.

Aside from the great initial success of this song, Girl in Red gave an outstanding live performance of “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” at Glastonbury that you just have to see. The video is seven minutes long. The first half is the type of standard stage show you would expect to see but then, at the halfway mark, Ringheim challenges the audience to perform a “wall of death”. They agree to try. What follows is an amazing example of the trust that exists between an artist and their fans when rock n’ roll is done properly. The second half of this performance is awesome! When you watch it you will see thousands of people having the time of their lives. It is truly something else! Definitely worth a few minutes of your time. And yes, the “wall of death” scene just goes to prove that COVID is over, right?! It’s really over, isn’t it? This crowd certainly thinks so. But we won’t think about that just yet. Simply enjoy this amazing performance and remember what it feels like to have fun on an epic scale such as this.

Seventeen Going Under by Sam Fender. *Lyrics video is here.

“Seventeen Going Under” is the title track from Sam Fender’s second album. Fender is a good example of not rushing to judgment on a person because of how they look. On the surface, Sam Fender is model handsome. Because of that, it is easy to view him as a beautiful boy who has been given the spotlight because of his looks more than because of any talent he might possess. However, to do so would be wrong and would cause you to miss out on a performer who has endured quite a lot already in his young life and whose songwriting has gained comparisons to a young Springsteen.

The song “Seventeen Going Under” is Fender’s autobiography. It tells the story of a life spent battling poverty, bullying, obesity and abuse. It does all of this in the guise of a guitar driven rocker that will have you cheering for Fender by the time he is through with you. The short strokes of his story are that Fender grew up in Northern England in poverty. His parents had an abusive marriage which, at times, involved the abuse finding its way to him. Fender was overweight as a child and was bullied because of it. The combination of abuse at school and at home caused Fender to mask his sadness and sorrow by becoming an extroverted class clown type. Eventually, Fender found music as an outlet for the emotions he was bottling up inside. As well, one of his uncles began teaching him self defense as a teenager. The discipline needed to be successful in that endeavour helped to tone his body. However, just as life was beginning to look up for him as a teenage boy, his mother was stricken with health problems and Fender felt as though the responsibility for caring for his family was falling on his shoulders. So, at age seventeen, he felt he was falling under the weight of his burdens and so he wrote the song, “Seventeen Going Under”.

This song has achieved widespread acclaim. Sam Fender has been declared Best New Artist in the UK and “Seventeen Going Under” was proclaimed the winner of the Ivor Novello Award as Best Song in this very year of 2022. When you watch the live performance, you can see that the audience is definitely on Fender’s side as they sing along from the very first notes. It has to be gratifying to have come from where he has and then to receive the type of reception he got at Glastonbury. When it comes to watching the video, I suggest that you watch the lyrics video first. That video is less visually distracting which will allow you to focus on the words he is singing and the story that he is telling. The comparisons to Springsteen are not a stretch by any means. This young man actually has some writing chops. The more I learn of him the more I wonder if his career will mirror that of another model handsome young man named George Michael. Time will tell, I suppose. But, for now, allow me to introduce you to a great, well written song and a wonderfully-positive live performance as well. Enjoy both.

I’ve Got a Feeling by Paul McCartney and “John Lennon”. *Lyrics version can be found here.

When it was first announced that 80 year old Paul McCartney would be the closing act at Glastonbury, many thought that this was a mistake. Music festivals such as Glastonbury tend to be energy-fuelled affairs that often showcase the music of up and coming acts. While big name acts appear on the bill, too, those acts tended to still be ones that were actively recording and releasing new material such as Foo Fighters, who headlined Glastonbury just before the pandemic shut everything down. So when Paul McCatrney was announced as the headliner, many thought his show would be slow paced and pedestrian and that it would be a set filled with old music from a bygone era.

So, imagine everyone’s surprise when this 80 year old man absolutely killed it for over two solid hours! McCartney’s set was helped by special appearances by Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl (who was making his first public appearance since the death of friend and drummer, Taylor Hawkins a few months ago). However, the biggest surprise was McCartney himself. His voice was strong and his stamina solid. He played like he always had and sounded fresh and vibrant as ever. It seemed as though he was having fun. Consequently, the audience was given a glimpse at the charismatic presence of a man who helped change the way the world listens to music.

One of the best parts about moments such as McCartney’s performance is that the lessons of history need not be dull. The Glastonbury Music Festival is, above all else, a vehicle for showcasing the best of British music. What better venue than this for introducing modern audiences to the generational talent that is Paul McCartney and The Beatles?! Thus, it was with much poignancy that Sir Paul launched into the song “I’ve Got a Feeling” toward the end of his set. You may remember that this song was one of the final songs The Beatles ever recorded together. As their time together was ending and they were all going their separate ways, the members of The Beatles managed to record a few final songs. One of them was “I’ve Got a Feeling”. That song was one of the songs they were able to perform at the famous rooftop concert at Abbey Road studios that marked the end of their live performing days as a band. So, there was a lot of history at play when Paul McCartney started to sing this song on the Glastonbury stage. About two thirds of the way through the song, McCartney was joined by a special guest who served to bring the history lesson home. That special guest was long time songwriting partner and friend, John Lennon….well, sort of! History came to life on that stage and an entirely new generation of British music fans got to bear witness to something extremely special that served as a foundation for all of the new music they had heard at the festival up until that point. It is not an understatement to say that it was a magical moment and one that will be remembered for a long time. I guess that it just goes to prove the point that just because someone or something is old doesn’t mean it still can’t rock one’s world. Please click on the link above and watch a genius work his magic once again.

That closes out my coverage of the 2022 Glastonbury Music Festival. *(You can read Part I here). I hope that you have enjoyed reading about and watching some of the amazingly talented performers who graced the various stages at this festival. It was so nice to see live music again. If you want to get a glimpse of a far larger group of artists and bands who performed at Glastonbury, you can access their performances by clicking on the BBC Music link here. Thank you all for reading and listening. Have a wonderful day.

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