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It’s just gone noon, half past monsoon, on the banks of the River Nile.

Madness entered my musical world with “Hey you, don’t watch that, watch this, this is the heavy heavy monster sound, the nuttiest sound around,” line from One Step Beyond. They were all about fun. If they lived next door, they’d force you to hang out at their place drinking and singing all night.

I loved Baggy Trousers. A song from a London band about schoolkids was spot on. I was a London schoolkid myself. But over time Night Boat to Cairo took over as my favourite Madness song. The song is glorious entertainment. It isn’t telling much of a story, just evoking simple images while playing happy ska. With so much of the song instrumental the sax gets lead billing, but the rest of the band are great players. Mike Barson, the piano player, is particularly impressive. Suggs sings with his usual unique sound.

The video works the same pointless way. They dress up in old-school desert military uniforms complete with pith helmet and dance around the blue screen studio with images of pyramids projecting in the background. Half the song is an instrumental but the guys keep us entertained by horsing around in their sand-filled studio. Someone added in the bouncing-ball lyrics so we can sing along: “It’s just gone noon, half past monsoon…”

Play this song and the house starts jumping. I can’t help but bounce as I type. My kids dance (usually with me) and they love watching the video of the seven young guys having a blast. They look like they can’t believe they can make a living out of their nutty sand dance. Then fifteen years later Madstock played to 75,000 people.

In his autobiography, Suggs says,

“I seem to remember that we got the inspiration from two blokes who regularly used to perform the dance outside the Odeon in Leicester Square. And so the echoes of these funny old routines continue.”

This song captures an era for me, a time when singing and partying was the most important thing to do, before career advancement, the accumulation of wealth, child-rearing and relationships took over. When this song plays the life of quiet desperation stops and you can be a nutty kid again.

Next: 5. The Smiths – This Charming Man

Previous: 7. PJ Harvey – Dress

Spare me the suspense.

Interpol’s music affects some deep part of my brain. I remember hearing their first single, PDA, and thinking that I liked it without knowing why. The band played with a droning sound and Paul Banks’s vocals have a depressed quality like Joy Division, but that wasn’t the reason I liked it.

I bought their first album, Turn On The Bright Lights, and the first track hit me harder than PDA (it is called Untitled and it has a fan video). There’s even more of a drone here than PDA, but they’re taking their time playing with simple, sad melodies. There’s a delay in resolution that sucks me in – the bass lumbers to an interesting space, giving me a shiver of hope before it rolls back down to its sad end. It brings up memories of childhood, of my father, of places I haven’t been to in decades. Despite the sadness of the music, these are happy memories. The first play of the first track of the first album was worth the twelve bucks.

On Our Love to Admire I found Mammoth. I was listening to the album driving up I-5 in Seattle in Jean’s convertible with the top down. The Heinrich Maneuver finished and moved into Mammoth but I didn’t notice the song change at first because it starts right after and has the same tempo. As the song progressed I heard its different character – it built up with the “spare me the suspense” line, kept building through the verse until they put the brakes on the beat and the music floated for a while. The song ended and I thought, “What was that?” and played the song again. For the rest of the trip to and from my destination I kept playing Mammoth. There’s something about it that lets me listen to it without tiring. Maybe it makes me relaxed. I’m playing it now on repeat. Spare me the suspense.

That “spare me the suspense” line is about the only lyric I can make sense of. Thank goodness it gets repeated so I have something to sing along to. The video is a waste of time.

The bass player (Carlos Dengler) mixes droning repetition with disco octaves. [It always cracks me up when I hear Slow Hands and it gets to the chorus and the bass switches from New York ‘00s cool to New York ‘70s disco.] The drummer (Sam Fogarino) keeps his usual granite beat. Singer Paul Banks sounds like he’s having a bad relationship; all is well with Interpol.

Next: 7. PJ Harvey – Dress

Previous: 9. Faith No More – Everything’s Ruined

Save your breath for someone else and credit me with something more.
When it comes to men like you, I know the score, I’ve heard it all before.

I’ve always been a sucker for heavily distorted guitar with female vocals and I loved bands like Curve, Clouds and Lush. My Bloody Valentine came out a bit earlier and didn’t get the ‘one-syllable’ memo. In Lush, Miki Berenyi played crunchy guitar, sang with a strong London accent and looked great with her big dark eyes and dyed red hair. What’s not to love?

Ladykillers was my favourite song of that era. It gets off to an expectant start with Miki’s matter-of-fact singing:

Here we go, hanging out in Camden, drinking with my girlfriends on a Saturday night.

Unlike most songs, I listen to the lyrics. Miki sings like she talks and I can hear what she says. In this case that is a good thing – the lyrics are smart and funny and worth the effort of a listen. I love the sound of the guitar lead with its single notes deep on the fretboard like an old country song.

The video isn’t my favourite. It flashes away, trying to induce epilepsy. Miki rolls her eyes to match her put-down lyrics and the cutting is so choppy that I lose focus on the images and see just flashing colours. Maybe that was the director’s intention?

On a sad note, this is one of two songs in my top 10 where the band lost a member to suicide. Drummer Chris Acland hanged himself after they released this album. Unlike the band at number three, Lush broke up since they couldn’t see themselves continuing without Chris.

Next: 9. Faith No More – Everything’s Ruined

Previous: 11. Depeche Mode – Enjoy the Silence

Oh ho make it magnificent. Tonight right. Oh your hair is beautiful. Oh tonight. Atomic.

Atomic looks great. The video starts in inverted monochrome with some dude showing up on a horse. The price to get in to see Blondie is ‘25 units’. There are mushroom clouds. The audience is in capes and hats with one girl in aluminium foil and slinkys. It tells us the song is cool, post-apocalyptic, punk.

Then you see Debbie Harry and she looks amazing. She has torn tights and messy bleached hair. She ignores us all in her big sunglasses, then she takes them off so we can get the panoramic view of her cheekbones. She’s wearing arm warmers. (They protect you from nuclear fallout.)

Then it hits you – Debbie Harry is wearing a garbage bag.

She doesn’t dance, she moves like a spastic robot. She says “Atomic” in her Arnold Schwarzenegger “If it bleeds, we can kill it” voice. I want to be invited. It is so punk.

It is so punk that you don’t notice that the music is so disco: The octaving bass line; The bubbly synth sound; The hot technical drum beat; The meaningless lyrics. Punk kills disco, and in its rage it becomes disco. Isn’t that what happened when Anakin executed Dooku and became Vader?

Hanging on the Telephone, The Tide is High, Call Me, Heart of Glass were all huge songs. Debbie Harry rapped on Rapture. Blondie owned the planet back then and Debbie Harry was the hottest singer in all of creation.

Next: 11. Depeche Mode – Enjoy the Silence

Previous: 13. The Clash – London Calling

Engines stop running, but I have no fear, ‘cause London is drowning and I live by the river.

Of the forty songs in my list, only three rate membership in the Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs.

• Super Freak, Rick James at 477.
• Dancing Queen, ABBA at 171.
• London Calling, The Clash at 15.

According to Rolling Stone, London Calling is the greatest song on my list. I can believe that. You can also figure out that my top twelve does not contain the following: Lust for Life, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Love Will Tear Us Apart, Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground or even the deliriously good Band of Gold by Freda Payne. Look at that quality music I didn’t let past the velvet rope.

London Calling is a global song, but to me it felt local:

London is drowning and I live by the river.

Back in 1979/80 I would stand at the bus stop, a queue of one, and look at the posters like the ones below. It was the time when they were building the Thames Barrier.

London was going to flood. Nuclear reactors were going to blow up. Southall had rioted (it was just up the road). Brixton was just about to riot. We believed that World War Three was about to start and a thousands of Soviet tanks were going to pour over the border into West Germany. We wouldn’t be able to stand up to the immense might of the Soviet conventional forces and would fire off the nukes. London Calling was music for the end of the world.

The Clash sing London Calling on a barge on the Thames in the rain. It is winter and they are cold and wet, wearing heavy coats. Joe Strummer is fighting to spit out his desolate lyrics. It made me proud to be a kid from London.

Next: 12. Blondie – Atomic

Previous: 14. The Cure – Primary