Readers recommend: songs about flirting results | Indie
Readers recommend: songs about flirting – results
This article is more than 10 years oldRR regular Fuel picks his top tracks from last week's flirting-related nominationsJudy in the Sandbox was my first flirt. Innocent, playful and wicked – but Nina Nastasia was just making friends.
Later on in life, I'd flirt with my eyes first. Next, I'd saunter over and cheekily say: "Bet you look good on the dancefloor". I recall one girl's winked reply: "With someone else." I smiled flirtatiously and thought I "could well be in", but the Streets know flirting is more complicated than that.
I saw her blushing while her laughing friends gave her the third degree. It was very "Oh my gosh"; the DJ was playing Basement Jaxx. Then came Kiss by Prince; I smiled her way when he sang: "You can't be too flirty."
Smooth operator? Me? No. I used to move like Michael Philip Jagger: "I'm going red and my tongue's getting tied".
Brass in Pocket was my introduction to flirting with intent to seduce. She has "motion, restrained emotion", uses her hands, her style, her imagination. I learned from the Pretenders. Previously, I'd just played Silly Games and affected an "I want you to want to me" attitude. But you can't stand as immobile and unfathomable as a Henry Moore statue for ever. No wonder Janet Kay sounded so disappointed: rejected due to bronzed stupidity. I had to learn to flirt.
So, I tried to be Phil Lynott's alpha-male rocker. I wasn't. I also lacked 1940s charm, wit and subtle elegance. Women see through my practised, politician-style lines. Ladykillers? Miki Berenyi knows my show of empathy is a ruse.
So why flirt? I do it for the joy, the laughter, the self-affirmation – and I can live with the humiliation. My best nightclubbing years were soundtracked by Underworld singing: "She said come over, boy. She smiled at you, boy." 's Would You …? is flirtatiousness itself. It's in the timing and delivery of the words, the infectiousness of the beat and joie de vivre of the playing – a song to make you want to flirt.
During those heady rave days, I met the musical embodiment of the female flirt in the Afghan Whig's 66. She introduced herself to a handsome man at a party, flirted with him and flitted out of my life.
The list
Nina Nastasia – Judy's in the Sandbox
Arctic Monkeys – Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor
The Streets – Could Well Be In
Basement Jaxx – Oh My Gosh
The Rolling Stones – Let's Spend the Night Together
Janet Kay – Silly Games
The Pretenders – Brass in Pocket
Lush – Ladykillers
Touch and Go – Would You …?
The Afghan Whigs – 66
Millie Jackson – There You Are
Frank Sinatra – Strangers in the Night
Listen to these songs on a YouTube playlist.
Read all the readers' recommendations on last week's blog, from which Fuel selected the songs above.
Here's a Spotify playlist containing readers' recommendations on this theme.
Reading on mobile? Listen to the playlist on Spotify
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