Crocs to cobras, mambas to cottonmouths, komodos to geckos – let's get snappy and slide in some song suggestions
Every few months sensational news items announce how a crocodile is on the loose somewhere in Britain. "Goose-killer lurks in London's River Lea near Olympic Stadium" ran one headline in 2011. Last year a huge crocodile was reportedly spotted in the English Channel. It turned out to be a piece of wood. And in February this year police were called out after someone supposedly spotted a crocodile under a bridge in Bristol. None were found. Still, while discarded terrapin pets are regularly to be seen thriving in park ponds, it's hard to beat the idea, for attention-grabbing public frenzy and what-lies-beneath terror, that some man-eating scaly monster will come up through the sewage system and bite your bits when you're on the toilet.
Reptiles also do leap out prominently in song, but they don't have to be so flash in the pan. So this is where Readers Recommender snappy skills can bite. And reptiles open up lots of musical cultures too. In Africa, Asia, Australia or southern US states or South America crocodiles aren't only part of the culture, cuisine and fashion, they are on the loose for real, alongside gavials, caimans and alligators.
But beside those bone-crunchers with extraordinary infection-fighting blood, let us not forget other cold-blooded, egg-producing reptilia, including those nippy terrapins, the snapping turtle and its cousins, and the long-lived giant tortoise, another ancient dinosaurs of the Testudines family.
Nor can we ignore nearly 6,000 species of lizards, from the cute scampering geckos, and friend to humans in mosquito-ravaged countries, to iguanas, helmet and collared lizards to the komodo dragon. Now that one truly is a living dinosaur. Terrifying. Don't forget the New Zealand tuatua, which is in a class of its own.
And fancy a change? My favourite lizard is the chameleon, metaphorical inspiration to Woody Allen in my favourite film by him – Zelig, and at the other end of oddness, Johnny Depp in Rango. But let's pause a moment to have a look at the real thing, in all their glorious colours, with David Attenborough in Madagascar.
Many a song mentions and mimics to slick movement of the snake. And there is something so s-s-satisfying about s-s-singing that word – it's a passionate description of a beautiful, mesmeric deceiver. And with 3,600 species that variously bite, strangle, poison and dazzle with their markings, their names alone are also highly musical: pythons, mambas, boas, cobras, rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, boomslangs, vipers, pipe snakes, wart snakes, burrowing asps and sunbeam snakes – to name but a few. The sheer reaction those scaly, dislocating-jaw swallowers produce in us is enough to make any human make a sound, let alone a song.
A quick caveat. They're slimy, cold and produce eggs, but frogs, for example, are not reptiles, they're amphibians. So we'll save them and other amphibian creatures for another topic.
So this week we welcome severin into the slithering, snapping, cracking, flapping world of reptile songs. Please quickly place yours in the RR jar or enclosure (depending on size), minding not to lose your fingers, by last orders GMT (11pm) on Monday 17 March, and severin will snake-charm us with his choices on Thursday 20 March. I also anticipate lots of colourful comments about species along the way. Hey, let's make it a natural history forum too.
To increase the likelihood of your nomination being considered, please:
• Tell us why it's a worthy contender.
• Quote lyrics if helpful, but for copyright reasons no more than a third of a song's words.
• Provide a link to the song. We prefer Muzu or YouTube, but Spotify, SoundCloud or Grooveshark are fine.
• Listen to others people's suggestions and add yours to a collaborative Spotify playlist.
• If you have a good theme for Readers recommend, or if you'd like to volunteer to compile a playlist, please email peter.kimpton@theguardian.com or adam.boult@theguardian.com
• There's a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are "zedded", at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of "zedded", "donds" and other strange words used by RR regulars.
• Many RR regulars also congregate at the 'Spill blog.
by Peter Kimpton via Music: Electronic music | theguardian.com
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