You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.

Homer Simpson

For tortuous reasons of logic that I won’t bore you with, I found myself searching Spotify for songs of foolishness and about fools. Suddenly sensing an opportunity for a playlist featuring one of my favourite songs of 2014, I pressed on until I had the requisite 20 songs and then some. A whittle later and I was bang on the arbitrary target.

Part of the fun of a non-musical theme like this is the drawing together of disparate artists - for some of whom it will be a first appearance on RRP - and the revisiting of forgotten acts and the discovering of new songs. So, sit back and enjoy the foolishness!

https://youtu.be/eKgPY1adc0A

Perfume Genius - Fool

I have no choice but to describe this song in words already over-used by myself and others. It is stunning and beautiful. This live take loses some of the majestic power, but I’ll put that down to it being a shakycam bootleg rather than the performance. Check out the atudio version on Spotify for the full whack on the head.

https://youtu.be/f_ENwVh_vLM

World Party - Ship of Fools

https://youtu.be/ZHh0V7UjVXI

Erasure - Ship of Fools

Erasure: shiny electro-pop that indie kids gradually feel more at ease to admit to quite liking as they grow older. Ship of Fools reached #6 in 1988.

https://youtu.be/ekc_aR5LyAk

Aretha Franklin - Chain of Fools

As far as I know, no-one has ever had an issue with admitting to liking The Queen of Soul.

https://youtu.be/xroRNBvvF9M

Starsailor - Poor Misguided Fool

I have to admit that I once reached that point where I couldn’t take any more Starsailor; I think it was Alcoholic that did it for me in the end. Listening to this, and remembering some of their other songs I start to think that maybe they weren’t so bad after all - perhaps suffered from over-exposure and from being not the only band of their kind around at the time.

https://youtu.be/EGZJg4uo3-k

Warpaint - Billie Holiday

I AM A CHEAT. THIS SONG DOES NOT CONTAIN FOOL IN THE TITLE.

That said, it is from an album called The Fool, and it follows a song by Billie Holiday. So that’s all good, basically.

https://youtu.be/EWcTp1r_Nls

Broken Bells - The Angel and the Fool

https://youtu.be/bk9h8LUEh4E

Rufus Wainrwright - April Fools

Rufus + Martha in one live package. I am spoiling you again.

https://youtu.be/1qvvVm9vKbY

Justin Townes Earle - Time Shows Fools

Not only is this a great track, but it helps to push out of my mind another Justin Townes Earle song - Harlem River Blues - that’s been lodged uncomfortably in my memory for too long: great song, also, but one that disturbs me in some way I can’t quite put a finger on.

https://youtu.be/VWoJYmDg0WQ

Haircut 100 - Nobody’s Fool

A Top 10 single in 1982 (their last Top 40 hit) for Nick Heyward and co.

https://youtu.be/uVQSmW6klew

Suzanne Vega - Fool’s Complaint

https://youtu.be/yPvzj82ZxJo

The Stone Roses - Fool’s Gold

Feast on this epic 13-minute live version of an epic 9-minute album track.

https://youtu.be/jRswxxT3HQ8