clivemurray.com

Right, first off let me say that I am a massive Joe Satriani fan. Always have been. It was hearing “Surfing With The Alien” for the first time, aged 15, that made me want to play instrumental rock music. I love his albums, and I happen to think that his latest - “Is There Love In Space?” - is one of his best ever.

But.

I honestly think he has some of the worst song titles ever released. I mean, naming instrumental tracks is a different ballgame to naming songs with lyrics, granted, but sometimes it really seems like he’s just not making the effort at all. Example? “A Piece Of Liquid”. What the fuck is that, Joe? It’s not even grammatically correct!

The real kicker was the (excellent) album “Strange Beautiful Music”, though. Fourteen tracks, six of them named as if at the last minute. “New Last Jam”? “The Mountain Song” and “Hill Groove”? Joe, come on. And the all time worst of them all… “Seven String”.

“Gee, I can’t come up with a title for that song I did with my new seven-string guitar. Hmmm. Oh, sod it, ‘Seven String’ will do…”

Some would say that a title like “Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing”, “The Mighty Turtle Head” or even “Surfing With The Alien” is awful, but not by my criteria. At least he bothered to name those. With these others it just seems like the song got finished, and he left the naming of it to his kid or something…

For the record, here’s the full list of Satch song titles that I personally think really could have been thought about a little harder:

“Summer Song” (The Extremist)
“Cool #9″ (Joe Satriani)
“A Piece Of Liquid” (Crystal Planet) - (OK, this one he named, but it’s really poor…)
“Oriental Melody” (Strange Beautiful Music)
“Chords Of Life” (Strange Beautiful Music)
“New Last Jam” (Strange Beautiful Music)
“Mountain Song” (Strange Beautiful Music)
“Seven String” (Strange Beautiful Music) - (Arrrrgh!)
“Hill Groove” (Strange Beautiful Music)
“The Souls Of Distortion” (Is There Love In Space?)

Saying all that, he’s probably still my favourite recording artist bar none. I just wish the song titles didn’t grate on my brain so much…