2026 is the year of the horse. This Chinese zodiac symbol suggests that we are in for a bumpy ride. No surprises there, so hold onto your hats, ’cos here’s a herd of equine numbers, rattled off the top of my head. I was drinking, alone on a Shinkansen, when I wrote this. Pen in one hand, lemon Chu-Hi in the other. Speeding somewhere in the dark. Forgive me if it goes astray…

Colourbox / Looks Like We’re Shy One Horse

Found on the flip of one of my most formative records, Colourbox’s cover of Baby, I Love You So, Looks Like We’re Shy One Horse is a skanking, stepping celebration of the creative partnership / friendship of Sergio Leone & Ennio Morricone. Slashed by spaghetti western guitars and sampling the movies “Once Upon A Time In The West” and “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” – in parallel to Big Audio Dynamite, Andrew Weatherall included this on his Nine O’clock Drop comp. 

Echo & The Bunnymen / Bring On The Dancing Horses

Ringing with great big, gated guitar arcs. Something about them, combined with the panpipes and tambourine, makes me think of sleigh bells, and Christmas. 

My first girlfriend bought me this, and a copy of Joy Division’s Still, as a birthday present. My nerves, shyness, and need to be, to pretend to be, someone else, to find somewhere to hide, at the time, meant that I was permanently pissed. Half cut, one over the eight, in my cups, collapsing. I would always drink on my way round to hers, often passing out in the park, making me late for the date. The record reminds me of cold, Croydon Decembers and the warmth of her welcome. 

“Shaking while I’m breaking your brittle heart…”

I knew no better. I’ve no idea why she put up with it. She was sharp, she was smart, she was fashionable. People were continually making excuses for me. They still do. Don’t believe them. I don’t. 

Horse Mouth / Herb Vendor

A jolly Lee Perry produced, Jah Shaka endorsed hymn to collie weed. I haven’t smoked a spliff for 25 years. I stopped puffing when I became a dad. At uni, though, I did little else. Final year, I’d entered this constantly stoned space. A super chilled alternative universe, where things, and thoughts, moved gracefully, easily, but in slow motion, and a trip to the grocery store became an up-the-amazon-like adventure. Usually returning with everything, except what I had gone for. 

Rolling Stones / Wild Horses

The Stones doing country – was Gram Parsons around? This is one for Marianne Faithfull. Legend has it that this song, a ballad, epic in its romantic melancholy, was written for her, although Jagger denies it. He says that love was long gone, even though Ms. Faithfull co-wrote Sister Morphine from the same LP. 

When Marianne passed away last January I really wanted to pay tribute and put some words together. Perhaps I still will. It started out as a “top 10”, but the idea evolved into something deeper than that. 

“Hey Marianne, what’s your game now? Can anybody play?”

Crazy Horse  / I Don’t Want To Talk About It

Here’s a song with a ton of mythology around it. Lyrically aching with heartbreak, it’s now impossibly weighted down with its writer, Danny Whitten’s tragedy. Whitten was part of Crazy Horse, who, of course, for a while were Neil Young’s backing band. The story I heard was that following their split, due partly to Whitten’s heroin habit, the singer / songwriter got stuck in L.A. and fell on hard times. Young, when he learnt of this, sent for Whitten, inviting him to sit in on some sessions. Whitten, however, was too far gone. Young sacked him, flew him back to the city, and that same night Whitten OD’d. 

As a kid I only knew the Rod Stewart cover, but I had it down pat, pretty much word for word, and, so, its poetry shaped, scarred me from the start.

“The stars in the sky don’t mean nothing to you, they’re a mirror…”

I don’t know what drew me to the song. To be honest, I’ve only had a handful of lovers, so have known very little heartbreak. However, forever, it seems that I’ve had this feeling that things won’t last. It’s a song that the young me would wallow in, but the old me never listens to. I can’t stop to look back, regret. I’ve got to keep moving. 

Jacky  / White Horses

Something for my fellow children of the 1970s. A theme from Saturday morning TV that’s very likely engraved in your memory. When kids’ broadcasting consisted of a few black & white serials – “White Horses”, “The Flashing Blade”, “Robinson Crusoe” – at the end of which you had to go find something less boring to do. We’d kick a ball about in the park, perhaps sneak into the match – The Palace were just down the road – invade the pitch. Start a fire. 

The DJ Mark Moore revived Jacky’s “hit”. Working it, as a bit of camp nostalgia, into his sets at Phillip Salon’s Mudd Club. 

“On white horses let me ride away to my land of dreams so faraway…”

Pretty and folky its “clouds of candy floss” bore no resemblance to where I was living and where I was goiing. I’ve no recollection of what the program was about. “The Flashing Blade”, though, – “You’ve got to fight for what you want…” – filled my head with romantic heroics. 

Horses Without Heads / What’s Your Name?

A very British Balearic Beat from an artist with a Godfather / Mario Puzo / Francis Ford Coppola -inspired moniker. This came with a “Joe 90 Mix” which I thought was a reference to Terry Farley’s glasses. Go-go-not-go-go with lairy guitars, an Ian Dury-like delivery and loved-up, huggable football hooligan chorus, as it span, me and Joanne would disappear on the dance floors of Flying and The Yellow Book. I can’t remember if we danced together. I don’t blame her. I can’t move for toffee, but I could bang a tambourine and shake my Charles The First locks. She would always come find me when she wanted another half. 

Annette Peacock / Pony

Mad funky, early synth stuff from the lady who turned down a slot in David Bowie’s band. Containing cryptic lyrics that fail to be anything other than totally sexual. Treated, tortured, horny, frustrated, Annette protests amid mad modular squeals and squiggles around a Jean-Claude Vannier / Serge Gainsbourg worthy psyche groove. 

I’m not sure how I ended up with this record, but I suspect it was because of one of The Wire’s lists – “100 Records That Set The World On Fire (While No One Was Listening” It fits snugly, sonically, in there with Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Coil favourite, God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot. 

Pony Tail / ラヴ・ソング

A fragile, acoustic Japanese reading of the classic Leslie Duncan-penned folk song. The Mancunian DJ / Balearic guru Moonboots collects covers of this tune (check his instagram: onehundredlovesongs) and a long time ago now he asked me to find it for him. I, in turn, asked Organic Music’s Chee Shimizu, who promptly came up with the goods. I never even unwrapped the record, never played it for the fear that if I did I would keep it, like Golem under the spell of “his precious”, rather than forward it to my friend. Such was the grip of my addiction. Chee, very kindly, kept me in mind and did eventually locate a second copy. 

Aphrodite’s Child / Four Horsemen

Pre-global fame, Greek legends Vangelis and Demis Roussos recorded this mad, mystical, biblical psychedelic rock epic. Alternating between ambient, beatless and then explosive, upliting, suddenly shook when the rhythm section leaps in, the song slips into scatting as not one by two wild axes solo for the full, final three minutes. I cherry-picked this from a great Jolyon Green “Hippy” mix. 

Anne Briggs / Fine Horseman

“I dreamed you were playing with my hair…”

This is one the first bits of folk that I knowingly fell in love with. Not counting the the songs I would have caught as a kid on the radio. Anne Briggs’ incredible soaring, but delicate, longing, vocal, hiding her strength, individualism and infamous wandering, free spirit. Again, I don’t know where I heard it, why I came to own it, but at the time I bought the album, The Time Has Come, on CD – something I almost never did (with the glaring exception of my Bill Hicks collection) because pre-internet / pre-Discogs it was all that was available.

Laid Back / White Horse

A pair of synth pop Danes with an anti heroin anthem, a popping and locking electro powerhouse whose beat Prince pinched for Erotic City. Both of those tunes would be played at acid house parties. Prince has me in the West End, walking into Nicky Holloway’s Trip for the first time. Laid Back, whizzing whirring, pulling in at the same sonic station as Flash & The Pan’s Waiting For A Train, were part of the soundtrack at the significantly less swanky / swish Downham Tavern, in south east London. I can see myself at a Fascinations all-dayer, dodging lasers in a hall the size of an aircraft hanger. Junkies from the surrounding estates with hair – Tracey topknots – tied up with spoons. 

Craig Leon & Cassell Webb / Donkeys Bearing Cups

A ceremony of sirens and metallic percussion from Craig Leon & Cassell Webb’s concept album of “interplanetary folk music”. Inspired by the teachings of Mali’s Dogon People– a tribe who believe that human civilisation is built on knowledge acquired from an alien race, the Nommos. These extra-terrestrials having arrived thousands of years ago, from Sirius B. Released on pioneering acoustic guitarist, John Fahey’s Takoma, Italian turntable wizard Daniele Baldelli whacked this into his wildly EQ-ed sets at the Cosmic Club on Lake Garda. There, the hippies who couldn’t get in would park nearby, within earshot, and get high in their Citroën “deux chevaux” 2CVs.