Cast your mind back over the history of music to the biggest headed of all the biggest headed bastards...

From Uncut this month guess who said - without any discernible trace of irony - "..it's the greatest song of all time..." about a song he wrote

Sounds like something Ian McCulloch would say...

Sounds like and was.

Ladies and Gentlemen - The Killing Moon.

Not just ok I suppose but nothing special but in fact the greatest song of all time.

Wow, that was actually a complete shot in the dark.

There was a biography of the Bunnymen doing the rounds a few years ago that contained a list of McCulloch's wore memorable pronouncements. One of them featured him slating another rockstar for "not even being able to commit suicide properly". And people thought Noel Gallagher had an ego problem...

At work so no access to the magazine but if someone has this months issue nearby please put the full quote in. He comes over as a right twat

This reminds me of an old edition of 'My Top 10' on Radio 1 donkey's years ago, when Cliff Richard included about six of his own songs in his own top ten. Tosser.

Englebert Humperdinck famously included four of his own songs on 'Desert Island Discs'.

That's nothing. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf included seven (yes, seven!) of her own performances.

"I am one of the best singer-songwriters this country has produced. Ever."

Perhaps the best pre-gig write-up I have ever seen.

He missed out "I'm a massive, narcissistic, fuck-ugly cunt".

Should have been number one on the list, surely.

"Mick Hucknall, singer, 45, London"

That would make him 47 now, as the piece was dated 2006.

Which is bollocks.

As I have mentioned on these pages previously Hucknall was in the year below me at a grammar school in Manchester. I'm 51.

So much for his earthy northern honesty.

He was known as a twat then, by the way.

Heh. Hucknall claimed to have called his band Simply Red because "Red" was his nickname at school. Anyway, I met someone at a party once who claimed to have gone to school with him and he said that everyone called him "Monkeyface".

Edit: as Magazine have reformed, I thought I'd post this clip of them doing "Motorcade" from 1977. A young Hucknall can be seen nodding along at the front (and in close-up about 4 minutes in).

"Simply Monkeyface"

*sniggers*

Mac: "It's the greatest song ever written, partly because it's more than just a song. It's better than 'Hound Dog' or 'Love Me Tender' or 'Strangers In The Night' because it's about everything. The words, the chords, Will's guitar, my voice, the combination of those elements take it beyond being a mere song"

Later Modest Mouse goes on .."You don't need to read The Bible, you can listen to 'The Killing Moon' and get just as much out of it"

Arsehole.