Songwriterobit: Jackie Trent

Jackie Trent, singer, songwriter, and actress, has died.

It's perhaps a shame that the obituaries are hanging her on the peg as 'the woman who wrote the lyrics for the Neighbours theme song'; it's a fact, sure, but the real-life soap opera played out in her earlier lyrics which reflected her first-affair-with, then-marriage-to, eventually-divorce-from Tony Hatch is far more interesting and artistically accomplished than the plodding, sodding Erinsborough jingle.

As a taste, her website tells the deeper story behind Couldn't Live Without Your Love, a hit for Petula Clark:

I wrote the lyrics in 1966: simply expressing my love and commitment to Tony Hatch – the man I would marry the following year. The lyrics speak for themselves.

Angela Kon’s (unauthorised) biography of Petula Clark: ‘Colour My World,’ page 178, allegedly records conversation of the 1980’s between the author and Tony Hatch: where he speaks of my loving words defining our relationship ‘from my point of view.’ If true, how deceitful and cold-blooded; with 25 years of marriage then ahead of us?

Eve Taylor, my manager did warn me: ‘Don’t marry him. He’ll just use you!’

Mind you, I still love those lyrics...

(Trent's website is well worth a visit; she's generous and open with anecdote, although writes in the overblown showbiz style parodied by Alan Partridge.)

Jackie Trent was 74; she died March 21st in Menorca.

Rihanna and her neighbours

Turbulent times in the Los Angeles real estate market - Rihanna found herself being sued by a neighbour who found her noisy and unpleasant. Now, her landlord is counter-suing the neighbour, claiming that if next door hadn't been shouting and yelling at Rihanna all the time, she would have bought the house off him.

The landlord wants the profits he would have made from the deal, although surely going so very, very public with an announcement that the people living next door to a house you're trying to sell is going to cost you more in the long run?

Turn it down, Madonna

It's no fun living upstairs from Madonna, it turns out. Her upstairs neighbour, being a New Yorker, is resorting to legal action rather than merely banging on the floor with a broom handle:

Karen George, of Manhattan, lives above Madonna in a building on Central Park.

She said in a lawsuit filed Friday against the building's co-op board that the Material Girl is using her apartment as a rehearsal studio, forcing neighbors to endure "blaring music, stomping and shaking walls," for up to three hours each day.

George complained about "unreasonably high-decibel, amplified music" and vibrations pouring through walls, ceilings and radiators.

The complaint doesn't say if Madonna is playing her own music. If she is - especially if it's late-period - forget the lawsuit, Ms George, and head straight for the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

Tomorrow finally comes

We're always fascinated by the anti-social neighbours who choose to play the same song over and over again. For example, what the hell could have driven Francis Cullen of Bolton to play If Tomorrow Never Comes by Ronan Keating at all, never mind for an unbroken stretch of sixteen hours?

Susan Jacques, who lives next door, said: "He used to start playing it at 11am on a Sunday morning and wouldn't stop until 3am on the Monday. The walls were vibrating and it kept me awake. I had quite liked the song until then."

Perhaps Cullen was attempting to undermine Ronan Keating, then?

Cullen has now been evicted; he's lucky - a less tolerant society would have strict punishment for infliction of Keating.

Robbie Williams is not getting on with the neighbours

Life imitates Stella Street, as Robbie Williams' next-door neighbour Joe Pesci crashed into his tiresome football-on-the-lawn afternoon to complain about his chums' parking:

"Which one of you motherfuckers blocked my drive?

"If you don't move in 30 seconds, I'm gonna smash your windscreen!"

He was, apparently, waving a golf club around.

The 3AM Girls suggest it's like a scene from Goodfellas, although the large number of paunchy b-list Brits stood around wearing footie kit makes us think more of Escape To Victory, to be honest.