His rival John McCain was not an African American. People claim that some members of the American population would hold this against Mr Obama. Others though would embrace the change and vote for someone who didn’t bang on about a war he was involved in last millennium.

Now, this may have been deliberately kept back from his campaign, but Barack Obama has Irish roots! Granted they are ridiculously diluted with his great-great Grandfather living here, but so what! The UK now has a watered down link with him and it’s all been put in to a song that sounds like it was all improved by a man drunk on Guinness. Enjoy.

But, look, it hasn’t worked. Even though Will.I.Am’s awful habit of roping in celebrities like Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson to perform sappy Hallmark-style songs like Yes We Can and Omigod Obama Just Touched Me (I’m Never Washing My Hand Again LOL!!!1!!) probably put Barack Obama’s chances of becoming president in greater jeopardy than any of that William Ayers stuff, he’s at it again.

Today Will.I.Am debuted his new Obama victory song It’s A New Day on Oprah. It might seem incredibly prescient of Will.I.Am to have written and recorded such a song as timely as It’s A New Day so soon after Barack Obama’s historic election win, but it’s really not – he also had another song lined up in case John McCain won. But sadly I Hate You, Stupid Old Man (And Jessica Alba Agrees) will now never see the light of day. Video after the jump…

What’s the worst thing about Barack Obama becoming president of America this week? His supposed lack of experience? The sense that the poor man’s going to have to spend so much time behind bulletproof glass now that he’ll probably end up developing some sort of terrible crippling social isolation disorder? No.

The worst thing about Barack Obama being elected president of America is that we’re all going to have to put up with about six solid months of listening to celebrities crow on about the great job they did of getting him elected in the first place.

We already got a hint of how unbearable it’s going to be when even Elisabeth Hasselbeck declared her support for Barack Obama this week. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, for God’s sake. A week ago she looked as though she’d actually consider burning his house down if it meant he’d lose. So if she’s behind Barack Obama now, just imagine how insufferable Will.I.Am is at the moment.

Will.I.Am was there right at the start, remember. When Barack Obama said “Yes we can,” Will.I.Am wrote a song called Yes We Can. When Barack Obama said “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Will.I.Am write a song called We Are The Ones. When Barack Obama said that thing about getting his daughters a puppy, Will.I.Am toyed with writing a song about that before realising that the only word that rhymes with ‘puppy’ is ‘guppy’ and that’d be stupid, even for him.

And now that Barack Obama is the president-elect of America, Will.I.Am has decided to write a song about that as well. Today on Oprah, Will.I.Am decided to give the song its official debut, as Forbes reports:

Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am debuted his new music video celebrating President-elect Barack Obama’s victory during a live broadcast of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” The lyrics of “It’s a New Day” include: “I woke up this morning, feeling brand new/Cuz the dreams that I’ve been dreaming has finally come true.” A video featuring photos of Obama played on a giant screen behind the Grammy-award winning artist.

Profound. Personally, we’re pleased that the dreams we’ve been dreaming haven’t come true because we’ve seen the damage that can be caused when bear vaginas grow teeth, but if that’s what Will.I.Am wants then good luck to him.

Although we will admit that It’s A New Day is slightly better than Will.I.Am’s other Barack Obama songs – mainly because Jessica Alba doesn’t come on and waffle about Darfur for an hour and a half in the middle – we do worry that Will.I.Am is never going to stop writing songs about Obama, even though he doesn’t really have to any more..

Because, seriously, as endearing as it seems now, just imagine how annoying it’s going to be in 18 months’ time when Will.I.Am releases his double album inspired by Barack Obama’s trade negotiations with Belgium. No, really, imagine it.

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In fact, Bruce Springsteen loves Halloween so much that he’s decided to dress up as the devil and release a brand new vaguely spooky song entitled A Night With The Jersey Devil on his website for free, just because today happens to be Halloween.

It’s a clever move. And it’s prompted other old rockers to follow – next week Rod Stewart will release a song called Bonfire Night (Of My Heart) on his website, followed by Huey Lewis posting a song called I Give Thanks To You, Baby on November 27 and then Elton John releasing Woo, It’s The International Year Of Astronomy! on January 15, just because he couldn’t wait an extra month and do one for Valentine’s Day, the impatient sod.

When Bruce Springsteen likes something, he has to go out of his way to display that love to everyone. For instance, Bruce can’t just be quietly fond of, say, the notion of shagging an old whore up the bum – he has to actually go and write a song about it. There are probably other examples of this, but the whore-bumming is the only one that springs to mind at the moment.

Oh, Halloween, too. Bumming whores and Halloween, they’re the two things that Bruce Springsteen likes enough to write songs about. But only those two things.

We don’t know why Bruce Springsteen likes Halloween so much. It’s probably because both ‘Springsteen’ and ‘Halloween’ end with ‘een’. That also explains Bruce’s other main loves – queens, spleens, teens, screens  and Charlie Sheens.

Anyway, in the Webthump earlier today, we mentioned that Bruce Springsteen wasn’t doing a big Halloween display at his house this year because of fears of overcrowding. That news was probably incredibly disappointing for anyone who a) lives quite close to Bruce Springsteen’s house, b) likes Halloween and c) thinks that standing outside the house of someone richer than them and gawping at plastic cauldrons is an acceptable way to spend an evening.

But Bruce Springsteen doesn’t want to disappoint anyone – not even if they’re as essentially worthless at the people who go and look at all the decorations on his house – and so he’s come up with a clever backup plan. Bruce Springsteen has recorded a special new Halloween song and put it up on his website for free. MTV reports:

It being Halloween and all, the Boss is … offering a new song and video called “A Night With the Jersey Devil.” On his Web site he writes, “Dear Friends and Fans, If you grew up in central or south Jersey, you grew up with the ‘Jersey Devil.’ Here’s a little musical Halloween treat. Have fun! Bruce Springsteen”.

Yeah, nice try Bruce Springsteen, but we can see right through your little plan. ‘A little musical Halloween treat’ indeed. It’s just an excuse not to give children any trick or treat candy isn’t it, you massive tightwad. Well, it’s not going to work, because we can guarantee this exact scenario will be played out at least 50 times tonight:

Kids: “Trick or treat!”

Bruce Springsteen: “What? No. Didn’t you see my website today? My treat to you is the song A Night With The Jersey Devil, which I recorded as a little musical treat.”

Kids: “Yeah, we saw that. To be honest, we thought it was a lazy and somewhat derivative blues standard that you clearly hadn’t put much thought into, accompanied by a video that does little more than reference the fact that you’ve seen the promo to Hurt by Johnny Cash at least once. With that in mind, Mr Springsteen, we’d probably prefer some Haribo.”

Bruce Springsteen: “But… but… the song. I don’t have any Haribo.”

Kids: “It’s a trick, then. Egg him, boys.”

Watch A Night With The Jersey Devil by Bruce Springsteen now.

That’s right – Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer, the celebrity couple that you know nobody cares the slightest sniff about, presumably not even Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer, who get shoved into your face around the clock regardless – are back on, with Aniston apparently being the guest of honour at Mayer’s 31st birthday party.

What’s more, John Mayer has apparently written a song about Jennifer Aniston to show his devotion, sealing their romance. The song, entitled Shut Up You Whiny Pinch-Faced Bitch, is due for release next month by the way.

Jennifer Aniston is starting to get on a little in years now, and her biological clock must be positively shrieking at her 24/7. Presumably it’s shrieking for her to have a baby so overwhelmingly bland that she may as well just push a pillowcase with with a marker-pen face drawn on it out of her birth canal, because her romantic partner of choice lately seems to be John Mayer, and he certainly has the genes to provide that function.

Not so long ago John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston were on, before suddenly deciding to be off again. Since then, we expect that John Mayer has been on a journey of painful introspection, anguished that he’d let the love of his life slip through his fingers just because he was mildly ashamed that he looked like a boy having an inappropriate romance with his auntie every time they went out together.

But lately there have been signs that the Manny Man Maniston relationship – yeah, we think we’ll stick with that one – was starting to flourish again. Last week Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer were seen kissing at an airport, and now it seems that things are taking a turn for the serious in a blizzard of flirty text messages, birthday party invitations and songwriting, as a source told The Mirror:

“Determined to show he’s a changed man, John has cut right back down on his drinking and has pledged to quit smoking rollies – two things that really annoyed Jennifer. He has even written a song about their time together and played it to Jennifer who, naturally, was incredibly touched. But so far things are going well, and both parties are hopeful of a long-term reconciliation.”

It sounds sweet, doesn’t it, that John Mayer has thought to write a song for Jennifer Aniston. But remember, any sweetness in the gesture is obliterated by the fact that it’s a John Mayer song, and is therefore probably about as romantic as watching your boyfriend have sex with your sister as he repeatedly punches you about the face.

But still, if it makes both of them happy, then we should all be thrilled for Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer. Without a doubt, each of them has found the perfect partner for traipsing around the world scowling at the paparazzi while secretly being pleased that they’re considered important enough to still be paparazzi targets. It’s sweet.

And, yes, if they’re back on it means we’ll have to brace ourselves for a flurry of messy John Mayer/ Jennifer Aniston split stories that roughly coincide with the DVD release of He’s Just Not That Into You, but we’ll throw ourselves off that bridge when we come to it.

Britney’s big new comeback single Womanizer has jumped 95 places in the American singles chart to reach number one. And you know what they say – when a song that sounds like Professor Stephen Hawking’s faulty voicebox being jumpstarted by a big spluttering clown-car engine gets to number one, you’ve probably been accepted by the general population to some extent.

And now that Womanizer’s number one position is the cherry on Britney Spears’ public rehabilitation cake, it’s time for her to celebrate. How? The same way she always does – by shaving her head, mashing anti-psychotic drugs into her food and trapping her own children in a bathroom until she’s sedated and taken to a mental hospital. Hooray!

Britney Spears should go into politics. Seriously, look at how well she’s galvanised the public with her comeback. It’s been so stage-managed and choreographed that nothing could possibly have upset it. Well, nothing except for Britney Spears’ fragile state of mind, which could still explode messily all over the place and end up with Britney Spears kidnapping a stranger’s child and hiding it in the rafters with her at any moment, but let’s ignore that.

Because Britney Spears’ new single Womanizer has just made it to number one in the American single chart, and it’s broken all kinds records as well. E! Online reports:

The song’s 95-spot jump to No. 1 is the biggest in Billboard history… “Womanizer” also set a record by selling 286,000 digital copies. That not only tops the singer’s 179,000-copy debut for 2007’s “Gimme More,” it’s also the biggest digital debut for any female artist since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking digital sales five years ago. Mariah Carey’s “Touch My Body” previously held the record.

Other records that Womanizer by Britney Spears has broken include Most Popular Song To Ever Go ‘Womanizer Woma-Womanizer You’re A Womanizer Oh Womanizer Oh You’re A Womanizer Baby’ All The Titting Time, Best Song To Make Suspects To Break Down And Confess Their Secrets Now That Physical Torture Is Frowned Upon and Best Alternative Theme-Tune To Prime Minister’s Question Time.

The success of Womanizer bodes well for Britney Spears’ new album Circus, to be released in December, and by and large it’s all down to the exceedingly professional way that her comeback has been stage-managed. So, disgraced celebrities, if you want to make a successful comeback all you need to do is follow Britney Spears’ simple five-point guide.

1 – Turn up in public wearing nice clothes and make-up that doesn’t look like it was applied by an elderly Parkinson’s sufferer in the middle of a temper tantrum. The fact that you aren’t red-eyed and bald will confound everyone senseless.

2 - Let your mother publish a book that graphically describes what a mental old bastard you are, but only so long as the last line reads something like “But, hey, she’s all better now, so phew.”

3 - Release a single that just involves you saying the same word over and over again while a fire alarm goes off in the background that everybody seems pretty ambivalent about.

4 - Get naked in the video for that song, because only then will people actually pay any attention to it.

5 - Pray to God that your little sister makes you look relatively sane in comparison.

Followed all those steps? Congratulations, you’re a success just like Britney Spears! Now you’re ready to be the subject of so much unwanted media intrusion and responsibility-free power that your mental health is almost certainly going to deteriorate to a worry extent. See you in the mental hospital!

But sadly John McCain isn’t having any of it. Instead, he’d rather use My Hero by Foo Fighters which – while probably a better election song that Eghhh (EGHHH) because it doesn’t have a seven-minute death-jazz intermission played on a contraceptive diaphragm – has annoyed Foo Fighters no end.

John McCain’s use of My Hero has enraged Foo Fighters so much that they’ve launched a furious rock n roll riposte – they’ve written a really bloody strongly worded letter about it. In fact, Foo Fighters have really laid the law down – if John McCain plays My Hero one more time, they’re going to call the flipping council about it or something. Just you watch them!

When a person runs for office in America, it’s important that they pick a campaign song. The song helps to set the tone of the campaign, plus it means there isn’t an awkward two-minute period while the politician shuffles to the podium in the middle of the stage in deathly silence. Would Hitler have lost the war if he’d picked something like Ooh Baby I Love Your Way (Every Day) by Big Mountain as his campaign song? Doubtful.

However, one person who’s been having trouble picking a good campaign song is Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Well, actually that’s a lie – John McCain has found loads of brilliant songs for his campaign, but the trouble is the bands who recorded them get super shitty every time he uses them.

So far, both Heart and Jackson Browne have asked John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin to stop playing their songs on the campaign trail, but now John McCain has met his biggest foe yet – Foo Fighters.

You see, because John McCain is such a hero that he basically single-handedly inspired the flashback scenes from Rambo he decided that the only appropriate song to use is My Hero by Foo Fighters. After all, that’s about, um, a heroin addict blowing his chops off with a shotgun, and that’s, um, sort of, um, appropriate?

Anyway, Foo Fighters aren’t taking this lying down – they’ve issued a statement explaining exactly why John McCain using My Hero in the election is jolly well not on. BBC News reports:

The band said in a statement: “The saddest thing about this is that My Hero was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential. To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song.”

These poor Republicans can’t catch a break, can they? First everyone from Diddy to Madonna has lined up to bash Sarah Palin, and now Kurt Cobain’s beardy drummer has decided that he doesn’t like John McCain? No wonder he looks like he’ll lose the election now.

Anyway, the best way for John McCain to steer clear of any more trouble like this is to only use songs by people who haven’t complained about him yet. So, in that respect, we think that leaves McCain with a choice between My Old Man’s A Dustman, I Am Woman Hear Me Roar by Helen Reddy and the theme-tune to The Benny Hill Show.

We know which one we’d pick – all three.

Yeah, us too. That was great. We especially liked it when the government of Uganda became so obsessed with the Paris Hilton album that it scrapped its own national anthem in favour of Stars Are Blind, Nothing In This World and Screwed played all the way through six times each.

Oh, wait, no, none of that happened, did it? That’s because the Paris Hilton album was an abject failure that turned Paris into an international laughing stock. Still, at least Paris Hilton managed to scrape together her remaining credibility afterwards, never to return to that debac… what? Paris Hilton is releasing another song? And she’s named it after her new TV show? Oh. Good.

It’s easy to forget what an extraordinary businesswoman Paris Hilton really is. Look at her accomplishments – the way that Paris Hilton managed to get born into a family where her father’s a millionaire real estate developer, her grandfather’s the billionaire co-chairman of an international hotel chain and her great-grandfather was one of the world’s richest men is a shining example to today’s young up-and-comers.

And Paris Hilton’s head for business can be seen in all of her work. Who else but Paris Hilton could build up a product portfolio ingenious enough to include crap fizzy wine sold in cans, a chain of nightclubs built in association with someone who really doesn’t like her and some straggly bits of hair?

Now it’s time for Paris Hilton to put the next piece of her business masterplan into action. Paris Hilton’s new TV show is called My New BFF. Now, while we were under the impression that BFF was an onomatopoeic word to describe the noise Paris Hilton’s clodge makes every time she squeezes out a queef, apparently it stands for Best Friend Forever.

But because just about every two-bit microcelebrity around has their own elimination-based reality TV popularity contest these days, Paris Hilton has a USP for her BFF – she’s releasing a song about the show to coincide with the first episode. Reuters reports:

The show — a search for a new “best friend forever” who is hot, loyal and has the energy to keep up with Hilton’s hectic lifestyle — inspired the techno song Hilton said she co-wrote with her boyfriend Benji Madden. “Could you be the one I want? Could you be the one I need?” the socialite croons. “All of my life, don’t you know I’ve been waiting … for my best friend.” The tune will become the show’s theme song.

Look, we know what you’re thinking. You can remember the last time that Paris Hilton tried her hand at music. She sang a song that sounded a bit like UB40, she released an album that nobody bought and then she edged away quietly because even she realised how utterly without merit she was at everything.

But Paris Hilton only failed as a pop star before because she’d missed out one important fact – none of her songs were about stuff she’d done. My BFF will succeed because everyone will see Paris Hilton on TV and make the cognitive connection between visual and song. It’ll be a hit.

It’s a brilliant manoeuvre and, best of all, it’s not too late for Paris Hilton to start retroactively recording songs about stuff she’s already done. That works out for us too, because we just happen to have demos for two songs called Boo Hoo I Got Drunk And Now I’m In Jail and What? Put Your Cock In My Mouth? Yummy!

Call our people, Paris. We can make this happen.

Not only do you have to make sure the drums are synchronised just right with the rhythm guitar, but you have to keep firing your entire band every time one of them plays a note that will make your brand-new 14-year-old album less than classic. Also, you can get vital nutrient-sucking worms if you decide to record in South America.

Axl Rose is all too aware of this – that’s why his album still isn’t coming out. A new song is though – on a video game. The good news is it’s new GNR, the bad news is the only way you’ll be able to actually hear it is when your dad fancies himself a frontman whenever his brother comes over.

Excruciating.

A new Guns N’ Roses song is going to be included on the forthcoming Rock Band 2 video game. It’s called Shackler’s Revenge, and although it hasn’t leaked to date, a few years ago one called There Was A Time did – it’s so good it makes us want to get fat and wear bandannas. Go on and Google it.

Rumor has it this Shackler’s Revenge song was inspired by Pirates Of The Caribbean 2, which Rose is said to own the director’s cut in both DVD & Blu Ray formats. There’s an entire verse dedicated to Johnny Depp getting eaten by an octopus. We heard it details Depp’s succession through the monsters digestive tract. A sample line is:

“now your [sic] in it’s tummy because you tasted so yummy, now your [sic] in the intestine, better not be a pest in (there).”

Well at least it rhymes, right? Needless to say it’s a far cry from people being in jungles with babies and what-not. Also it’s a far cry from true.

According to GNR’s own website:

“Get Ready for Shackler’s Revenge. The track from the upcoming Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy will appear on the video game Rock Band 2, slated for release for the Xbox 360 platform in September.”

Still no word as to a solid release date, but if it ends up being in 2008 everybody in the US will get a Dr. Pepper. Throw in some Twizzlers and a fruit pie and maybe we can get that guy moving.

Over the last few days, what with Celine Dion ploughing through 6.5 million gallons of water in a year and Sharon Stone blaming the Chinese earthquake on karma, we’ve thought a lot about how much celebrities care.

And they care a lot. Celebrities, because they are celebrities, feel suffering much more strongly than anyone else. And there’s only one outlet for this profound level of caring – the all-star charity song. We all know the big ones – like We Are The World and Do They Know It’s Christmas – but there are plenty of other less well-known ones out there as well.

Like What More Can I Give by Michael Jackson And Friends, a song written about South Africa, recorded after 9/11 and never properly released because its video was apparently shot by a director of gay porn. Anastacia, Nick Carter, Usher, Ricky Martin, ‘N Sync, Hanson – they all appear on What More Can I Give, though we’d expect none of them would want to discuss it if you asked them about it now.

Why? Try and watch What More Can I Give all the way to the end and you’ll see why. It’s hard, we know – you’ll suffer through more fist-pumping oversincerity than you can possibly imagine – but it’s absolutely worth it, just to see the bit where Usher and Celine Dion give heartfelt spoken-word messages. Not about 9/11, you understand. About Michael Jackson. Incredible.

But sometimes, opening peoples’ eye to change is a good thing. For example, many people believe that rap is just full of rhymes about shooting up gangs in your rival hood, popping open bottles of ridiculously-priced champagne and mouthing off about your goodlooking lady friend.

Sometimes however, changing beliefs is good. Like a deranged Christian preacher, we urge you to dig some hot poetic geography. Yes, that’s right. Geography.

Whilst skiving off from work, we came across this brilliant animated nugget from the sometimes good, but mostly bad Animaniacs. The nations of the world may not sound that interesting of a topic compared to some bloke telling us how wealthy he is. But this handy little rap from Yakko makes us wish we’d studied harder in school and not drawn pictures of tits in our exercise books constantly.

Now we can’t humming along to this excellent track that somebody really put some effort into. Now the usual rap song that consists of rhyming guns and fun seems insignificant to that of an animated children’s character. Respect!

Has Amy Winehouse finally realised that her drug addiction is serious and that she has to get urgent help? No. Have Amy's friends and family staged a dramatic life-altering intervention to finally see sense and show how the damage that she's doing to herself?

No. But Bryan Adams has written a song that might vaguely make the occasional reference to Amy Winehouse. Amy, consider yourself cured.

Despite her recent Grammy wins, Amy Winehouse's life is still just as tattered and depressing as it's ever been. Amy's husband Blake is still in prison for an alleged vicious attack on a pub barman and subsequent justice-perverting, the video of Amy Winehouse smoking crack has proved that she's still ravaged with a serious drug problem and she's also been blamed for the single-handed destruction of Africa. 

Don't worry, though, because Bryan Adams has written a song about Amy Winehouse so everything's going to be OK. Hello reports:

Lyrics for the new track, which include the words "Nobody saw the tears in your silk and lace, the scarred little kid behind your face", show just how much the 48-year-old has taken Amy under his wing. Titled Flower Grown Wild, it appears on Bryan's recently released disc 11. It seems that Bryan's song has hit a chord with Amy who, the Daily Mirror reports, has agreed to sing it on stage with the Canadian star when he begins his tour later this year. 

Now we know what you're thinking, because we're thinking the exact same thing as well. If Bryan Adams wrote a song about you, you'd probably start upping your crack intake until the sound of blood thumping through your veins drowned out whatever lazily-rhymed croaky-voiced dollop of MOR dirge he'd cobbled together.

And the timing of this news is slightly uncomfortable, too. Bryan Adams' album only came out on Monday and – since nobody's really cared about Bryan Adams since 1992 – you can't help feeling that he's only started spouting off about this Amy Winehouse song because she sells a lot of records and she's in the news all the time and he needs all the publicity he can get. 

If it works, though, fair play to Bryan Adams. Maybe he's summed up Amy Winehouse's plight so perfectly that millions of people will buy the album just to listen to Flower Grown Wild so they can sit around all teary-eyed wailing "It's true! Nobody did see the tears in your silk and lace, or the scarred little kid behind your face! It's true! We're the monsters!"

And if that happens, we'll just have to applaud Bryan Adams on a job well done. Maybe he'll start dedicating a song on all his subsequent albums to other celebrities with addiction problems. We're especially looking forward to hearing  The Ballad Of Keith Chegwin, if that's the case.

However, perhaps we're being too cynical. Perhaps Bryan Adams really did write this new song to help Amy Winehouse. And perhaps it'll work. After all, Bryan Adams did take Lindsay Lohan under his wing in 2006. And, as we all know, nothing she did after that was ever a problem again.

Read more:

Bryan Adams writes new song about friend Amy Winehouse - Hello 

OK, it goes without saying that you wouldn't really want to be Ringo Starr at any moment, unless you're into being recovering Scouse alcoholics who hit things for a living and sing songs about boning 16-year-olds.

But, seriously, you wouldn't want to be Ringo Starr right now. He's stropped off Live With Regis & Kelly right before he was supposed to appear, you see.

Ringo Starr hasn't had the best of years. He's watched Paul McCartney sign a clever new record deal and get lauded as a visionary. He's seen John Lennon get commemorated in a monolithic tower of light that will outlast us all. And he's seen George Harrison get crowned as the fourth-richest dead man alive. And what about Ringo?

Well, Ringo Starr was lucky enough to open Liverpool's tenure as European capital of culture last week, but that couldn't have backfired more spectacularly. Yes, Ringo Starr may have called his new album Liverpool8 and, yes, Ringo Starr may have told the thousands of fans watching him that he was going to move back to Liverpool.

But thanks to a subsequent TV appearance where he basically just went "Pffft – live in Liverpool? Fuck off, have you actually been there? It's shit, and I'm Ringo Starr. I'm Ringo fucking Starr!" he's just about the most hated man in Merseyside at the moment.

And things aren't going particularly well for Ringo in America at the moment. Yesterday Ringo was set to appear on Live With Kelly And Regis to perform his song Liverpool 8, but the song didn't fit with the show's strict 'two and a half minute performances only' policy. And then it all kicked off. The New York Daily News reports:

When he did a run-through yesterday morning, the song took nearly five minutes. "Live" producer Michael Gelman was willing to go 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Starr's camp said it couldn't be cut, and he was gone. "They refused to keep the performance and the interview commitment," said the spokeswoman. "We offered to cut back our chat time and asked them to fade or go to commercial," Starr's spokeswoman told The Associated Press. "They were not willing to do that and Ringo was not willing to cut it further, so without a compromise we were not able to stay. Ringo left saying, 'God bless and goodbye. We still love Regis.'"

It's clear that Ringo Starr obviously took the cutback request as a personal affront because if, say, Paul McCartney phoned up Regis tomorrow and asked to perform all of the Sgt Pepper album on the show, they'd agree immediately. But because it's boring old Ringo Starr he has to live by the same rules as everyone else.

Having said that, it was wrong of Live With Kelly And Regis to ask Ringo Starr to limit his performance to 150 seconds. They should have tried to limit it to zero seconds because – shitting Christ – the song's horrific.

It's like Ringo asked a sensory-deprived toddler to write down the history of The Beatles and then just wailed them in the first tune that popped into his head. Frankly we're wondering if Ringo Starr would be better protesting by never appearing in public ever again. Look…

Read more:

Ringo Starr bolts from 'Regis' gig – New York Daily News 

Yes, Boyzone – the most famous elderly Irish boyband after Westlife and Murtagh Fitzpatrick And The Clodpoopers – are reforming, but there's a hitch. Boyzone wanted their comeback single to be I Gave It All Away, a song written by inexplicably popular annoyance Mika – but Mika's not having it. That's a good thing, because when a band interprets a songwriter's work, the result is often a brand-new, unique piece of music spliced equally from each party's DNA like a baby – and we can all agree that a part-Mika/ part-Boyzone baby would probably end up looking and sounding a lot like the disfigured genetically-deformed mutant puppy from The Fly II.

Although the reunions of Take That and the Spice Girls have shown that there's definitely a market for cacky old past-it pop groups transparently trying to make a quick buck for as long as they can bear looking at each other for, the failure of the All Saints comeback and the East 17 comeback proved that it's just as easy for these comebacks to fail.

So right now it could go either way for Boyzone, the Westlife-inventing Irish boyband responsible for Ronan Keating, that bloke who used to be on Coronation Street, him out of Love Island, the one who looks like he's spent the last decade sobbing, The Other One and – to a lesser extent – Louis Walsh. This week Boyzone reported that they were reforming after what seems to be a painfully short amount of time. We would have reported it, but we were too busy crying.

But the Boyzone reunion isn't without its obstacles. And not the obvious obstacle, either – the obstacle of Ronan Keating being so completely punch-worthy that the other Boyzone members would be so busy thinking about slapping him in his stupid smug face that they'd never get any work done – but another obstacle. It's been reported that Boyzone wanted to use I Gave It All Away, a song written by infuriating one-hit wonder Mika, as their lead comeback single with a performance on Children In Need to promote it. However, Mika has refused to let Boyzone release it because he apparently thinks that Boyzone are 'too cheesy' – a little like Dr Harold Shipman chiding Fred West for being 'too murdery.'

The Sun quotes an 'industry insider' as saying:

"Mika wrote the song and made it available for other artists. Boyzone loved it. They thought it was perfect to launch their comeback so they recorded it and it sounded great – a certain No 1. Just like the track, Mika gave it all away. But then he took it back again."

While in the short-term this is an obvious win-win for all involved – because the end result of a Boyzone/ Mika hybrid would invariably sound like a gang of dullards trying to mimic a twelfth-rate Freddie Mercury impersonator with a keychange in the middle where everyone stands up, and almost certainly the very worst thing your ears would have ever heard – it might be worth taking all this with a pinch of salt.

Because, after all, Boyzone's manager used to be Louis Walsh – a man who'd happily feed any old bullshit to the press so long as he got a speck of publicity out of it – so the truth is probably that Mikey Graham from Boyzone just saw Mika from his cardboard box outside Woolworths and asked for some change, to which Mika replied "I gave it all away. Plus I need the money I do have for when people work out I'm rubbish and stop buying my records in a few months' time."

Or something.