Songs with the name Harry

The name has a habit of turning up in strange places. Clannad's "Theme from Harry's Game" floats in on layered voices and a Gaelic text, a haunting, almost churchlike piece written for a television thriller about the Troubles, and it remains one of the most atmospheric records ever made under this name. Gorillaz took the name in a completely different direction with "Dirty Harry" from 2005, a jittery, bass-driven track with a children's chorus and a rap from Bootie Brown, an anti-war mood piece from their Demon Days album that sounds tense and unsettling in the way the band does best.

Punk gave the name its loudest shout: Sham 69's "Hurry Up Harry" is a pub-rock singalong about a mate who needs to stop hesitating and come out for a drink, all gang vocals and speed, pure 1978 street punk. The Kinks got there earlier with "Harry Rag," a wry, music-hall-flavoured tale of a man hooked on his habit, very much in Ray Davies's storytelling vein. Chicago's "Harry Truman" is a warm, horn-soaked tribute to the late president from their mid-seventies jazz-rock period, gentler than their big hits.

Two oddities finish the set. Radiohead's "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" is a slow, sombre orchestral piece written for the last surviving veteran of the First World War, sung by Thom Yorke over strings, and it is quietly devastating. Frank Zappa's "Harry-As-A-Boy" comes from Joe's Garage, a theatrical, satirical slice of his strange rock opera world, typically odd and unmistakably Zappa.