Wednesday 26 January 2011

My Single Friend

This is a Red Atlas song and quite an early Red Atlas song. It's possibly still a staple of the theoretical Atlas live-set. It's necessarily a theoretical live-set as we haven't played now for nearly two years (can that be right? two years?). More than that we havent actually met each other en-mass since, I think, and I'm working sans diary here, last October. Now I have to take some responsibility for the former:I stropped off in a taxi after the last gig (third on the bill at the Legion in Old Street)in fully moody singer pomp. And I was right to do so: we had no soundcheck, nobody was in time or tune, the guitars were cranked-up so much that half way through the set the guy working the desk shrugged and sat down as there was no way to make the sond any better. The only person in the entire building who could hear me was me because my pr-eamp was working. I was in good voice!

It was a disaster and when I confronted the others about it they looked at me as if I had a small, lemon-coloured cat wedged behind my ear.The idea that the gig had not gone well was utterly alien to them. But then they are musicians: they have planks of wood and a wall of sound to hide behind. I am not, most assuredly I am not, a musician, but rather a red-faced, grey-haired, overweight man blithely miming through a selection of inaudible 80s indie songs, with the cheeks of Dizzy Gillespie and the auto-motive prowess of Bobby.

Things have rarely gone smoothly in the studio either. We've been in three times and have probably attempted an albums worth of material. I think there are perhaps three I'm "okay" with. This would be one of them.









My Single Friend,


My single friend,
Ticking like a cartoon bomb,
My ear-ache is now beyond repair,
My friends keep well away from me,
But my single friend, oh no, not my single friend,
My friends keep well down wind of me,
But not she, she won't let me alone,
My friends keep well down wind of me,
But not she, she won't let me alone,

My single friend,
A catalogue of woes,
She's teaching "Applied Neurosis 101"
My friends all shy away from me,
But my single friend? Not my single friend,
My friends cross the street when they see me,
But not she, she will not let me be,
My friends cross the street when they see me,
But not she, she won't let me alone,

My single friend,
What can it mean?
"His feet sweat, he really has to go!"
My friends burn photographs of me,
But my single friend? Not my single friend,
My friends stick pins in dolls of me,
But my single friend, not my single friend,
My friends stick pins in dolls of me,
But she, she will not let me be,
My friends stick pins in dolls of me,
But she, she will not let me be,

My single friend,
Tells me I'm,
Her straightest, gayest, straightest, gay best friend,
My friends stick daggers in my back,
Infamy, they've all got it in for me,
My friends burn me in effigy,
But she, she will not let me be,
My friends would remove me from history,
But not she, she'll always stick by me

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