Thursday 28 April 2011

Paraquatsi!

Difficult not to give the plot away here but the likelihood of Night of the Crabs ever being produced is slimmer Stephen Merchant's cock. However, if it should be produced, please look away now as this song is plot, Plot, PLOT! Basically Cliff comes up with a plan to pour corrosive chemicals out of a helicopter and onto the marauding crabs (and onto the Welsh countryside). Bear in mind the book was written in the late 70s before we new that pouring poisons onto land and sea was a bad thing to do! Be thankful we live in more enlightened times. And pray god we never have to face an army of giant crabs!

This is my friend Gwen's favourite song. From the musical, not of all time. She's not mad!


I don't want a swollen head,
But I've an idea to make crabs dead,
The inspiration though was Pat,
Let's be very clear on that,
Whilst glancing through the Daily Mail,
A headline made her go quite pale,
A kiddie drank some paraquat,
Thinking that his squash was flat,
Sad to say the kiddie died,
But if that same poison was applied,
To Crustacean regicide,
Wouldn't that be justified,

Poison, airborne poison,
Destroys 'em,
Utterly destroys 'em,
Look and see them running scared,
Absolutely unprepared,
For poison, airborne poison,

(spoken) "Look, the bastards are running away!"

Poison, airborne poison,
Destroys 'em,
Utterly destroys 'em,
Look and see them running scared,
Absolutely unprepared,
For poison, airborne poison,

The Moon in the Dunes

The seduction scene from Night of the Crabs originally had slightly different, more, er, explicit words. So I dropped them as I am a fearful prude. Even though I'd written them in the first place. The replacement words are better anyway, giving the song a time and a place and adding a sense of verisimilitude. To a song about giant crabs attacking the Welsh coast.



You caught me off guard,
Keeping watch in the dunes,
And already my cords,
Are playing a tune,
A sensual samba,
A straight tarantella,
So tell me Pat,
Do you have a fella?

...Oh that's right he left you

We make love under,
The moon in June,
The moon is above,
And I, I am under you,
Isn't it sad that,
The the sand is abrasive,
And just like the crabs,
So very invasive,

One moment of bliss,
With the cosmos we're one,
I light up a cigarette,
And think, well that was fun,
We lie there in awe,
Barely daring to speak,
And I wonder how,
Tottenham Hotspur,
Are doing this week,

...Terry Neil's past his peak,


We make love under,
The moon in June,
The moon is above,
And I, I am under you,
Isn't it sad that,
The the sand is abrasive,
And just like the crabs,
So very invasive,



Monday 25 April 2011

The Last Red Atlas Song

But this is the last Red Atlas song. I can't remember if it ever had a tune (looking at its atypical structure I suspect not). The stench of self-hatred is pretty strong here. I should open a window.

Don’t trust yourself
You will trip you up

If you pulled back that cowl,
The waxy skin, the stippled jowls,
The spectre of mortality,
Would look a lot like you and me,

A slow start in the morning,
Angry coughing in the cold,
Dry bones crack like kindling,
The mirror yawns: you’re old,

Don’t trust yourself,
You’re a traitor.
Every autobiography must have,
An unreliable narrator,
Don’t trust yourself,
You’re death’s collaborator,
Lord Haw- Haw reads the eulogy,
From squares of sugar paper,

A New Emperor and Stage Clothes

These two fun items have the dubious distinction of being the last songs I wrote for Red Atlas. The last ones, certainly, that made it as far as having tunes and parts that most of the band-members agreed on. They were actually pre-written pieces of music from individual members of the band (or possibly both were written by Si). As previously mentioned the Red Atlas song-writing approach was entropy; the gradual erosion of dignified silence into screeds of noise over which I intone nonsense words which ultimately graduate into a sort of shopping-list of rebukes (general) and disgust (mainly self). As such the formation of songs comes over periods of time that would get Professor Brian Cox tapping his foot in frustration. Fearing that my time on earth was ending I attempted to giddy-up the process and requested each member of the band write a song. In the end only Si obliged with these two snippets. (To be fair to Martin he often attempted to get songs of his own into the set and to little avail - I never knew why - he's a prolific and, eek, populist song-writer. The marriage of his song-writing style and the band's (his fierce creative energy and the band's crafty, detailed honing) should have been a brilliant stylistic fit. But it wasn't.

So these are the last two songs proper from Red Atlas. What are they about? Well, god, it's the usual stuff isn't it? A New Emperor is about death and failure and as such could as easily be a Club of Queer Trades song. Stage Clothes is about...well it doesn't really need picking apart does it?



A New Emperor

Life’s slipping through your fingers,
Frictionless and fast,
The future is an exclusive post code,
That’s why I live in the past,
Under-valued and undertaken,
Under six feet of earth,
Held in aspic, a preservation
Of the things you thought you were worth,

When I said that the sky was falling,
It was never meant as a warning,
They will bow to a new emperor today,
Stand up; it’s far too late to pray,

You never knew what it was that hit you,
No registration plate,
No distinguishing characteristics,
On the shirt-tails of fate,
You can’t plan when the drawing board,
Is in bits upon the floor,
Never hope or dream or yearn cause,
Life is a slamming door,

When I said that the sky was falling,
It was never meant as a warning,
They will bow to a new emperor today,
Stand up; it’s far too late to pray,





Stage Clothes

Washed in the blood of a saint,
I find I’m brilliant,
I accepted it without complaint,
I’ve never been penitent,
I walk abroad in raiment of white,
I fairly dazzle,
Showing off is half the fight,
And I don’t need the hassle,

Stage clothes in the rain,
Nothing washes whiter,
Stage clothes in the rain,
Nothing washes whiter,

Take me down to the river,
Wash me in the mud,
No grudges, I’m a forgiver,
Lend us an armful of blood,
Lie for lie, truth for truth,
Pound my flesh,
Never knowingly over exposed,
No thought unexpressed,





Fleance (as played by Keith Chegwin in Roman Polanski's "The Tragedy of MacBeth or "The Scottish Film")

Bit of a long title that one. Possibly trying to win a bet. I don't really remember who this would have been presented to, possibly CQTs as Martin was getting everything I was writing at that time. Though it doesn't really fit that idiom. Maybe Knock-Knock or Nude Scientists then; it's pretty academic at this point.

More Morrissey kicking.


Fleance (as played by Keith Chegwin in Roman Polanski’s “The Tragedy of MacBeth or “The Scottish Film”)

“He has killed me, mother”
Is a line that Morrissey,
Would probably have killed for,
Passive-aggressively,

But those Northern tones were never his,
But Cheggers’ off the telly,
Gambolling in his empty hose,
A bare-bodkin in his belly,

Thursday 21 April 2011

Petomane

Celebrating 100 years of Petomane:

Petomane: Imperial Blether

Petomane: Victims of Pop and Circumstance

Petomane: Like Shrapnel Shifting

Petomane: God Help Us If There's A War

Petomane: Dad's Army of Lovers

Petomane: The No-Fixed-Abode-Guard

Petomane: Going Against The Groin

Petomane: Growing Old Gratingly

Petomane: Can't Work The Video

Petomane: Puts the Egg Under the Hen

Petomane: Art Pamphleteers

Petomane: No Cure for Cankers

Petomane: Soiling Gift Underwear This Christmas

Petomane: A Kiosk of Sound

Petomane: Pop's Grumbling Appendix

Petomane: What do you get if you put James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Dylan Moran into a blender? It wouldn't happen. You wouldn't get a blender that big. Well alright some sort industrial blender might fit the bill but then you've got other problems. Joyce and Wilde did cross-over in terms of life-span but they could hardly be called contemporaries and Dylan Moran wasn't born for decades after their deaths. And if you put Moran in a blender with the remains of these two literary giants, well you'd basically have the smoothified remains of Moran and, at best, the skeletal shards of the other two, possibly one or two strands of hair still clinging tenaciously to Joyce's eviscerated skull; if you're lucky and depending on whether the blender is set to chunky or smooth. I think you're going to end up with a ragu-like mixture; with the occasional porridgey lump of literary giant or an above average comedian. What possible use could this cocktail of carnality be to anyone? And how could it possibly be an accurate description of an electric pop-tet. And why are they all Irish anyway, you racist bastard?

You Again

The Nude Scientists: songs going gently into that dark night


You Again

Talk to the hand,
The face ain't listening,
It's weeping now and really pissing,
Off my wife, initiating divorces,
Take it outside, it's scaring the horses,
It's cracked ans cratered like a lunar landscape,
A bye-bye to good times like a golden handshake,
It fosters regret and self-disgust,
A salve to succour; an antidote to lust,

Oh why am I so ugly,

Oh no, not you again,
Every time I shave,
It's that paragon of men (old, old and in the way),
Just behave won't you,

The rheumy eyes no longer sparkle,
Want a reason to smile but I've got fuck all,
The stippled jowels,the complexion soapy,
Got more crows feet than a hokey-cokey,
Where once I bathed in the dew of youth,
Now I'm downing 60 proof,
I'm short on temper and long on tooth,
With a dirty basement and a snowy roof,

Oh why am I so ugly,

Oh no, not you again,
Every time I shave,
It's that paragon of men (old, old and in the way),
Just behave won't you,

Saturday 9 April 2011

The Deep, Deep Sleep of England

Here's a Red Atlas one and for my money one of the best songs that we ever wrote. It remains pretty galling that we never successfully translated these things into decent recordings or effective live-gigs. It really is hard to say how great this band was - there is no evidence to support the claim. Nevertheless on occasion it was great.

Lyrically this is well into my "women are spooky, other-worldly beings, ultimately unknowable and treachrous, but, y'know, a nice shape" period. Amazingly I was in my late thirties, not my late teens!

The song is also about the mystery and lore of terrible old Britain, the weight of its old bones. The title is from Orwells's "Homage to Catalonia" and the opening is in part a reference to Ben Thompson's "Beef and Liberty". The body of the verse is a murder with no mystery and the occasional nod to a dimly remembered "The Ghost of Thomas Kempe" and Katharine Brigg's "Abbey Lubbers, banshees and boggarts".

(In fact an early version of Red Atlas was called The Lubbers. Until we weren't.)


The Deep, Deep Sleep of England

The deep sleep of England,
Sweet dreaming England,
Dozing and Dappled,
Leading by Example,

The deep sleep of England,
Dark satanic England,
Boiled beef and Liberty
Bucolic misery,

The deep sleep of England,
Imagined England,
Carry on and keep calm,
Can I be excused ma’am,

The deep sleep of England,
Mysterious England,
Ancient and monstrous,
Hiding your secrets,

The deep sleep of England,
Sweet dreaming England,
Dozing and dappled,
Leading by example,

Her hair was awfully long,
Her eyes were awfully pretty ones,
I know she hasn’t forgotten me,
It’s taken ten years of therapy,
Her life was always mine to take,
And I would take it for heavens sake,
My spinning this neat planchette,
Gave her this caveat,

Clay pipe found, underground,
You’ll be groggy, my hot sweet hot toddy,
Childish scrawl on the wall,
This time I cannot kill it
This buttery spirit,







Unfolded on the grass,
The hard edges of her pale limbs,
Looked softer than moss,
Her lips still bruised from kissing,
She makes the teacups fall,
The pictures spin upon the wall,
There’s no happy ever after,
The eaves echo with her laughter,

Clay pipe found, underground,
You’ll be groggy my hot sweet toddy,
Childish scrawl on the walls
This time I cannot kill it,
This buttery spirit,