Seventeen

"They only want you
When you're seventeen:
When you're twenty-one,
You're no fun.
They take a polaroid and let you go
Say they'll let you know
So come on"

I apologise to any twenty-one year olds who read Hot Vimto, but Ladytron's "Seventeen" is one kick-ass tune. And it makes me feel happy, in a demented, teenage kind of way.

I know, I know... I'm living my life in the wrong order. But the Sex Pistols had a song called Seventeen, and it started like this:

"You're only twenty-nine
Got a lot to learn
But when your mummy dies
She will not return"

WTF that was meant to be about, I never knew. Sneering, probably. (Why wasn't it called "Twenty Nine"?) Still, the Pistols turned out to be the plastic fork, when what really mattered the chips and curry sauce.

When I was seventeen, my father had been dead six months, and I was starting to read philosophy. He'd been a long time dying, and now he was gone, I was ready to start looking for him. I discovered TS Eliot, and identified with Prufrock. I read Tarantula by Bob Dylan, and thought it was crap, and copied him anyway. I listened to a lot of Elvis Costello, the early albums, when he was dark and cynical and sexy and soulful. I listened to Astral Weeks, and Miles Davis. I lusted after older women. It was the right thing to do.

It is strange to think, that if I have children of my own, it'll be with someone who was born after punk. "No Future? Whatever happened to that?" I hear Steve Jones lives in California, and has his own radio show.

I've lived my life in the wrong order. It was the right thing to do. I've finished, so I'll start.

This Is The Day

If you watched Kirsty Wark interview the founder of Twitter on Newsnight last night, you wouldn't have thought she made her name by ripping apart Margaret Thatcher in an interview, long, long ago in a galaxy far too close to home, when Mrs Thatcher needed to be given a bit of the sort of treatment she gave to almost everybody else.

The mature, discerning Kirsty Wark turns out to be obsessed with celebrities, and she wanted to know how we can be sure Demi Moore is real (a query that has to be on a par with wanting to know Father Christmas' blood group, although it could have been "ironic", in inverted commas. )

The experience left me craving the simple, innocent despair of my youth. Here is a video from The The, a band who will soon be forgotten, because you can't search for them on the Internet.

I like the way he takes the old blues line, "I woke up this morning" and completely negates it, and sings to a woman who looks like a miserable Emma Thompson. (The sort doctors prefer.) Even the presence of accordions cannot make this song cheerful. But I have to say, it made me feel much better in the dark.

Well, you didn't wake up this morning
Because you didn't go to bed
You were watching the whites of your eyes turn red
The calendar on your wall is ticking the days off
You've been reading some old letters
You smile and think how much you've changed
All the money in the world couldn't buy back those days

You pull back your curtains
And the sun burns into your eyes
You watch a plane flying
Across a clear blue sky
This is the day
Your life will surely change
This is the day
When things fall into place

You could've done anything If you'd wanted
And all your friends and family think that you're lucky
But the side of you they'll never see
Is when you're left alone with the memories
That hold your life together ... like glue

You pull back your curtains
And the sun burns into your eyes
You watch a plane flying
Across a clear blue sky
This is the day
Your life will surely change
This is the day
When things fall into place

This is the day your life will surely change
This is the day your life will surely change
This is the day your life will surely change
This is the day your life will surely change
Words and Music: MATT JOHNSON

No Guilt

Needed new posters, so I bought them
I know the cost of stamps now
The thirty-first is when I pay the phone bill
(I told them I didn't even know anybody in Toronto)

Everyday at seven I've been watching Walter
I've been reading more and looking up the hard words
I met people who can get me on the guest list
My parents said that
They would help me pay for grad school

You know I had never washed a sweater
I never knew when my hair was too long
I got the cab calls out of my hi-fi
I learned a lot since you've been gone
I've done a lot since you've been gone

Not bitter - beat a vicious cycle
Typecast as the model couple
I'm sorry but I don't feel awful
It wasn't the end of the world
I'm sorry I can't be helpless
It wasn't the end of the world

I know someone who really met Belushi
I fixed the toilet so it doesn't always run
I moved a chair over by the window
I feel better if my laundry's done

Getting by on less sleep than I used to
I had no trouble in setting up a desk
I learned the reason for a three-pronged outlet
I got 100 on my driver's test

I got a trick to get them to deliver
I called the landlord when the water turned brown
Did you know I own some valuable records?
I've done a lot since you've been gone
I've learned a lot since you've been gone

Thank you for the chance to grow up
I'm sorry but I wasn't defeated
It wasn't the end of the world.
I'm sorry but I don't feel too awful
It wasn't the end of the world.
THE WAITRESSES

Deacon Blues

Steely Dan was a great band, and a strong influence on my cynical youth. I imagine some people will see the title to this post and think of Deacon Blue, the Scottish pop band. I would have sneered at such people back then.

There were two guys who wrote the songs, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, and a bunch of really good musicians around them, most of seemed to be in the Doobie Brothers as well. They wrote very clever lyrics, and tunes with jazz chords in them: Sixths! Ninths! WTF?!?!

This isn't one of their clever lyrics; it just got stuck in my head the other day, when I free associated from "bright red Georgia clay" to "Alabama the crimson tide". I always assumed the crimson tide was a big muddy river, but it's actually something to do with photosynthetic pigments in algae.

I like the chorus. The narrator is obviously a bit of a loser, and his dream is to be a saxophone player, and a bit of a drunk. High hopes, eh? Even in his dreams, he's going to be a loser! But he wants to be a renownded loser, with a famous name. Good luck to ya, buddy.

This is the day of the expanding man
That shape is my shade
There where I used to stand
It seems like only yesterday
I gazed through the glass
At ramblers, wild gamblers
That's all in the past

You call me a fool
You say it's a crazy scheme
This one's for real
I already bought the dream
So useless to ask me why
Throw a kiss and say goodbye
I'll make it this time
I'm ready to cross that fine line

I'll learn to work the saxophone
And I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
And I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the crimson tide
Call me Deacon Blues

My back to the wall
A victim of laughing chance
This is for me
The essence of true romance
Sharing the things we know and love
With those of my kind
Libations
Sensations
That stagger the mind

I crawl like a viper
Through these suburban streets
Make love to these women
Languid and bittersweet
I'll rise when the sun goes down
Cover every game in town
A world of my own
I'll make it my home sweet home

I'll learn to work the saxophone
And I play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
And I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the crimson tide
Call me Deacon Blues

This is the night of the expanding man
I take one last drag
As I approach the stand
I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I'll be what I want to be
STEELY DAN

Hey Mister DJ

I deejayed for a friend's birthday party on Friday night. I had a lot of fun. Fortunately, so did everybody else.

It was one of those big family - and - friends gatherings, where the ages go from seven to seventy, and I managed to keep everyone dancing and happy for six hours, give or take a few glitches. It was a very hot night and my fingers got very slippery; several times I cut to the next next record two minutes early. But it wasn't hard work. And there were good looking women being uninhibited, and that wasn't hard work, either.

At midnight, we went out onto the village green, and launched wish lanterns into the night sky. I hadn't seen wish lanterns before. They're like Barbie doll sized hot air balloons, with a lump of solid paraffin where the basket would be. You have to pat them and pamper then for a bit, until they heat up properly, then they suddently become very buoyant and rise up into the sky. It was a good birthday. We were all very happy.

Nostalgia (Turned Inside Out)

Saturday morning:

lie-in, coffee, radio

Chill DAB has been kind enough to remind me how weird my life used to feel.

I've never heard of this band, but if you listen to Chill on teh interwebs, their site is clever enough to tell you the band name and track name of what's playing. The Cat Empire is a band from Melbourne, which is the Australian town where the crazy artists come from.

Cool band name, too. I might have to listen to more of them.

I had nine lives
but I lost all of them
And I've been searching in the night
And I've been searching in the rain
I tried to find them
but they disappeared
they walked away they dressed in black
they left my side and all I say
is that I wasted time
when I looked for them
for now I know that things gone past
are never to be found again
I had nine lives
but lost all of them.

I had a plan
but never finished it
and I've been searching for the thought
and I've been searching in a haze
I try all days
to remember it
but now the blueprint in my mind has gone
my mind forgot the colour of direction
and my eyes they see the hands
that could have built
that could have constructed
the empire in my mind
the empire
I'll never find
I had a plan
but that was where it ended.
THE CAT EMPIRE

Can't Buy A Thrill

I put iTunes on random play, and it served up Steely Dan. This is a wonderful album. I'm wriggling in my chair to the splintered piano playing at the start of 'Fire In The Hole'.

I decline
To walk the line
They tell me that I'm lazy

Worldly wise
I realize
That everybody's crazy

A woman's voice reminds me
To serve and not to speak:
Am I myself?
Or just another freak?

Jukebox Plays

Jukebox plays ska
I do nothing
And I don't sleep.
Days of fear
September through New Year.

When I think of my friends
Who are working
I'm afraid to go that way.
Isn't one of them
Loves the thing he does
Every one of them
Wants to get away.

I wish that I had something that
I could put my heart and soul around.
So I dream of better days
And I slip into a haze
While the jukebox plays.


Jukebox plays Doors
Strange Days and Riders On The Storm
Ray's keyboard and the sound of spray
And a long black car
Comes to drive me away.

When I think of the fate of my heroes
I'm afraid to go that way.
don't want a be a heap
On a bathroom floor
Don't want to burn out or blow away

Just want to find me something that
I could put my heart and soul around.
So I dream of better days
And I slip into a haze
While the jukebox plays.

Song From Under the Floorboards

I saw my friend Amy the other day.
Amy is good with naked women.
We talked about Dostoevsky.

Amy is an artist, but she had never shown me her portfolio before. She is very good at life drawing, and has a real eye for the female form. She had several nude studies on her iPhone, and even on the small screen, the curves of her figures were beautiful and involving.

By coincidence, Amy mentioned that she wanted to read some Dostoevsky, the Russian author I alluded to the other day. I mentioned this book, and the song that Howard Devoto made of it. Devoto restored the original Russian word the translator rendered less poetically; the anonymous narrator addresses the reader from between the floorboards of his apartment.

I am angry, I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it

1982 was a year when I was not good with naked women, and everything in my life felt crooked, rather than curved. "A Song from Under the Floorboards" was an existential crisis you could dance to, with an insistent opening riff that moved harmonically and went nowhere melodically. I was angry, and I felt ill and I felt ugly. These last few months, I have felt it all over again.

This is a song from under the floorboards
This is a song from where the wall is cracked
By force of habit, I am an insect
I have to confess
I'm proud as hell of that fact.

I know the highest and the best
I accord them all due respect
But the brightest jewel inside of me
Glows with pleasure at my own stupidity.

This is a song from under the floorboards ....

I was never stupid at school. Stubborn, yes; lazy, distracted... and afraid to speak out. But I did not manage to be stupid. (Yes, dear reader, I knew too much.) And I knew a good thing when I saw it.
I knew beauty, but it was not the involving kind.

I used to make phantoms I could later chase
Images of all that could be desired
Then I got tired of counting all of these blessings
And then I just got tired

This is a song from under the floorboards ...
MAGAZINE

Strung out in Heavens High

This blog post is late, just like a lot of the others and a lot of stuff in my life (filing my tax return, losing my virginity, etc etc.)

On Monday morning, I read the obituary of J.G. Ballard in the newspaper. Monday evening was the series premiere of Ashes to Ashes, the Eighties time-travel police drama.

Ashes to Ashes is set in 1982, a time of my life when the black dog of depression had already moved in on me, and I was darkly cynical. I listened to Elvis Costello albums and read Dostoevsky and Oscar Wilde, and I knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Ashes to ashes, punk to funky
We know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out in heavens high
Hitting an all-time low

Punk had been and gone, and the charts were filling up with dross again. 2-Tone let different races mingle, and dance together, but it didn’t stop there being two million unemployed. The New Romantic movement meant that people like Jonathan Ross were allowed to become famous. Bowie was still good for a couple more years, but Roxy Music had deteriorated into some sort of soul band.

The show captured my feelings well. Apart from the Gene Genie and Bolly-Knickers, who are the hero and heroine and therefore have to look good at all times, everyone around them was drifting into an abject state. Not tough, not soft, not principled, not a-moral; just strung out and getting low. The sex was nasty and loveless, the prostitutes were unhappy and not nice to look at, and even the arrival of Princess Margaret and a giant pink penis failed to improve the mood.

JG Ballard was a science fiction writer who wrote about the twentieth century, and the imagined twenty-first, as though he were dissecting a corpse trying to establish how it died. He describes a civilization that’s lost, only we are inside it, and losing ourselves with it right now. I discovered his work when I was sixteen, round about the time my father died, thanks to a friend I used to borrow records from, who lent me this paperback.

Ballard was trained in medicine and for part of his childhood, he and his parents were interned in a prison camp in Shanghai. I had a chronically ill father, and both my parents spoke endlessly about the war, so Ballard’s stories seemed like pointers to my own future, in a world where my father’s visions partially came true, and I was an adult capable of inhabiting this savage, whimsical, collapsing scientific experiment. I would become an illuminated man with “arms like golden cartwheels, his head like a spectral crown”.

Today (I mean Monday) I remember one scene in particular from ‘The Terminal Beach’. The earth is much hotter, and London has become a tropical rainforest, and the narrator is trying to make himself a home on an abandoned scientific testing station, while grieving the deaths of his wife and son.

One day, he finds some large charts showing mutated chromosomes, and he takes them ‘home’ and hangs them on the walls of his bunker. They are his art, but he doesn’t like the pictures not having any titles, so he begins to make up titles for them. Then, one day, “passing the aircraft dump on one of his forays, he found the half-buried juke box, and tore the list of records from the selection panel, realizing that these were the most appropriate captions.”

“Thus embroidered, the charts took on many layers of associations.”