a coherent collection of random statements regarding God, words and tunes

Getting rid of the albatross….

           “Often the nature of grace can be made plain only by describing its absence" — Flannery O’Connor 

              I’m not sure that the great Catholic writer Ms. O’Connor could’ve pictured that great lapsed-Catholic songwriter John Lydon in her wildest nightmares, but boy, does our next selection embody the quote above.

            But a little background first about its creator. Even those who haven’t actually heard the work of John Lydon are at least familiar with his brief but glorious period as Johnny Rotten, which gave us that most classic of punk albums (and their one and only), Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, which also introduced the world to the meteoric life of the worst bass player on the planet (and proud of it) in Sid Vicious.

Thirty years and scads of much uglier music later, a lot of Bollocks sounds more like a cartoon than the angry, brilliant clarion call it was in 1976. That said, it’s still a great cartoon—and little did we realize back then, just a plain old great rock-and-roll album. Still, stuff like “Holidays in the Sun” and especially “Bodies” can still raise the hairs on the back of your neck.

The Pistols, of course, quickly collapsed under the weight of their own reputation (and a whoooole lot of hype that betrayed the music itself). Sid Vicious—you know what little story was left after that. Johnny Rotten, a few less of you know, went back to being John Lydon, and started another band with Keith Levine (of the early Clash) and the wonderfully renamed friend and bass player Jah Wobble — the aptly named Public Image Ltd. (or PiL, as they were just as often known, down to their pill-like logo). One of the oddest 20-year runs in the history of rock and roll, but we won’t go into all that.

The first, eponymous album (sometimes known as First Issue) was largely a conscious reaction against the Pistols’ legend, starting with the title song (“You never listened to a word that I said/You only see me for the clothes that I wear/Or did the interest go so much deeper/It must have been the color of my hair"), and culminating in that great room-clearer, “Fodderstomph” — nine minutes of Mssr. Lydon chanting repeatedly “We only wanted to be loved,” in the most gleefully annoying tones imaginable. It’s one of those albums you have to play to death once in every while, then put back away for a long, long time.

Think of it as a transitional album. The real first album was the next one—where, if there ever was a real John Lydon to be seen behind the Public Image (his own, or anyone else’s), this was where you’d find him.

#9. Public Image Ltd. — Metal Box/Second Edition

                (It’s worth mentioning that the original British release DID in fact come in a metal box—more like a 35mm canister with 3-4 vinyl EPs in it, pretty much guaranteeing that the contents would be scratched and possibly gouged before it ever hit a turntable. No-one quite annoys like the Rotten one. Thankfully, it was re-released as the latter-named double album, although the sequence varies some.)
              From the start to just before the surprise finish, it’s an alienated, angry, claustrophobic, sometimes downright frightening album. The fact that it’s both instrumentally sparse yet eminently danceable (lots of dub influence here—this was 1979, after all) only adds to the idea that you’ve stumbled into a oddly beautiful world that you hope no-one actually lives in but you know they do anyway.
              Which is not to say that ditching the Pistols’ image isn’t still on the creator’s mind, as the two songs that make up Side 1 give ample proof. Lydon sounds sick of his own whining here at time, but it only somehow serves to fuel the anger here. 
              “Albatross” is an eery, scratchy, soft-funky 10-minute howling rumination on leaving it all behind (“Getting rid of the albatross / I know you very well / You are unbearable / I see you far too close / If I wanted to…. I ran away.”). And that really isn't saying enough about it. Let's just say that it’s no mistake that I used it as the password at the last job I was at for nine years before finally coming out here to Colorado.
              “Memories” continues in the same lyrical vein, only the funk (both musically and emotionally) has become more frantic:    

“This person’s had enough of useless memories…

Whatever past

Could never last

All in your mind

Where it all began

You’re doing wrong

It’s not the movies

And you’re old.” 

              Side two deals with a whole ‘nother set of memories, and if you’re not strapped in with your seat in the upright position, you’ll need to be.

              The “single,” “Swan Lake,” was also known as “Death Disco,” and that’s exactly what the song is. The subject matter is Lydon’s mother dying of cancer, and as Levine and Wobble do their groove thang, Lydon’s vocals grow from a wail to a shriek, “Words can never say the way / Told me in your eyes… Never no more hope away / Final in a fade / Watch her slowly die / Saw it in her eyes… WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS / WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS / WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS / WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS / …”

              Even as the cry continues, the song is abruptly cut off, and we’re in the middle of “Poptones,” a song arguably scarier than “Swan Lake” but nowhere near as specific in its subject matter. The memories we’re allowed into here are all things around the scene: “Drive to the forest in a Japanese car / The smell of rubber on country tar… the cassette played / POPtonesss-suh….” Lydon spits and hisses his way through the words.

              Theories abound: Is it about a murder? A rape? A rape of another man (Lydon himself?)? A rape of another man AND a murder? The bottom line is:  

I can’t forget the impression you made

You left a hole in the back on my head

I don’t like hiding in this foliage and peat

It’s wet, and I’m losing my body heat….

This bleeding heart, looking for bodies

Nearly injured my pride

Praise picnicking, in a British countryside

POPtonesssssssss-SUH….

  Just when the album and the listener threaten to collapse under the weight here, things lighten up (in a very relative sense, of course). Side two closes with “Careering,” an escalating dubfest about the troubles in Ireland and military life in general: “A face is raining / Across the border / The pride of history / The same as murder…. Trigger machinery / Mangle the military / No one should be there / Is this living?”

Side three starts with, all of things, two instrumentals, “Socialist” and “Graveyard” — time to reflect on what’s already passed, I guess, and you can dance to it too — and ends with one of the more deliberately annoying songs in the Lydon pantheon (and you already know that’s a big old pantheon), “The Suit.” Predictable yet exceptionally snotty. “Romance and replace / the lack in yourself / It is yawww nayyyyyyyyyy-chaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh…. / everyone loves you / until they know you… / The ladder is long / It is yawww nayyyyyyyyyy-chaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh….”

On to side four and closer to everyday life, but no less depressing in that. Possibly more so. Is the tragedy in “Bad Baby” more in the abandonment of the child or the fact that no one seems to care?  

Nearly 10:30

I’m rising early

I’ve got to buy the best

Before the rush

Someone left a baby

In the car park

Never any reason

Don’t you listen

One more sob story…

Ignore it and it will go away… 

The middle-class bashing picks back up in “No Birds”: “I like the illusion… of privacy… / Well-intentioned rules / To dignify a daily code / Lawful order, standard views / This could be heaven.”

The band gears up for one more charge into the breach, and it’s a good one. “Chant” is like quite nothing else you’ve ever heard. Over a song-long chant of “love-war-fear-hate” (or is it “love war, feel hate”?), and with a vocal constantly teetering between jaded indifference and manic urgency, Lydon rails, “All you ever get, is all you steal… / Don’t know why I bother / There’s nothing in it for me / The more I see, the less I get / The likes of you and me are / An embarrassment.”

Finally, the lyrics part and Lydon gives way to a frantic cry of “CHANT- CHANT- CHANT- CHANT- CHANT- CHANT- CHANT- CHANT- CHANT- CHANT….”

Which after another minute of caterwauling, at last disintegrates into “Radio 4,” a lovely, peaceful, almost majestic keyboard instrumental that’s everything the last hour wasn’t. A simple minute-long melody repeats itself over four-plus minutes. Although, near the end of the last go-round, a few dissonant notes are thrown in, just to remind us of where we’ve been.

Posted by: burninglight at 19:39 | link | comments (4)

Comments:

#1  30 December 2005 - 16:18

 

Good pick, Simmons. I'm still more a Flowers guy, probably because it sounds more like the void I usually live in. "2nd" is indeed a great record, a brave record in that it dicusses our 'NAAAAYYY-CHAAAAAAA' with the clear eyed disgust it usually warrants. Somehow, to me, music that makes you feel happy rings for a while, but is ultimately a temporary salve, while music like this (and the Whigs, 'Heroin', Berlin' etc) tells me that all truly is lost and 'happiness is just an illusion'.

Pity, huh?
Happy New Year.

timbyrnes

#2  30 December 2005 - 17:19

 

Not so fast, bucko. The happier stuff's coming.... not to say there isn't plenty more darkness left in the mix....

Truthfully, the selections here largely big long tunnels that usually have lights at the end of them. One could even find that in Second Edition/"Radio 4" (although as noted, the darkness still kind of lurks in the distance).

Light and dark are both there, but as humans we're either drawn to the darkness or run screaming for the light, screaming "you're not theeeere, neener-neener-poo-poo" at the darkness all the while). Real people acknowledge both, and deal with it.

For the record, though: Berlin is probably #11, or close to it. :D

Anonymous

#3  04 January 2006 - 19:21

 

"Real people"??!! "REAL PEOPLE"!!!!???? I love that, real people. As opposed to what, imaginary people?? INVISIBLE PEOPLE!!!!!

just kidding, Carl, but that phrase really does irk me. Like in A Clockwork Orange the rich lady screaming at Alex as she brains him 'Why can't you leave us real people alone?' Admittedly Alex and his ilk are snots, and those of us who trust the darkness are nothing if not real.

So what's #8....... Victory in Rock City?
tb

Anonymous

#4  05 January 2006 - 14:19

 

Fair enough. I was getting kinda pontificatory at that point, although it was really directed the other way. Hopefully the point wasn't buried under all that. Actually, your quote reinforces it, if you look at it from where I'm standing.

Can I substitute "people who are honest about who they are"? :D We're not ALL darkness (even Alex or Greg Dulli or John Lydon/Rotten or Lou Reed or tim byrnes :P) and we're not ALL light either (even Mother Teresa or Jim... a mother of a different kind), after all.

And you'll have to wait on #8. I have a couple special announcements this week. But rest assured, it'll be a signficant shift from PiL. :P

burninglight

Comments: