I've never been anti-American. I grew up on American culture - Spider-Man and Springsteen, Motown and Moonlighting. For much of my youth, I felt more American than I did British. And considering the sorry state of the UK at the moment, I don't believe we're in any state to judge.
This isn't an anti-American post then. It's just an anti-American idiots post. Because the lunatics appear to be taking over the asylum once more, and given recent events, nothing's going to bar their way. "God" help us all.
Last week, I bemoaned the fact that I came away from my recent Billy Bragg gig feeling ever so slightly short-changed, for which I blamed myself more than Billy. Afterwards, I was reminded of a Lloyd Cole lyric...
The Young Idealists Careering through the markets to the Mall Venturing that we could have it all Still supposing we could make a difference And then the markets fall And the heavens open And there's no synergy at all The synergy is broken So maybe now I'd take that wholesale revolution We were talking about Maybe now I'd take a future we can breathe in
...and once again, I felt like I was getting too old for all this shit: gigging, nightlife, being out in the world.
So when it came time for my second gig in less than a week, Half Man Half Biscuit at the same venue where Billy had left me wanting more, I found myself having another little existential crisis. It didn't help that I'd been out the night before to see Sam performing in a choir concert at Huddersfield Town Hall, and that I had to get up early the following morning for a football tournament that took up most of Saturday. Did I really want to spend my Friday evening standing on my own among a crowd of middle-aged men wearing T-shirts Mark Radcliffe would not approve of? Much as I love the Biscuit, I had serious second thoughts.
But I forced myself to go, and I'm glad I did. Because while I found it hard to connect with Billy's idealistic devotion this time round, Nigel Blackwell's cheeky Birkenhead cynicism was enough to banish the mid-life crisis for a couple of hours. As soon as he and his gang walked on stage to a singalong of Rhinestone Cowboy... it felt like I belonged.
Like Billy, Nigel is as entertaining between the tunes as when he's actually singing... unlike Billy, I never felt like I was failing to live up the expectations of the man on stage. Instead, he left me much to ponder...
Have you ever seen Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Dave Grohl in the same room?
Was that really Jodie Comer in the corner?
What do they call the sliding tray device used in overnight garages to pass things through to the cashier (or vice versa)?
The answer to that last one is a Chuckle Brother, in case it was going to keep you awake tonight.
However, getting a good pun into a song title is much trickier than hiding one in the lyrics of your song. Rock music is full of dreadful puns - much as I might try to defend the reputation of REO Speedwagon, there's no excuse for their 1978 album title, You Can Tune A Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish.
Although it does contain one of their better songs...
Meanwhile, I've seen it suggested online that the song Bruise Pristine by Placebo is a pun on Bruce Springsteen. Not a very good pun, if that's actually true.
No, I'm talking about this forgotten classic from Johnny Cash's former backing group, The Statler Brothers. The great thing about this song is that when you hear the title - You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith, Too - you figure there's no way the song is ever going to live up to it. And then it does, with a hilariously touching tale of two-timing and jealousy and the mildest curses you'll ever hear, considering what this guy is putting up with. If I were him, I'd be using words a lot stronger than "you rascal, you!".
Below is another post stolen from my old blog, this one dated...
MONDAY 4 DECEMBER 2006
It's a review of a Billy Bragg gig at Holmfirth Picturedrome the previous Saturday (2/12/06). I might not have run it again but for the fact that Billy returned to that very venue this Saturday just gone (18/6/24), so I figured it would make for an interesting comparison...
"It's Saturday
night in Holmfirth - yeah!"
Hardly a rock ‘n’ roll capital, even of West Yorkshire, but it’s Saturday night in Holmfirth and Billy Bragg is rocking the mid-renovation rafters of the Picturedrome, not a venue at which I ever expected to see one of my musical idols perform. Still, it’s a rare pleasure that after the gig, I’ve only got a ten-minute drive home.
Five minutes these days: I've moved closer! I think they completed the renovations of the Picturedrome some time in the past 18 years too.
There’s a certain irony to watching the definitive working class hero (move over, Mr. L.) play a little Yorkshire town where the Green Welly Brigade rules; where – thanks to Compo and co. - locals are being forced out by wealthy comers-in; and where the average house price is now comfortably past £200k, far higher than anywhere else in the surrounding area. Just the weekend before, Bill Wyman came here to turn on the Christmas lights - and a multi-millionaire ex-Rolling Stone seems a much better fit in Holmfirth than a BNP-baiting Bard of Barking.
£200k would probably buy you a garden shed round here these days.
This is the second leg of the Hope Not Hate Tour, and Billy is more aggressive than ever in his anti-fascist stance, particularly since the BNP recently took seats in his hometown.
Billy told the same story about the BNP this time, with the update that they're no longer around. These days, his biggest threat comes from Nigel Farage. Although he was also gleefully anticipating the kicking the Tories are about to get in a few weeks time... and talking about his resignation from the Labour Party over Kier Starmer's stance on Israel.
I’ve never been all that politically driven myself, but I’d be more than willing to vote for any candidate who displayed half as much intelligence (his lyrics include words like ‘recidivists’ – I have to dictionary it when I get home), wit (“People said to me, Bill, you’ve got to go to Holmfirth - do you know what they filmed there? Most of the new James Bond film…”), and passion, as Councillor Stephen William Bragg. Some might say he’s preaching to the converted, and yes, it’s true that the few skinheads in the audience probably chose their haircuts through necessity rather than right wing statement, but that’s missing the point. As a performer, Billy both entertains and educates, yet not once do I feel lectured to. Inspired? Definitely. It’s the kind of gig you wish everyone could experience, because it recharges your batteries. I truly wish I had half his passion, his conviction, his commitment to social equality… but for a couple of hours on Saturday night, I do… and I’ll try to carry that with me into the weeks ahead.
Towards the end of last Saturday's gig, Billy spoke bluntly about the inspirational quality of his gigs (which he puts down to the passion of the audience as much as anything he does). He also spoke about the apathy and cynicism many of his generation now feel towards politics, and how us oldies should look to the youth to recharge our batteries. I'm afraid to say that apathy and cynicism may be all I have left - the inspiration I described above is not something I felt this time round.
Though famous for his outspoken political activism, a Billy Bragg gig never gets heavy. It’s an enviable trick, best summed up after an amusing monologue regarding his last American tour. “I’d just like to apologise to anyone who brought a friend along tonight to hear a trenchant critique of the Marxist dialectic… and here I am discussing the merits of watching talking cats on Youtube.” I suppose it must be a similar experience at a Mark Thomas gig… only Billy’s funnier.
I've seen Billy play live a fair few times over the years, and he often speaks at gigs about how there are two types of Billy Bragg fans - those who connect with the politics first, and those who are more fired up by his clever, witty relationship songs. I've always belonged to the latter camp, and this time round I felt a bit short-changed. Serves me right for going to see Billy three weeks before a General Election, I guess.
As for the music…? Spot on. “Levi Stubbs’ Tears” will always bring a lump to my throat, and his briefly adopted “Johnny Clash” persona – singing ‘Pinball Wizard’ to the tune of ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ - is a stroke of genius. Ending the night with a sing-along ‘New England’ – “let’s do a verse for Kirsty!” – sends everyone home with a smile. On losing all but the lowest register of his voice whilst touring the US, his manager allegedly consoled him, “Don’t worry, Bill – no-one comes to hear you sing.” We do though, of course we do – we just get so much more besides.
Maybe I've reached the age where I do just want to hear Billy Bragg sing. I had a half-baked notion after the gig on Saturday that he should do two gigs in future - one for the politicos and one for all the sad-sacks like me who just want to hear him sing The Warmest Room, Tank Park Salute and Handyman Blues. Sadly, we only got one of those this time... though it still brought me to tears.
Back to the trawl through the pages of my original blog, picking out selected bits that seem interesting or timely. I found a list of my Top 60 Songs from 2006. I'll spare you, but I was surprised by how many of them I'd completely forgotten...
I also found a review of the last time Billy Bragg played Holmfirth - Saturday the 2nd of December 2006. This is timely because I'll be seeing him on the same stage, 18 years later, next Saturday night. I might compare reviews then.
But it was the post below that caught my attention, particularly as it tackled a similar topic to this week's Self-Help For Cynics. This was written when I was still working in the wonderful world of radio advertising...
FRIDAY 15 DECEMBER 2006
It occurred to me this morning that a blog, by its very nature, must always wear your polite, public face. For obvious reasons, I can’t come here to carp about my job or the noxious individuals I come into contact with through said job, those especially maleficent characters I’d cheer to see floating face-down in the Leeds-Liverpool canal. (Does that make me a bad person? Why don’t bad things happen to bad people? I refer you back to Jarvis Cocker’s song of the year, ‘Running The World’.) I suppose I could set up a second, anonymous blog for that purpose, or use an alias… but even then, I’d have to remain circumspect with the details to avoid giving away my true identity. How many of us cherish a dream of the day when we no longer need this job, when we can finally interrupt our meeting with that complete and utter bumhole and tell them what we really think? But you can’t use a blog for that, even anonymously (though I’m sure some people do, braver – or foolhardier - souls than me). Still, that’s what I have my fiction for. It’s how I deal with the world.
Fortunately I work with much nicer people these days. (Except Bob.) Unfortunately, I don't write fiction any more. Unless you think this all might be made up?
On a related issue, please take care when receiving emails from the sort of person mentioned above, and forwarding them on to your like-minded, co-suffering workmates. Be careful about adding a little comment, such as, say, ‘What an absolute tool!’ Be extra-careful that you’re not – rather than hitting ‘forward’ – actually replying to the worthless piece of gutter-froth who sent you the email in the first place. Believe me when I say you’ll wake up at 3am in a cold sweat regretting an error such as this.
Still good advice, almost two decades on.
The perfect excuse to listen to a shamelessly OTT chunk of hair metal...
Continued from yesterday's post... when I was about 16 or 17, I was invited to join an APA. I had no idea what an APA was and the internet wasn't around to explain like it is nowadays.
"An amateur press association is a group of people who produce individual pages or zines that are sent to a Central Mailer for collation and distribution to all members of the group."
Initially I was just writing individual pages for a zine called Comic Critics Cavalcade, in which letter-hacks from all over the world could share their thoughts on new or old comics or the changing face of the industry.
After a year or two doing that, I was allowed into the inner circle: Inertron, an APA in which a small group of British comic fans made their own zines every couple of months, photocopied a batch, and sent them off to a central mailer for distribution to the rest of the group.
A week or so later, we'd receive a huge parcel containing every else's zines which we then read and commented on. Some of those zines were huge (for anyone who thinks writing this blog must be a time-consuming affair, it's nothing to the amount of time involved in being part of an APA). Yet it was also a lot of geeky fun... otherwise else why did we spend so much time on it?
Not everyone involved was a teenager like me - some of the other contributors were in their 20s, 30s or even older... but nobody thought there was anything odd about that. We were united by our shared love of comics... but also, films, music, TV shows, and life as we knew it. Nobody agreed on everything, but nobody violently disagreed either. We were interested, rather than angry, when someone liked different things to us. Being a part of that group was a natural precursor to the blogosphere - or this comfortable little corner of the blogosphere anyway.
I recently found all my old APAs up in my mum's attic, and I'm in the process of scanning them to digital files for posterity. Below is the cover to the first issue of my zine Rock n Roll, named after the sign off line I used for all my fan letters. At the top of the post is a cover from a later edition. Even though this was an APA for comics fans, we could write about whatever we wanted in our own zines, so music was a big part of my witterings even back then.
Until I found that dusty old box up in mum's attic, I hadn't thought about my time in the APA group for maybe a quarter of a century. I'm not sure why it stopped, but I suspect it was partly that the internet took over. I did find myself quite active in online comics groups from the mid-late 90s, and I suspect quite a few of my fellow APA-ers made a similar leap. I was also spending more and more time producing my own comics by then (not to mention completing my English degree and working in radio) so something had to give. I miss the creativity and community of it all, but other things came along to fill that hole... like writing this blog. I guess I've always felt the need to put my thoughts down and have them read by others, all that's changed is the medium.
In the Cheese Pavilion and the only noise I hear
Is the sound of someone stacking chairs
And mopping up spilt beer
And someone asking questions and basking in the light
Of the fifteen fame filled minutes of the fanzine writer
By hook or by crook, Sam's football team, The Hawks, made it into the local cup final. They were very much the underdogs, and had been all season. It was easy to tell him to relax and enjoy it, that it was just another game, and it didn't matter if his team won or not. What an achievement it was getting to the final anyway! We were proud of him whatever the result. All these things were true, but they were far more true for us, his parents, than for Sam himself. At his age, you still believe that life is fair and that if you try your hardest, the underdogs will come out on top... just like in the movies. Winning is everything.
The opposition were a better team though, so the result was inevitable. They also had some particularly unpleasant supporters (mostly older brothers, I guess) who heckled Sam's team from the sidelines and made the final even harder. They were playing in a proper stadium too - well, there were stands on one side, so it was more like an actual stadium than anywhere they'd ever played before. Sam told me later that this in itself made the game tougher - he'd rather just be on a field in the middle of nowhere, like usual.
Regardless of all this, the Hawks did OK. They didn't win, but they had some good chances and kept the effort up right to the end. They played better football at times, but the goals just didn't come. Still, a 2-0 defeat wasn't the worst they've suffered this year, and we all felt they could hold their heads up high. (Look at me, writing about football: using the vernacular!)
Although initially sanguine in his defeat, Sam felt the disappointment later in the afternoon. He bounced back pretty quickly though. I admire his resilience... I hope the world doesn't beat that out of him. It's easy to say that losing in a situation like this is a better life lesson than winning... but that's no consolation for a ten year old.
Not a lot of people know this, but when Neil Finn wrote the song Four Seasons In One Day, he was talking about the time he was visited by four different bands called the Four Seasons in one 24 hour period. I know, the title should have been Four Four Seasons In One Day, but that didn't scan as well.
I'll leave it up to you to decide which band weren't invited to Neil's gaff...
THE FOUR SEASONS #1
We start today in 1959, Pittsburgh... though this one is anything but the pits. A infectiously joyful little doo-wop story from the quartet of Bill Stammer (who doesn't stammer once), Ched Mertz, Dan McGinnis and Don Fanzo. It might be the best thing you hear today.
Apart from the next lot, obviously.
THE FOUR SEASONS #2
One year later, The Four Seasons everybody knows (surely!) formed from the ashes of a band called The Four Lovers. When they decided to change their name, they stole Four Seasons from a local bowling alley in New Jersey, having just failed an audition there.
Lead singer Frankie Valli had been knocking around the music studios since 1953, when he recorded his debut solo single, My Mother's Eyes. The other key players were producer Bob Crewe and keyboardist Bob Gaudio, who together wrote the majority of the bands biggest hits, including Sherry and December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night) and Can't Take My Eyes Off You. Even when the hits were promoted as Frankie Valli solo recordings, these guys were usually involved. Gaudio retired from performing in 1975 but continued to write songs for Valli (and others) for the rest of his career. Bob and Bob also wrote one of the greatest pop songs ever, The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore, originally recorded by Frankie & co.
At 89, Valli is the only original Four Season still performing - currently on an extended farewell tour called Last Encores - though he hasn't ruled out the occasional comeback once that tour is done.
The Four Seasons were responsible for many, many wonderful records, but I still think this is their finest hour...
THE FOUR SEASONS #3
Or, to give them their full name, Robert Lloyd & The New Four Seasons. I might well have skipped this bunch for that reason... had their song not been so wonderful. Also, if I'm allowing Frankie Valli &..., I can't discriminate.
Robert Lloyd was the lead singer of two punk bands - The Prefects and The Nightingales - both of whom could well feature here at a later date. This is what Bob was up to in the late 80s.
The line-up for this particular Four Seasons also one Cara Tivey, who went to the top of the charts in 1988 with some bloke called Bragg.
FOUR SEASONS #4
And now, how about some Greek Power Metal from 1999?
You know you want to...
THE FOUR SEASONS #5
"You know what your blog really needs, Rol? More Ukrainian Polka!" said no-one ever (though I wouldn't put it past George).
Here's some Ukrainian Polka from a record that was released in Canada, 23 years ago. Or 2001 as Arthur C. Clarke used to call it.
You may argue that I’m stretching the definition of “celebrity” today. Still, if you’re famous enough to have a song written about you, you’re a celebrity in my book. You might not be invited on Celebrity Big Brother or Celebrity Wife-Swap or Celebrity Dung Inspectors… whatever’s the latest big celebrity thing to clog up the TV schedules like a rancid fatberg in the sewerage tunnels... but then I've rarely heard of any of the "celebrities" they drag out for these shows anyway... and the ones I have heard of, I generally find objectionable.
Better yet, today's "celebrity" hasn’t had a song written about him by any old Tom, Dick or Harry Styles. He had a song written about him by arguably the greatest songwriter in the history of truly great songwriters. But we’ll get to that…
Phil “Flip” Sloan was born in New York in 1945. When he was 13, his family moved to Hollywood and his dad bought him a guitar. Legend has it that he met Elvis in the music shop, and wangled his first ever guitar lesson from the King of Rock 'n' Roll.
A year later, he wrote and released his first single…
Sloan soon got a job writing songs for Screen Gems, one of many record companies in the 60s employing teenagers to write songs for their own age group. That's where he met a soon-to-be frequent collaborator, Steve Barri, and together they penned their first minor hit...
This led to further success, writing hits for The Turtles, The Searchers and Herman’s Hermits, although Sloan's most known for a tune that became a big Vietnam protest anthem…
PF Sloan also wrote the theme tune to the US version of the Patrick McGoohan show, Danger Man, retitled Secret Agent on American TV. Originally recorded by Johnny Rivers, many years later that song cropped up on the first LP I ever bought...
Sloan also joined The Wrecking Crew as a session guitarist. While playing with that legendary ensemble, he came up with a particularly fine opening hook…
Regardless of his success as a songwriter and musician, what Phil Sloan really wanted was to be a star in his own right. But that was not to be, and in the early 70s he abandoned the music industry altogether and spent many years as a recluse, fighting depression and mental illness. Although he enjoyed a brief comeback in the 21st Century, he sadly died of cancer in 2015.
Now rewind… to the mid-60s, and a lazy day when Sloan agreed to meet a budding junior songwriter and offer him some words of encouragement. When Sloan heard the songs that young man had to play, they brought him to tears. He thought every one of them could be a major hit...
Jimmy Webb never forgot the support he'd received from PF Sloan early in his career. A few years later, he wrote a timeless tribute to his lost hero that goes something like this...
Bruce Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, called PF Sloan "a masterpiece [that] could not be improved upon". Even Billy Bragg has something to say about it. The song was also recorded by The Association, Unicorn and Jennifer Warnes, among others, but the definitive version wouldn’t arrive for another 40 years.
The Warmest Room wouldn't leap immediately to my mind, but it came up on a compilation the other day and stopped me in my tracks. And thinking back, it's not the only time that's happened.
When did I first get into Billy Bragg? I'd love to tell you I caught that first, mushroom biryani-stoked John Peel radio play of The Milkman of Human Kindness (at the wrong speed, naturally)... but clearly I wasn't cool enough to be listening to Peel back in '83. I was still a Radio 2 man back then anyway. And I was far more familiar with Kirsty's version of A New England (although Billy always says that's his favourite anyway). It's possible then that I didn't pay much attention to Billy until he had first Number One in 1988. I do remember watching him sing She's Leaving Home on TOTP with Cara Tivey... and thinking, hey, that's much better than the A-side that actually propelled this single to the top of the charts. It was probably at this point that I bought my first Billy Bragg album, which I'm pretty sure was a vinyl copy of Worker's Playtime.
Soon after I acquired the CD re-issue of Billy's self-proclaimed "Difficult Third Album", Talking with the Taxman About Poetry and discovered The Warmest Room. It's tucked away at the end Side 2, long after the Johnny Marr-fuelled glory of Greetings To The New Brunette and the devastating gut-punch of Levi Stubbs... but in its own way, it's just as wonderful.
Whenever I've seen Billy live, he's keen to state that there are two types of Billy Bragg fan - the ones who come to him for the politics, and the ones who prefer the humanity of his relationship stories. I'm firmly in the latter camp - while I agree with many (if not all) of his political opinions, and can appreciate how heartfelt they are when he puts them to song, I'd much rather listen to his tales of woe. Of course, the politics do creeps into those songs too, as Billy confesses in The Warmest Room...
Though you cannot be blamed But I've become inflamed With thoughts of lust and thoughts of power Thoughts of love and thoughts of Chairman Mao
...but maybe it's more the politics of love and war in this instance. Whatever - The Warmest Room is a love story, and it even starts with a hint of sex to grab our attention...
A rainy afternoon Spent in the warmest room She lay before me and said Yes, it's true that I have seen some naked men
To me, that opening reeks of unrequited lust. A flirtatious young woman toying with a love-struck young dupe who probably doesn't have the nerve to make a move...
The best songs are malleable - we bend them to fit our own experiences.
As she made for the door Leaving me on the floor I wish I'd done biology For an urge within me wanted to do it then
I particularly like that line, because it suggests a sexually inexperienced young guy, well out of his depth in this "relationship". There's also a big difference between the way she provocatively "lays before" him in the previous verse, and then leaves him "on the floor" here. You can immediately tell who holds all the power.
Then comes the chorus, where all that desperate yearning becomes crystallised...
And here she comes again And I'm sitting on my hands And she sings to me that siren song Here she comes again and I'm biting my lip But it won't be long
She's a Siren - and yet he's sitting on his hands, unable to make any kind of move, biting his lip with nerves... and kidding himself he has some kind of chance. Been there, got the T-shirt.
What do Sirens do? They lure men to their doom... although in this case, the Siren might well be using her feminine wiles to lure Billy into supporting her own personal political ideologies. Not that he'd need such pretty persuasion nowadays... but whenever I listen to this song, I do wonder if that's how he first became interested in such things.
And then, to lighten the mood, a little comedic interlude...
As Brother Barry said,
As he married Marion,
"The wife has three great attributes:
Intelligence, a Swiss army knife and charm."
What I love about this joke, from an English teacher's point of view, is that it utilises the Rule of Three... in a most unusual fashion. That trusted comedic trope usually works thus...
Item 1 - introduce the topic...
Item 2 - establish what looks like a pattern...
Item 3 - surprise us or confound our expectations to create a humorous reaction.
For example...
Have you ever woken up next to someone and you can't remember what their name is, how you met, or why they're dead?
By the regulations of comedy then, this lyric should go...
"The wife has three great attributes:
Intelligence, charm and a Swiss Army Knife."
That's how the joke would normally work. But there are competing masters to be satisfied here, and the songwriter's need to scan trumps the comedian's need for a laugh. And yet... it works. Better than the alternative, I'd argue, but maybe that's down to familiarity - after all these years, I can't imagine the line any other way.
And then it's time to mix the pop with the politics again...
And she did speak her mind And told them all that she believed The only way to disarm is to disarm
The repetition of "disarm" allows for multiple interpretations. The one to do with stopping warfare ("let's make love not war" was always a dodgy chat up line) but also "to remove hostility, suspicion, etc. by being charming: a disarming smile." But who's disarming who in this tale? Is it possible the Siren feels threatened by Billy's advances? Is he actually what we might call a stalker or a sex pest nowadays? That's not an interpretation I favour, but as I said... songs are malleable.
Then we get to the crux of the matter: the insinuation of seduction as indoctrination, and the idea that Billy's Marxist ideology was originally stirred by post-adolescent hormones. Of course, he wouldn't be the first young man to engage with a political theory in order to get his end away, and does it really matter how we arrive at our individual belief system as long as it's the right one for us?
However, before Billy becomes completely inflamed with thoughts of lust and thoughts of power, we first have to contend with his own resistance efforts...
I know people whose idea of fun Is throwing stones in the river in the afternoon sun Oh, let me be as free as them...
For me, these are among the best lines Billy's ever written. They're simple, yet they speak volumes. Putting aside everything else this song is about, here's a straightforward plea to live in the moment, to not (as Wendell Berry puts it in The Peace Of Wild Things) "tax [our] lives with forethought of grief". Don't we all want to be as free as them? Sadly, it's clear our narrator fears that won't be possible once his Siren returns...
Don't let her pass this way again!
It's like his brain is screaming out in a rare lucid moment, knowing full well the fug of lust will soon descend and he'll be lost again.
All of which leads us to the denouement, and the only lines I don't have a clear interpretation of...
We have such little time At your place or mine I can't wait till we take our blood tests Oh baby, let's take our blood tests now
The first two - fine: it's romantic desperation mixed with an ever more desperate chat up line. But the blood tests? I've seen those interpreted as a response to the AIDS crisis in the 80s, and maybe that's partly it... but I also wonder if it's not just another excuse to string the hapless, lovesick fool along with. This Siren's got no intention of letting Billy have his way... but boy, does she enjoy the attention! When those blood tests do come back, you can bet there'll be some other reason to delay the evitable...
On Friday after finishing work, I drove into Leeds to see Craig Finn at a new venue called The Wardrobe. I went on my own because Ben was on holiday - otherwise he'd have been there like a shot, because Finn and his band The Hold Steady are one of the few musical artists we're in 100% agreement on.
As I finish work at 3.30 on Friday, I wasted an hour or so driving round charity shops on the outskirts of Leeds until the evening parking rate kicked in. Came away empty handed - city-adjacent charity shops rarely have anything interesting to offer. I had a couple of hours to kill in Leeds, so spent as long as I could reading my book over decaf and a toasted sandwich in Cafe Nero, then loitered until the venue opened at 7.30. I was one of the first to arrive, but the lighting wasn't good enough to read my book in there, so I found a good spot and hung around like a spare part till the support came on a 8.15.
Scott Lavene has appeared on this blog previously, and I think John Medd might also be a fan. He's an artist who appears to have heard Billy Bragg's version of Walk Away, Renee and decided to build an entire act based upon it.
Lavene walks that controversial tightrope between troubadour and stand up, but the audience warmed to him quickly and his closing tune might even have brought a tear to the less-cynical eyes... though Scott was quick to point out that the emotional hook, “I chose amphetamines over you”, was available on T-shirts at the merch stand.
And then came the main event, all the way from New York City (originally Minneapolis).
Why are The Hold Steady one of my favourite post-20th Century bands?
The simple answer to that is the same one I'd give for most of my favourite artists. Craig Finn is a great songwriter. Even better, he's a great storyteller. So whether his band is influenced by Hüsker Dü or the Replacements, Cheap Trick or the Minutemen, Finn's lyrics follow a line from Dylan to Zevon to Springsteen. That's a great combination when they're all together...
...but I've grown to love Finn's solo work even more. This latest series of shows was billed as "Songs & Stories", just Finn and his guitar (a $30 acoustic that, he tells us, was given to him by a bandmate... although when he wanted to take it on tour, he had to get it fitted with a $500 pickup).
Anyway, we got a lot of stories behind the songs on Friday night, including the revelation that the one above dates back to 2001, before Craig started his band, when he was just a New York City office worker. On September 11th, when the first plane went into the Twin Towers, his boss invited him to cut work for the morning, go up on the roof of his apartment, and watch the devastation as it unfolded. They ended up guiltily drinking beer... perhaps not the most appropriate thing to do while so many people were dying... but it says a lot about the utter unreality of that day. (Finn goes on to confess that the fall-out of 9/11 was years of drug and alcohol addiction, before he finally got himself straight.)
The highlight of the show, ironically given what I said above, was the sole Hold Steady song, Magazines. It was the story Craig told to set it up and give it context that made it so special. He explained he'd written the song the morning after being dumped by the love of his life... which might explain why "it's not a very nice song. A great song - but not very nice." After writing it though, he got a phone call from the woman in question, saying maybe she'd been a little hasty... maybe they should talk...
Last weekend, Louise and I had a bit of an argument. It wasn't a particularly important one, just one of the hundreds of squabbles most human beings living under the same roof as other human beings will subject themselves to over the course of the year. I can't even remember what it was about now, but at the time I was livid.
I'm kinda putting off tackling the subject of anger in this series, because it's a huge kettle of anchovies. I'm avoiding it because it looks like it'll be hard work... and those of you who read last week's post will realise that's rather counter-productive of me. Hey, I'm not claiming to be following my own advice all the time - take your "physician, heal thyself" comments and stick them where the sun don't shine.
Anyway, after the argument, I took myself off to stew in the living room. I hate any kind of disagreement, so will take the first opportunity to run away and do whatever I can to avoid it starting up again. This will usually involve not discussing the subject of the argument or anything else for as long as possible, since any form of communication might re-trigger the aggro. Some people might call this sulking. I prefer to term it Crisis Management.
After about a minute though, Louise came to find me. "Here we go again," I thought, at which point Louise said...
"Are you finding those new tuna tins hard to drain? I find they leave a ring and you have to press down and it doesn't get all the water out so you end up with really mushy tuna and..."
I'll spare you the rest, but it was as though our earlier disagreement hadn't even happened and instantly we were back to discussing the trivial annoyances of day to day living. Well, Louise was, anyway. Me... I find it much harder to reset my emotions like that.
In her immensely readable book Unf*ck Your Brain, the delightfully foul-mouthed Dr. Faith G, Harper tells us...
"Our emotions influence our thoughts and behaviours. They are meant to be a physiological signal to the rest of the brain. Once they have done their jobs, they are then meant to dissipate.
Do you know how long an emotion is actually meant to last?
90 seconds.
Seriously, just one and a half minutes for an emotion to run its course.
But you are calling "bullshit" right now, I know. Because if that were really the case, why do our emotions last hours, days, or years? 90 seconds? Not so much.
Emotions last longer than 90 seconds because we continue to fuel them with our thoughts. We do this by telling ourselves the same stories about the triggering situation over and over. This is when they stop being emotions and start becoming moods."
So how do we stop our 90 second emotions becoming full-on hissy fits, extended bouts of pout, or lock-yourself-in-the-toilet meltdowns?
The answer, according to the experts, presumably people who never experience more than 90 seconds of negative emotions at any one time, is to take control of our own feelings and become emotionally self-aware.
This all seems like a shed-load of work to me, but here's a few tips from Psychology Today about how to stop 90 seconds of upset ruining your entire day...
“Look at the second hand on a watch. As soon as you look at it, you’re now observing yourself having this physiological response instead of engaging with it. It will take less than 90 seconds, and you will feel better. Of course, you can always go back to thinking those thoughts that re-stimulate the loop. There’s probably a thought somewhere in your brain of somebody who did you wrong 20 years ago. Every time you think of that person it still starts that circuit. When things are getting hot and you’re getting hot-headed, look at your watch. It takes 90 seconds to dissipate that anger response.”
We keep coming back to this on Self-Help For Cynics. Make yourself aware of what your brain is doing as a first step to taking back control. But how easy is that to do in the heat of the moment when your brain is fired up with the matter at hand? I reckon it'll take practice.
Sweary Dr. Faith takes this idea one step further. She suggests facing your emotions head on. Sitting down and wallowing in them. relishing them, living them to their full potential.
Not avoiding them.
Not just putting up with them.
Actually grasping the nettle and saying to yourself, "Hey, I'm angry / frightened / sad / etc. right now. This is what it feels like. It might feel pretty awful, but I know it won't last, so let's just give it a bit of time, give it its space."
Again, hardly the easiest course of action - particularly for those of us who are Professional Conflict-Avoiders. But, Dr. Faith assures us...
"If you attend to what you're feeling, you get over it way more quickly than if you avoid it. I've noticed I'm bored with myself about three minutes into committing to sitting with my feeling for five. I'm ready to go make a cup of coffee, read a book, find the cookies I hid from myself, or do anything other than perserverate."
All this makes me think that the brain is like a small child that wants our attention when we're otherwise occupied. You can try to ignore the child's continued efforts to disrupt your day... or you can try to muddle along, balancing the thing you're doing with giving the child a bit of attention. Or you can drop everything and give the child your full attention - blatantly. "OK, I'm watching you... what are you doing? Can I watch you do that too? Show me more! Let me watch YOU!"
I've actually done this with Sam on occasion, and often he'll get bored with this sudden bout of hyper-attention and actually want to be left alone for a bit. The people in the know tells us that our brain will do exactly the same thing... if we give it the attention it craves.
When I was in Primary School we still got a bottle of milk to drink every morning. In winter it was ice cold but in summer it was very warm and not so nice at all. I remember our teacher standing over one girl every milk time forcing her to finish her bottle of and we all had to wait as it took her a long time, going down only an 1/8th of an inch (pre-decimal times) every minute. Wouldn't happen nowadays of course - not been milk since the days of Thatcher the Snatcher and of course so many children now have intolerances to dairy.
This opened up a whole can of memory worms for me… but a couple of things first...
Kids do still get school milk – it’s just not free anymore (and not in bottles). Parents have to pay for it – unless they can’t afford, in which case it’s supplemented. Sam’s 10 now and still gets milk at school. He also drinks any leftover cartons he can get his hands on.
(Sam and his mates have likewise formed a Leftovers Club at dinner time. They make sure they’re the last in the dinner queue, then they’re more likely to be offered seconds after everyone’s finished their lunch.)
Speaking of an intolerance to dairy though, Alyson… this is exactly what I had when I was a kid. I still do, though it’s a rather odd variety of intolerance. I just can’t drink milk, especially if it’s cold. If I try, it makes me throw up. I’m fine with anything else dairy-related – cheese, yoghurt… no problem. I’m also OK with boiled milk, in certain circumstances. That’s how my mum used to serve me cereal – Weetabix, Frosties, Coco Pops etc… always with hot milk. If I tried to eat them with cold milk… bleurggghh! I’ve never been able to drink milk shakes either. Not without gipping. Sorry, Kelis. You milkshake wouldn't bring me to the yard.
I’m not sure I was aware of all this when I started Primary School, and I doubt my mum thought to mention it. On the first day of school then, out came the school milk bottles… “Drink up, children!”
My first teacher, Mrs. Kay (picture Julie Andrews, but slightly more posh) was a shrewd lady who quickly realised I couldn’t keep milk down, so she stopped offering it to me. (Saved her having to clean up her classroom every day.) When the school milk came out, I was excused.
Mrs. Tebb did not like me. That’s pretty much all I remember about her. Every other teacher at my junior school, I got on with OK. Not Mrs. Tebb though. She hated me. And maybe that’s because of what happened on the day I arrived in her class… but if so, she only brought it on herself.
“Time for your milk, children!”
“But, Mrs. Tebb, I don’t drink milk. It makes me sick.”
“Nonsense. Milk is good for you. It’s good for your teeth and your bones and your everyday health! Milk is nature’s perfect food!”
Back in 2007, Sheffield band Tiny Dancers put out their only album on the back of opening for Bob Dylan's UK tour the year before. The LP was called Free School Milk. This was their debut single, released on my 35th birthday.
If any of you have access to the Disney+ streaming service, can I recommend the Australian TV show Mr. Inbetween? It's got nothing to do with this song, but it is very worth watching. Only 25 minute episodes too, so they're easy to get through before you fall asleep at the end of the day.
