 Aquarian
This song has a cheque red history of assorted titles and inten-tions: originally to be a celebration of the incoming Aquarian Age, it went through a phase of being a hymn to an assorted band of troubadours bound together under the aegis of a certain record company. After the sufferance of no little trial and tribulation at the hands of this concern, I had no regrets as I withdrew my lyrical support from it and re-engaged the song on its old rails. Pitfalls abound in any eulogising songs, and since this time I have been more concerned with my doubts in songs than with certainties which are as fickle as the seasons.
The first performance of this song was on platform 6 of Derby Midland Station (a fine institution), to a surprisingly rapt audience of porters, fellow-travellers and Chris Judge Smith.
- Firebrand
This is a fairly straightforward account of a phenomenon of dire omen which occurs in Icelandic mythology, the 'Witch-ride'. Here, the manifestation is in the saga of Njal, and the event which it foreshadows is the burning of Nj al's house by his arch-enemy, with the owner and his family asleep inside. On this dastardly deed hangs the cycle of retribution and revenge which constitutes the saga.
The screaming monologue of the Witch-rider is, amazingly enough, an exact translation, 'poison in the centre' and all!
- Out of My Book
This song makes reference to an unfortunate school exper-ience, the allocation at the start of a term of a maths text book in which the answers to exercises are absent. Although working from an answer to a question is a dishonest way of approaching a scientific, as an emotional, problem it is dis-turbing to know that there is no 'escape clause', and that the only way one can arrive at an answer is by logic. In such an illogical emotional area as the context of this song, the dis-turbance itself can seem greater than the disturbing factor, the question.
- Octopus
These lyrics, dealing with a similar case of disorientation and inability to over-view, were written in the snow-besieged Students' Union of Southampton University. The original Octopus took the form of a mural in the flat of the lady concerned and it is, in a way, validatory that the relationship was neither consummated nor clarified.
- Orthenthian Street
The street in question does not exist, although a search for it, and the hotel we believed it to hold among its houses, took well over an hour: symptomatic, perhaps, of life in bands! This was the first song of mine which dealt - if obliquely -with that lifestyle and the endless vistas of motorways and assorted potential destructions. If it is claustrophobic and in-conclusive then that only serves to further its point.
- Refugees
For six months I shared a flat with Mike and Susie, who are among my oldest friends. When the time for departure came, I was washed with the melancholia which normally attends moving from 'home' and the physical memories it retains, heightened in this instance by the knowledge that, from being the closest of triads, we were committing ourselves to a separation in which months could easily slide into years. In this knowledge, the last vestiges of hope lay only in a future Utopia and re-joining of the hands.
In the writing, however, the song developed a life of its own (as is always the best way), and the hope becomes much more than that for reunion with my friends. We are all refugees, and there is no home but hope.
'Easy To Slip Away' is, of course, the natural sequel to 'Refugees'.
- The Emperor in His War-Room
In retrospect I feel that these lyrics have one particular failing: in my efforts to illuminate the life of the Tyrant, horrific images bred and grew out of themselves, so that they became self-justifying, rather than explanatory. However, the matter was largely out of my hands, as the elements involved hang on the edge of memory (race or otherwise) and therefore have tendencies to self-direction. I can only hope that the system works in reverse.
- The Pioneers Over c
This is my only attempt at writing a specifically sci-fi song, although the balancing is much more towards fiction than science.
Man's first plunge into the unknown territory beyond the speed of light (c): in the light of the discoveries necessary for the attempt, the date is meaningless, although in rational terms it is ludicrously optimistic. The Pioneers … the first hypernauts … are, because of theoretical deficiencies, thrown into time-warp or absolute relativity, in which they exist as 'creatures' of limitless imagination but total non-physicality. They are thus potentially ghouls, ghosties, poltergeists and all manner of indefinable Forces: this is one possible explan-ation but, truly, in such circumstances explanations are mean-ingless, irrelevant and totally speculative.
My only regret is that I found it necessary to provide a certain chronological continuity in order to remain, if faintly, within the bounds of comprehension. I don't pretend that there are any answers here, and any questions are entirely subjective.
- Lemmings
A song of extreme political ambivalence: at the time of writing, I was aware of both feelings and intended direction, but I become more and more unsure; this, as the song, to do with means rather than end, of which I have a degree of certainty; I have now arrived at a position in which I cannot decide whose voice is whose in the lyrics, and can no more conclude whether the life-and-death style of the Lemming in this context is desirable, good or bad than be sure that these ab-stractions have meaning in the overall life-line. The only conclusion which stands the test of time is that tending towards a far future hope, perhaps hope for a self-identification to replace my current ambiguous stance.
- Man-Erg
Index, appendix and clarification; it has all the positives that Lemmings lacks.
- A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers
There is not very much I can say about this by way of classi-fication or enhancement: extrapolation would inevitably destroy. I will, therefore, let it speak for its clandestine self, save only to say that it is a cinematic presentation of 'self' in several possible matrices.
- Darkness (11/11)
A song of numbers: although I am no numerologist, the circumstances of writing this highly instinctual song dictated its form and direction.
It was composed on the night of 11th November, 1968, Remembrance Day, by chance. Some years before I wrote a novel which purported (with devastating failure) to be an Icelandic saga; on re-reading it, some time after finishing these lyrics, I was struck by the opening sentence: 'It was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.' November is, of course, the month of Scorpio, under which sign I was born, and my life number is 11. It was, I suppose, inevitable that a song about fate should be wrought amid these conjunctions.
To this day I do not know how Hereward the Wake came to be involved.
- W
'W' is intuitive universal, and it is therefore appropriate that, over the years, it should have been treated with sounds from bagpipes to the bleeping of space beacons.
Wave-theory is, to me, fascinating but impenetrable, and I now prefer a 'photon' view of life. However, such opinion, when related to such lyrics as 'Darkness', merely proves my own confusion and the potential truth of both.
- Whatever Would Robert Have Said?
Robert is R.J. Van der Graaf of M.I.T., although the relevance of this to the song escapes me, as do the circumstances of writing it, which is extremely unusual. It is as though it arrived one day without any instigation on my part, and no memory of my having worked on it. I know that this sounds both un-likely and nigh-mystical, but perhaps it is more than appro-priate when related to the nature of the song.
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