From Despair to Where

or 'From Diss Betterware' which is what it sounds like old James Dean Bradfield from the Manic Street Preachers appears to be singing. He's a good one for that; for a while I thought the song 'Kevin Carter' was actually about the widely disliked film-maker and critic Kenneth Korda. 'Motorcycle Emptiness' has to be my all time favourite though probably just because it came out at the right time for me and is tied up to lots of memories including the classic time when my CD 125 ran out of juice and I had to hitch a lift off a nuclear physicist.

It's raining today.......

On the subject of twisted lyrics, I found some of my own in a old notebook under the bed. I think they're from the early 1990s and I can imagine I was listening to a lot of Dead Kennedys at the time. I like it, though I'll admit I have had to fill one hole I'd left at the time:


Joyriding in my brothers car
Do you know where the fuck we are?
Cos I don't
No I don't
I'm a bit confused today
There's a lot occurring
And my heads gone blown away

Gonna put my arm round you
And suggest what we might do
But you won't
No you won't
It seems I never win
I've got 2 tins of Fussells
And it's doing my head in

Joy-riding
Joy-riding

Gonna roll up something green
And think about what I just seen....

Good eh! Not happy about the double use of the non-word 'gonna' but otherwise it shows promise. It's a pity there's not a date but it must have been around the time I was at University (92-95) or just after. There's not a lot else in here to be frank. There's this:

" Guy dressed as clown who has a go at people."

Just that sentence which you don't get a lot out of but it could be a reference to Krusty, Pennywise or those stripey Hopi Indian clowns. Or maybe none of them. Hey there's this country and western song which has never seen the light of day. It says it's set to the tune of 'The 1913 Massacre' by Woody Guthrie, which it certainly isn't:

My Pa, he was a Miner
And he worked down in the pit
His lungs were filled with coal dust
And his mind was filled with shit
He didn't believe in welfare
So I grew up all thin
But I can't explain, oh Sarah Jane
This dreadful state I'm in

It then stops and says 'This aint much of a song is it?' However it continues on the next page:

My brother, he's a psycho
And he's killed many folks
He killed that German football guy
Whose name was Berti Volkes
If you don't like my singing
Then I'll just shut my face
It's such a pain, sweet Sarah Jane
How I hate that human race

None of that is true btw. As far as I'm aware Berti Volkes is alive and well. Sarah-Jane was a real person too and that's how I can date this material. University was fun but I was broke then and had no discernable skills I could trade for money. I must have presented as a pretty sorry sight back then even though I had lots of hair. I often daydream of being back in those days with the knowledge I have now and the hair I had then but it's lucky that's not possible. Imagine if the me of 1993 was presented with the ability to make free raw opium. I'd almost certainly have spent the last decade on Methadone and possibly would have been dead already. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

None, of course, is absolutely fatal.