The Drugs Don't Work

Remember when I said I was working on a music post that was going to be all songs about drugs? Well, that's not going to happen. I started writing it and it didn't go as well as I expected. For one thing, it turned out I'd already used several of the best songs already. For another, what I had left to work with wasn't as good as I remembered. And worst of all, it didn't really flow.

Believe it or not, I do try to program these music posts, at least a little, so there's a rhythm or a mood or a theme - something that carries you through from one end to the other. It often doesn't work as well as I'd like but this one didn't work at all. So I junked it. It may come back some day, if I get enough new examples worth sharing, which, let's face it, is bound to happpen because if there's one thing musicians like to sing about it's their drug habits. 

Or maybe I'll just do a playlist instead. For now, though, I'm going to go somewhere entirely different, namely back to where I usually go: random stuff I've picked up from here and there over the last week or so and tried to force into some kind of uncomfortable coherency as though I had a plan. 

Good stuff, all of it, I hope. Gotta try and keep those standards up, which frankly was not happening in the drug post. 

There were exceptions, though. Like this one:

(He'll Never Be An) 'Ol Man River
TISM (This Is Serious Mum) 

I'm guessing any readers from Down Under (God, that's such a dated expression now, isn't it?) already know who TISM are. I was going to add "or were" because I thought for a moment they'd broken up but no-one ever truly breaks up any more and then I remembered I'd watched footage of them performing live about a year ago so present tense I guess. I bet no-one reading this outside Australia and maybe New Zealand has even heard of them all the same, regardless of their current status.

Australia is such a weird place, isn't it? Not just because of the really quite very weird stuff that happens there, seemingly all the time, but because of how little news of any of it ever seems to filter out into the wider world. I mean, I get that it's a long way away but we have the internet now and as far as I know the Australian government hasn't banned TikTok yet.

I'd never heard of TISM until a few days ago but I've been digging through their extensive back catalog on YouTube and cross-checking the historical record and from what I can gather they were some kind of big deal in the twenty-teens. I'm not entirely clear if they're a band or a satirical theater troupe. Both, I imagine.

Controversy was or maybe is their lifeblood but this is by no means the most offensive of their songs  I've heard. That's the one coming next, so brace yourselves. As for this one, in case you can't make out the lyrics, although you should have no problem because their enunciation is admirably clear, the chorus goes

"I'm on the drug, I'm on the drug
I'm on the drug that killed River Phoenix"

It's about celebrity deaths and how we all get such a kick out of them, which is hardly a new idea but seldom have I heard it expressed more amusingly and with such force. They don't restrict themselves to drug-related casualties, either - Mama Cass's sandwich gets a mention - but the focus is on the drugs as you can tell from all the jacking-up gestures. Tasteful it is not.

I've Gone Hillsong - TISM

It's a lot more tasteful than this, though. I had absolutely no idea what Hillsong was until I looked it up. It's a "charismatic Christian megachurch" that started in New South Wales and expanded to cover the entire planet, apparently. Except for the bit where I live, thankfully. 

They do say the devil has all the best tunes.

Man Made Of Meat - Viagra Boys

Mrs Bhagpuss likes to amuse herself by pointing out how girly and twee it all sounds every time she walks in and hears me listening to something. Yeah, well, not always! I'm fond of a bit of macho, male posturing now and again, always provided it comes thickly coated in irony. It looks like we're getting an extra-thick ladling today.

Viagra Boys (No definite article, for reasons, presumably.) have the worst name, even allowing for the irony, but they're Swedish so I suppose that gives them a pass. I have an unreasoning suspicion of Scandinavian indie music, something I can't even begin to rationalize, let alone excuse. Any other part of the world and I assume authenticity but anywhere north of Germany and my bullshit detector goes into overdrive. God knows why. I'm going to have to take in to be recalibrated or risk missing out on some very good stuff indeed. 

The Sign of a Man - The Moonlandingz

Not the sign of a man made of meat, presumably. Although the Moonlandingz and Viagra Boys do hit a lot of the same notes. And I don't mean that literally. Or do I?

Pony - The Men

This is just getting silly now. I have been listening to a lot of garage bands lately, though. And I do have a documented musical pony fetish. I mean theory! Musical pony theory!

Gay Bar - Electric Six

Okay, that's the last of these, I promise. And yes, I know it's twenty years old and everyone's heard it before but I hadn't, not until a few days ago, because I have a lost decade at the beginning of the millennium, musically speaking, so anything from about 1999 to 2012 is pretty much new to me.

Also, I have a great cover of it I want to share, when I get around to doing another covers post, so it's a good opportunity to remind everyone of the original.

Hopper's On Top - The Waterboys

Did I lie? I don't think so. I'd call this a transition. It is quite macho but it's mid-tempo. Still, seven in a row with male vocals has to be some kind of house record.

Also, I never thought I'd share a Waterboys track here. I don't much like them and I even more don't like the kind of scene I associate with them. I mean, it's only a couple of steps from there and you're listening to U2. Okay, three steps, let's not be unreasonable.

Mrs Bhagpuss likes them, though. We have one of their CDs in the car. I mean a CD they're on, not one we stole when we were at that party at Mike Scott's house. Which we totally weren't and which never happened. (It didn't happen.) Or did it? (No, it didn't.)

The Whole of the Moon is a good tune, all the same. It would be churlish to pretend otherwise, but if you've been trying anyway, like I have, then I have a cover of it by Fiona Apple that's going to render your position intellectually untenable. That'll be in the covers post, too.

As for this one, I really only listened to it because I read they were making an entire album about Dennis Hopper and that seemed so bizarre I couldn't ignore it. Glad I didn't, now. I wonder if the rest of it will be as good. Hard to imagine but we can hope.

The New Alphabet - Delivery

Help! I climbed up on this thing and now I can't get off! Also, we're back in Australia and everyone's in some kind of cult. I'm scared!

Okay, I really need to turn this thing around. Let's see what I can do... Oh, I know...

Let's have some songs about horses!

Horses - Mallrat

Alright! We're still in Australia but I think we're safe now. Mallrat did this live on the Kelly Clarkson show or so the link I followed yesterday told me but when I got there she was in a field with a guitarist and a horse which I thought gave a whole new meanig to the concept of playing live on a TV show.

Kelly Clarkson is fun, isn't she? I watch a lot of her leftfield covers (Not Leftfield covers - that really wouldn't work.) but I don't believe I've ever included any of them here, mostly because she tends to do shortened versions. Maybe in that covers post that I really seem to be hyping now.

Goodbye Horses - Q Lazzarus

Aka that song from Silence of the Lambs. I saw Silence of the Lambs at the cinema on release, back when I saw every Jodie Foster movie the first moment I could. I carried on trying to get copies of everything she'd done until the late '90s. I think I got it all up to when I stoppped caring, including the stuff she did in Europe when she was recovering from that whole Hinckley thing. 

There are a couple I own that I've never watched, like The Accused and Nell, and I will certainly never watch Silence of the Lambs again, I'll tell you that for nothing. Took me too long to get over it the first time.

I may have been a little obsessed but I think I'm over it now. There are pictures of Jodie up in the house even now, though, so maybe not. And I would like to watch True Detective...

Er, I seem to have strayed away from the point a little. I meant to talk about Q Lazzarus not Jodie Foster. I'm thinking of doing a whole post about the mysterious, enigmatic artist who "disappeared from the public eye in the mid-1990s" as her Wikipedia entry puts it. A bit like me, then. Maybe she was playing EverQuest, too, although I kinda doubt it.

Not to harp on about it but I have a couple of interesting covers of this one that might turn up in a post sometime soon.

Switch Over - Horsegirl

Okay, so it's not about horses. It's close enough. 

One more makes a dozen, which I always think is a nice number for a music post. I think we've had enough thumpers. And enough rock. Let's end with something a little more soothing.

Baby Little Tween - Okay Kaya

I don't know, though. That might be the most disturbing of the lot. Just goes to show you don't have to shout and jump around to scare people.

Until next time, which won't be long.