Words
It's crunch time for lyrics. Having decided that a few of our songs (Jordan Baker, Embers) can't really develop without some lyrical wrangling, yours truly gotta knuckle down to the wordy-wordy.
I work part time at the BBC. Down in the dark vaults of Broadcasting House they have a store of all the rushes shot for their ketchup-happy "999" series, in which terrifying accidents are merrily dramatised for your viewing pleasure. I'm fascinated by these shelves, labelled up in amateur fashion with yellow 'post-it' notes detailing the nature of the tragedies enacted upon each set of tapes; "Hand Crush," "Long Horse Crawl," "Snooker Cue," "Spanish Heart," "Rusty Bolt," and intriguingly, "Pub Surgery."
There are others...
"Bell Tower"
"Tree Surgeon"
"Dinghy Girls"
"Bike Fork"
"Lead Mine"
"Coat Hanger"
"Paddling Pool"
"Surrey Drain Rescue"
"Insect Demo"
"Rotherham Treefall"
"Wheelchair"
"Neck Break"
"Escalator"
"Snow Girls"
"Blind Swim & Plumber's Mate"
"Harbour Drowning"
"800 ft fall"
"Ice Trap"
"Taxi Hero"
"Wasp Man Testimony"
"Devil's Bridge"
"Asthma"
"Lightning"
"Railings"
"Smokey Joe"
"Penn Hotel Fire & Rotivator"
"Wet Leaves"
"Spanish Trawler & American Cormorant"
"Lift Shaft Testimony"
"Jaffa The Pony"
"Trench Man, Indian Earth, Dangling Baby & other bits"
"White Knuckle Worker"
"Shocked Farmer"
"Interactive Choking"
"Inverness Car Crash"
Each is a little story that leaps from the label at you and spirals off on its own. It sort of reminds me of Forced Entertainment and the shows they do in which home-made signs are whipped onto stage at speed, with the performers briefly doing a pose or action inspired by whatever's scrawled on the scrappy bit of cardboard they've picked up:
CHAS (IN PERSIA)
A STEWARDESS FORGETTING HER DIVORCE
A GOOD COP IN A BAD FILM
SPIRAL JENNY
etc.
I can see something similarly fleeting but powerful in the "999" post-it notes. I'm imagining a love song written around a series of appalling accidents. "A Lift Shaft / A Taxi / A Wheelchair / An Ice Trap / A Car Crash / A Doctor / And you..."
"Baby you're so good at getting dead /An amateur like me, well... / the ice refused to break / the sniper got distracted / the guillotine was fake"
I work part time at the BBC. Down in the dark vaults of Broadcasting House they have a store of all the rushes shot for their ketchup-happy "999" series, in which terrifying accidents are merrily dramatised for your viewing pleasure. I'm fascinated by these shelves, labelled up in amateur fashion with yellow 'post-it' notes detailing the nature of the tragedies enacted upon each set of tapes; "Hand Crush," "Long Horse Crawl," "Snooker Cue," "Spanish Heart," "Rusty Bolt," and intriguingly, "Pub Surgery."
There are others...
"Bell Tower"
"Tree Surgeon"
"Dinghy Girls"
"Bike Fork"
"Lead Mine"
"Coat Hanger"
"Paddling Pool"
"Surrey Drain Rescue"
"Insect Demo"
"Rotherham Treefall"
"Wheelchair"
"Neck Break"
"Escalator"
"Snow Girls"
"Blind Swim & Plumber's Mate"
"Harbour Drowning"
"800 ft fall"
"Ice Trap"
"Taxi Hero"
"Wasp Man Testimony"
"Devil's Bridge"
"Asthma"
"Lightning"
"Railings"
"Smokey Joe"
"Penn Hotel Fire & Rotivator"
"Wet Leaves"
"Spanish Trawler & American Cormorant"
"Lift Shaft Testimony"
"Jaffa The Pony"
"Trench Man, Indian Earth, Dangling Baby & other bits"
"White Knuckle Worker"
"Shocked Farmer"
"Interactive Choking"
"Inverness Car Crash"
Each is a little story that leaps from the label at you and spirals off on its own. It sort of reminds me of Forced Entertainment and the shows they do in which home-made signs are whipped onto stage at speed, with the performers briefly doing a pose or action inspired by whatever's scrawled on the scrappy bit of cardboard they've picked up:
CHAS (IN PERSIA)
A STEWARDESS FORGETTING HER DIVORCE
A GOOD COP IN A BAD FILM
SPIRAL JENNY
etc.
I can see something similarly fleeting but powerful in the "999" post-it notes. I'm imagining a love song written around a series of appalling accidents. "A Lift Shaft / A Taxi / A Wheelchair / An Ice Trap / A Car Crash / A Doctor / And you..."
"Baby you're so good at getting dead /An amateur like me, well... / the ice refused to break / the sniper got distracted / the guillotine was fake"
posted by Timothy X Atack at 1:53 PM
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