Album commentary part 3
7) Socrates for a day (then I?ll go quietly)
I began the text for this in January 2008. In the preceding month I had been asked to write a musicological opinion on whether music in a National party propaganda DVD had breached copyright of Coldplay?s ?Clocks?. In my opinion it had. The DVD was withdrawn. No other action was taken. On a broader spectrum this song addresses the question of utility in art, and to some degree the philistinism that often attends those who will to power. The supreme irony of course is the copyright dispute between Coldplay and Satriani. Whether proven or not it does at least highlight the fact that the song in question is little more than a highly produced four-chord, commonplace sequence, and that, in spite of the whole advertising shtick of the cover of Viva la Vida and video that features the band looking like extras from the Napoleonic TV soap opera "Sharpe", the song itself is about as revolutionary as a paper bag. As the lyric for ?Socrates? goes, ?enough of that, getting back to us?, the songs on Corporate Moronic are pretty much useless for selling anything but themselves?as it should be?and they are, for the most part, uncompromisingly original.
8) They that once were eager fellas
This started life in March 2007 as a poem that slowly worked itself into a song by August of the same year. I?m quite proud of it for reasons I won?t go into in too great a detail, but I think I nailed what I wanted to, that the boy racers are both usurpers of the playground and unremarkable middle-aged men in the making (and there?s a deliberate musical circularity in the song that helps express that). It strikes me also in terms of boy-racer hysteria that there is more than a touch of envy involved, masquerading as a concern for public safety of course. Young people?s recklessness with motor vehicles goes back a long way, to James Dean playing chicken in whatever the movie was, to Fred Dagg?s skit on trashing his car over a cliff whilst paralytic drunk in the seventies. What changes?
9) Oh Yeah, All Right
I wrote the text in June 2007 about the time of the photo shoot for Potboiler. Pete is the Staffie cross in the foreground of that picture on the back of the CD booklet. I began the music in February the following year. In the interim Pete had unexpectedly died of cancer. It was a difficult task writing a happy song about a happy memory under the circumstances.
I began the text for this in January 2008. In the preceding month I had been asked to write a musicological opinion on whether music in a National party propaganda DVD had breached copyright of Coldplay?s ?Clocks?. In my opinion it had. The DVD was withdrawn. No other action was taken. On a broader spectrum this song addresses the question of utility in art, and to some degree the philistinism that often attends those who will to power. The supreme irony of course is the copyright dispute between Coldplay and Satriani. Whether proven or not it does at least highlight the fact that the song in question is little more than a highly produced four-chord, commonplace sequence, and that, in spite of the whole advertising shtick of the cover of Viva la Vida and video that features the band looking like extras from the Napoleonic TV soap opera "Sharpe", the song itself is about as revolutionary as a paper bag. As the lyric for ?Socrates? goes, ?enough of that, getting back to us?, the songs on Corporate Moronic are pretty much useless for selling anything but themselves?as it should be?and they are, for the most part, uncompromisingly original.
8) They that once were eager fellas
This started life in March 2007 as a poem that slowly worked itself into a song by August of the same year. I?m quite proud of it for reasons I won?t go into in too great a detail, but I think I nailed what I wanted to, that the boy racers are both usurpers of the playground and unremarkable middle-aged men in the making (and there?s a deliberate musical circularity in the song that helps express that). It strikes me also in terms of boy-racer hysteria that there is more than a touch of envy involved, masquerading as a concern for public safety of course. Young people?s recklessness with motor vehicles goes back a long way, to James Dean playing chicken in whatever the movie was, to Fred Dagg?s skit on trashing his car over a cliff whilst paralytic drunk in the seventies. What changes?
9) Oh Yeah, All Right
I wrote the text in June 2007 about the time of the photo shoot for Potboiler. Pete is the Staffie cross in the foreground of that picture on the back of the CD booklet. I began the music in February the following year. In the interim Pete had unexpectedly died of cancer. It was a difficult task writing a happy song about a happy memory under the circumstances.
