After Slumber (ix)
FROZEN TO THE CORE, to synthesized
accompaniment, algorithmic ice-crystals
swarming in the air. The lyric plays
both ways, wins over the stop-whining crowd
whilst spoofing aspiration. Formally
we’re trapped, wherever; substitution
feigns mobility in stasis, like a sliding
block-puzzle, shunting the empty square
from place to place. Hard to imagine
this as a hit: what were the punters thinking?
A DEAL WITH GOD the best you can make out for
unless young-moneyed, darling of the age:
no pact or reason possible with anarchy-
the-skeleton dancing in our worthless hides.
* * *
I am compiling a dictionary of phrases quoted in these poems – the first here is from “Wouldn’t it be good” by Nick Kershaw, the second from “Running up that hill” by Kate Bush: both songs about wanting to change places, to exchange miseries or ecstasies with another – a trope that seemed to have a particular resonance at the time.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:41 am
In that category, ‘Why Can’t I Be You’ by The Cure springs to mind as well. ‘If I Was Your Girlfriend’, maybe?
November 10th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
That breathing at the start – I don’t remember that – tho I can remember every word of this tune – video only special?
November 10th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
It is a very strange sounding piece of music – the voice is unusual, distinctly mannered. It doesn’t go in the directions you expect harmonically, either. I remember desperately waiting for it to come on the radio so that I could tape it. I was equally fascinated by Running up that hill when it came out, for perhaps related reasons – not wholly unrelated to curiosity about sex. I had no way to make sense of this music at the time (I was 11 or 12), but what was most inaccessible to me about it then seems in a way equally inaccessible now: to what dimension of (adult?) experience is this really addressed?