John Cooper Clarke
The Salford Bard
Back in the late 70's/80's JCC seemed to be everywhere.....all those GLC free shows, gigs with all and sundry as support.
I was reminded of John today, as I was browsing records in a market in Hitchin. Digging out heaps of old punk singles such as the Subs, Clash, Zounds amongst many others brought this classic to mind.
The Innocents EP. Produced by Martin Hannet (under the name Martin Zero) who was also involved in so many other classic records. As well as Factory Records acts such as A Certain Ratio and Joy Division, he worked with the Buzzcocks (the outstanding Spiral Scratch EP, for example), Magazine, OMD and a stack of others. More details of this and more can be seen on the Martin Hannett website at http://www.martinhannett.co.uk/disco.htm
The picture above is of the front cover of the single. A rummage through youtube found the tracks from the EP. The lyrics are also here if you feel like joining in!
Enjoy :D
SUSPENDED SENTENCE...
Read the paper - humdrum
Henley Regatta - page one
Eat die - ho hum
Page three - big bum
Giving a lunatic a loaded gun
He walks - others run
Thirty dead - no fun
Foreigners feature as figures of fun
Do something destructive chum
Sit right down - write a letter to the Sun
Say... "Bring back hangin' for everyone"
The took my advice - they brought it back
National costume was all-over-black
There were corpses in the avenues and cul-de-sacs
Piled up neatly in six-man stacks
Hanging from the traffic lights and specially made racks
They'd hang you for incontinence and fiddling your tax
Failure to hang yourself justified the axe
A deedely dee, a deedely dum
Looks like they brought back hangin' for everyone
The novelty's gone - it's hell
This place is a - death cell
The constant clang of the funeral bells
Those who aren't hanging are hanging someone else
The peoples pay - the paper sells
It's plug ugly - sub-animal yells
Death is unsightly - death smells
Swingin' Britain - don't put me on
They're gonna bring back the rope for everyone
Innocents...
I never broke your windows
I never broke your rules
I never took to your tender ventetta
I didn't touch you family jewels
Revenge is a strong emotion
Friction is the mother of pearl
It's a disapproving, disappointing, disappearing world
Now what's this...
I didn't burn your house down
I didn't break your hearts
I never tried to steal your car
I wouldn't know where to start
Don't blame me if your life's a bore
Not gonna look at your curves
Don't point your finger anymore
You're getting on my nerves
Your tepid shallows of a failing brain...
Innocents
...last of the wholly innocents
Innocents
...last of the wholly innocents
Innocents
...last of the holy in a sense
I never broke your windows
I never broke your rules
I never took to your tender ventetta
Didn't touch you family jewels
Revenge is a strong emotion
Friction is the mother of pearl
It's a disapproving, disappointing, disappearing world
Who is if I'm not to blame...
Innocents
...last of the wholly innocents
Innocents
...last of the wholly innocents
Innocents
...last of the holy in a sense
I didn't run to your rescue
I didn't hear you scream
Citizen's arrest
You've got to give Joe Public his cream
Murder is a powerful picture
It's food for the famished mass
But I didn't do your meter's
I'd never do things like that
In the who's who of capital gains....
Innocents
...last of the wholly innocents
Innocents
...last of the wholly innocents
Innocents
...last of the holy in a sense
PSYCLE SLUTS (PARTS 1 & 2)
part one...
this disc concerns those those pouting prima-donnas
found within the swelling j. arthur ranks of the sexational psycle sluts
those nubile nihilists of the north circular
the lean leonine leatherette lovelies of the leeds intersection
luftwaffe angels locked in a pagan paradise
no cash
a passion for trash
the tough madonna whose cro-magnon face and crab nebular curves haunt the highways of the UK, whose harsh credo captures the collective libido like lariats
their lips pushed in a neon-arc of dodgems
delightfully disciplined, dumb but deluxe
deliciously deliciously deranged
twin-wheeled existentialists steeped in the sterile excrements of a doomed democracy, whose post-nietzschean sensibilities reject the bovine gregariousness of a senile oligarchy
whose god is below zero, whose hero is a dead boy
condemned to drift like forgotten sputniks in the fool's orbit bound for a victim's future
in the pleasure dromes and ersatz bodega bars of the free world the mechanics of love grind like organs of iron to a standstill
hands behind your backs
in a noxious gas of cheek to cheek totalitarianism
hail the psycle sluts
go go the gland gringos
for the gonad a-go-go age of compulsory cunnilingusa
part two...
the dirty thirty
the naughty forty
the shifty fifty
the filthy five
zips, clips, whips and chains
wait for you to arrive
hell's angels by the busload
stoned stupid, how they strut
smoked woodbines till they're banjoed
and smirk at the swedish smut
life on the straight and narrow path
drives you off your nut
by day you are psycopath
by night you're a psycle slut
on a bsa with two bald tires
you drove a million miles
you cut your hair with rusty pliers
and you suffer with the pillion piles
you got built in obsolescence
oh you got guts
but you don't reach adolescence
slow down psycle sluts
motor cycle michael
wants to buy a tank
only twenty-nine years old
and he's learning how to wank
yesterday he was in the groove
today he's in a rut
my how the moments move
brut fun psycle sluts
he cacks on your originals
he peepees on his boots
he makes love like a footballer
he dribbles before he shoots
the goings on at the gang-bang ball
made the citizen's tut-tut-tut
but, what do you care, piss all
you tell 'em psycle sluts
now your boyfriend burned his jacket
ticket expired
tyres are knackered
knackers are tired
you can tell your tale to the gutter press
get paid to peddle smut
now you've ridden the road of excess
that leads to the psycle sluts
or you can dine and whine on stuff that's bound to give you boils
hot dogs direct from cruft's
done in diesel oil
or the burger joint around the bend
where the meals thank christ are skimpy
for you that's how the world could end
not with a bang but a wimpy.
John is still alive and well and still performing. Take a gander at his website at:
http://www.johncooperclarke.com/
EP Liner Notes:
John Cooper Clarke and the Curious Yellows
- Eric - Guitar
- Middle - Electric Bass
- Joe Viality - Drums
- John Scott - Guitar and Bass on Psycle Slute
- Zero - Electric Percussion
Produced by Martin Zero for the Criminal Gramaphone Company
Artwork and sleeve design - Kirk Van Gogh Studios
(cat no tosh 103)
rabid records 178 waterloo place, oxford road, manchester 13
find him on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/johncooperclarke
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