[spoken Interlude] Songtext

von Robyn Hitchcock

Storefront Hitchcock - 03 - [spoken interlude]

I don't know why people ever actually introduce songs
Because the song itself is it's introduction to itself.
It's like if you meet somebody named Martha they say "This is Martha".
I mean, you know, that person happens to be known as Martha
Just as I might be called Bloomingdales
Or, or, you know, Denny might be called Staten Island
But that's really only the beginning of the story.
You know Martha is a whole mass of molecules and complexes
And things bound together by terrifying physical improbabilities
And the truth is she could fly apart at any moment
Like some terrible pent up lock
That's waiting to snap and spatter her psyche across the universe
God knows and ...
It is disgusting, Denny.
It's life.
You know, if it weren't for our rib cages, there would just be spleens-a-go-go.
You know.
Not just you and me here but this live audience.
But worse, imagine there are people seeing this thing
In art house movies all over the place
And they're going to have to check their stomachs.
Suppose they'd managed to buy an ice cream, you know
They could be sticking their fingers at least in it if its cold.
But, I mean that, you know, people are just held in by all this stuff
And then their called, almost insultingly, a single name.
And the same with this song, I mean, I can say what this song's called
Which isn't going to give much of a clue unless you've heard it before
Or I can explain what it's about, and I'm going to be lying.
So, in the end, there's not much point really.

OK, take deep breath and ...

Storefront Hitchcock - 05 - [spoken interlude]

I don't know what kind of church you like to imagine
But I like to imagine a church full of carcasses.
There's one big carcass at the end in extreme pain
And there's a lot of carcasses in various stages of agony kneeling towards it.
And maybe, coming down the aisle, there's two, kind of, of proto-carcasses
With their hat and mangled digits bonded together in a bloody welt.
And they're being clubbed by a priest.
Outside the church, there's even more carcasses who, hopefully, are at rest.
And above the church there's, sort of, a huge mega-carcass
With a long white beard and a top hat who's going
"Well done, my children".
And there's another ...
And he's on his mobile phone to the bloke in the, you know, vestry
Or whatever it is, who says "I think we got more in than usual, Lord".
And he says "OK, wang it up next time".

It's very dangerous to mock people's beliefs
Because you can be tortured and destroyed by other human beings.
Very seldom to divine forces actually reek their vengeance on you
But it's very dangerous to be an infidel in someone's eyes.

I believe, very firmly, in God
I'm a very ... in terms of spirituality.
I also have an infinite contempt for religion
Which I think is hijacking people's spirituality for political purposes.
And I think that religion is perilously close to pornography in that respect.

Storefront Hitchcock - 08 - [spoken interlude]

Ah, yeah, when you extinguish the candle then you have to pay the penalty.
And the penalty is that you're taken,
You're transported from here by two minotaurs.
Which, you know, are human up to the neck and then they have bull's heads.
They have real bull's heads, they're not just wearing bull head masks,
They actually become bull from the neck up.
The minotaurs have a lot of duct tape and they swaddle you in it
(or gaffer tape, if you're watching in England).
And you're swaddled in duct tape and you're carried away by the two minotaurs
Down and endless series of ducts.
And then you're pinpointed just above, about 2723 feet above sea level.
And you are fired out over central London and then you come down.
And you ...
It's the reverse of normal gravity:
It actually gets slower as you get nearer to the ground.
So you run out of momentum about eight feet above Leicester Square.
And everybody thinks that you're a bomb, a thermo-nuclear device.
'Cause we've always been brought up, in our folk stories in Britain,
That the bomb would detonate above ground to achieve maximum devastation.
So as they see this thing, which is you, swaddled in duct tape,
Coming down over central London,
People begin to flee and there's enormous traffic congestion
Especially on the A4 but also on some of the other main routes.
Like the beginning of the A1 and, whatever its called,
Highbury Corner and that stuff.
It get's more and more cluttered and people are fleeing
And they're starting to tread on each other in their panic
And they're spilling cups of honey
And they're knocking over theodelites and retort stands and trivets
And all those sorts of things.
And a lot of the people are blundering through ancient chemical apparatus.
And there's stuff ...
People have got hundreds of ...
People with slides, you know, slides of tissue.
And things like corroded lungs, they're spilling out in their panic.
And they're saying "Just one more cup of coffee, Miss Patterson".
And then it's getting spilt as well.
And they're getting more and more disturbed.
And rubber tires, which have never seen the outside of a wheel,
They're just cosmetic, they come smashing through the venetian blinds.
And they knock over the paper cups
And they hit the files
And the computers all go blank
And all the big buildings begin to shake
And they realize there's something wrong underground.
So they have a strike underground
And hundreds of passengers are trapped underground
As you get closer and closer to the surface.
And then, just eight feet above Leicester Square you stop.

Storefront Hitchcock - 10 - [spoken interlude]

So, London's in a panic, the whole place is just ...
I mean they're ...
You're not a bomb.
You didn't need to explode.
It doesn't matter.
Enough damage has been done without a shot being fired in anger
And unnecessary blood-letting.
Just ...
The whole system is cracking up.
But you've got this problem: you can't reach the ground.
Because of ... there's a problem with physics.
So, what do you do?

Storefront Hitchcock - 12 - [spoken interlude]

That's the first piece of coffee I've had for three weeks.
It's going to be interesting to observe what that does to my system.
It's very good to get rid of as much stuff as you can.
I mean, just not to have to much too in you, of anything.

This next song was very jittery.
I was very jittery when I penned it.
I wrote it on a piece of yellow paper on, or about, September the 30th 1988.
And, I know, with or without coffee, I was very jumpy.

Storefront Hitchcock - 14 - [spoken interlude]

And now, by the light of the tomato, this is Captain Keegan.

Yeah, anyway ...
This is a really comfortable song.
Its the musical equivalent of a sofa or a contour fitted chair.
Its unable to cause you any pain, whatsoever.
I mean, you know ...
Unless your actually hearing the harmonics of this kind of thing is painful
But its designed not to upset you in the least.
Its not even bland.
You know, you couldn't say "This is annoyingly uncomfortable".
Its like, I was in a lobby once in Minneapolis and
... in fact, there was a whole hotel in front of it as well ...
And, I was in the lobby, and ...
It was icy outside; there were people with ice picks
And they were just hauling themselves along the surface
Like they do when, you know, they turn the screen horizontally.
And they were inching their way along Nicollet Mall.
And there was a howling blizzard.
And inside it was very ...
There was this muzac playing in the lobby.
And I had a hangover.
And I was carrying a meat cleaver.
And I went up to the desk and I said "Could you turn the muzak down please".
And they said "I'm sorry sir, we can't".
And I said, I took my cleaver out and I said, "Why not?".
And they said "Because its pleasing".

Storefront Hitchcock - 19 - [spoken interlude]

OK, well, we'll leave you with this.
It's Denny and Tim and myself and we'll stop.
We'll be back tomorrow and the day after that
And we were also here yesterday.

If all time is eternally present all time is unredeemable
... either that or its redeemable ...
I can't remember which.