I've been losing my head - I've been losing my way...



I've been trying to listen to CD's I haven't heard in a while. I have so many and seem to listen to the same ones over & over. I was listening to The Psychomodo by Cockney Rebel. The album is 30 years old and is still more innovative than most of the shit that's about today. I was actually lucky enough to see Cockney Rebel when I was a kid at The Leith Town Hall. I don't remember too much other than the acoustics were terrible & there was a bout of squealing feedback like you would expect from an MC at a miner's social club.

It's funny, I must have been at 100's of gigs and I don't really remember much about any of them unless someone fell off the stage or there was fight or something absolutely non related to the music. I mean when you watch a movie you retain the plot and a percentage of the imagery, but I can't remember much at all. I used to have a pair of Steve Harley sunglasses when I was at school. Really cool yellow ones. I used to wear them all the time & they ended up being confiscated by an English teacher because I was wearing them in his class. What a guy eh? a rebel without a clue.

I bought Cockney Rebel's first album The Human Menagerie when I was 13. I had read an article about them in NME or Sounds. Actually it might have been the Record Mirror as I seem to remember colour photo's accompanying the article. It was raving about how they were the next big thing and Harley had that Clockwork Orange look with the mascara and a bowler hat. It seemed to me a natural progression from T-Rex, Bowie and Roxy Music. I played the album constantly.

It reminds me of the time I was expelled from High School and no other school would take me on. For 3 months I was at home with no school and I used to listen to records all day. What a punishment. Anyway, Human Menagerie ended up getting scratched and it used to stick on a track called Mirror Freak. It would stick and repeat a small segment of the song a couple of times and then continue playing as normal. The funny thing is when I listen to that track now on cd, I anticipate the part that sticks and it sounds strange when it plays right through.

Back to The Psychomodo. My favourite song on the album is Ritz which is a haunting melodic acoustic number with typical Harley lyrics full of abstract mystery and smacking of the 18th & 19th Centuries; Voltaire, Dickens, aristocracy, poverty and poetry. I read somewhere that Harley is touring the UK doing acoustic sets with Rebel guitarist Jim Cregan. It's ironic that punk seemed to finish Harley's success in the 70's, yet most of the punks I knew loved cockney Rebel. I remember The Scars used to cover Psychomodo - a good version too.

RITZ

Hark to Roualt's white insanity
Clowns in drag concealing vanity
This is hardly Paradise
We're still in search of petty scorn
Images so dead in mourning
Clap and cheer the man performing
This is hardly Paradise
We're still in search of petty scorn
Couch my disease in chintz-covered kisses
Glazed calico cloth, my costume this is
Come to Pablo Fanque's in indigo
We'll show you pastel shades of rhyme
It's ok to laugh in harmony
See the white-faced Auguste's army
Come to Pablo Fanque's in indigo
We'll show you pastel shades of rhyme
Take a letter, Ophelia, write
"Sorry Desdemona" bright
Peeking through the nimbus covers
We see the twisted tale of Man
Catch us in the cornfield hiding
Me, Maryse and Moonbeams gliding
Peeking through the nimbus covers
We see the twisted tale of Man
Careless, caress, curl up beside me
Visit, sleep and smile, and drown me
March together, slay like Nero
Now we have something you understand

Oh! the clown, his stare is eyeless
Shall he make you laugh or cry, yes
March together, slay like Nero
We'll show you something you understand
It is time to hide my body
Shall we start to speak of Holly
I don't wanna be that superhero
'Til you have something we understand
Heard they're moving Pisces into June
Shall we put together a platoon
I don't wanna be that superhero
'Til you have something we understand.

Been losing my braincells at a million a day...