Outside the door, inside my mind
Sporting Life – 29th September 1983
It’s a sporting life supporting life
For the pregnant mums on the ward
All the hard work that has to follow
I think debut mums should be warned
5th May 2023 – Not sure what prompted this empathetic little ode. I definitely wasn’t speaking from any experience.
In And Out – 18th September 1983
In and out lifestyle, it becomes a bore
It’s boring doing the same things, I won’t anymore
In and out, repeat, repeat, clock the card
In and out, clocked in, trying too hard
5th May 2023 – Despite never having worked a day in my life I already was aware of the realities of the rat race. I’ve spent many years clocking in and out since then and admittedly, I do still hate that.
Brains – 17th September 1983
You gotta have brains to make the exam
If you don’t you’re not a man
I decided I didn’t want to try
But you can’t tell the teachers
They just ask why
5th May 2023 – At this time I would’ve been preparing to do trial exams before the real ones next year. I seem to be equating intelligence with manliness.
Vince – 15th September 1983
Vince is a brain
An anarchist punk
So in the election he stood SDP
They won’t let him have an anarchist party
It’s too much brains for him you see
Vince the prince of the SDP
You won
4th May 2023 – Vince was the class clown and sure enough after finishing high school, he became a children’s entertainer ie. a clown! The school decided that they would perform elections for fun, though I’m not sure if there was actually any duty to carry out once elected. Vince applied, with all our support but was denied having an anarchist party so chose SDP instead. They were a third party to attempt to balance Labour and Conservative in British politics. They never faired much in government but Vince won our school election by a landslide. The cult of personality.
Vince was also a drummer and he would be a member of my first real attempted band with Rupert and Jeremy along with a younger kid who wanted to be part of it and said we could practice at his house one afternoon. He lived way out in the countryside and my mum dropped us all off with drums and guitars only to find out the kid wasn’t even home. As my mum had already left we were thankfully invited in by the kid’s parents and banged around making a dreadful noise for a few hours before the kid turned up about 10 minutes before my mum was due to pick us up. Our one and only practice was good fun but showed us we completely lacked any kind of musical ability.
Spit In Your Face – 14th September 1983
It was your fault all along
I laughed when you got it wrong
You were caught in the wrong place
So don’t blame me cos I’ll spit in your face
2nd May 2023 – Hello, contrarian. Psychologists – analyse!
Untrendy – 11th September 1983
I wanna be nice, I wanna be a friend
Instead of driving someone round the bend
I don’t care if people don’t defend me
I don’t care, I don’t wanna be trendy
2nd May 2023 – Teenage statement of intent.
New York – 10th September 1983
Let’s all go to the big, big city
With dust and scum, all things pretty
We’ll get a jet and pollute the air
Cos in New York they just don’t care
1st May 2023 – Not sure what I had against New York at the time. I think it was just an example of a city to use and had been used by the Sex Pistols as a song too.
Still living in the countryside I knew that cities were where things were happening and I felt desperately that I wanted to experience it. At the same time, I also knew that the countryside had very few eyes to discover the shenanigans of us bored teenagers.
In the next couple of years, I started to go to London infrequently for gigs and record shopping and always returned home blowing out chunks of black snot.
When I finally did end up in a big city, Sydney, it was the perfect balance between urban and rural. I still feel very lucky to have had that opportunity.
White Socks – 5th September 1983
I’m in a gang, gang of the white socks
We fight the gangs who wear pink frocks
We hate the red socks, the green and blue
So join the whites and we won’t mess with you
30th Apr 2023 – In our first week back at school, my final year, the whole school was told that boys were not allowed to wear white socks, they were not part of the uniform. Of course, most of us preferred white socks and when we questioned teachers further about it they insisted that it was because they believed that those wearing white socks were part of a gang. We had no idea where this was coming from and were pretty incredulous about it.
Mess – 3rd August 1983
Some people say you look a mess
But I don’t care how you dress
I think those people dress pretty bad
They look pretty silly in last year’s fad
Mess mess mess
Dress dress dress
Fad fad fad fad – had!
27th Apr 2023 – It never occurred to younger me that the 2nd and 3rd lines contradict each other but the meaning was more along the lines that I don’t care how you dress, that it is neither good nor bad.
At this time the word ‘trendy’ was becoming popular and kids started dressing smart to impress girls and (when older) go clubbing etc. I found it very dull and uninspiring.
The way I dressed was messy and in a generic punk style. In another way, I did care how people dressed because it was very easy to identify people to avoid and people who would be allies. Our tribes were easily identifiable in these times before all cultural fashions became appropriated (except perhaps for the metalheads). Meeting people wearing shirts or badges with bands from our subculture gave comfort and solidarity. We knew we were on the same side.
1994ever 