Fairies in Rock Music - City Hobgoblins

A number of Fall songs deal with the subject of folklore, at least implicitly. An admitted fan of science fiction and horror literature, singer Mark E Smith also strikes me as knowing his Boggarts from his Bugganes. H P Lovecraft and Aleistair Crowley are influences MES returns to time and again for subject matter, and he also claims to possess a degree of precognitive ability, having "anticipated" such events as the newsworthiness of Terry Waite (just prior to his kidnapping in Beirut) and the IRA bombing of Manchester's Arndale Centre.

As usual I will plant my flag in the sceptical camp over such matters - I think if you comment regularly enough and abstractly enough on popular culture you're bound to look as if you've predicted something with eerie accuracy every now and then. Even so the Terry Waite thing strikes me as impressive.

City Hobgoblins is the B-side of the Fall's classic 1980 single "How I Wrote Elastic Man".

CITY HOBGOBLINS
Tap, tap, tap, tap
You think it's the pipes
But who turns on the lights?
Our city hobgoblins
Ubu le Roi is a home hobgoblin
And at nights all ready
Our city hobgoblins
Infest my home at night
They are not alright
Ten times my age
One-tenth my height
Our city hobgoblins
Buzz of the all-night mill
Ah but evil
Emanates from old green glades
Pretentious eh?
Our city hobgoblins
They'll get yer
So Queen Victoria
Is a large black slug in Piccadilly, Manchester
Our city hobgoblins
And they say
We cannot walk the floor at night in peace
At night in peace

As with most Fall lyrics the meaning of the song is highly abstracted and contains a number of bewildering and probably entirely tangential asides. There is a theme to the song though, it apparently refers to a gang of street toughs who plagued the area of Collyhurst, an inner-city area of Manchester, about 1 mile from the City. I once read an interview with Morrissey were he talked about how the song referred to "the Collyhurst Perries", who all seemed to be somewhat diminutive as a result of breeding or poor nourishment. The Perry Boys website gives some further information.

The Perry Boys wore many Mod styles, but it was the Fred Perry logo that eventually provided a brand with which to label them. People feared Perries, but they were a rare sight in the mid-70s, favouring night-life over day, Soul over Glam-Rock and music over football. Despite the obscurity, they were feared as nasty lads, very insular and ready to strike at anyone who looked at them, full stop. They were the Perry Boys. They knew who they were, even if you didn't. They proved to be a prototype for much that evolved after and their offspring, the Boys, declared undying war on the Merseyside Scallies.

So really, with typical precognition, Mark E Smith turned his attention to the malign phenomenon of chavs some twenty years before the mainstream media caught up with the idea.

Identifying people from "another tribe" as maliciously inhuman and/or supernatural is something that has probably gone on for all of history. Often because of a technological or military imbalance (think of the Aztecs viewing Spanish Conquistadors as gods, or the Huns seen as "a scourge of God") or just to demonise invaders, opponents or immigrants.

City Hobgoblins is not the only Fall song to deal with gangs of yobs and the supernatural, Squid Law (sometimes known as Squid Lord) seems to be an invocation to Cthulhuesque god-monsters to do away with a particular gang who seem to have caused Mark E Smith some grief.



SQUID LAW
Good man, lend a hand
Help me to deal with some scum
Who are only in their late teens
But I hate their existence
They think 3 on 1
A normal thing
Network 7 encouraged them
But tonight they picked the wrong man

Squid Lord
Revenge
Vast
Just
His intelligence
Spreads

Number One squat with grey turnup jeans
Stuck up white hairstyle
Obviously sheep shag mill town
Squid lord revenge
Just his intelligence vast

The second one is a streak of piss
Leave me alone with him
His blindness will be fun
But it won't make a difference

Squid Lord
Vast
Just
His intelligence

The third one stood behind
Held my arms
But in the hospital
His bed will be in a draught
A geriatric germ-well
I curse his family and wish them poor
But he'll have time to dwell
On squid revenge, cooped-up
In 3 months of pure Hell

Squid Lord
Vast
Just
His tentacles
Spread

Good man, lend a hand
Help me clear this mess
Give me back the law it took from my life
Give me back the pride of my class
This scum are just a morass

Squid Lord
Revenge
Vast
Just
His intelligence

My Proposals for a Skriker Soundtrack - Part 2

Mental illness is a theme of many stories about Fairies and is certainly gets a detailed looking at in the Skriker (which I will say again is the world's best wildly poetic and bleak theatrical vision of fairies in a modern day context, which may make it top of a field of one but it's still impressive). Not that it gets me anywhere but I do like to think about what I'd do if I were to be given the opportunity to direct a film of the play.

In fact, seeing as I am currently looking for employment, should some board of film producers want to turn a deeply odd piece of theatre that appeals to very niche interests into a big budget cinematic epic, and if they are willing to take on a director with very little relevant experience (I slag off other director's work in pubs with my mates, have a Theatre Studies qualification and do a bit of amateur dramatics) and if one of them reads this blog - I'm your man (provided you are willing to meet my outrageous rider requests).



Anyway, back to the soundtrack. These are my favorite songs on the subject of insanity and I reckon they should join my favourite songs on the subject of environmental destruction for consideration.

PEARLY DEWDROPS DROPS - COCTEAU TWINS
Each and every Cocteau Twins song is, in and of itself, a thing of wonder. They suffer from coming in albums next to other Cocteau Twins songs, which sometimes robs the less distinctive ones of their elan.

Sex and birth are subjects that inspire madness in many folktales, and has strong connotations in the Skriker with Lily's baby and Josie's infanticide. Pearly Dewrops Drops is charged with a seemingly terrified sexual energy, thrilled or frightened, it's difficult to tell. It's never a good idea to say for sure what it is Liz Fraser sings, but I think I can hear "bloody cups" and the words of the title (semen, surely?) in places.

Got to be used, maybe in the underworld scene that could do with some music to convey a sense of otherworldly beauty. It could fade away to be replaced by the following number:

CRACKED - THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
I used to be a Goth, me, and the JaMC are one of the few bands that I adored back in my misspent days of wearing eyeliner and winklepickers that I still like. This may be because they were not really a Goth band. Cracked is one of their B-Sides and is available on the Barbed Wire Kisses collection.

It's a gloomy half-heard drone, feedback and the occasional curse fades in and out of the mix. It should be played at parties for Vampires. Not cool aristocratic Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee vampires, but ravenous "I'll bite your fucking nose off" Vampires like the ones from 30 Days of Night or I Am Legend (the book).

To be used in the scene in the scene in the underworld.

CAN BLUE MEN SING THE WHITES - BONZO DOG DOO DAH BAND
Really to be included because of the pun on Blue Men and Wights, but also because it is bonkers in a fun sort of way.

Note that 11 Mustachioed Daughters is also great fare for folklore fans.



CAPERS - THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
The most creepy Birthday Party song, written by one of the band members' girlfriends. Nick Cave at his most growly and Rowland Howard, or maybe Mick Harvey, being terrifically spooky on guitar.

Fairies in Rock Music - Sit Down by the Fire

Sit Down by the Fire can be found on Should I Fall From Grace With God by The Pogues, the LP was their biggest chart success (reaching #3 in th UK charts and #88 in the US) and spawned their most famous song (and - FACT! - best popular Christmas song of all time) - Fairytale of New York. Anyway, Sit Down by the Fire seems to be very well informed as to certain aspects of fairy folklore (and has a nice bit of rude bathos at the end).

Sit down by the fire
And I'll tell you a story
To send you away to your bed
Of the things you hear creeping
When everyone's sleeping
And you wish you were out here instead

It isn't the mice in the wall
It isn't the wind in the well
But each night they march
Out of that hole in the wall [1]
Passing through on their way
Out of hell [2]

They're the things that you see
When you wake up and scream
The cold things that follow you [3]
Down the Boreen [4]
They live in the small ring of trees on the hill [5]
Up at the top of the field

And they dance on the rain
And they dance on the wind
They tap on the window
When no-one is in
And if ever you see them

Pretend that you're dead
Or they'll bite off your head
They'll rip out your liver
And dance on your neck
They dance on your head
They dance on your chest
They give you the cramp
And the colic for jest [6]

They're the things that you see
When you wake up and scream
The cold things that follow you
Down the Boreen
They live in the small ring of trees on the hill
Up at the top of the field

They play on the wind
They sing on the rain
They dance on your eyes
They dance in your brain [7]

Remember this place
It is damp and it's cold
The best place on earth
But it's dark and it's old
So lie near the wall
And cover your head
Good night and God bless,
Now fuck off to bed

[1] The holes that can sometimes be found in planks of wood are occasionally referred to as elf-bores, reflecting the belief that a piece of wood from which the knot has dropped out was the operation of the fairies. It is sometimes said that to look through an elf-bore is to view fairy-land (and such voyeurism was not considered wise).

The elf-bore features in one famous folktale in particular, commonly known as The Boggart, in which one of the children teases the creature repeatedly by shoving a shoehorn through “a large knothole” in a closet wall “behind which the Boggart lived”. This action angered the Boggart so that one day he took the shoehorn and threw it so violently at the young man that it “hurt him badly” and (according to his father) “almost killed” him.

[2] Fairyland is often thought to be part of an underworld that also includes Hell and fairies sometimes seem to have a symbiotic relationship with Hell, or are indebted to it in some way. This indebtedness leads to the teind – a payment the fairies have to make every seven years to the devil. A variety of reasons are given for this, including theories that fairyland might be an area of hell that the Fairies had loaned off of the devil.

Another reason could be the common belief that fairies were fallen angels, Wikipedia has the following to say on the subject:

A third belief held that they were a class of "demoted" angels. One popular story held that when the angels revolted, God ordered the gates shut; those still in heaven remained angels, those in hell became devils, and those caught in between became fairies. Others held that they had been thrown out of heaven, not being good enough, but they were not evil enough for hell. This may explain the tradition that they had to pay a "teind" or tithe to Hell. As fallen angels, though not quite devils, they could be seen as subject of the Devil.

[3] Certain fairies are described as cold, especially those who have something in common with ghosts. The Cauld Lad of Hylton strikes me as a particularly notable example. In fact it is a gift of clothes that finally exorcises him. A summary of his story can be found on wikipedia.

[4] A boreen is an Irish term for a narrow, rough, unsurfaced road, or a small, narrow urban road.

[5] I’m not too familiar with any obvious links between rings of trees and fairies, though obvious links between mushroom rings and fairies exist, or stone circles and fairies.

Having said that, the few times I have visited ancient earthworks on hills they have been notable for having trees upon them, whilst often the surrounding land is rocky and barren. I suppose that when earth is moved onto an otherwise barren hill trees and bushes can take root there whereas the surrounding earth is too shallow for them. So perhaps this line might infer an old barrow or hill fort.

Quite besides that it seems fitting for a natural landmark, such as a spinney, to provide a home for the fairies.

[6] The infliction of various ailments was often blamed on fairies, and cramp and colic are particularly associated with them. Fairies are described as inflicting aches, pains and ailments on people by pinching or by flinging small sharp stones known as elf-shot.

[7] Hallucinogenic visions and mental illnesses are also associated with fairies. They seem to me to have long been blamed for the effects of eating the wrong variety of wild mushroom, or for things like dementia, alcoholism, post-natal depression, strokes and suchlike.

And - at the end of the day - Shane MacGowan is currently about as close as a human gets in terms of sound and appearance to some sort of Bogle or Hobyah, and he parties like a Cluricane. Huzzah for the Pogues!

Folklore Alive and Well - Black Shuck

Another attempt to provide a bit of evidence to show how certain folk tales (if not folk beliefs) are very much with us even in the twenty first century.

Black Shuck is East Anglia’s contribution to the Black Dog legends that come from all over the British Isles. In fact he is the most famous of the Black Dogs, though he has a lot in common with regional variations such as Padfoot, Skriker, Barguest, Shagfoal, Guytrash and others.

Black Dogs in England often fit the same pattern: large (often compared to a calf in size), black and shaggy fur, large and glowing eyes, portent of death (should you see one you or someone close to you will soon die).

Wikipedia gives the following information about Black Shuck:

For centuries, inhabitants of East Anglia have told tales of a large black hellhound with malevolent flaming eyes (or in some variants of the legend a single eye) that are red or alternatively green. They are described as being 'like saucers'. According to reports, the beast varies in size and stature from that of simply a large dog to being the size of a horse.

The legends of Black Shuck roaming the Anglian countryside date back to the time of the Vikings. His name may derive from the Anglo-Saxon word scucca meaning "demon", or possibly from the local dialect word shucky meaning "shaggy" or "hairy". The legend may have been part of the inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Sometimes Black Shuck is referred to as the Doom Dog. It is said that his appearance bodes ill to the beholder, although not always. More often than not, stories tell of Black Shuck terrifying his victims, but leaving them alone to continue living normal lives.

One of the most notable reports of Black Shuck is of his appearance at the churches of Bungay and Blythburgh in Suffolk. On the August 4, 1577, at Blythburgh, Black Shuck is said to have burst in through the church doors. He ran up the nave, past a large congregation, killing a man and boy and causing the church tower to collapse through the roof. As the dog left, he left scorch marks on the north door which can be seen at the church to this day.

The encounter on the same day at Bungay was described in "A Straunge and Terrible Wunder" by the Reverend Abraham Fleming in 1577:

“This black dog, or the divel in such a linenesse (God hee knoweth al who worketh all,) runing all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that even at a mome[n]t where they kneeled, they stra[n]gely dyed.”

It does seem that, around East Anglia sightings of the dog are still regularly recorded, a lengthy list of them can be found on the Shuckland website (great site that gives a detailed analysis of Black Dog sightings and features a few myth-busting articles as well).

In recent years Black Shuck has provided the inspiration for a reasonably well known rock song and a book of poetry.

Black Shuck: The Ghost Dog of Eastern England by Martin Newell is a poem about the Black Dog, it follows Shuck on a journey through both time and space in an attempt to follow in the phantom dog's tracks through the half-forgotten villages and lanes of North Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk. The poem begins with the theory that the dog was brought (metaphorically speaking at least) over with the Vikings - the hound of Odin (a theory that the keepers of the Shuckland website are quick to be dismissive of, by the way, and they wouldn’t be impressed with Newell’s use of the word 'Snarleyow' either). The theme of Shuck as a death portent is heavily referenced in the poem, and one sequence were a warplane jettisons spare bombs over a village is particularly memorable.

Better known, of course, is the song by the Darkness (who were a British hard rock band active a few years ago that took their light-heartedness seriously, or their seriousness with a light-heart, it was hard to tell). Their song Black Shuck was a decent enough blend of pyrotechnical lyrical ability, and largely concerned the Blythburgh church incident.



In a town in the east
The parishioners were visited upon
By a curious beast
And his eyes numbered but one and shone like the sun
And a glance beckoned the immediate loss
Of a cherished one
It was the coming of the
(Black Shuck) Black Shuck
(Black Shuck) That dog don't give a fuck

Flames licked round the sacred spire
And the congregation's last line of defence
Was engulfed in fire
As the flaming priest stepped into the firing line
On the business end of a beam of despair
God, he took his own life
During the coming of the
(Black Shuck) Black Shuck
(Black Shuck) That dog don't give a fuck

A nimbus of blue light surrounds a crimson paw
As he takes another fatal swipe
At the Blythburgh Church Door
(Black Shuck) Black Shuck
(Black Shuck) That dog don't give a fuck

Not quite as literary as the Newell effort, of course, but with a charm of it's own I'm sure you'll agree. To the right there is an image of the 'claw marks' left on the Blythburgh Church Door (a larger image can be seen on the Shuckland website).

There are plenty of other recent references to Black Dogs in literature, such as The Skriker and a number of Shagfoal apparitions in Alan Moore's Voice of the Fire. Black Shuck seems to remain the most popular manifestation by far though.

My Proposals for a Skriker Soundtrack - Part 1

Do you spend all your time thinking about what you would do if you were able to direct a film of a book you reckon is top? Wouldn't The Skriker make a great film? You must regularly spend spare moments thinking about all the various interpretive processes and directoral decisions you would make were you to be priviledged enough to have the chance to direct a film of The Skriker!

What, you've never heard of it? But its the world's best play! Well, it is if you have an abiding passion for British folklore, are concerned about damage to the environment and/or damage to the brain, aren't too intimidated by wildly ambitious stage directions, love a good stream of consciousness, have a well developed sense of black humour and don't require a happy ending.

Being dead into the play and into music I think I'll start by compiling a soundtrack, I'm going to start with my four favourite songs about damage to the environment. I'll cover songs with a folkloric theme, or ones that just suit the tone of the play with sonic aptness at a later date.

225 – NEW MODEL ARMY
This is top and must be one of my Favourite Songs Ever. I know it must be one of my Favourite Songs Ever because 15-odd years after I first became a fan it still makes my toes open and shut with a bang when it turns up on random shuffle on the iPod. This is in comparison with, say, Catch by the Cure, which I used to love alongside 225, but now makes me cringe in near physical pain. It’s as if someone is rooting around inside the bottom of my spinal column with a flathead screwdriver every time I hear its horrid synthetic violin drone sparking up.

225 is essentially about feeling helpless in the face of rampant consumerism, the rising of corporate culture and exploitation of the environment. Whilst most rock songs about such concerns come across as politically naive, if not openly and preachingly hypocritical, 225 remains passionate whilst being wise enough not to come across as some patronising student radical’s call to revolution. The song sympathises with a young girl struggling to scan in barcodes and operate a till (“I would help her if I only knew how, but these things they are a mystery to me too”), it stresses a love of wild places, and an affront at their despoliation (“even in the freshest mountain air, the jet fighters practise overhead”), and a fear of being monitored by forces beyond your control (“we’ll hope that the corporate ears do not listen lest we find ourselves committing some kind of treason and filed in the tapes without a rhyme without a reason whilst they tell us that its all for our own protection”).

Musically it manages to sound both down-to-earth and spooky, with a long droning keyboard noise ushering the grungy tune in and out of existence. Thanks to the military drumming and squalling guitar riffs it also Rocks, and it Rocks with a northern accent at that.

So I think it’s a prime candidate for inclusion into a Skriker soundtrack. Perhaps it could even play over the closing credits.

MONKEY GONE TO HEAVEN – PIXIES
Another grungy rock song with an environmentalist bent, perhaps the most famous example, is Monkey Gone to Heaven. Like 225 Monkey Gone to Heaven also avoids seeming preachy and naive, but it does so by miring the message in self-effacing humour and poetic obfuscation. It flirts with an environmental message the same way a shy boy flirts with a girl he believes is out of his league. Ha ha ha, I’m not really doing this, if I was really doing this it would be embarrassing wouldn’t it? I’m not doing this really (yes I am).

I’m being a little unfair (after all, obscuring an environmental message within arresting poetry is an accusation that could be levelled at The Skriker as well). The song is great fun and I won’t deny the strength and intent of lyrical imagery in lines like “now there’s a hole in the sky and the ground’s not cold, and if the ground’s not cold everything is going to burn, we’ll take turns, I’ll get mine too”.

Musically it Rocks, and it Rocks with cellos too (which any fan of the Auteurs will tell you is A Good Thing).

It might be a bit light in tone for the play though. If I were going to use it I’d work it into the scene with the American woman in the bar. Black Francis’ accent and the musical style are so recognisably US that it might help forge an association in the viewers’ minds. The scene is also one of the few in which environmental concerns are clearly voiced by a character in the play.

As a bonus there’s the obvious association with fairies in the band name too.



OH LARSON B – BRITISH SEA POWER
Perhaps this jaunty number sounds just as jokey and guilty of avoiding the point as the previous choice, but I think Oh Larson B is far cleverer than that. It strikes me as being more of the “treating a weighty subject with levity” school, which I approve of, rather than being ashamed to openly admit to its intentions, which I'm less impressed by.

For those of you who don’t know Larson B was a swathe of Antarctic ice, some 3250 square kilometres in size, which collapsed in 2002. The break up of the shelf is pointed to as clear evidence of global warming by those who know what they are talking about, and dismissed as irrelevant by those who don’t.

So the song is unusual for being the only eulogy to a swathe of ice I can think of. It has a great sense of bleak humour (is the line “oh Larson B, you can fall on me” a message of support for the broken shelf or, as I prefer to think, a sardonic acknowledgement of where much of our future rainwater is going to come from?) whilst acknowledging the physical awesomeness of something that’s about the size of Wales or Rhode Island (“oh Larson B, desalinate the barren sea”).

Musically it Rocks. It Rocks in a sort of politely reserved manner, but it still Rocks.

Not too sure where or how I’d employ this in a production, it wouldn’t pay to put too much Rock into The Skriker, but I promise I would try.



DON'T ASK ME – PIL
Basically after choosing three songs that seek to avoid preaching or patronising I’m going to plump for one that doesn’t worry about that and seeks to hit the nail on the head, with a sledgehammer. After all if you’re going to try and get through to those who seek to deny that we need to do anything about the changes we are engendering in the sea, soil and atmosphere of the planet on which we live then I don’t think sledgehammers are out of the question. Why not sing at them in an aggressively arresting manner, utilising a tone of voice that engenders a sensation somewhat akin to having an orgasm whilst being forced to chew tinfoil?

“Protecting my planet! You wrap it in plastic! This package is product! Perfected eternal! A crap in cling wrap! I never met yet a Prime Minister or President who tolda da truth yet!”

It Rocks, it Rocks in a weird poppy-but-uncomfortable “I want to listen to it dead loud but don’t want the neighbours to think they live next door to a nutter” way.

Don’t know how I’d use it in a soundtrack exactly, I probably wouldn’t, it would distract too much. Bless it.