Songs: Post-Subsonic Bass

notes / gigs / releases

When I was a younger man
I used to be afeared
That things I bought in trendy shops
Made shop assistants sneer
But now I am an older man
I don't give a tinker's twat
Follow me to the boutique
Wherein I will demand

Don't tell me you're still listening to Post-Subsonic Bass?
Don't tell me you believe the geeks in Mixmag and The Face?
Surely you weren't serious about dressing in brown?
Give me Marks & Spencer, Paul McCartney, Angler's Weekly NOW

Confuse the minds of younger types
By saying, with a grin
"Darling dearest, don't you know?"
"The Pissed Old Git look's in."
When peering at a piercing
It's fun to say "Oh no!"
"How charmingly retro"

So don't tell me you're still listening to Post-Subsonic Bass
Don't tell me you believe the geeks in Mixmag and The Face
Surely you weren't serious about dressing in brown?
Give me Marks & Spencer, Paul McCartney, Angler's Weekly NOW

My cardigan's my armour
And my slippers are my steed
Marmite is my armalite
A catalogue my creed
A club's a pub for cretins
Where you don't have to converse
God is not a DJ
But this is as fun as church

So don't tell me you're still listening to Post-Subsonic Bass
Don't tell me you believe the geeks in Mixmag and The Face
Surely you weren't serious about dressing in brown?
Give me Marks & Spencer, Paul McCartney, Angler's Weekly NOW
Give me David Bowie, BHS, 2000AD NOW
Give me Star Trek, Penguins, HMV and Record Collector NOW
And a Littlewood's platter
A bag of sweets from Woolworths
And a t-shirt without a cocking logo NOW

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

This song first made it's way out into the world on the demo cassette "Kazoo Magic II: Return Of Kazoo", a collection of songs which a couple of listeners said were "a bit arsey". Fair enough, several of the other songs WERE pretty arsey (I was in a pretty DARN arsey mood at the time), but I think this one is a song of HAPPINESS.

Allow me to explain. I'd recently turned 30 and was in the middle of a Life Changing Realisation, that fashion and all that is a load of old shit. It's not like I'd ever been a SLAVE to fashion or anything, but I'd always felt a bit INSECURE when I'd come into contact with it - most people know the feeling of going into a Posh Clothes Shop or Trendy Record Shop and wanting to apologise for daring to enter, as if you simply weren't good enough, or cool enough, to be there.

However, I'd started to realise that, actually, they're just bloody shops, and had successfully experimented with going in and FLAUNTING my unsuitability. Oh! the simple joy of PONCING round some wank shop in Camden Lock SNEERING at the produce, and realising how much this UNSETTLED the shopkeepers. Fashion is made by confident fuckwits and hyped up insecure fuckwits in the media. As long as decent ordinary people allow themselves to be PERSUADED that Fashion Matters, it WILL, but the minute everyone realises they're being ripped off the whole thing collapses. In the darkness of their hearts, Fashionistas know this to be true - it's False Consciousness, Marxism Fans!

So yes, that's what this songs about - the realisation that Fashion IS a load of old crap, that you don't have to feel diminished by it, and that there's a LOT more pleasure to be had enjoying items of QUALITY. Since I've come round to this way of thinking I've been MUCH happier enjoying things I Actually Like (like Paul McCartney records, or reading 2000AD) than I EVER did trying to ABIDE anything the Melody Maker featured or attempting to read a "style" supplement.

As with so many songs here, the song got changed around a LOT. My original version didn't really ROCK very much, and there were loads of Other Words that were a bit snide, rather than of any particular use. I chopped verses up, DOUBLED the speed of the chord changes, and got Mr Fleay AND Mr McClure to BOTH play a dirt simple riff to go with it. Mr Pattison supplied the BACKBONE, Mrs Pattison came up with that "La Laaa" bit in the choruses, and off we went. I also forced Emma to sing the "Littlewoods Platter" line about 20 times... did I mention my in-studio Vocals FASCISM?

When it was all finished Kev gently pointed out that there's no such magazine as "Anglers Weekly". I looked it up on the internet, and it's true, there isn't, but an awful lot of other people also seem to think there is. Strange, eh?