Songs: Fucking Hippy

notes / gigs / releases

I can't believe the things that you come out with
Did you leave your brains in a cheese and pickle sandwich?
What makes you think that you can speak for us
When everything you say is so boring and obvious?
If you're so telepathic, why don't you leave?
You're breathing the air i intended to breath

You fucking hippy, with your paranoid neuroses
You say that you're concerned about the world and its resources
Let's help get rid of some waste
We'll dump you in the ocean in a locked up metal case
If you can see things so very very clearly
Why are you so unutterably dreary?

You hippy, with your whimsical delusion
That if you grow your hair you can start the revolution
The Establishment's aquake
They know as well as i do that you're a fucking fake
You believe in love and peace
But you hate your friends and insist on eating meat

You fucking hippy, you cannot change society
By banging on about drugs and then going to a party
If you want to cause a change
I think it might be handy if you held onto your brains
It's no longer a joke
The world dissolves in poverty while you go up in smoke

You fucking hippy
You hypocrite
You fucking hippy
You are a hypocrite
You fucking hippy
You are a hypocrite
You fucking hippy

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

This was an old song even when it was recorded, as I'd written it in around 1994 when I lived on Mere Road. I went round to see my friend Neil who was then living with a couple of hippies who used to annoy me INTENSELY, for all the reasons detailed in the song. I came home one night, sat down with all the guitar chords I knew, and this just POURED out. EASY.

Less easy was recording it - it's dead easy to play on it's own, but we kept trying to complicate it. Voon played it as a sort of Spanish Thrash Punk Polka (sort of), The Council played it VERY FAST INDEED, and then, when Tim joined we did it slower and HEAVIER. It's on my first two solo cassettes in yet MORE versions, neither of which were much cop, but as it always went down so well at gigs I decided to give it one more chance and do it SIMPLE and LOUD, and this is the result. I was really pleased with it, and remember it sounding BLOODY FANTASTIC when we went down to Porky's in London to MASTER it for the single. I went with Ann from Sienna and Rob's friend Gary (later in Frankie Machine), who said "Bloody Hell Mark, say what you mean!"

I thought this was one of my best songs at the time (NB it was) and putting it out as a b-side seemed very ROMANTIC and Like Suede (when they were good). I was EXTREMELY excited about the record coming out. I must say, and merrily daydreamed about it becoming a MASSIVE HIT. We even had stickers made for the other side, saying "Featuring members of number one hit-makers WHITE TOWN" which seemed a SURE FIRE WAY of getting sales. The whole process of MAKING the record was THRILLING too - having a photoshoot out in a Village College in Nottingham for the cover, going to the printers near Liverpool Street to sort out the printing and delivery, sourcing the plastic sleeves, designing the inserts, sitting in my flat putting them all together... it was a LOT of fun and VERY exciting.

We even used Overground in Newcastle to PLUG it for us, which was BRILLIANT as we found out all the little radio stations that played it. It didn't sell that many and, I think, got overshadowed a bit by Fortuna Pop! - I was still relying on the Work EP and association with them, for several years in fact, to get gigs, and it'd be a LONG time until I'd got an audience to properly call my own - who put out the World Cup EP featuring "The Fair Play Trophy" on the SAME DAY as the CLUBBING IN THE WEEK single upon which this appears. As I said constantly at the time, "You wait a year for a single and then two come out at once." No, it wasn't the start of a hit-making career, but it WAS the start of EVERYTHING else.