Stalemates (Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky)
You have your very own number
They dress your cage in nature
Once you roared now you grunt lame [late]
Pace round, pathetic pound games, chains
They drag sticks along your walls
Harvest your ovarys as dead mothers crawl
Here comes warden, christ, temple, elders
Environment not yours, see through it all
Freeze dried excuses for food
On hind legs beg low for supper
Traffics traffics all above you
Nostrils blister as aftershave passes
Here chewing your tail is joy
Knawed verterbrae an unholy toy
True sensations explores your body
Every orifice scraped muddy and dirty
CHORUS
Self mutilate self dictate self hate you're stale mate
Circle the doors - back-forth-away - piss gainst walls, OK
BRIDGE
Wanna get out - wont you miss senseround
To carry [your] own dead, to roll in shit, to swing tyre tricks
Wanna get out - here you're bred dead quick
For the outside, the small black flowers that grow in the sky
References explanations:
These lyrics are likely based on a documentary about zoo animals that Richey watched on television. Nicky has mentioned his viewing of it in interviews.
Sensurround is a surround sound process for low frequency sound, usually in use for things like movie theatres and amusement parks, where the sound is at a frequency more felt than heard. It's used for immersive type experiences like thunder, earthquakes, or simulated plane takeoffs. In this instance Richey may be referencing the tendency of some zoos to pipe nature sounds into some exhibits.
"Small black flowers that grow in the sky" could be a reference to the phrase "flowers in the sky" in Buddhist teachings, which refers to delusions brought on by a person's karmic obstructions.
[I just found this again and decided to add it to my JFPL references tag, even though it's not technically part of the album. But we do know it was included in the binder of lyrics with the rest of Journal For Plague Lovers, so I think it counts.]
“I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We have created life in our own image.” – stephen hawking –
1/ Underground car park born at Stonehenge
Rivers Wyle, Bourne, [blacked out] destroying
Queen mother stuffed for exhibition
Three strikes yr out – execution – pizza
2/ Dante III, spider robot, Mount Spurrr
Increased plastic surgery for pubic hair
Sanitation police, crime of proportion.
[blacked out]
3/ Paisleyism and ecumenism and cenotaph bombers
[blacked out] wearing policing
Soviet labour medals sold for Coca Cola
[blacked out]
4/ [blacked out]
82 million watch Gorilla Meets Whale
[blacked out]
[blacked out]
BRIDGE
Herman the bull and Tracy the sheep
Transgenic milk containing human protein
Their bacteria cheaper than lab baby food
Attention, today it’s a cow, tomorrow it’s you
CHORUS
African Punch and Judy shows only rice price
100,000 watch Giant Haystacks Bombay fight
Oh the joy, me and Stephen Hawking we laugh
Missed the sex revolution when we failed the physical
hahahaha
(joke)
[The image on the facing page is a marble sculpture titled St. Teresa in Ecstasy, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, finished in 1652. It is in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Vittoria. It features Theresa in a state of ecstasy as an angel descends to plunge his hands into her heart.]
Reference explanations:
Most of these references are based off of news articles Richey read in 1994, either general summary-like references or nearly direct quotes from articles, mostly from The Indepedent.*
The Stephen Hawking quote is from a speech he gave at Boston's Macworld Expo quoted in the 4th August 1994 issue of the Daily News. A similar quote is in his 1996 lecture Life In The Universe.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric ring of standing stones. It’s managed by English Heritage and owned by the Crown. It is associated with death and burial, and bodies have been excavated in the area around the site. It is aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the opposing sunrise of the summer solstice. The “underground car park” line is a reference to proposal made in 1994 to close the A303 and turn the road into an underground tunnel that will pass directly under the site of Stonehenge itself. (Apparently said proposal was approved November 2020.)
I think “Wyle” is a misspelling of “Wylye”, which is a river in south west England. River Bourne is nearby; both go through Wiltshire county. Said county contains the Salisbury Plain, which also contains Stonehenge. The Rivers Wylye and Bourne are both part of the Hampshire Avon catchment. In August ‘94 the county was granted a multi-million pound package to protect the catchment from pollution and monitor buildings developments and water flow rates.
The “queen mother” line may refer to the Queen Mother’s 90th birthday parade in 1990. The Queen mother celebrated her 94th birthday in 1994, and a few informal photos of her were released in The Mirror in an article about it.
“Three strikes yr out – execution – pizza” is a reference to the “three strikes rule” proposed in California. A rule was proposed 1994 and passed in 1995 that allowed someone to be sentenced to life in prison if it was their third repeat offense, and if they had a previous conviction for a violent offense. A man named Jerry Dewayne Williams was arrested July 30 1994 for stealing a slice of pizza and due to this law was later sentenced to 25 years to life.
Mount Spurr is an Alaskan mountain. Its last volcanic eruption was 1992. Dante II was a spider-like robot from NASA that explored Mt Spurr’s volcanic crater in order to gather information and entered the crater in July 1994. It managed to gather information but on the way out of the crater, got stuck in the mud and fell back into the crater. Not sure if “Dante III” is a mis-type.
Dante’s Inferno is about the main eponymous character entering Hell and traversing its rings in order to reach purgatory and then paradise to find his lover Beatrice.
“Increased plastic surgery for pubic hair” is a reference to an article in the The Independent on 27 August 1994 which talked about men getting plastic surgery and liposuction. (The article is titled “Men who want a perfect body,” which certainly hits upon one of Richey’s preoccupations.) It mentions that there are “more and more images for men to look at, in much the same way female images have been pushed for years.” In a paragraph about penis enlargement surgery, it mentions that a complication from said surgery can be ingrown pubic hairs.
“Sanitation police, crime of proportion.” is likely a reference to an article by Zoe Heller called “How I fell foul of New York’s sanitation police.” The Sanitation Police in NY are responsible for dealing with things like theft of recyclables, littering, illegal dumping, improper disposal of solid waste, etc. They can issue summonses for citizens who mix recyclable and non-recyclable materials (which, from what I can gather, is what the Heller article is about).
Ian Paisley was a loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader in Northern Ireland. He promoted a form of Biblical literalism and anti-Catholicism, which he described as “Bible Protestantism” In the mid-late 1960s, he led and instigated loyalist opposition to the Catholic civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. Throughout the Troubles, Paisley was seen as a firebrand and the face of hardline unionism. He opposed all attempts to resolve the conflict through power-sharing between unionists and Irish nationalists/republicans, and all attempts to involve the Republic of Ireland in Northern affairs. A retrospective article about him was published in The Independent in September 1994.
Ecumenism is any effort aimed at the unity of Christians throughout the world. Most often, it specifically means the visible unity of Christian churches in some form.
“Cenotaph bombers” is a reference to the Remembrance Day Bombing that took place 8 November 1987 in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. An IRA bomb was detonated near a war memorial during a Remembrance Sunday ceremony. 11 people were killed and 63 injured. The IRA’s target had been soldiers parading to the memorial, not civilians. In August 1994, a ceasefire was announced by the Provisional IRA. In reaction to the ceasefire, Ian Paisley claimed that Northern Ireland would plummet into civil war.
“Soviet labour medals sold for Coca Cola.” The Soviet Union had medals for labour to honor workers for many years of hard work in the national economy, sciences, culture, education, manufacturing, healthcare, government agencies and public organizations. It was established in 1974 and stopped being awarded in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. There was an article in The Independent on 5 April 1994 about a new British embassy being built in Berlin. It mentioned that the Russian embassy was next door, and that Russian traders would sit across the street from the embassy and sell post-war bric-a-brac like Lenin flags and Hero Of Socialist Labour medals.
“82 million watch Gorilla Meets Whale” is a reference to Godzilla, because the original Japanese name “Gojira” is a portmanteau of the words “gorira” (gorilla) and “kojira” (whale). By 1994, over 82 million people had seen the first 20 Godzilla films. Richey got that figure from an article in The Independent about the cultural history of the films and their critique of environmental and economic problems. The other thing I could find was a reference to the fact that Godzilla represented Japanese fear of nuclear testing etc: On March 1, 1954, the U.S. conducted a hydrogen bomb test called Bravo shot at Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands. As a result of this nuclear test radioactive dust fell not only on many Marshall Islanders but famously on a Japanese tuna fishing boat called the 5th Lucky Dragon, irradiating all twenty-three fishermen. The effect of these nuclear tests on Japanese, a who had previously experienced the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the heels of the destruction by bombing of virtually all other major cities, was to strengthen anti-nuclear sentiments, giving rising to a powerful anti-nuclear movement that spread across Japan in the form of a citizens’ petition initiated by women opposing nuclear tests. The petition, the largest of its kind ever, was signed by 32 million Japanese. That August, the first Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs was held in Hiroshima. The 5th Lucky Dragon became the model for the boat called “Eiko Maru” attacked by Godzilla.
Herman the bull was the first genetically modified bovine in the world. Scientists injected the embryo with human gene coding for lactoferrin. Eight calves were born from Herman in 1994. All calves inherited the lactoferrin production gene.
Tracy the sheep was a transgenically modified sheep in Scotland, made to produce alpha 1-antitrypsin, which is a substance that was regarded in the 1990s as a potential pharmaceutical for the treatments of emphysema and cystic fibrosis. Alpha 1-antitrypsin comprised 50% of the total protein in Tracy’s milk.
“Attention, today it’s a cow, tomorrow it’s you” is an almost direct copy of an anti-genetic modification poster from the Dutch society for prevention of cruelty of animals, which portrays a topless woman with udders in place of breasts over the caption: 'Today a cow, tomorrow you.”
Punch and Judy was a traditional puppet show. It was usually very violent, with the characters of Punch and Judy (or Punch and another character) fighting and hitting each other. It is handled by a single puppeteer, and audiences are encourage to participate a la panto. It comes from commedia dell’arte.
“Only rice price” may be a reference to a 1976 film called Network. I may be making connections where there aren’t any, though. “What’s that got to do with the price of [blank]?” is a well known phrase (usually it’s “the price of tea in China”). In Network, “the price of rice” is the phrase used. The main character is a new broadcaster whose channel is failing, and he threatens to commit suicide on air. This causes the channel viewing to go up, so the heads of the channel decide to exploit this and allow the character to say whatever he wants and generally spew angry tirades. Eventually he is killed. But the “rice price” line comes from a monologue in which the character berates those watching the show, and tells them that they never read books or newspapers and that television is not news, it’s entertainment and amusement parks. Television is described as being able to make or break people, and as “indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality.”
Giant Haystacks was a wrestler in the 70s. He was 6′11″ and weigh 638 pounds. There’s no info about him ever being in a fight in Bombay. The “Bombay fight” line could be a reference to the Bombay Riots that occurred in 92/93, but again there doesn’t seem to be any connection to Giant Haystacks.
Stephen Hawking is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He suffered from ALS or motor neuron disease, which left him paralyzed and necessitated the use of a speech-generating communication device. He worked with theories on relativity and black holes (which I do not understand and could not explain because I am not a scientist.) In 1988 he wrote A Brief History Of Time. He died in 2018.
The sexual revolution was a social movement started in the 60s and continued through 80s which challenged certain sexual and relationship norms/conventions. It argued for freedom to sex before marriage, right to abortions and the pill or other forms of contraception, normalization of pornography, homosexuality, other forms of sexuality, and public nudity.
*Many, many thanks to a reddit user who messaged me with all of this new information! They did a ton of research and found all these references in old newspaper archives and 80s/90s BBC documentaries, which I never would have thought to check.
Haven’t shaved for days
Gives me the appearance of delay
The luxury of one more dye
Pretend humility the ugly lie
I would prefer no choice
One bread one milk one food that’s all
I’m confused I only want one truth
I really don’t mind if I’m being lied to
BRIDGE
It’s not whats wrong it’s what’s right
Makes me feel like I’m talking a foreign language at times
It’s not what’s wrong it’s what’s right
If you buy vanishing cream you need vanishing cream remover at night
CHORUS
Born – school
Drunk – fuck – work
Home – dole
Divorce – retire – die
And then what and then what
And then what and then what
Maybe’s you realise
It’s all vanity baby
All is vanity honey
All is vanity
All is vanity
All is vanity
All is vanity
It’s the facts o’ life sunshine
[Accompanying page, which is written on a photocopied pencil drawing of a sphere]
Cornwall in King Lear
Abused, humiliated. 12 step psychology
HELICOBACTE PYLORIS – the bacterium behind ulcer
formation. A colony living in the stomach mucus membrane
Don’t eat it generates ulcers.
Bleach gets rid of birthmarks
The sun is someway wounded
HALO-PERIDOL [very scratched out] drug to make you drowsy
Defiance
REORIENTATION TO DISLOCATION
Rauschenberg “an insatiable appetite for anything but food”
I LIKE GREEN in NYC trees are red & orange
Nobody owns an idea. You just have to have one everyday
Jesus & Elvis go together like mind body & soul
Camille Paglia’s blood + earth approach
ETRUSCAN WALL PAINTINGS
SEGREGATION of GENDER as long as there is women’s work & man’s work
possible to systematically pay women less. Pay differential bolsters male
sense of imp & keeps a cheap casual lab force on tap
female patients even more disabled than men are less likely
to be offered openheart surgery Tracy
Kate Figes – Because of Her Sex – discrimination so embedded in our
culture that we don’t even notice it
Sparse undernourished, ill prepared
Right or wrong is trivial next to life or death
Spinoza – self styled philosopher MEN MKE MIRACLES are GUILTY of
SACRILEGE
Free Man Acts Honestly not Deceptively. Tell the
30 DAYS TO REPENT
A FREE MAN SHOULD fear NOTHING OF DEATH. IS THERE
A GOD. WHERE IS TRUTH. The Earth lives but is that God.
PERNICIOUS teachings.
By the Decree of Angels – EXCOMMUNICATION -
Changes name to BENEDICTUS SPINOZA
WORDS WORDS, CONCEPTION CONFUSED IN MEMORY
CORPOREAL CREATURES – soul without A BODY
Catholicism divides itself
CROMWELL’S ROTTEN HEAD
People Achieve Nothing.
References explanations:
Technically, vanishing cream is a moisturizing//beauty cream that leaves no trace when rubbed into the skin. Clearly Richey’s reference is a metaphorical double entendre.
The Duke Of Cornwall is a character in Shakespeare’s King Lear. Cornwall is a sadistic character who represents the worst parts of abuse of power. For him, power is a tool to satisfy sadistic tendencies. He basically does everything but commit murder.
Richey went through a 12 step AA program while in hospital at The Priory. He had trouble with a lot of its tenants.
Heliobacter pylori is a bacterium found in the stomach that causes ulcers and gastritis and is linked to stomach cancer. It burrows into the less acidic epithelial cells of the stomach. This information was likely copied from the episode of Horizon called Ulcer Wars, which aired on the BBC in May 1994.
Haloperidol is an antipsychotic. It’s used to treat schizophrenia, mania, Tourette’s, and symptoms of extreme alcohol withdrawal. It can cause somnolence as a side effect.
Robert Rauschenberg was a neo dadaist/early pop artist. He was a mental hospital technician while he served in the army. He wanted to work “in the gap between art and life” and championed the role of creator in creating art’s meaning. He and Cy Twombly made collages and boxes out of trash and exhibited them in Italy. A lot of them sold; those that did not he threw into the river Arno. In 1966 he launched E.A.T. (Experiments in Arts and Technology), a non-profit organization established to promote collaborations between artists and engineers. He used found items and photos to create collages, paintings, and sculptures.
Camille Paglia is a social critic and a professor at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is critical of central features of much contemporary feminism though she calls herself a feminist. She associates Western taboos of periods with male horror of the origins and termination of life: “Every month it is the woman’s fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself”. She also talks about how Christianity and Judaism are “sky-cult” religions, based on a male God in the heavens somewhere that created everything. This is different from aboriginal “earth-cult” religions which worship an Earth-mother or something similar. In sky-cult religions women are pushed aside, and even the language they use to rail against patriarchal culture is the invention of men.
The Etruscan civilization existed in Italy between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC. Their paintings that survived were frescoes on the walls of tombs. The tombs held whole lineages and were sites of recurring family rituals. Most paintings depict mythological scenes; sometimes there are images of everyday life. One of the best-known Etruscan frescoes is that of Tomb of the Lioness at Tarquinia.
“imp” and “lab” are probably Richey’s shorthand for “importance” and “labour”.
Kate Figes wrote the book Because Of Her Sex: The Myth of Equal Opportunity for Women in Britain, published in 1994. It concludes that, despite a change in attitudes, women still face institutionalized discrimination at the very fabric of a society that tends to refuse to accommodate a woman because of her sex.
From a reddit user who contacted me on 1/21 with this information: The notes from "Spinoza – self styled philosopher" down to the bottom of the page (including the line about Cromwell) are almost word for word taken from a Channel 4 docudrama that aired in July 1994 called Spinoza: Apostle of Reason. Somehow Richey has managed to transcribe some of the quotes incorrectly, though, which is possibly why the note "Catholicism divides itself" is slightly confusing (the quote from the show is "Protestantism divides itself", I think).
Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher. He opposed Descartes’ mind-body dualism. He later rejected his Jewish religion because he didn’t agree with some of its dogmas or the belief in non-Mosaic authorship of the Hebrew bible. He was expelled from the Jewish community. “By the decree of the angels” is a literal transcription of part of the document. Spinoza argued that God exists and is abstract and impersonal. He contended that everything that exists in Nature (i.e., everything in the Universe) is one Reality (substance) and there is only one set of rules governing the whole of the reality which surrounds us and of which we are part. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality. Spinoza’s main contention with Cartesian mind–body dualism was that, if mind and body were truly distinct, then it is not clear how they can coordinate in any manner. For him, even human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being our capacity to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do. Therefore, humans have no free will. They believe, however, that their will is free. This illusionary perception of freedom stems from our human consciousness, experience, and indifference to prior natural causes. Humans think they are free but they “dream with their eyes open”.
Oliver Cromwell led England into a republic, abolishing the monarchy and the House of Lords, after the execution of King Charles I in January 1649. After the reinstatement of monarchy in 1659, King Charles II’s new parliament ordered the disinterment of Cromwell’s body from Westminster Abbey for a posthumous execution at Tyburn. After hanging “from morning till four in the afternoon”, the body was cut down and the head placed on a 20-foot spike above Westminster Hall. While it was spiked on a pole above the London skyline, it gave a potent warning to spectators. In the 18th century, the head became a curiosity and a relic.
(Anything in brackets is either a word I cannot read at all, a fragment of a word that I can’t read, or my guess for what the word might be. If anyone can decipher those words let me know. Also, all spelling mistakes or weird abbreviations are whatever Richey wrote.)
[Description: bits of binder paper cut out and taped onto the outside back cover of the binder with wide black tape. The paper as well as the Bugs Bunny cover are painted over with a spiraling “sun’s rays”-type design with blue around the borders.]
B) Sredni Vashtar (a polecat kept by an affection-starved boy but
she is eaten when in ‘Saki’ by H.H. Munro, polecat escapes.
PERSECUTIONS/MONSTROSITIES BREVITY
People who fail, mke them most persecuted VENDETTA, blunt edged self hate
that cannot succeed, [flesh], TALKING THINKING NEVER ACTING
Going to bed at 2, waking up at 2.30. He lives the life of an eremite
lure of Mammon. AUTODIDACTIC impulse
Shyness is seen as arrogance. I don’t know why I believe things.
I’m not investing in men threatening me. Walking on spot. Evolution.
Kind kind people shouldn’t be locked up. Unfair.
Little Richards, BRAIN TRIPPERS.
CONVERSATIONS WITH MICK [H] Lt’d my intake. Don’t Worry About Me.
I’ve gotta get to the Garden. I FEEL USED.
Cigarette Boy Crime Increases as Rate Increases
PHYSICS. DRUGS KEYS. EPIPHANY. CACTI. AS FRIEND. WONT HURT YOU.
SEE INTO MAN. BECOME MAN. DIMINISH MAN. EXPECTATIONS INCREASE.
EAT BIRTHDAY CAKE EVERYDAY. LEARN THAT REWARDS ARE BULLSHIT.
DISCIPLINE IS JUSTified AS LONG AS IT’S YR DISCIPLINE and all around agree
your discipline.
References explanation:
“Sredni Vashtar” is a short story by H.H. Munro under the pseudonym “Saki”. In the story, a boy named Conradin lives with his cousin and guardian Mrs De Ropp, who is very strict and abusive. To cope and to rebel against her, Conradin invents a new religion for himself idolizing a ferret that he keeps in a shed, which he names Sredni Vashtar. As his guardian becomes more harsh, Conradin begins a ritual, asking “Do one thing for me Sredni Vashtar” every night. Eventually, Mrs De Ropp ransacks Conradin’s room to find the key to the shed, and goes to the shed. Conradin begins to accept defeat, but when she does not return, and the ferrett appears with jaws stained bloody, Conradin realizes that she has been killed by Sredni Vashtar. The ferret vanishes, a maid finds Mrs De Ropp’s body and screams, and Conradin calmly makes himself toast.
An eremite is a Christian hermit or recluse.
“Mammon” is an old Aramaic/Hebrew word meaning ‘money’ or ‘wealth/riches.’ It is used by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount when he says “you cannot serve God and mammon,” meaning you cannot selfishly covet wealth or material things and also give your self to God. Later, he explains that desire for things like fame, beauty, or money are examples of vanity, and the people who encounter a stumbling block with regard to following God are those “who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing.”
Little Richard is a rock/R&B/gospel musician from the 1950s and 60s. His most famous songs include “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally”. In 1957 he decided to convert to a life of ministry and performed mostly gospel music. In 1984 he returned to rock n roll music. In 1984 he told a reporter he was “omnisexual” because he still felt that homosexuality was wrong. In 1995, in an interview with Penthouse, he came out as gay, saying that “God is a God of love, not hate.” Though ‘Little Richard’ was probably also Richey being self deprecating about himself and the medications he was on.
“Conversations with Mick [H]″. This is one where Richey’s handwriting is just barely too messy.
It may refer to an address given by Gene Cook at Ricks College in 1988, in which Cook, a Mormon pastor, is sat next to Mick Jagger on a plane and has a conversation with him about sex and corruption and evil in/because of rock n roll music. There’s debate over whether or not this interaction actually happened.
“Conversations with Mick H” might also be relevant to Mick Hucknall of the bands Simply Red and Faces (both influences of the Manics to some extent, or at least present in the music mags they were reading).
It could also refer to Mick Hutson, a music photographer who photographed a number of Manics gigs from 1991 to 1994. However, I’m not sure if he was ever very close to the band the way others like Tom Sheehan or Mitch Ikeda were.
“I've gotta get myself back to the garden” is a lyric in Joni Mitchell's song “Woodstock”.
Realise how lonely this is?
Self defeating, O fuck yeh
Drowned in love and false kisses
A gathering of no meaning
Sick of me, stupid and weak
Those most worthy are denied
Heautoscopy, revile him
Always wake up wasn’t good enough
The merciful cast the last stone
Love the soul not the body
Let me forgive the word ruins
I wanted to kill but my tears love
I want your sin third day perfected
Lazarus burning Jerusalem
Blaspheme, cut dead, Isiah
One day birds of prey Israelite
The shadow is the cross ok
Judgment must be willing today
Silence is not sacrifice
Crucifixion is the easy life
Embrace to betrayal
Unarmed army salvation
Listen to the selfish ones
They’re the voice of accomplishment
BRIDGE
Remove the lamb from your thoughts
Condense yr eyes yr heart yr taught
CHORUS……please turn over
CHORUS
Who threw the first stone
If the stone is you
Forgive them forsaken
Bleeding feet an angels saviour
References explanations:
(Okay so I was raised non-religious and honestly for an English lit major I know very little about the Bible. So all of these summaries are whatever comes up when I google, which means they probably won’t be in depth and may not be accurate.)
Heautoscopy is a term used in psychiatry/neurology to refer to the reduplicative hallucination of “seeing ones own body at a distance. It can be a symptom of schizophrenia or epilepsy and is a possible explanation for doppelganger phenomena. A related word is autoscopy, which is the experience in which an individual perceives the surrounding environment from a different perspective, from a position outside of his or her own body.
“Love the soul not the body” probably referencing St Augustine. From Augustine’s tracts: “Every man rejoices in pleasure and recieves pleasure by the body: but separate the mind from it, and nothing remains the body to rejoice; and if there is joy of the body, it is the mind that rejoices. If it has joy of its dwelling, ought it not to have joy of itself? And if the mind has whereof it may have delight outside itself, does it remain without delights within? It is quite certain that man loves his soul more than his body. But further, a man loves the soul even in another man more than the body. What is it that is loved in a friend, where the love is the purer and more sincere? What in the friend is loved--the mind, or the body?”
Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after being sealed in the tomb. This is from Luke 13:31-33, when Jesus is told that the King Herod wants to kill him: “At that very hour, some Pharisees came to Jesus and told Him, ‘Leave this place and get away, because Herod wants to kill You.’ But Jesus replied, ‘Go tell that fox, ‘Look, I will keep driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach My goal. Nevertheless, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day, for it is not admissible for a prophet to perish outside of Jerusalem.…’”
Jesus restored Lazarus of Bethany to life four days after his death. The section in which Jesus visits Lazarus’ sisters is where the famous line “Jesus wept.” comes from. Lazarus is the only resurrected character in the Bible (besides himself) that Jesus personally refers to as “dead.” I don’t know what burning Jerusalem is referencing, because as far as I know, Lazarus never burnt Jerusalem.
I’m gonna guess “Isiah” is just “Isaiah” misspelled. Isaiah was a prophet. The book of Isaiah, along with the book of Jeremiah, is distinctive in the Hebrew bible for its direct portrayal of the “wrath of the Lord”. In Christianity it is believed that believed that the Prophet Isaiah “knew more perfectly than all others the mystery of the religion of the Gospel”. Within the Book Of Isaiah are the songs of the suffering servant, and most references to Isaiah are about the Suffering Servant, how he will suffer and die to save many from their sins, be buried in a rich man’s tomb, be a light to the Gentiles.
In Leviticus 11, the birds considered unclean are eagles, vultures, buzzards, falcons, owls, ravens, and hawks, aka birds of prey.
“Unarmed army salvation” is most probably referring to the Salvation Army, a Christian charity.
“Who threw the first stone” is a reference to John 8:7, in which a woman who has committed adultery is brought before Jesus. The Pharisees tell Jesus that the law says she must be stoned to death for it, but ask him what his opinion is. He says “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” meaning that none of the other people are without sin and therefore none have the right to pass judgement. Conversely, the earlier “merciful cast the last stone” is perhaps an interpretation in the opposite direction; that the most merciful will cast the final, fatal stone and put the victim out of their misery.
Bleeding feet (and hands) is a characteristic of stigmata, which is the experience of bleeding, sores, pain, or body marks in the places corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus.
Also possibly relevant to the chorus is Sadhu Sundar Singh, an Indian Christian missionary from the early 1900s. He was known as “the apostle with the bleeding feet” because he walked everywhere he went and carried no possessions, living and eating with people who gave him charity. He was stoned multiple times throughout his travels for his Christian beliefs. He wanted to convert India and the surrounding areas to Christianity, but found it to be a struggle. He also found that he was ostracized by other ministry students for being different. After he left the ministry, he continued to walk all over the continent, preaching. At age 40 against all his friends’ advice, he decided to make one last journey to Tibet. He was last seen on 18 April 1929 setting off on this journey. In April he reached Kalka, and where he went after that is unknown. Whether he died of exhaustion or reached the mountains remains a mystery. He wrote a number of books on meditation, god, and the Christian and Hindu religions.
Riderless horses, Chomsky’s Camelot
Bruises on my hand from digging my nails out
A series of images against you and me
Trespass yr torments if you are what you want to be
In SB’s Cistine Chapel inabilities wither
Boy smoking cigarette infront of Himmler’s painted ether
O'Brian’s 10th dictionary destroying history
Nutrition is neuroses for a maelstrom of inadequacy
Glaad/occurs, in the chestnut trees
If you can’t spell Utopeia there’s no point in being
I once impersonated a window dummy
Starvation heals internally and conscious can’t be cured
Dwarf takes his cockerel outta the cock fight
Falcons attack pidgeons in West Wing at night
Robert F Stroud no Il Caciatore
Misunderstands Psalm 92 and Corinthians 5
Death more abstract now death televised
Canaries are always behind bars the day of deliverance lied
The more I see the less I scream
The dawn of dried [blacked out] and insect penei ministry
The figure 8 inside out is infinity
The world in one line is Tetsuo accusing thee
Verescit vulnere virtus
The Levi jean has always been stronger than the uzi
Unsure which way, don’t want anything
Stamping cigarette ash onto my carpet for a change
The naked light bulb is always wrong
They make yr brain complete till they blow it to kingdom come
A millenium of trivia forever freeze framed
All sensations are failure to lower behaviour
[Accompanying drawing has the band members’ names written at the top. It is a drawing of a person’s face with Richey’s usual chains of circles coming out of one eye. Beside that is a collage of blue-painted triangles. Behind the collage is a sketch of a thin figure; the sketch becomes rougher towards the head/shoulder area. Below the figure is drawing of a turtle-like creature with green triangles along the spine and “millennium of trivia freeze framed” curving around it. At the bottom of the drawing it says “#2 Peeled Apples”.]
References explanations:
“Riderless horses” references the tradition in a military funeral to have a horse following the casket with no rider, and a pair of military boots facing backward in the stirrups.
“Rethinking Camelot” is a book by Noam Chomsky criticizing the US’s involvement with the Vietnam War, exploring whether or not Kennedy was planning to withdraw from Vietnam before he was assassinated, and how history is written, rewritten, and interpreted differently by different individuals.
“Bruises on my hands from digging my nails out” may be a reference to stigmata and the fact that Jesus was nailed to the cross by his palms.
I’m going to assume “SB” stands for Sandro Botticelli, who painted 3 pieces in the Sistine Chapel (which Richey has somehow managed to spell incorrectly, by the way): The Trials of Moses, depicting Moses killing an Egyptian who harassed a Jew and fleeing to the desert, fighting shepherds to allow Jethro’s daughters to let their cattle drink, receiving the command from God to return to Egypt, and leading the Jews to the Promised Land. Punishment of the Rebels, depicting the Jews rebelling against Moses and Aaron. And Temptations of Christ, which shows 3 scenes from the Gospels; a fasting Jesus is tempted by the devil to turn stones into bread, the devil tempts Jesus to challenge God’s promise that he is protected by the angels, and the devil promises Jesus power over the earth if he denounces God and worships the devil. In the center, various stories that were precursor to the crucifixion are represented.
Heinrich Himmler was the commander of the SS and one of the men most directly responsible for the Holocaust. He was never actively in battle, but set up and organized the concentration camps. After seeing a mass-shooting of Jewish victims at Minsk, he thought that the shooting of women and children would take a psychological toll on his SS men, so he devised gas chambers equipped with the pesticide Zyklon B to be installed in concentration camps instead. He killed himself after being captured by Allies by biting down on a hidden cyanide pill. I honestly don’t know what the “painted ether” is referencing. I’m going to guess it’s a reference to the Zyklon B, since it smelled faintly of almonds (therefore was “painted” because ether has no smell.)
“O’Brian’s 10th dictionary” may possibly be a reference to 1984 and the destruction of language? In chapter 5 of 1984 O’Brien (who ends up being a member of the Inner Party in disguise and traps/brainwashes Winston) stops Winston in the hall and talks to him about an article he wrote and says, “What I had really intended to say was that in your article I noticed you had used two words which have become obsolete. But they have only become so very recently. Have you seen the tenth edition of the Newspeak Dictionary?” Richey probably just misspelled the name. It also may be a reference to the 1993 publication of the 10th edition of Merriam-Webster English Dictionary and the controversy over certain words being removed.
GLAAD is the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. It was founded in 1985. No idea what else that could be referencing.
“Dwarf takes his cockerel outta the cock fight” is a reference to The Day Of The Locust by Nathanael West. In the scene, the dwarf referenced, Abe, has reluctantly put a rooster in a cock fight against an acquaintance’s. His rooster is weaker and at the end of each round, Abe tries desperately to revive it. When it’s finally killed, he screams at the owner of the winning bird to remove the dead one from the ring. The fight parallels the social and sexual victimization and bullying that occur in the book.
The West Wing of the White House houses all the executive offices, including the Oval Office and Cabinet Room.
Robert F. Stroud was known as the Birdman Of Alcatraz. He became a pimp at 18 and shot and killed a bartender who attacked one of his prostitutes. Later, while incarcerated, he also killed a guard and was sentenced to life imprisonment. While serving his sentence in Alcatraz, he began raising some injured sparrows, and later began to raise hundreds of canaries; he studied ornithology while in prison and wrote a book on the pathology of birds.
No Il Cacciatore is the Italian title for The Deer Hunter, a 1978 war movie about 3 Russian-American soldiers in Vietnam starring Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and John Savage. A recurring theme is a character’s preference for how to take down a deer: with “one shot”; this is reflected in a game of Russian Roulette the characters are forced to play by their Viet Cong captors and later, the suicide of a character who has been earning money in Vietnam by challenging people to games of Russian Roulette and allowing people to bet on him.
Psalm 92 is supposedly the Psalm Adam sang the day after God made him. It’s basically saying that God is great and you should use music to praise him, that God will destroy enemies even if they are strong, that the psalmist (Adam?) has been made strong by God, and that all righteous, truly good people will be strong.
Corinthians 5 is confusing because Corinthians is the name of three separate Pauline epistles in the New Testament? But I’m gonna assume he means 1 Corinthians 1:5 or 5:1. 1 Corinthians 1:5 is part of a letter from Paul basically telling people to thank the lord for enriching them with knowledge, and faith in God will sustain them. The actual section labeled 1:5 is “that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge”. 1 Corinthians 5, however, is about sexual immorality, specifically incest. essentially, Paul is angry because the Corinthians seem to have taken the sin of incest lightly, and seem proud of accepting whomever it was who was sleeping with his own stepmother. Paul commands that man to be excommunicated until he repents. Both of these are interesting because the first contains the subject of knowledge, something Richey was very interested in, and the second contains the subject of sexual immorality, another thing that fascinated Richey (or at least, sex as something useless and bland fascinated Richey). [This summary may not be 100% correct. I was raised non-religious, so I’m going off my own power of literary interpretation and random Bible sites online.]
“Canaries are always behind bars, anyway” is a quote from The Birdman Of Alcatraz, the movie about Robert F. Stroud. This is a reference to Stroud breeding canaries while in prison, and how canaries are usually in cages anyway, so they won’t mind being in a prison.
This is potentially a misspelling of “πίνει” or “pinei” which means “he drinks” in Greek. Or it could have to do with Peneus, a Thessalian river god. Peneus was the river god that turned the nymph Daphne into a laurel tree after she prayed to him to stop Apollo from pursuing her. Other than that, I haven’t a clue, unless it’s a typo he never bothered to fix.
In some interviews about JFPL, James and Nicky mention Richey being obsessed with “Van Gogh’s figure 8″, but when I google Van Gogh and figure 8 together, nothing comes up, so I have no idea what they’re talking about, unless they’re mistaking Van Gogh for another artist. They do mention that the attempt to draw a perfect freehand circle was said to drive some artists insane, and that Richey was fascinated by that idea and by perfect circles in general.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a Japanese film from 1989. Basically, a guy tries to turn himself into a machine, fails, and in his terror is hit and killed by a taxi driver, who dumps the body. Later, the taxi driver finds himself slowly turning into a machine/human of metal as the dead man gets revenge on him. In the end, he is made entirely of metal and must battle the dead man (the Metal Fetishist), and they end up fusing together in a phallic form. It is a commentary on the effect of technological advancements, especially the way that Japan was essentially forced to advance extremely rapidly in terms of technology.
“Verescit vulnere virtus” is Latin for “Courage grows strong at the wound” and is the motto of the Scottish Clan Stewart.Richey mentioned the motto in an interview with Time Out published in December 1994.
Levi’s are a popular brand of denim jeans. They started out in San Francisco. They were originally made to withstand hard labor and the wear and tear that comes from outdoor/farm work.Their 501 style jeans became the world’s best selling item of clothing. They’ve been the focus of some labor scandals, esp. in 1991 when they had “made in the USA” on jeans that were manufactured in China under “slavelike” conditions.
An Uzi is a type of submachine gun. It was used by Israeli Defense Forces in multiple situations. In 1973 it was reported that most uzis the IDF used had been damaged by the extreme conditions created by sand and dust.
“The naked light bulb is always wrong” could be a reference to Tennessee Wiliams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, in which the main character Blanche covers up all the naked lightbulbs in her sister’s apartment with paper lanterns. She covers lights and stays in shadows in order to hide from her reality. It could also be a reference to the cliched scenes in various crime dramas in which characters are interrogated under naked light bulbs.
Gracie Fields, lovely lady, lovely lady. Was I wrong, do I figure, you’re wrong If you think that..That’s bloody horrible that is, our attitudes. All queer and quaint. One more time let me sing a song. What was it. Queer and quaint us, know who,..we figure it out but it’s clear and crazy isn’t it? Die now. Finish it of now do I want to finish this song, wait a minute..oooolaaaaaa they were gentle really, even them…it’ll be a long time, maybe never, till I forgive them tho’. The biggest cock up since the great war, ahhh I’ll leave you now, it takes you a long time to realise you’re a gentleman, laaaaa, my god I love you all, yr (voice rising) all a credit. I’ll be waiting, all my cares are for you. Dreams enfold you, they leave and die. Goodnight sweetheart till we leave tonight. Hold me in your arms. Goodnight all, you’re all my friends…remember my wedding day, should’ve heard ole Bill singing, we’ll have a good old ding dong tomorrow, you’re lovely all of you, goodnight godbless I’ll always remember you, hope you liked the concert. I’ll go nice and quiet, I’ll just say cherio, here I go on my way, till we meet again, wish me luck as you wave me goodbye. Yr the best friends I ever had, yes, no, no I’m not a clever chap, I made a balls up again, first, second, third time but not on your time I hope, you’re a part of the world….oo be quiet old Bill, no applause, sleeptight, isn’t it lovely when the dawn brings the dew and I’ll be
watching over you. It was lovely singing to you, I won’t forget you. What can I say. Goodnight, sleeptight. The long day is through. That’s it, I knew I’d balls it up. Concerts over. You haven’t done bad Billy boy. Once loved now forgotten. Goodnight. Goodnight. You’re the best. You’ve been so kind, so sweet, so gentle and if we meet again the whole world smiles with you. Life is precious, I’ll just say no star no star, I’ll never forget you and say no star Bodine, I’ll remember you all, you’ll all be apart. I’ll leave so don’t be surprised if I come back. Sleeptight, goodnight. I’m just gonna close my eyes, think ‘bout my family, shed a little tear. We’re a land of singers. I’ve never had more pleasure singing to you tonight than my whole life. Come home again please. Goodnight Godbless, may all your kids be happy. Be thankfull for yr women; I’ve travelled the world and there’s nothing so special, what a lovely way to surprise you. Goodnight all..I’ll sing one more song (sings slurred national anthem). Please don’t keep me any longer oooowhat can I do now. I’ll try my best, how does it go, like a drummer boy..booombooombooooom..I was a drummer boy you know. You wouldn’t deprive a man…I don’t know when I’ll remember the words, I thought it was all cut and dried. Leave me go Jesus. I love you. I love you, I even love the devil and all even though he did me harm….all day…I’m ..it’s…it’s a…I’m really tired I’d really love to go to sleep and wake up happy, you can die happy but I wonder if you wake up happy, I’m hopeless. If I sing a song I’m down a scale or up a scale. I’ve come a long way, really, even for a tone deaf singer, if you want to know.
References explanations:
Gracie Fields was an actress, singer, and comedian in the 30s and 40s. She was a stage actress first and then film, but never enjoyed the process of making a film. In 1939, Fields suffered a breakdown and went to Capri to recuperate. During WWII she travelled to France to entertain the troops in the midst of air-raids, performing on the backs of open lorries and in war-torn areas. She was the first artist to play behind enemy lines in Berlin.
They sit around tables rendered dumb
Coloured sticks of chalk are passed around
Today the doctors allow the illusion of choice
Tomorrow the necks split, there is no voice
Draw a perfect circle, sleep foetus-like
6 chalk colours the very meaning of life
They wake to strobes and half circled light
Confusion lifts with potassium percolate
CHORUS
V-S-E-C Piggy**
Piggy** piggy**
Piggy** piggy**
BRIDGE
Clean – cooking – flower arranging
Dissolves a kind of liberation
[Accompanying page contains a photograph of birds diving into water at sunset.]
References explanations:
Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded was authorized by a 1906 bill written by eugenicist and social welfare advocate Aubrey Strode, in collaboration with eugenicists Albert Priddy and Joseph DeJarnette. Between 1927 and 1972, over 8,000 children and young teenagers were forcibly sterilized. The state claimed they had hereditary defects that would be passed on to their potential offspring: in fact most were simply poor, ill-educated and considered a financial burden on the state.
Potassium perchlorate has, in the past, been used therapeutically to treat hyperthyroidism resulting from Graves’ disease via interfering with accumulation of iodide in the thyroid, which results in the blocking of hormone production. Signs and symptoms of hyperthyroidism may include irritability, muscle weakness, sleeping problems, a fast heartbeat, poor tolerance of heat, diarrhea, and weight loss. Other symptoms may include thickening of the skin on the shins, known as pretibial myxedema, and eye problems such as bulging, a condition known as Graves’ ophthalmopathy.
