OEDIPUS WRECKS

BY ANON

THE OEDIPUS WRECKS GIG, CAMDEN TOWN, CIRCA 1998

Nota Bene. Oedipus Wrecks were a three-piece, energetic too, who played gigs just before the Millennium in London and the surrounding area. We took our name from a friend of the band called “Dr. Calculator Ptom,” whose wit we have to thank for that name that so suited us. We were, or I was, aiming for Doors lyrics and Nirvana riffs. The genre I had in my notebook and my mind was Grime already in those days as a mid-Atlantic equivalent of grunge but in the end we were said to have foreshadowed Doom. Oedipus Wrecks was basically about still singing along when The Lords And The New Creatures getting real had been too horrible and disgusting. I’m going to show you the lyrics to the set-list interwedged with paragraphs of prose about the surrounding time, and pertaining to a crepuscular twilight zone. Oedipus Wrecks was basically an experiment in rhythm. We also tried to shock and scare the audience through offence.

I

OCEANS SMILE

Oceans smile with liquid eyes

and fill themselves with rain.

The tide goes out and leaves me

lost, the last thing a glass gene.

Follow me to the resurrection

while the blind get crucified.

My weapon’s only loaded in my eyes.

Death will come on silky wings

but I for one will not go.  

A soul is endless, oceans open

and keeeeeeeps a perfect O.

Follow me to the resurrection

while the blind get crucified.

My weapon’s only loaded in my eyes.

Go drink the ocean with your tea

cup, give your heart far out.

If oceans smile with liquid eyes

then they'll give you a shout.

Follow me to the resurrection

while the blind get crucified.

My weapon’s only loaded in my eyes.

Too drunkenly I sail the water

on Rimbaud’s smoking boat.

With whiskygills primed in fire

I sail the waves to Boot.

Follow me to the resurrection

while the blind get crucified.

My weapon’s only loaded in my eyes.

(reconstructed via the new, synchronised word)

THE ISLAND OF PENGUINS

One night, two friends from Dr. Calculator Ptom’s school and I attained the island of penguins, out there night-walking in Eskdale, on a camping trip in the Lakes. It was a vision in the truest sense of the word, both in its containment of the divine, as in our being three gathered in the name, and in it possibly being born of Rimbaudian derangement of the senses. I am then said to have proved the island of penguins with the first verse of the first song at my first gig. The problem, however, is that if the line (or maybe two lines) belongs to the house I should possibly be made to be Anon with it all these years later. Then again if you take the line/s away from me surely that would mean attaining the island of penguins has become a regrettable event – which nobody wants to see. To this day it still hasn’t been sorted out. The line came into being for me one day when I was reading Rimbaud, and was never intended to be proof of the island of penguins. In the meantime it transpires that the island of penguins might’ve been observed on the other side of the universe!

II

SECRETS IN THE MUD

This is the sound of getting totally fucked.

Of when you first get your notebook sucked.

Of changing gold into Glastonbury mud.

Of lying down in a field with your bud.

This is the music through whom we aspire.

This is the rule book that is thrown on the fire.

This is the jam where the trousers are down.

This is the wine-shop on the edge of town.

Chorus: Glastonbury, you should be free, and all you have in your big city,

you hit my G, you make me see how I want to see,

lights go down, lights come on,

and all my sadness seems to be gone,

although I still love to be what I dream I am.

[guitar solo]

MEANWHILE

In the meantime, Dr. Calculator Ptom (who named the band but didn’t play) liked the movie La Heine, where there’s a gorgeous bit of urban poetry about society falling from a high-rise building, thinking to itself “so far so good, so far so good” all the way down. I had some poetry myself, or thought I did, inside me, as well as writing what I thought were good words to the songs.

III

VITAL SIGNS

Smile like a smile just to smile,

cast to Heaven for a while...

let's rip holes in the boat,

throw the captain overboard,

throw the angels off the bridge,

death comes and stops me getting

bored of life's soul-machine.

What we need is energy,

show me all your vital signs,

what we steal is what we need,

what we need to feel alive,

for I'm alive with vital signs.

Back to Hell to plunder wings,

let the ritual now begin,

come and ride the waiting beast,

ride it gone into the fire,

ride it to the waiting feast,

my baby's waiting to get higher,

to get higher, to get higher...

what we need is energy,

show me all your vital signs,

what we steal is what we need,

what we need to feel alive,

for I'm alive with vital signs,

yeah feel alive with vital signs.

Come again there's much to do,

don't you know that I love you?

IN THE MEANTIME

Meanwhile, Dr. Ptom and I were part of a group of intellectuals, a circle, who watched weird films like Eraserhead and The Warriors. We even kissed so willing we were to try new things. We would have tried out a new alphabet had we the opportunity. Dr. Ptom was a poet too… he had one about Zeus and the conjunction of souls I liked but knew I did not understand.

IV

KILL

My eyes sting,

my teeth are bleeding raw,

too much thought

to make me sick.

Stinky clothes

and mouth become

my skin and all

these fruits I want to kill.

Give my hope,

surrender to the tide,

you can take

my remains;

but I must go,

to wash the poison

from my eyes,

before, before, before I kill.

THROUGH THE WOODS

On the night we boarded a train not knowing where it was headed, Dr. Calculator Ptom and I fell asleep, and were woken at dawn, in Luton, by the conductor, who let us off not having a ticket and sent us back the same way from which we came! We ended up sleeping in a suburban wood, under leaves, when we got back to Radlett! I remember mostly that it was cold! We could still find a portal under the leaves and open it and find stairs that lead down into dark earth, and follow them down and find the Nobel Prize Ceremony inside… all sorts of besuited gents sitting down. Or we could take the route of New Realism instead.

V

MOTHER IS DEAD

Fuck this, fuck that, fuck me yeah,

I wish that I had been there,

been there to saaaaaave Jesus,

I'm sure he meant to please us.

Mother is dead,

mother is dead,

mother is dead.

We're young and filled with semen,

we're going to break some hymen,

we'll make the cops turn in their badges,

we're going over all the edges yeah.

Mother is dead,

mother is dead,

mother is dead.

EMILY’S GARDEN

Emily was my first proper gf; and one night Dr. Ptom, another lad and I went round her house to see her and two of her friends. We were about 14 or 15; and as soon as we got in the house, Dr. Ptom and I went straight out into the back garden, where there was a trampoline, and started to send a green parrot through the conch to outer space, so to speak; and we started cackling like hyenas in the crackling desert reaffirming the pact; and the end result was that it was the end of my relationship with Emily.

VI

SNAKE SNAKE BUTTERFLY

Snake snake butterfly, lay me dead & close my eyes.

Angel serpentine, she waits on the Other Side.

Give me your alibi; give me chains to stop me fly;

give me night to soothe my blinded eyes:

so I can see the secrets of the skies.

We must rise, freedom falling from our eyes,

unlock doors, it's a perfect time to die,

and it's okay ‘cause baby we'll go insane

but don't reach out too far for the flame.

Snake snake butterfly, lead me to the Other Side.

Angel serpentine, she waits on the Other Side.

FAREWELL TO THE DAY

I remember well when I had to say farewell to the day. We were down at Will Fenn’s holiday house in Devon; and I was tearful that I was moving on; and Dr. Ptom said “there’s going to be a massive, John-shaped hole in my life now.” I am 44 and still hear his voice on magic alphabet radio, or the intercom, or whatever you want to call it! Although he didn’t play an instrument or write the music, he wanted to invent a word-chord synthesiser to go in our band (which was otherwise a three piece.)

VII

THE GHOSTS LAMENT (THE GUZZLER MEN)

I'm the only one left, left to shoot my

own gun. This is the dead land. Crack a smile

and curse the sun. Death awaits to fuck me.

Give me bliss and give me kisses. Death a-

waits to save me. The ghosts lament, the ghosts

lament. Come on baaaaaaaaaby, you know it's e-

asy, don't say maaaaaaaaaybe, let's go crazy. Death

awaits to fuck me. Give me bliss and give

me kisses. Death awaits the same me. The

ghosts lament, the ghosts lament, no more ghosts.

||||.

TOAST

The latter song, looking back, sees the sublimation of The Lords And The New Creatures into a singular, pronominal act of Romantic, first person lyricism. “I’m the only one left,” it went; for I was smuggling The Lords And The New Creatures. But I never intended to literally curse the sun if that is even possible; for the chorus was written first, the bit you’d think was the curse, then the verses came second and I was just trying to make it rhyme. It did strike me about twenty years later that it might’ve looked like I was trying to curse the sun, but that was never an intention at the time. The song was also the one that was used for my brother James’s sheet where pictures grew, pictures seemingly depicting that lyric, and he says <BEE> might soon ensue from @ in the international language alphabet. It’s a shame we can’t use the sheet where pictures grew. My presentation on Oedipus Wrecks would benefit from it but I am forbidden from showing you my photograph of it even though it was my discovery because it shouldn’t be online. In fact, the whole business of my being the new Syd might necessitate a revelation of the sheet in the presentation, but as I say I am newly banned from showing it. As for the equation for the ratio between sunlight falling and Gravity pulling on the sheet, if it is “c over G,” I’d say it’s the same as “backward f, forward f, equals running through.”

VIII

HEAVEN KNOWS

Heaven knows and walks away -

but what it knows it will not say.

It’s impossible to make a cowboy film in space?

Heaven knows and turns its face!

Heaven’s filled with silver eyes.

Heaven’s hills all harmonise.

I hear its angels when they call...

Heaven knows and lets them fall!

[reconstructed]

BEDROOM

I remember when I had started my new school Oundle going back to see Dr. Calculator Ptom in Radlett and playing a new song I had written since the loss of my virginity and acid virginity too. I was in a new band called Secret Chord H, and this new song was called ‘Dream With Open Eyes’ and was all about love. One commentator in Ptom’s bedroom where I played it said my voice had gotten a lot better. My new mate Paul, from Oundle School, had urged me to leave behind the old Oedipus Wrecks set-list. I was a bit peeved off by that because I thought I was sitting on something as beautiful as an antique; but Paul was so full of praise for my new songs that I took his advice. The Oedipus Wrecks set list didn’t even get as far as my A-levels!

AURORA FLOREALIS REVISITED

Gilly flowers curtsey, not off the sound-map.

To make a flower-press would be womanly.

When our days still ended on cannabis

we would bemoan that flowers were legal.

To the tune of the wind I sink, then swim.

I no longer puff the evil weed these days.

It would be a reward, a kind of dialysis,

that separates the murk from the excellence.

I would need it to balance out my mind,

one homeostatic device for another one.

Now I worry that I am hurried and florid.

I hear an A. E. I. O. U. bird toot its long,

hollow horn out on the A595 and relax.

I hear its wheels go round, that it’s heavy.

*ketamineguitar*

BACK TO PROBLEM ONE

Back to Problem 1: it is that I proved the island of penguins with my first verse but the lines belong to the house, which I didn’t know, and so should remain Anon – but at the same time if you take the offending two lines away from me, you make attaining the island of penguins a regrettable event. Well, according to a different Tom, (Dr. Tom Pollak), who was there at both the island of penguins and the first Oedipus Wrecks gig, the only way to win this fight is to go Anon in the dead of night and it will make you feel alright because you’ve done the right thing. Then you will be graced by sensations of pleasure, waves of happiness, healing energy, like the holy glow you get from your first Glastonbury Festival. That’s because you’ve done the right thing. That’s just like we did when at first Glastonbury LSD was first tasted. Pulp came on at night-fall with a song called ‘The Fear’ and it blew my mind. Bob Dylan had been on before him, his Time Out Of Mind period, but it wasn’t the same as his early days, and I preferred Pulp.

TO UPKEEP A LOST SENSE OF BALANCE

Look out Syd they keep it all hid.

Then you might see how that’s a big one.

Then I went to work instead.

I think it’s mum that said it was food time.

I think they’re going to do mum first.

She doesn’t belong in an asylum

and even more than that, we see

like me she doesn’t belong in prison.

So we see mother isn’t dead…

she just made us a curry in the kitchen.

Quite what I was on about before

doesn’t matter and has been forgotten.

The curry itself was far from dull,

full of spice and pieces of chicken.

She usually makes it all from scratch

but this time put a helping jar in.

VOICES

One of my voices comments, of the Oedipus Wrecks set list, that “we got you were really unhappy and we wondered what had gone on.” At the same time the school’s headboy had written a poem called ‘Washing Up.’ I asked him if it was about meditation and he said maybe, but cleansing the Doors of Perception, looking back, was probably more the subject than Nirvana.

KILL REVISITED

Kill who?

Kill nobody.

Just a word from a passionate

moment in the Doors film,

turned into music,

for a celebration

of love and life.

If you didn’t get that,

I am sorry. I wouldn’t

even say it was

my father in

that Freudian,

metaphorical sense –

just me as the boyhood witness,

by now pointed to the Doors,

by the Jews, and making

a teenage rock song,

a glorious moment

out of cinema history.

NOTE ON THE BAND NAME “OEDIPUS WRECKS”

As stated, my friend Dr. Calculator Ptom named the band upon hearing my songs. He used to say gnomic things like “the universe is a projection of the mind.” “The G note is green on the guitar fretboard.” “Born Slippy is evidence dance can have a soul.” “Poetry is untranslatable because of the music.” “Death is God.” “Early Oasis is good for bittersweet, comedown energy.” It was his brilliant idea that we board a train not knowing where it was headed in the middle of the Night in London. By now he is Dr. Calculator Thomas and the song is ‘Born Slippery.’

TELEPATHY HAS BEEN PROVEN

Once upon a time, an interlocutor, possibly meaning my old friend and bloodbrother the philosopher Dr. Calculator Ptom, picked up my hands while I was at the screen in a different part of the country and got me to type:

He found himself on a plane.

He found himself on a.

He found himself on.

He found himself.

He found.

P.

But what “P” means we do not know. Wittgenstein for example would say:

P = ~ ~ P.

I later heard it said that the wing-shaped calligramme is the only good bit in the whole of my oeuvre, and whilst I contest this, it might still be true, depending on your hermeneutic autonomy and subjective taste.

My point, which I left out so far, is that I would say that the wing-bit is still mine own, in the sense that if you hear voices they are your own thoughts, and if you write them down you needn’t become Anon, thankfully. I imagine Dr. Calculator Ptom feeling (if only a little bit) peeved off that the calligramme is mine, but being a Liberalist, I am sure he would take it in good humour.

VOICES

They’ve told me what bits of my oeuvre to put in for the last few pages and then left it up to me as to whether or not I go Anon, when I post it on my Blogspot page. When posed this question I think of two very different types of courage. One – using my own name – is like the courage to rebel and the other – going Anon – like the courage to throw yourself away.

“And while you lie back in the night-time, unable to sleep, dreaming of going downstairs to make a bacon sandwich, we all think the Oedipus Wrecks one is the best you’ve ever done.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Dr. Tom Pollak, Dr. Tom Fitzgerald, Alick Goldenburg, Steve Kanfer, Susie Tucker, James Tucker, Ben Fridja, voices, God and the universe.