I went arse over tit while out walking Hannah this morning. It was a beatific Sunday morning, full of sunshine and blue skies and white fluffy clouds, and it was a stupid thing to happen. On a grassy bit, I was looking at the ground anyway because there are many potholes and divots on the open spaces of our locale, when my right foot decided to slip into said divot and my ankle ricked. I felt the crunch and I went down. However, due to my superior athletic ability and cobra-like senses, I managed to roll into the fall and roll out on my left shoulder. No harm done, other than my right ankle smarting somewhat. And there I am looking forward to a nice long walk in the morning to the doctors…I think this time, it might be a hobble.
One of the benefits of the diabetes eating away my nerve endings is that pain isn’t the pain I used to feel. It is deadened somewhat, there’s no edge to it. So there’s always a silver lining!
It was three years ago to the day that I completed the remixing of a proposed 10th anniversary edition of EchoNET and the 70 minutes of extra material from those sessions that I dubbed NetECHO. S’funny because I was only thinking of releasing that stuff today. I did it and put in the folder and forgot about it. I doubt anyone would be interested anyway. But do I release NetECHO separately and make it its own alternative version of EchoNET or do I do the rejiggered EchoNET with all the offcuts as a bonus disc? I think that quandary was what stalled my decision making process three years ago… 🤔
Alex guarding the shed where half of EchoNET was recorded and mixed.
The digital archive says this was recorded in 1995, but I distinctly remember writing this when I was unemployed during the summer of 1994.
So yes, this is a song about the mundane existence and utter frustration of being unemployed after leaving university. I remember applying to over 100 jobs – in those days you kept the rejection letters (remember them) as evidence to take to the Job Centre to prove you were actively seeking work. And boy, was I actively seeking work, but I’m one of those people who never seems to get called up and when I do, finds it hard to land the position.
But the point is that I’ve always been writing these kind of songs.
Here are the words so you can all sing along!
When I get up it’s half past two Not in the morning, the afternoon Why should I get up There’s nothing to do I’ve got no work Or nowhere to go
If do go out There’s no money to spend Don’t talk to anyone I’ve lost touch with my friends There seems to be no end
I don’t remember how it got this way I don’t even know how I make it through the day There’s no escape You know it’s true There’s nothing else when I’ve nothing to do
If I’m lucky I might go into town Some window shopping But that gets me down In the summer, I don’t go very far Sit on the bench and watch all the cars
In the night, I don’t go to bed I write these stupid songs That don’t make much sense I don’t make much sense
I don’t remember how it got this way I don’t even know how I make it through the day There’s no escape You know it’s true There’s nothing else when I’ve nothing to do
Nothing to do Nowhere to go No-one to meet No-one to phone No reason to sleep No reason to wake Nothing to give Nothing to take No reason to laugh No reason to cry No reason to live No reason to die
I must not give up hope Give me one reason why I must not give up hope Give me one reason why I must not give up hope Give me one reason why I must not give up hope Give me one reason why Give me one reason why Just one reason why
I get easily distracted…what was it I was going to say? Anyway, sometimes I am doing one thing and then I end up going off on a tangent and doing something completely off-piste. For example, I am trying to write some more material for “L” but then I got to thinking about “Americana” – a concept album I did awhile back and some of the vocals for that I was never happy with. For example, the track “The Long Goodbye” was meant to have the devil singing to the lead character. It was the big finale, but I was never happy with the way it turned out. It wasn’t demonic enough. I should have gone with my gut instinct and used a pitch shifter on my voice to make it more like the horny red fellow from the movies Fantasia or Legend in an auditory sense, rather than me gurning my voice.
So off went to the digital Lock archive to dig out the master files and I’ve been plinking and plonking away, trying to make this last track sound more like the image in my head. And here we go, here is that track remixed and made more “demonic” that its original counterpart.
And to think, it’s only another two years until the ten-year anniversary of that collection and maybe its about time I finished the follow-up “Whatever Happened to Eddie Pilgrim?”
Anyway, here’s the rejiggered track for your enjoyment!
If you click any Amazon or Adsense link featured on this website, I will earn a shiny silver micro-penny. (I’m just doing this to make sure that I’m abiding by FTC law in the US, which has zero bearing in the UK)
