Woodstock - Joni Mitchell
Chillout Tent - The Hold Steady
It Ended on an Oily Stage - British Sea Power
Coma Girl - Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros
Sorted for Es and Whizz - Pulp
Camping Next to Water - Badly Drawn Boy
All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground
Glastonbury Song - The Waterboys
Festival - Sigur Ros
Memories of a Free Festival - David Bowie
Well, I must say, it has taken an extraordinary effort to muster these ten, and I should be heavily commended for it. It would not have been acceptable to just go for "festival favourites" or songs associated with festival performances, like, say, Jimi Hendrix doing The Star-Spangled Banner. Obviously the Badly Drawn Boy is just about camping, so that's not the best, and the Velvet Underground one inspired a future festival, but I allowed myself that. There was also a song I found on iTunes called Glastonbury by Scouting for Girls. It won't surprise those familiar with that band's work that, from the 30 second listen I gave it, it was simply the worst song ever. Quite impressively, Scouting for Girls have released 6 of the worst 10 songs ever. They are the worst band ever. Ever.
I've had the most tremendous fun at festivals. I don't think there's anything terribly insightful I have to say about them beyond that. The worst thing that happened to me at a festival was when I was very drunk at Benicassim watching Oasis, getting to the end of my 5th litre of Heineken - yes, I know, everything about this screams class, Brit abroad watching Oasis drinking Heineken by the litre -and my chums had decided to go watch something cooler - even Oasis John - but I was sticking it out because, you know, it's Oasis, they're going to play Live Forever and things, but this 5th litre container was just all unpleasantness by the end, so I thought I'd pour out the dregs at the bottom. So i bent down and as gently as i could poured them on the ground. Benicassim isn't, like most festivals, on soft receptive grass, but on hard Spanish tarmac, so bouncing and splashing there was. "Eurgh, what's that? Are you taking a piss?" said the angry English woman beside me. "This guy's pissing on the ground" "Are you pissing on the ground, mate? That's disgusting" "I suppose these are the kinds of animals you get watching Oasis" etc I was the Benicassim One, accused of a crime i didn't commit. I didn't at the time have the oratorial skills to depend myself beyond "I didn't. No, I really didn't" so it is sad for these people that they will go to their grave with one memory and one memory alone of me. I bet you're wondering now if I'm protesting too much and I actually did what I was accused of, and no I didn't. I'm no Gregor Wallace.
Anyhoo, magnificent memories outnumber this 100 to 1, come rain, come extreme heat, obscene hangover, kids keeping you up all night playing their own songs, booming Spanish techno till 10 in the morning, Geoff Hoon - you've got to love all that stuff.
I guess this covers the aftermath of festivals in various ways
Thanks given all round for being so candid
Tents were zipped up and the fire snuffed out
leaving the throng safe with just enough doubt
that they were wise to've been so open-handed
The sun's coming on from the hilltop beyond
and we will learn to believe again.
Hip dim wits hypnotised by fake Irish folk
songs delivered with the bare cheek of a charmer
slipping his slick darts through cheap, weak armour
of campfire counsellors in on all but the joke
but the sun's coming over the hilltop beyond
and you will learn to think again.
If I could even come near to a natural high
I wouldn't look so down on your docile wanders
into sweet hereafters and mild blue yonders
that constant conscious has forced me pass by
But the sun's coming over the hilltop beyond
and you will learn to breathe again.
Ropes tripped kick in fresh paranoid tricks
of numbers and figures not for the fitting,
of truths about freedom too bleak for admitting
broken hopes, shattered schemes little can fix
but the sun's coming over the hilltop beyond
and I will learn to compute again.
Shit, it always seem so gloomy when you read it back, don't it? Not intended that way. It's really all about having a hangover. Perhaps I'll call it 'The Hangover'
I like it, I like the pissing story, I like the inclusion of Pulp's great song, and I like the poem, and the fact that comments are now working properly.
ReplyDeleteThanks. It's one of my best pissing stories, so I didn't want to throw it away lightly. Just as it's a relief you didn't throw yours away lightly
ReplyDelete