56. 10 Songs for the Aftermath

Death of a Party - blur
11.11 - Rufus Wainwright
Aftermath - REM
After the Goldrush - Neil Young
Sunday Morning - Velvet Underground
Papa was a Rolling Stone - The Temptations
Talkin' World War III Blues - Bob Dylan
My Love Has Gone - Josh Rouse
Sequestered in Memphis - The Hold Steady
Left Alone Among the Living - Spearmint

I'm just back from watching The Hurt Locker, which really is one hell of a film, and in a couple of different ways fits in with my train of thought. First of all in terms of PTSD, which I couldn't know anything about, but which is looked at in the film in the sense of ... what do you do after? how can you do anything after? and secondly there were scenes in it which fit in with the title of the poem I've written underneath ... eerily.
In these songs, there are various different types of aftermaths - which reminds me, when the Rolling Stones released the album 'Aftermath' in the 60s, Ringo Starr suggested to the rest of the Beatles that they call their next album - which turned out to be 'Rubber Soul' - 'After Geography'. As a joke. Cos he was the joker. In the Beatles. Peace. But no autographs.
The much-maligned Snow Patrol's second album is called 'When it's all over we still have to clear up' and they have a song with that name too, and the title exemplifies one kind of aftermath, that kind of 'shit what happened i don't remember o no we've got to clear up' feeling you get in extremis in films like The Hangover and Very Bad Things, and that Yellow Pages advert from the early 90s, you know the one. Films does this better than songs, probably, but Sequestered in Memphis is rather a good narrative song.
Then I suppose there's the aftermath in terms of the people left behind, whether in Papa was a Rolling Stone or the Spearmint Song Left Alone Among the Living - some people just leave a wake behind them.
Then I guess there's the After the Goldrush boom and bust idea, and Talkin' World War III Blues is about what happens after the big explosion. I think the Rufus Wainwright song is, too, in a more real way.
Anyway, I wrote this after reading a passage in the book '45' by Bill Drummond, who used to be in the KLF. I liked the book very much at the time, indeed could say i was inspired by the author's wild art terrorist pranks and his bemused attitude to them, but the passage in question was out of step with the rest of the book - beautiful and surprising.
Anyway, this is called

THE CALM AFTER THE CRASH

Call it the calm after the crash,
Two planes in mid-air come down just yards apart
then silence splits the land.

Festivals abound - I'm tired after half a night.
No one can pick me up on the lapses in my thought.

The calm after the crash -
the theatre empties within seconds.
They've all got trains to catch,
the drama is forgotten.

Turbulence - a child's word -
a parent's anecdote, the nausea descends
on eavesdroppers unwitting.
"I'd be so good for no one
I've been no good for you
I'm clutching at thin air
and you, you're only smoking."

Two aeroplanes have crashed,
collided in mid-air
Rain's falling, wind is blowing -
the fires have both gone out.
New life is springing up,
moss to cover cracks -
the calm after the crash.


So, that's it, really. Silence after everything.