Howard Devoto's comments EXCLUSIVELY on the fourteen tracks of [buzzkunst Releases].
Robbie Williams at his most arch having a stab at 'The Light Pours Out Of Me'? Okay, maybe not.
I'm the kind of person who needs a life partner. And the lyrics to this song were written during a period a few years ago when I didn't have one. At such times, your mind and your life often start to get a little seedy. I think you know what I'm talking about.
Viruses and germs are just going about doing their evolutionary business, as innocently as any of us, whatever we might feel about them. An idea incoherently alluded to a long time ago in the Luxuria song 'Flesh', in a line about "this century of germs". It must get difficult for them sometimes.
Pete suggests this one reminds him of Eno's album Another Green World. We can both hear a bit of Bowie's Low in it too.
The album's love song. Suddenly and inexplicably feeling that one lives in 'very simple times' is a love thing, isn't it?
The most Buzzcocky song on the album, and not surprisingly the first one Pete and I worked on. A couple of great guitar solos from Pete. The title line comes from a poem I wrote when I was fourteen, at a time when I was fanatically deep into Bob Dylan. The character doing all the crying was 'Jack The Riddle'. It's entertaining to think about myself back then, a fairly wretched Leeds teenager "on an alter ego trip". The glorious 1960s – you can keep 'em. So: been there, done that. And never again, thank you.
"Slobbering on the glass" - an allusion to Dylan's 'I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine'. Although the concern here is obviously more one of beer.
Saxophones courtesy of Harrison Smith. Harry's a rather wonderful saxophonist I've known for a while here in London. And the wonders of modern technology enabled me to be Jimi Hendrix back for a few moments. Or maybe Miles plus wah-wah trumpet? (I love electric period Miles Davis.) No, I'm not convinced either, but I had a blast.
Ooh-er, wicked. The idea for the lyric came while looking through an esoteric CD collector's catalogue. One album – I think it was by the Johnny Winter Blues Band - had a song on it called 'Self-Destruction'. I just loved the unabashed nature of it as a title. A lovely sound-bite directness about it.
When my partner heard 'Self-Destruction' she asked if I was worried about its possible effect on young susceptible souls. It had crossed my mind, but then I thought about the post-Eminem era in which we all now thrive. I went, "oh yeah, right!"
The starting point for the lyric was seeing at an exhibition a couple of years ago a piece by Mona Hatoum, a Palestinian artist who now resides in Britain. Her piece consists of a mirror, the sort you'd hang on the wall in your hallway. Engraved into the surface: You Are Still Here. Which in the course of singing, got changed to You Are Still There. When you take a look at yourself in a mirror, it's the bottom-line really, isn't it? Does anything else need to be said at that moment?
See, the basic method for this album was: Pete did the grooves, and a lot of the top-line instrumental stuff is me. But 'God's Particle' is mainly Pete.
As soon as he played me the basic track, I got images of the first world war. And the title came from an article in a British newspaper (The Guardian Sept 2000) about research into particle physics and the origins of the universe. 'God's Particle' is the media name for a particular particle. The scientific community themselves call it 'the Higgs' (after one of the scientists in pursuit). Latest word is they just can't find it.
Ten out of ten if you spotted it. Yes, see 'Recoil', one of the lesser known songs on Magazine's first album Real Life. Re-working, recycling lyrics to completely different music is an experiment I've always to try.
Maybe Pete and I will recycle 'Boredom' next time. Joke. Or not?
Originally entitled 'Done By Me'. And written around a time I was wont to be heard musing that creativity is an ineffective means of obtaining happiness or enlightenment. However helpful creativity may be, when you're up on them lovely trajectories of ambition and power.
The line about "seize the surface" is from some pop artist. It's something you can or should do when you're making a painting apparently.
I wanted to write a blues song. Pete came up with this wonderful murky soundscape instead. Legend has it that "Tell them it's been wonderful," were the dying words of the philosopher Wittgenstein.
Two or three years ago I offered these lyrics to Mansun, during my brief association with them. I'd added in lines like: "Dad, I want to kill you" – "Son, I've decided to die". I thought it would make an interesting duet, but Paul Draper didn't seem to want to get into that.
Another paean to my own mortality. Trying to make it utterly trivial and absolutely epic. You know, just trying to get things in proportion:-)
"When the stars went up, the First Time". It was in Graham Hancock's bestseller Fingerprints Of The Gods where I read about "the First Time". The First Time (or 'Zep Tepi', as they apparently called it) was the ancient Egyptian version of that good old ubiquitous golden age when the gods ruled the earth. Hancock seems to be lining himself up to be Erick von Daniken II, but never mind - something about the phrase gave me a thrilling shiver.
Last Wednesday - just one of those days, wouldn't you say? Giving instrumentals titles is an interesting business. I love violin concertos. (Check out the Sibelius, it's incredible.) Vivaldi really cranked them out. Most of his were just given titles like, 'Concerto number 2 in C minor'. But one of his greatest concerto hits came when he took the trouble to give one a proper title. (Yes, 'The Four Seasons'.)
In 1978 I stayed a few days at a secluded Scottish loch and, one way and another, the lyric to the Magazine song 'Back To Nature' came about. Maybe it's because I was staying down in the valley. Or maybe it's because I was so pre-occupied with my musical career at the time. But, one way or another, I was not impressed by the spectacular Scottish landscape.
Another time, another place, and I was impressed. Hugely, lovingly impressed. Two years ago, on holiday in Italy after months and months in London. I went off on a walk by myself, up an Umbrian hill at sunrise one glorious morning. High, high up, with mists thick in the valleys. I got to thinking. Even so, the conclusion was somehow, "we're not really nature". Which I feel absolutely fine about.
Howard Devoto, February 2002 (revised).
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