Wake Up Bad Guy

The third of my track-by-track looks at Future Ghosts. I'll try to post these more frequently, if only to get them all done before my next album - currently in progress - is finished and released. 

 sometimes feel as if i passed out

drunk at century's turn; woke up

to be told through hungover glaze

by a laughing puppet that it's 2015

 

that sudden flick of a switch;

one moment 2000 light years from home

the next pressed against

the wall of a club

 

beer-sodden and cigarette-rolling

and the universe’s central spin

dancing in a frock coat

and with swaying bob before me

 

Musically, this draws on elements of the Logos track deepblue2519, from Shamania. The text is straightforward, I think, and requires little in the way of clarification. The first four lines date from 5 January 2014 and appeared on my Twitter feed that day. The remainder is older; I can't say when exactly - likely c.2008 or earlier - I came across it while leafing through old notebooks in search of something else, and the two texts seemed to fit together. I'd imagine it was inspired by my first falling for the woman who became my ex-wife, in a London goth club in 2001.

 

Some further textual comments. Regarding the first four lines, I once half-jokingly commented that I passed much of the first decade of this century drinking heavily, playing computer games, and making crop circles. I'm still trying to catch up. The title, Wake Up Bad Guy, will of course sound familiar to Halo players. Puppets and puppetry are a recurring motif throughout Future Ghosts, no doubt due to my re-reading Thomas Ligotti at the time of writing much of it.

 

"2000 light years from home" is, as many of you will no doubt be aware, the title of a Rolling Stones song (and one of the few Stones songs I'm a fan of). It is also referenced in my text An Alien Alcoholic In London

 

Currently reading: History Of The SS - G S Graber

Currently listening: Gung Ho - Patti Smith