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Well, it must have been about half past two in the morning, and just sitting there in the front
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room, with Carl and Brendan and Adrian. We’re just sitting listening to music, drinking tea,
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talking about the Palace Brothers, Bonnie Prince Billy, that kind of thing. All of a sudden the
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room fills with a harsh brightness and in barges my sister mob-handed from cream. She points
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at the speakers on the stereo and starts chanting: “Shit band, no fans. Shit band no fans.”
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Well, I’m just about to defend our corner when her mate Natalie at the back pipes up with:
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“Yeah, the windy minimalism of that last track recalls some of Labradford’s isolationist period.”
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Thoroughly defeated, I retired upstairs to bed, left them to it. However, step forward three
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years into my secret hayloft, shot with shafts of afternoon sunlight:
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Brendan’s changed his name to Federal Metronome.
A7 D G A7 D
Did you see me, being escorted round the ground?
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Motorola in the pocket of my Wampum jeans –
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Over the amber Continental I made a comic bid for freedom.
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There are a million retired liberals watching “Countdown”. And in the adverts the close their
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eyes and they go to Umbria with Carol.
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Oh Carol. Oh Carol.
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They subscribe to “Erotic Review” because it’s broadsheet acceptable, and they can read it
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in bed with their partners and perhaps try out suggested oils. Ah, but they still feel the need
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to board an EasyJet to Amsterdam every now and again.
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‘Cos you can’t get “Teenage Eskimo” in Wantage.
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See the keepers hanging rancid in the glade
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Arconada, Pfaff and Bats and Joseph-Antoine Bell.
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I hope for answers in the distance, far beyond dim sierras.
Go on; ask me what we do next. Just attribute it to King Alfred and go like this….