Today’s blog is by William E Drummond. It meets none of the rules for the GANTOB blog, but rules are there to be broken, especially when you are one of the authors of 2023: A trilogy. So we have allowed it.
It takes us back to a discussion with Paul Simpson earlier this month, and then further back to Telstar, a song that hit the Billboard Christmas Number 1 almost 61 years ago (the UK number one that year was Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree). I didn’t think that you would want to wait for the anniversary (22 December) to read it.
Over to you William…
Have you ever shot your landlady dead?
On the evening of the 6th of December 2023, I asked Paul Simpson of The Wild Swans…
‘What are lyrics for?’
Paul Simpson’s inferred answer was ‘Some pop songs are so great, they do not need to have lyrics made from words sung by a singer, one’s imagination just creates the abstract lyrics while hearing the song, like Telstar by The Tornados.’
I agreed with Paul Simpson.
But his answer triggered some thoughts…
What follows are those thoughts…
While I guess most of us would be in agreement, that our lives would have been well spent, if we had died at the age of 27, and we had achieved in those years what Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix or Amy Winehouse had done.
I mean they must be looking down, pretty pleased with what they made in their allotted time.
Maybe it gets a bit more difficult when, the would-be protagonist, has suffered from depression and then maybe taken their own life, like Nick Drake at the age of 26. But now almost 50 years after his death, Nick Drake must be feeling some sort of reward, knowing that in his short life, he produced three of the most revered albums ever – even if hardly anyone gave a fuck about them, in his own lifetime.
But harder still for Billy McKenzie, taking your own life at the age of 39, and now, 27 years later, still knowing you had only ever made one record that is truly celebrated, as in Party Fears Two.
But…
I want to take things up a few notches.
For the year leading up to February 2020, when I had the first of my major brain seizures, I would regularly stand at the same bus stop on Holloway Road, London, while waiting for the 393, to turn up and take me back to my flat.
But…
This bus stop on the Holloway Road was next to 304 Holloway Road, as in where Joe Meek had his recording studio…
As in the Joe Meek that had recorded the record Telstar by The Tornados, as in the record that I had heard in the Ayr Skating Rink back in 1962…
As in the moment that I had my mind totally and utterly blown to pieces by a piece of music like it has never been before or since.
Now any Joe Meek fanatic, like myself, will tell you, this 304 Holloway Road, is where this Joe Meek shot and killed his landlady before shooting and killing himself.
And this is the question I struggled with every morning as I stood and waited for the 393, and my brain waited to have its first major brain seizure…
Would I be willing to shoot and kill my landlady before doing the same to myself, if I could have only made a record one fraction as mind shattering as Telstar by The Tornados when heard in the Ayr Ice Rink circa 1962?
Most mornings the 393, would turn up before I had to come up with an answer to the question. And other mornings, I would just dismiss the question out of hand. But there was the odd morning, where I would arrive at the conclusion, it would be worth the shooting and killing of your landlady and then turn the gun on yourself, in the knowledge it meant you could have created one of the greatest pieces of music to have ever been heard by any nine-year-old girl or boy in the Ayr Ice Rink in 1962.
William E Drummond
Written Friday the 15th of December 2023
Published, for the first time, on gantob.blog 16 December 2023
Mr Drummond’s post was contributed as part of #Demokratisation – handing the blog over to contributors other than boring old GANTOB, The Benefaktor, The Foundation Doktor and the rather more popular Little Grapefruit and Angharad.
There are still a few slots on the blog available for the remaining days of December.
People with a blog accepted during December will receive a copy of the book of the blog, including their contribution and that of Mr Drummond, as part of a very small print run.
The only conditions are that the blog should relate to the GANTOBverse and be exactly 400 words. Further details at gantob.blog/book (ignoring the deadlines).
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