THIS TOWN AIN’T BIG ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US by SPARKS. Poem by Gray Lightfoot.

 

 

Thursday May 9^th 1974 just after half past seven.
Watching the television.

There are those ‘system restore’ points in life…like Kennedy’s shooting…

Man landing on the moon…hiding from your first Dalek…

And watching Hitler play keyboards on Top of the Pops.

Piano fade in then a boy with dark curls starts to sing

And there’s Adolf on keyboards or is it the singer’s disapproving dad?

“This town ain’t big enough for the both of us…” de-duh-deh-duh.

Gunshot. “…and it ain’t me who’s going to leave!”

The next three minutes were wondrous and would last for ever.

As I closed my mouth… my taste for the weird had begun.

But who were they – this Sparks? No internet back then.

No instant information. You remained agog before Google.

No way to know until Melody Maker or Sounds

Landed at the back of the door and told you so.

Next day’s ‘water cooler moment’ – before I knew of such things

Or that dehydration in the workplace was even a concern –

Took place in the mill’s smoke room – a windowed coffin –

Where even non-smokers (not that there were many)

Would take a break…just so that they could have one.

Did you see him…Hitler? Scary…in his teacher’s shirt and tie.

But this was a new Hitler; no kidding Mister.

On our side…not like in comics…or on TV;

No longer the enemy according to NME.

The singer was Russel Mael. Teenage posterboy

Almost androgynous in twin set and girl’s…voice.

The other – his brother’s grim-faced persona was Ron,

Reclaiming the toothbrush moustache for the arts

(long before Richard Herring even thought of it).

More Chaplinesque than Hitlerite, although much later

In a song discussing the merits of the moustache, would write

“When I trimmed it real small, my Jewish friends would never call.”

But I’m digressing…splitting hairs. I needed to have that single

This town ain’t got a record shop. No downloads then. No Amazon.

Hamstrung until work allows you a bus trip to Nelson to buy it

From Les at The Electron. Les…the guy all the boys wanted to be

Les was cool without trying. Cool …before I knew of such things.

Then the album. I couldn’t wait…but had to…you had to then.

Kimono My House…I’m already there in the bedroom

With two glam geisha girls one shocked one flirty. Roxy by proxy.

Slide the record out of the sleeve. Thick, heavy vinyl.

A desert Island disc overlapping the small mono player;

Not even a Dansette (which at least had nostalgia on its side)

To mark this momentous occasion. Put the needle on the record

Play! And what music…Russell’s falsetto surfs a tsunami of sound;

Nothing indiscreet…just big beats and a rush of exhilarating harmony.

Tight grandiose production…before I knew of such things.

No “gratuitous sax and senseless violins” here.

Sat on the bed, I bask in the entirety of the sound;

Pick up the inner sleeve and read. Lyrics by Ron Mael…

The one who’s not going to get the girls but will, at least,

Have less distractions and more time to write.

I attempt to sing-a-long to the breathtaking pace

Deciphering staccato signals like an overstretched Bletchley girl;

All the while noticing…noticing that the words are funny

…puns…double-entendres…before I knew of such things.

Wise words imbued with a sense of the absurd taken on board.

Songs that asked questions…but not the same old questions

Like – ‘Will you still love me tomorrow? ‘Or – ‘How can I be sure?’

But questions that an eighteen year old boy needed answering

Like on sex…how will I know if I’m doing it right, Ron?

“It’s a lot like playing the violin.

 You cannot start out and be Yehudi Menuhin.”

Or holiday romances…are they a good idea?

“I tried to tell you in the night that with a girl like you I could do without

 guided tours

 You tried to tell me in the day that your leading exports were textiles and

iron ore.”

Or just say me and my girl are prevented from being together

Like Romeo and Juliet and the pair of us decide to end it all

By jumping off a cliff; only she has second thoughts

And watches me plummet to my death? How will I feel?

That kind of question, Ron.

“Up here in heaven without you. I’m here in heaven without you

It is hell knowing that your health will keep you out of here

For many, many years.”

And, from a young man who works in the Complaints department,

The question…What if she gets pregnant, Ron?

“Now she says she is expecting. That’s my fault for not protecting

Her from all the risks of passion. She’s complaining. She’s old fashioned. Just give it back. No questions asked.”

A near-subliminal opinion on abortion in 1974;

Almost as well-hidden as the address of a back-street clinic.

Johnny Rotten would broach the subject three years later

In far more graphic detail and with a little less discretion.

It’s easier to get away with it dressed in a cardigan.

Over forty years on, Sparks are still performing;

Like musical Gallifreyans, regenerating at a rapid pace

Who “could start a song as tenor and then end as bass.”

Maybe that first sighting of Hitler tickling the ivories

Was the catalyst to a new way of thinking…a world of ‘what ifs’

And third eye imaginings told in another voice;

Where the words needed to be up there with the music.

Was it then that I became a poet…for the first time?

Not literally letters on the page but inside my head.

A way of thinking…a need to find the joy in everything

To seek a smile (result!) or look for laughter (bonus!)

Did Sparks make me creative…did they fire my passion?

Leave me strolling to the beat of a different drum machine?

On occasion the music passed me by…but never the words.

Those lyrical waxings cut it for me. Vinyl chapbooks

That offered the alternative before it turned up anyway.

From a sad-faced clown…the only wry eye in the house.

A downbeat poet ‘Whose words do not cease to be

Poetry simply because music is tagged on’

(and here I namedrop a ‘lightened up’ Morrissey).

Ron Mael…musical genius no question;

His moustache now more Cab Calloway than Chaplin.

Back then…in 1974, the image drew me in

But the poet keeps me close and I ain’t gonna leave!

 

 

© gray lightfoot

Stereo Story #738

(Everything in quotation marks are the lyrics of Ron Mael.)