vented spleen

 John Lydon

In pop the good die young, and so they ought to.  Nobody wants to see their good looks fade, or that youthful swagger dwindle into the stiff gait of middle age – least of all the stars themselves.  And so those with the keenest eye for posterity do the decent thing and put themselves on the dirt-only diet (what’s known in acting circles as “joining the cast of Dad’s Army”).  Ian Curtis, Kurt Kobain, Tupac Shakur – these were all masters of timing, snuffing it at the height of their powers.  Hendrix, it’s true, was slightly tardy (“before the Isle of Wight Festival, Jimi, for goodness’ sake!”) but at least he caught on eventually.  He was, rather literally, on the side of the angels.

Actually, now I come to think of it, quite a few of pop’s “not-so-good” could also improve the lot of mankind by signing up for the James Dean School of Driving.  So I offer the following list in the forlorn hope that those named will take the hint and retire to Costa del Blowfly.

Will Young – nice lad, time to die.
The Hives – perhaps as part of a suicide pact with The White Stripes.
Sting – “O Sting, where is thy death?”
Eminem – go on!  You know you want to!
Puddle of Mud – perhaps as part of a suicide pact with Nickleback.
David Gray – is it possible to OD on couscous?
Sum 41 – just wishful thinking, I suspect.
Ozzy Osbourne – well, God knows, the man’s tried.

The deaths of all or any of the above would undoubtedly put a smile on the lips of music fans everywhere.  And in case they prove reluctant to kick the oxygen habit, I have two words guaranteed to get them sprinting down the chemist’s for a family-sized bottle of paracetemol: John Lydon. Yes, that’s right, good old Johnny Rotten – once the sun in the punk rock sky, today a walking, sneering, 46 year-old warning to everyone in the pop business: croak early or you’ll end up like Johnny.  Right now you might be a feisty young tyro with an insatiable appetite for sex and drugs and attitude to spare, but if you don’t know when to leave the party then you too could become a tiresome, winging, flatulent boor.  It’s a frightening thought but how did it happen?  How did John Lydon move from white-hot youth icon to pathetic clown?  My theory is that, actually, Lydon didn’t move at all – and that was the worst possible fate.

You see, with most pop stars, the sad thing is looking on as age humbles them.  Over the years they become more conventional; they mellow, give up the booze and drugs, start playing acoustic sets and endorsing airline companies or family saloons.  Just think of Elvis or Lou Reed or Leo Sayer.  But Lydon has never changed.  Sure, he’s put on a bit of weight over the years, but basically he’s still the same snot-nosed, vitriolic little git he always was.  And the result is quite appalling. This sounds paradoxical – shouldn’t we applaud him for refusing to conform?   But you have to remember that the virtues of youth become the vices of middle age.  It used to be a glorious thing to see him as a skinny, rat-faced 21 year-old, sneering at everyone who crossed his path, gleefully mocking authority and generally winding people up as far as he could.  It didn’t matter that what he said was patent bollocks; it didn’t matter that his lyrics really were as “trite” as Glen Matlock claimed; it didn’t matter that his social and political pronouncements were as hollow as Lee Bowyer’s defence case. 

The point was that he was young and angry and scared the hell out of Daily Mail readers.  That was enough.   It was more than enough. But fast-forward 25 years and what do we get?  The same trite bollocks, the same hollow pontifications, but now they’re being spewed forth by a fully-grown man.  John Lydon is an adult, and as such you have to treat him seriously.  And as soon as you do that, you get the urge to treat him very seriously indeed – with a taser, for example, or a sock full of dog shit. To hear Lydon interviewed is to descend into a self-promotional fantasy world that would make Lord Archer blush.  When he’s not whittering on about how working class he is (he lives in a £2m house in LA with, er, Ari UP’s mum) then he’s giving us his distinctly skewed version of his own history.   Roughly paraphrased, it runs like this:

• Everything I’ve done, including Psyco’s Path, has been brilliant.
• If people didn’t like it then it’s because they couldn’t handle my searing truthfulness.
• Everything everyone else has done has been crap or a pale imitation of me.
• If something I’ve done wasn’t brilliant then that’s someone else’s fault.
• Malcolm McLaren is a lying bastard.

Well, one out of five isn’t bad.  You feel kind of grateful when he shuts up about his past, but only for a moment, because it’s usually at this point that he embarks on a lengthy analysis of society’s failings.  Oh my God.  John clearly fancies himself the Spengler of Finsbury Park, but sometimes you can’t help wishing that his childhood meningitis had lasted, say, thirty-five years.  Here he is on modern politics:

“These days we have a seesaw effect on a completely level playing field. I prefer the yin and the yang of a more rugged terrain. You have to have the choice and the variety, otherwise you get blandness."

And here’s Lydon’s thoughtful critique of Tony Blair:

“Tony Blair is evil to me, he always was. He looks like a soup terrine and he's full of bile. He's a liar.”

Of course, John never goes so far as to offer any solutions to the world’s problems – at least, nothing beyond the odd dismal cliché about fighting apathy and not trusting people in authority.  Perhaps he feels we should all sod off to LA like he did and make millions of pounds through property speculation.  Class war, eh?  Don’tcha just love it?

Finally, when Lydon’s finished enlightening us about politics he can revert to what he really does best: being rude to people.  Whether it’s in interviews, at awards ceremonies or on Richard and Judy, the man is an unfailing source of petulance and paranoia.  When a reader of Q magazine recently asked him if he could recommend a decent pub in Finsbury Park, John refused to give the obvious answer (ie: “no – they’re all full of wankers like me”).  Instead, he responded with a bizarre tirade, accusing the bloke (who was simply listed as living in “London”) of being a yuppie looking to destroy local, working class communities by, er, visiting pubs that weren’t near where he lived.  Obviously, these working class communities aren’t as robust as we’d thought.

Equally innocent questions from other readers were given a similar treatment and, as usual with John, I found myself groaning “Oh grow up!” roughly twice per reply.  But of course growing up is precisely what John has failed to do.  He’s a middle-aged multi-millionaire desperately trying to pretend (to the public and himself) that he’s still an enfant terrible.   It’s a uniquely depressing sight.

John Lydon is a lesson to us all.  The very same qualities that once made him a hurricane-blast of fresh air have turned him into a self-serving, opinionated braggart – a sad, embarrassing joke of a man still dining out on his one true moment of greatness a quarter of a century ago.

No one could claim that Sid Vicious was a greater punk icon than Johnny Rotten, but in two ways Sid had John beaten cold.  For a start, he had the good grace to top himself when he saw just how pathetic his squalid life had become.   It’s an example that many in pop could profitably follow.  And secondly, unlike John, Sid once managed to say something that was genuinely funny:

Interviewer: Do you think of the man on the street when you write your songs?

Sid: Nah!  I’ve met the man on the street – he’s a cunt.

And now, twenty-five years on, we know exactly who that man on the street really was.

1-10: Imagine - John Lennon.  To quote Stan "The Man" Lee: 'nuff said.

11.  Blue Monday - New Order.  I can clearly remember the first time I ever heard this.  It was on Annie Nightingale's Sunday Night show in 1982.  I didn't catch Annie's introduction so at first I had no idea who it was by.  I thought, "what is this boring, sub-standard disco shit?"  Then I heard Barny's vocal, realised it was New Order and thought, "Christ!  I'd better find some way of liking this pap."   For several years I struggled to do just that but eventually I had to throw in the towel.  Even for the time the drum pattern was ridiculously wooden, the bass riff seemed to have been made up on the spot, the synths chugged along in that terrible "Euro-disco" rhythm, and the lyrics were the clearest indication yet that Barny was no Ian Curtis.  Oh, and let's not forget those awful syn-drums.  Lazy, amateur rubbish from start to finish and, for my money, the low point of New Order's career.

12. Wonderwall - Oasis.   "Be Here Now" created a stench so strong that even their sheep-like fans had to admit the game was up.  But decomposition had started long before and for those of us with sensitive noses "What's the Story..." was an album redolent of death.  Nowhere was this more evident than on "Wonderwall".  And here's a list of adjectives that will have to stand in for a proper critique: stodgy, over-long, pretentious, boring, brainless... yes, it was all this and more.

13. Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve.  The only reason for this song's existence was to keep the flies off "Wonderwall".  Look, people, it's a fucking soft-metal torch-song ballard for Christ's sake!  Ap-palling.

14. Common People - Pulp.   Let me see now, Jarvis cops off with some Art College rich-bitch and is amazed to find she doesn't understand life at the bottom of the pile.  Well what exactly did he expect?  And his ignorance is supposed to be a justification for 4 minutes of inverted snobbery?  I don't think so.  Listening to this song is like being trapped in one of those awful student "I'm more working class than you are" conversations.  Add to this Cocker's reliably terrible singing and you have all the ingredients of a truely rubbish song.

15. Babylon - David Gray.   Music for people who don't like music.

16. Girlfriend in a Coma - the Smiths.  The sound of a punctured football slowly deflating.  A musical demonstration of the Law of Thermodynamics.  Sad, just sad.

17. Changin' Man - Paul Weller.  After years - nay, decades - of peddling flimsy, white-boy soul retreads, this git has the sheer nerve to class himself as a "changin' man".  Maybe he only did it because "Steve Windwood's Bastard Idiot Son" wasn't such a good title. 

18.  Ideal for Life - Manic Street Preachers.  Self-righteous, Welsh Socialists.  Everybody, run for your lives!

They say you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but let’s examine the facts:

1. The dead can’t argue back. 

And more importantly:

2. They can’t sue your ass. 

Seems to me like the dead are just asking for it.  So with this cheery thought in mind, here’s a collection of sour miss-representations and downright lies about everybody’s third-favourite Beatle: George Harrison.

George joined legendary skiffle combo The Silver Beatles in 1959 at the tender age of six when John Lennon mistook him for Derek Guyler.  Already showing signs of his later philosophical persona, George’s response when offered the hottest job in pop was reportedly: “’Spose so.  How much does it pay?”   “Shut up, George,” said Paul and the matter was deemed closed.

Six months later, and renamed “The Fab Five”, The Beatles, as they were now known, headed for Hamburg’s famous Cavern Club.  It was here that George (who, after a growth spurt, was now 17) was introduced to such adult pleasures as long trousers and joined-up handwriting.  And it was while experimenting with his trousers that George wrote his first ever song: “I Love You, John, in a Very Sexual Manner”.  He played it to the rest of the band, who sat in awe-struck silence.  “Shut up, George,” said Paul and the matter was deemed closed.

For a long time the band agonised over George’s nickname.   John suggested “The Grumpy One”.  Paul thought he should be known as “The Silent One” and play with his guitar unplugged, but that role had already been bagsied by Pete Sutcliffe, who jealously guarded his position as the group’s Talent-Free Zone.  A standoff developed that was only broken by tragedy when Sutcliffe died of a German girlfriend.  So George became “The Silent One”, though he amended this to “The Quiet One” behind Paul’s back.

Spurred on by his new status within the group, George wrote his second song, “Can I Have Raise, Please?” which was thought so good that it wasn’t included on the band’s first LP.  Already wise beyond his years, George responded by sulking and drawing rude pictures of McCartney in his lyric book.

With such creativity on hand – not to mention Harrison’s famously poor guitar playing – it was hardly surprising that the Beatles skyrocketed to success.  First they won over Britain with a number of songs not written by George.  And then, cleverly riding the wave of euphoria caused by the death of President Kennedy, they conquered the States.

But, for a quiet, spiritual man like Harrison, the fame, the girls and the money were simply not enough.  He was often heard to lament, “We must get more fame and girls and money.”  Although such pearls of wisdom were seldom reported by a trivia-dominated press, the full transcript of conversations at that time reveals the hidden yet powerful influence of “The Quiet One”:

It was at this point in the Fab Four’s history that Ringo gained his first mention in my article.  Unfortunately, it was also to be his last.

But George’s restless Shaman’s soul meant he was always searching for new ways to impress John.  And in 1965 he found just what he was looking for when he stumbled upon a reasonably-priced sitar at a car boot sale in Ongar.   As soon as he saw it, George knew it must be his – money was no object – and after two hours of polite haggling, he finally held the precious object in his hands.

Three weeks of practice later, and it was clear that George was destined to be even worse at the sitar than he was at the guitar.  But fortunately none of the other Beatles could tell the difference.  

His mind enlightened by the rusty twang of his Indian banjo, George set to work on a new batch of songs.  In “Taxman”, he showed astounding clairvoyant powers by ripping off The Jam’s “Start!” twenty years before Paul Weller was even born.  Its spiritually complex tale of a multi-millionaire scouser complaining about his taxes struck a deep chord with black-marketeers everywhere.  And then there was “Love To You” which, unfortunately, The Jam had no part in.  But at least it provided George with the opportunity to display his full talent for lyric writing:

I’ll make love to you
If you want me to.

Similarly enlightened songs were to follow: “Within You, Without You” where the multi-millionaire scouser bemoans the materialist nature of society; then there was “Piggies” where the multi-millionaire scouser bemoans the materialist nature of society; and, of course, “All Things Must Pass” where the multi-millionaire scouser bemoans the materialist nature of society.   Best of all was probably “While Eric Clapton’s Guitar Gently Weeps” with its groundbreaking use of bathos:

I look at you all see the love there that’s sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps

A lesser songwriter – Paul, for example – would’ve taken the conventional route and put the weak line at the start rather than emphasising it by putting it at the end.  But, as ever, George travelled his own road.

Yet just when it looked like Harrison’s creative talent was about to eclipse that of Lennon and McCartney, his life entered a strange new phase.   On December 3rd 1968, acting on instructions from “higher powers”, he kidnapped Patti Hurst and after a brief siege they were married by the Dalai Lama.   Always one to eschew convention, George refused to be the groom at his own wedding.   Instead he took the role of father of the bride and gave away his fiancé to best man Eric Clapton.  As a tribute, Eric composed the song “Lady in Red” about his lovely new wife.  Patti was later inducted into the paramilitary wing of the Natural Law Party, an organisation so secret that it didn’t even exist.

George’s erratic behaviour caused increasing tensions within the group but the end only came when he, John, Paul and Yoko all entered a beard-growing competition.  A stark-naked Yoko beat the other three literally standing on her head.  It was the final straw.

Now free to count his money (sorry, pursue his solo career), George proved that his clairvoyance worked backwards as well as forwards when he recorded “My Sweet Lord”.  This feat so impressed the Chiffons’ lawyers that they took him to court to prove he’d mystically foreseen the song “He’s So Fine” ten years after it was originally recorded.  The public were equally impressed and carried George shoulder-high to the top of the charts.

He released a string of albums.  Well, probably one or two.  To tell you the truth, no one can quite remember.

The final few years of his life were spent busking on the tube with Don Estelle, levitating and financing films that he later regretted making.  On December 19th 2001 “The Quiet One” became “The Extremely Quiet One” when George Harrison died of Bad Karma.  His last words were “Love each other more”.  “Shut up, George,” said Paul and the matter was deemed to be closed.

Sorry for my lengthy absence, but during the writing of this piece I inadvertently listened to Sting’s latest single.  I’m still on medication (ie, the new Sparklehorse CD), but I’m glad to say I’m finally returning to full health.

And speaking of medical matters, do you remember when you were a kid and you got chicken pox?  It wasn’t pleasant at the time, but now you can almost look back on it with fondness – it was all part and parcel of growing up, a first teetering step down the road towards acne, crabs, arthritis and angina.  But what you may not have realised is that, although the symptoms vanished, your chicken pox never really went away.  Right now, right this very minute, it is lurking in your body, patiently waiting for a chance to be reborn in a new and extremely nasty guise.  You see, chicken pox waits, usually for forty or fifty years, until you are at your lowest ebb – recovering from a heart attack, for example, or watching Robot Wars Extreme – and then it bursts forth as an agonising bout of shingles.

It’s exactly the same in the wonderful world of pop.  As a youngster you’re bombarded with all sorts of virulent musical bacteria: The Spice Girls, perhaps, or Eric Clapton.  Most of these turn out to be relatively harmless and after a brief period of inflammation they fade away, allowing you to recover and get on with your life.  But there are some who, like chicken pox, never quite die completely.  They linger on in the lower reaches of the charts; they search out cameo roles in movies; they build up a small but enduringly dim fan base in the US (or, if they’re really desperate, Japan).  And all the time they’re waiting for the moment when the corrosive effects of middle-aged nostalgia have sufficiently weakened the public’s immune system. 

Because for all of us there comes the day when we look at the charts with a feeling of dread and incomprehension.  “What is all this rubbish?” we ask ourselves and mournfully cast about for the brilliant stars who lit up the scene in our youth.  We yearn for a familiar face – even the face of someone we used to loathe.  And, right on cue, there he is: Sting. 

Yes, after years of relative dormancy, a nasty case of Sting (popborus profundis) has broken out.  Indeed, it threatens to be a worldwide epidemic.  A much-hyped new album and single; a CD ROM Mail-on-Sunday freebie; an AOL-sponsored website; a TOTP2 Special; a documentary on ITV1, a Lifetime’s Achievement Award - no corner of the media remains uninfected.  These days it seems that everywhere I go I see red-eyed citizens staggering under the weight of their disease.  They hover in the aisles at HMV, tears trickling down their cheeks.  “He’s not so bad,” they mutter, “he’s certainly lasted well”.  And, finally broken, they reach for their wallets.  The struggle has finished.  They have won the victory over themselves.  They love Sting. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  The Sting virus – like the Abba Pox or Tom Jones Herpes – can be fought and beaten.  And the road to recovery begins with a single sentence:

Sting is a twat; he always has been and always will be a twat.

Repeat it to yourself three times a day after meals.  Shout it at the TV or radio whenever he’s on.  Write an angry letter to your MP.  And if that’s not enough, here are a few more bitter pills that might help restore you to musical health. 

First on the list has to be the Stingmeister’s Ego – sorry, I mean his Social Conscience.  Remember that insufferable, trendy, self-righteous English teacher you had at school?  Did you ever wonder what would happen if you cut down a rainforest, turned it into fifty-pound notes and gave them to him?  Well now you know. 

When it comes to Just Causes, no matter how unqualified he is, the Stingster feels compelled to spray us with his arse-gravy wisdom.  He likes to describe himself as “naïve”, but in reality he’s just superficial.  He’s against Bad Things (torture, deforestation) and in favour of Good Things (love, native conmen who keep the family dinner service in their mouths) – a stance so general and fuzzy as to be totally pointless.  At no considerable risk to himself, he pours forth this vacuous benevolence so that people whose idea of charity work is staying in to watch Red Nose Day can bask in the diffuse light of his non-specific love.  Yes folks, Sting cares, so you don’t have to. 

And yet, for all this headline-grabbing altruism, what happens when he meets a real case of social deprivation in his own back yard?  In the excruciating sleeve notes to Nothing Like the Sun, St Stingus tells a rather revealing story.  He’s accosted by a tramp on Highgate Hill who simply wants to point out the beauty of the moon.  How does the Pop Prince of Hearts respond?  Does he offer to put him up for the night?  Does he insist he pays for the fellow to have a square meal and a decent wash?  Does he give him a fiver?  A pound?  Twenty pence, for the love of God?  No.  Faced with the unglamorous “toxic breath” of everyday poverty, Our Lady of Sting mutters a bit of Shakespeare at him and buggers off as quickly as possible.  As PJ O’Rourke put it: “Everybody wants to save the world, but nobody wants to help mom with the washing up.” 

Next up, it has to be Sting’s ego – sorry, I mean his lyrics.   Oh my God, his lyrics.  Pope said that a little learning is a dangerous thing.  With Sting it’s positively lethal.  His swotty determination to display the breadth of his knowledge (“things they would not teach me back in… college”), coupled with an awesome inability to write, has led to a lyrical holocaust.  Indeed, for a man so active in the fight against torture, you have to wonder about the amount of verbal pain he gleefully inflicts on the record-buying public.  Where Hitler had Mein Kampf, Stingolini has the Penguin Rhyming Dictionary.  And while Amnesty International remains curiously silent on the subject, I feel it my duty to remind the world of his brutal atrocities. 

Here’s an example of the great man at work, taken from a file marked “hideously botched cultural references”.  One day Stingspeare reads Lolita and what do we get?  We get this:

He starts to shake and cough
Just like the
Old man in
That book by Nabakov

It’s not just that “cough” and “Nabakov” is a rhyme that would make Suggs snap his crayon in two; it’s the clunking, awkward phrasing which suggests everyone’s heard of Nabakov while no-one’s heard of Lolita – roughly 100% wrong, so far as I can see, but then accuracy takes a backseat when Sting needs to crowbar in another example of his encyclopaedic wisdom. 

But to spend long on the inadequacies of Don’t Stand so Close would be like a mountaineer planting a flag at the top of a foothill while Mount Everest towered in the background.  I refer, of course, to Russians, Stingski’s moving plea for peace and understanding between the East and the West.  At least, it might be moving were it not for the harrowing crassness of the lyrics.  Oh, and its music. 

In Don Juan, Lord Byron famously rhymes “intellectual” with “hen-peck’d you all” but – and if you ever read this, Sting, please, please take note – he was trying to be funny.  He’d realised that some rhymes were so bad they made people laugh.   Yet in Russians, Sting pulls off the seemingly impossible feat of using rhymes that make Don Juan look like Paradise Lost while at the same time coming across as dour and self-righteous.  Read ‘em and weep:

We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology…
There’s no monopoly of common sense
Either side of the pol-it-i-cal fence…
I’ve been driving in my car,
It’s not quite a Jag-u-ar…

Okay, so I may have transplanted that last couplet from another song, but you get the general idea.  Only Sting could’ve failed to see that using a rhyme as inadvertently funny as “biology/ideology” might undermine the message of his song.  And only Sting could’ve failed to see that a stream of trite doggerel about universal brotherhood added nothing to anybody’s understanding of East/West politics.  And only Sting could’ve failed to see that using a tedious dirge as a melody was not justified simply because it sounded vaguely Russian.   Only Sting, folks, only Sting. 

Finally, I can’t leave without a brief mention of Sting’s ego – sorry, I mean his music.  Here’s a quote from his own website (AOL keyword: cünt) which says more than mere words ever could:

“Sting has become synonymous with a kind of musical approach that knows no boundaries, limits, genres. Proud to number Branford Marsalis, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, as well as Miles Davis arranger Gil Evans and Algerian singer Cheb Mami among his collaborators, Sting has already achieved a legacy of music that, like its creator, resists easy definition.”

I hope you didn’t have a heavy meal before reading that.  The glancing nod towards Miles Davis is particularly vomit inducing.  Where Davis was innovative to the point of insanity, Sting is one of pop’s great reactionaries, reducing all the music of the world into a tepid, grey broth while at the same time throwing his influences at his audience like a skip-load of cobbles.  As for his music resisting easy definition, allow me to take a stab at pinning it down: “Egomania”.  There - problem solved. 

So what have we learnt from all this?  If I had to extract a single lesson from the seething atrocity of the Great Man’s career, it would be the following: whores and public buildings become respectable if they stick around long enough.  The same isn’t true of Nazi war criminals.  Except for Sting.

 John Lennon's Imagine

Every now and then – in fact, with monotonous regularity – Channel 4 and Beeb 2 take time off from producing high-quality entertainment such as ‘Orrible or Celebrity Big Brother, and instead fall back on that “polyfiller” of the airwaves: the Pointless Pop List.  The top ten punk bands, the top ten soul divas, the top ten rock paedophiles – they’ve all been featured (what do you mean, you never saw that last one?).  Usually the lists are pretty solid.  Oh, you might complain that the Undertones weren’t really punk, or that Billy Piper wasn’t technically a child, but in general you have to agree that the usual suspects are all present and correct.  However, there’s one list that TV programmes, pop magazines and, indeed, webzines always get wrong.  Not just a bit wrong, but horrendously, totally, one hundred per cent wrong.  That list is, of course, the Top Ten Worst Songs of All Time.  Fortunately, I’m here to put things straight. 

The mistake that everyone makes in compiling this list is to fail to judge a song in terms of its own ambitions.   That’s why it’s always choc-full of harmless trash like The Birdie Song or I’ve Got a Brand New Combined Harvester.  Yes, of course Agadoo is a mindless, irritating waste of three minutes, but that’s more or less what it sets out to be.  Do you really believe Black Lace thought they were producing the new Hey Jude when they recorded the song?  Trust me, there are worse songs out there – much, much worse.  And they’re usually the very ones adored by those people who think they have taste because they realise that Sugar Sugar isn’t pop’s equivalent of Finnegans Wake.

So let’s get it straight: Save Your Love is not one of the worst songs of all time, but Wonderwall is.  SYL is cheesy and kitsch, but that’s all.  Wonderwall, on the other hand, is stale, pretentious, lumpen doggerel masquerading as a bittersweet emotional tour de force.  SYL is fooling no one, but Wonderwall is a massive con from its stodgy start to its well-overdue finish.  Even so, Wonderwall wouldn’t make it into my list of the Top Ten Worst Songs of All Time because my list would look like this:

1.      Imagine – John Lennon

2.      Imagine – John Lennon

3.      Imagine – John Lennon

4.      Imagine – John Lennon

5.      Imagine – John Lennon

6.      Imagine – John Lennon

7.      Imagine – John Lennon

8.      Imagine – John Lennon

9.      Imagine – John Lennon

10. Imagine – John Lennon

Yes, Imagine, that simple, moving hymn to… well, what, exactly?  Aye, there’s the rub.  Musically, the backing track is mundane enough.  With its Chas and Dave piano, lumpy percussion (did the Plastic Ono Band put shag-pile over their drums or what?) and elevator-music string section, it burbles along like Bob Dylan on temazepam.   Dull, but not appalling.   

The first real sign of trouble comes from Lennon’s vocals.  For some reason, he chooses to use his “eerie glider” voice, the one harnessed to such creepy effect on I’m Only Sleeping and A Day in the Life.  Okay, for Imagine it has an appropriately wistful feel to it, but this is more than matched by a certain sinister, spaced-out quality.  At times it’s almost like a drug-addled lunatic is trying to persuade you to walk down a dark ally with him.  And only two words can do justice to the feeling I get when Lennon sings, “I hope someday you’ll join us”.  And those two words are: David Koresh. 

However, worrying though that is, to get a true handle on the cosmic awfulness of this song you have to turn to the lyrics.  Imagine is Lennon’s Republic, his perfect world, and it doesn’t sound like the sort of place you’d want to visit on holiday, let alone live in.  Indeed, it’s hard to conceive of a more soulless, anaemic vision of life than the one Lennon gives us here.  No heaven, no hell, no countries (ah, countries; they’re evil, aren’t they), no possessions (yes, folks, it’s another pop millionaire lecturing us on how materialistic we are – Phil Collins and Alanis Morrisette get in line), no religion, nothing to kill or die for… it’s the very definition of a pointless existence.   

Typically, John is annoyingly vague about what we’d actually do in his anarcho-syndicalist Nirvana.   We’d “live for today” apparently, and when we got tired of that we could try “living life in peace” for a while.  The only other clues about the itinerary in Lennon Land come from the song’s video.  If this is to be believed, then the timetable is something like:

9am.  Dress in white.

9.15am.  Open windows in white room.

9.16am.  Look out of windows.

And that’s it.  Doubtless, there’d be plenty of white powder on hand for those who couldn’t stand this blistering pace without the aid of sedatives.   

Let’s be clear about this.  Lennon is trying to sell us his vision of a perfect world, but it’s a vision which is as morally bankrupt as it is banal.  It’s a vision where empty platitudes about “peace” take the place of real thought, real insight.  And from where I’m standing, Lennon’s perfect world looks very much like Hell. 

You may object that I’m going over the top, that Imagine is just a nice song and there’s no need to be so nasty.  But I say, No!   If it were merely thought of as a “nice song” there’d be no problem.  But Imagine is held up everywhere as a shining beacon of pop profundity to set against the madness of the modern world.  They’re even teaching it in schools, for God’s sake!  Well, I for one stand squarely with the modern world.  It may be full of injustice, greed and downright evil, but it’s the only world we’ve got and we won’t make it any better by poncing about in white rooms and shacking up with second-rate Japanese performance artists.  You may say-ay-ay-ay I’m a dreamer?  No, John, I say-ay-ay-ay you’re a tosser.

 Jools Holland

If we're talking about Later with Jools Holland, it's time to get a bit philosophical, so bear with me. David Hume (I think) pointed out that if God's love for mankind is infinite then it is also meaningless.  He loves everyone indiscriminately and if he only loved them half as much he'd still love them the same amount because infinity divided by two equals infinity.  It's kind of the same with Jools Holland's love for music.   It's eclecticism gone mental.  Are you a bunch of spotty herberts with a twin-deck and trendy t-shirts?  Jools loves you.  Are you a ninety year-old African village elder with a drum made of rebus intestine and a voice with the melodic capability of Professor Stephen Hawkins?  Jools loves you.  Do you play innovative jazz-anthrax fusion? Jools will jam with you in the studio, adding his tired line of mediocre boogie-woogie licks to the already hopelessly confused mess you call your "sound".  In short, Later with Jools Holland has done away with the vital notion of "taste" and replaced it with an all-inclusiveness which is as
tedious as it is patronising.

As if that wasn't bad enough, viewers also have to contend with the host's uniquely repellent personality.   Jools is Roland Rivron's less talented brother and every time I see him I know, I just KNOW, that somewhere in Soho a porno cinema is missing its manager.  Easily the least important member of Squeeze in the '70s, he later rose without trace through the massed ranks of the damned aka TV Presenters.  His early claim to fame was using the word "fuckers" in a live, early-evening plug for The Tube (the show which stared out saying it was going to use local, unknown presenters and ended up with, er, the Joolster and Paula Yates).  But his big break came when he somehow blagged the job of fronting a documentary about The Police recording their latest album in Monserrat.  Ominously, the programme was titled "Jools Goes to Monserrat" and from the opening seconds it was clear this wasn't going to be a programme about The Police.  Now, under normal circumstances a programme's not being about The Police would be an occasion for national rejoicing, but, incredibly, ITV had managed to find something even less appealing than Sting's Geordie-Jamaican vocals: a programme which focused on the talentless presenter rather than the abysmal subjects.  That formula has been the staple of JH interviews ever since.  No matter who he's talking to and no matter how obsequious his manner, it's always Jools who remains the focus of attention, for beneath his humble, selfless love of all types of music lies an ego the size of Frank Zappa's back catalogue.

Ever since the Monserrat debacle, his smug grin and Billy Mitchell haircut have dogged our screens with all the tenacity of a malignant tumour refusing to respond to radiotherapy.  Frankly, my dear, I could eat a ToTP video and shit a better programme than Later With Jools Holland.

All cyber-maulings by Phil Cartwright