Where were you? An imperfect list for misplaced fake nostalgia

Really only posting Imperfect List by Big Hard Excellent Fish here for two reasons 1) it’s ace, and has been played twice on Radio Clash, and still is the best thing both Robin Guthrie and Pete Wylie has done – yes including their ‘day jobs’ and 2) all the lyrics for this track on the Net are fucking wrong. I mean REALLY wrong, like someone who wasn’t alive then has tried to decipher them, badly.

That’s why I’m posting this really – this is a good antidote to all of this misplaced fake (i.e. wasn’t there) late 80’s-90’s nostalgia. You know all this I <3 Britpop rubbish from those who hated it, or weren’t even alive then, and the neon 1980’s freaks that think it was all dayglo and sweat bands, that it all looked like a Taylor Swift video. No, it was really really shit. 1990 interestingly was when it started to turn – mass raves and baggy/Madchester…and the Poll Tax riots later than year. Then Thatcher went, but upto then it was mostly a grim Yuppie decade. As much as this is a time capsule of 1989, it reminds me a lot of today, actually, especially the line “the Tory invention of the non-working class” which still rings true.

I never knew it was commissioned by Michael Clark for a piece called Wrong – I prefer the original lyrics somewhat, talking of Clause 28, and it clarifies some of the bits I wasn’t 100% about below. It was then re-recorded with Robin & Wylie to the version posted above, and mentioned below.

Anyway I heard this song many years ago and it even inspired a List Show for Radio Clash but it never happened, although it was planned and tracks were collected. Maybe a mix will happen someday.

Oddly Josie Jones, who wrote and spoke the lyrics of Big Hard Excellent Fish came back with new list in 2013 and I missed it. Sad to hear she also died in March this year. RIP Josie 🙁 The end of this video seems appropriate now, very sad. In memoriam. Maybe you should read this article by Stewart Lee as you listen, it’ll fit the mood.

Here are the FULL lyrics (to the released second version):

“Adolf Hitler. Mike Gatting. Terry and June. Fuckin’ bastard Thatcher. Insincere social climber of mixed origin. Overdose. Scouse impersonators. Macho dickhead. Bonnie Langford. Poll tax. Neighbours. Lost keys. Phony friend. The Royal Family. Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Heartbreaking, lying friend. Smiling Judas. Myra Hindley. Acid rain. Stinking, rich female in furs. Disloyal lover. Wife and child beater. Drunken abuser. Racist bully. The Sun newspaper. AIDS inventor. Leon Brittan. All nonces. Massive, massive oil slick. Loneliness. Cancer. Hard, cold fish. Hunger. Greed. Imperfect list. Gut-wrenching disappointment. Homeless. Evil, gossiping fashion bastard. Radio One. Tasteless A&R wanker. Nurse Ratched. the Tory invention of the non-working class. Cold turkey. Mister Jesse Helms. Fractured coccyx. Hillsborough. Weird British judges. Depression. Apartheid. J Edgar Hoover. John Lennon’s murder. Hiroshima. Anyone’s murder. Vietnam. The breakdown of the NHS. The bomb. Heysel stadium. Police harassment. The death of the rain forest. The troubles. Rednecks. The clamp*. Rape. Imprisonment of innocents. The all-American way. The sending off of Len Shackleton, Red sock in the white washing. Nancy’s turn. Tiananmen Square. Ronnie’s turn. Sexual harassment. Jimmy Tarbuck. Mile-long check-out queue. Sick baby. Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment. Miscarriage. Where were you?”

(original Snub TV video via Ben Soundhog)

* I think this says ‘The clamp’ i.e. wheelclamps which were pretty new then. But it could say ‘The clap’ – British slang for VD.