IF I WAS A WANKER
Haha, Midge Ure sounds a bit like Manure, do you see etc etc etc.
I often had a feeling that Midge, short for Intellectual Midget, got away with an awful lot because the only insult anyone ever laid at his door was that his name sounded a bit like a type of shit. This seemingly simple piece of wordplay apparently distracted people from that fact that Midge Ure was ACTUALLY shit. And this I can prove with a graph, a pointer and the record If I Was.
If I Was is an eighties synthpop version of the ‘If I was Not On PlaySchool Now’ song, which would have Brian Cant and Johnny Ball imagining they were easily mimed things like firemen and backstreet abortionists. Midge’s was obviously less literal and had him ‘carrying the weight of popular demand’ on his back, at least he would if he was a strong man. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a circus, but Strong Men tend to carry big weights. The weight of popular demand when it comes to Midge was obviously very heavy, the demand being that he make no more bloody records.
Here is a list of all the things Midge suggests he could be in If I Was: A better man, a stronger man, a soldier, a sailor, a wiser man, a kinder man, a painter, her leader, a poet and her lover. Let us look at all of these suggestions in full:
If I Was A Better Man
Midge asks would fellow men take me to their hearts? (NO!)
Tanya says: If you were a better man you wouldn’t write toss like this
If I was a stronger man
Midge says he could carry the weight of popular demand
Tanya says you could work in the circus as some poorly moustachioed freak/strongman.
If I was a soldier
Midge says he would lay captive arms before her.
Tanya suggests he might be the kind of cannon fodder generals send out first for being annoying.
If I was a sailor
Midge says the seven oceans he would sail to get to her.
Tanya says, get yourself a map, go the straight line method Jonah.
If I was a wiser man
Midge wonders if other men reach out and touch him
Tanya would reach out, grasp and then knee him in the bollocks. How wise would he feel then?
If he was a kinder man
Midge would dish up love for a hungry world (obv forgetting that love has absolutely no nutritional value)
Tanya would dish up a whole bowl of pain and hurtin’. If he was kinder he should stop making music.
If I was a painter
Midge would paint a world that couldn’t taint her.
Tanya suggests that if you’re a painter, that forth bridge needs a lick or two.
I was her leader
Midge says on food of love from above he would feed her. (Suggests he had a job lot of love food on cheap).
Tanya worries that if you are her leader then some sort of dodgy slavery gig was going on. Call the cops.
If I was a painter
Midge says that all his love in burning words he would show her.
Tanya thinks if poetry was your muse you would think of a better rhyme for feed her than leader.
If I was her lover
Midge says her eyes in kisses he would cover.
Tanya says, clever Midge, your not likely to pull anyone who can see you.
This is such a poor song that it is next to impossible to describe. Slow plodding synth-pop with a sound akin to a very low powered vacuum cleaner. Midge had very few hits after this one, his brand of lack of whimsy and lack of musical talent seemed to go out of fashion. Alternatively, what with all this ‘If I was-ing’ going on, it is possible that the Midlands Serious Crime squad wonder if he was responsible for the Birmingham pub bombings and slapped him in jail for thirty years. About now he should be wondering, if I was on parole’