“And this is for XTC.” I said, throwing a saucepan at Branson.
“And this is for Phil Collins,” a saucer.
“And this is for Genesis,” the cup, full of tea.
Branson was skipping and a bouncing on the surf where he had been dragged for the last twenty hours. In the meantime I had made it clear tot he captain of the boat that I did not want him to deviate or to stop, and that instead I was an an avenging angel here to punish Dickie Branson for all the evil he had done. Much of the back catalogue and most of the contents of the cabin had been thrown at him in the meantime.
“And this is for the Sex Pistols. EMI had the right idea.” The microwave. It was important.
“Land ‘Hoy,” the captain said the first thing he had said since he reminded me two hours before that Culture Club were on Virgin.
“Well Richard, I do hope you will mend your ways.”
He could not reply, concussed and with a mouth full of salt water, but I think he got the gist, as I walked off the boat on to Sydney Harbour.
THE MANIC STREET PREACHERS: Australia
There is a school of thought which firmly considers the Manics as two bands. One the self styled rock gods with tricksy lyrics for which read non-rhyming) lyrics when Richie Edwards was in the band. The other the rubbish, boring, Travis template post-Ritchie “deathappearnce”.
This school of though is sadly mistaken. Both versions were god-awful, its just that one used longer words. Australia comes from Everything Must Go, the transition album (from rubbish band a – to rubbish band b – and so is doubly rubbish, where they still used long words but did not have to put up with Ritchie’s rubbish guitar playing. Basically in transition from rubbish band A – to rubbish band B they had all the flaws of both versions so were doubly rubbish.
Lyrically it is not clear what this is about, but does not spout any crypto-Marxist bollocks so its a safe bet that it is probably just about surfing or something. And at least it does not have trumpet on it played by fatso, like Kenneth Connor on the same album.
It’s probably about Home and Away.