Comments on: THE FT TOP 100 TRACKS OF ALL TIME No. 33: Echo and the Bunnymen – The Cutter https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter Lollards in the high church of low culture Mon, 13 Sep 2021 19:37:50 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: Gareth Parker https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-2537542 Mon, 13 Sep 2021 19:37:50 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-2537542 Still a decent track imho. I’d go with 7/10 for ‘The Cutter’.

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By: Dodojojo https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-2236590 Mon, 16 Apr 2018 23:25:00 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-2236590 McCulloch’s explanations (ones I’ve read) have been as oblique as the song itself–so I’m not sure they shed much light. But here’s what he has said:

1) The Cutter is about the 3 sides of a man. And McCulloch adds that he’s 6 feet tall. Porcupine up until that time contained his most autobiographical lyrics and he was going through a very dark time in his life. Now what those 3 sides are…I don’t know.

2) Another explanation he has said was that the Cutter was someone, an authoritarian even, who comes in and cleans up society. Gets rid of the scum and the baddies. If you’re familiar with McCulloch’s musing over the years–you’ll hear him talk about dealing with criminals and anyone, in his opinion, making life crap for others. He’s a bit of crusty guy…Go to Youtube and search for Thorn of Crowns live on the Tube. The Bunnymen performed live on national TV and during this particular song, he advocates cutting off criminals’ hands and their…gender. It’s pretty nuts. (The backstory was he was sick and tired of having his house burgled multiple times.)

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By: Detroit Billy https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-2138786 Mon, 01 May 2017 23:01:17 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-2138786 “Spare us the cutter” – at least as I’ve always perceived it – is meant in the same way that it’s meant by the homeless character in “A Clockwork Orange”, who says “can you spare some cutter, me brothers?” In other words, can you spare some coins/spare change/money.
Some might see this line in this song as a reference to the pressure of money, the lack of it, and how it tends to ruin art, music, counterculture. Perhaps in this case, constant & immense music industry pressure on independent artists to produce banal, lowest-common-denominator, commercially viable songs, inevitably destroying one more interesting period of music. No longer the free-for-all indeed.

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By: Dave https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-2038666 Sat, 03 Dec 2016 13:08:28 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-2038666 Thought it was about pretentious music articles….

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By: a tanned rested and unlogged lørd sükråt wötsît https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-598006 Tue, 10 Mar 2009 23:49:38 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-598006 monsoon is 1981/2, so that’s earlier than this — sheila chandra’s first solo LPs are 1984: i gave her second LP an excellent review in nme, so i guess the answer to the second question’s yes! their label was called IndiPop

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By: Billy Smart https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-597986 Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:55:19 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-597986 Re: Indian instrumentation: Which came first – this, or Monsoon’s ‘Ever So Lonely’? They had some critical credibility at the time, didn’t they (tho’ probably not in rockist circles)

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By: a tanned rested and unlogged lørd sükråt wötsît https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-597954 Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:29:21 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-597954 well, i would certainly argue — to take three hard-to-follow fellows from successive decades — that jon anderson’s, ian mcculloch’s and kurt cobain’s obscurity are each shaped by different contexts and driven by different motives, even if they’re all somewhat tolerated under the same apparent post-dylan umbrella; what they share is (to me) less interesting than where they differ, which is their relationship to rock as a utopian project as it manifests in those different decades

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By: Jack Fear https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-597948 Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:10:05 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-597948 a broader (and quite time-specific) context of what’s good and what’s bad about easily read meaning

I think I get what you’re on about here, but how time-specific is it really? I would venture that a certain degree of obscurity has been held up as a virtue in post-Dylan rock generally…

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By: ace inhibitor https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-597388 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:00:49 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-597388 It has that great,great chord change – I’m not muso enough to be certain of this but it sounds to me like the 1st two verses sit on extended variations of the same minor 7th chord, before bursting into major 3-chord brassy sunshine on the is-this-a-chorus-or-a-bridge bit, all the more glorious for being deferred for so long, like Dancing in the Street.

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By: a tanned rested and unlogged lørd sükråt wötsît https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-597349 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:12:39 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-597349 haha that was me: spare us the cut-and-paster :/

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By: DOESN'T https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-597348 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:10:20 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-597348 the only one i am fairly sure it DOESN’T mean is the pig one! (which i only discovered while looking up meanings of “cutter”)

jack’s “invites even as it eludes” is pretty much right, but i think this deliberate little dance fits within a broader (and quite time-specific) context of what’s good and what’s bad about easily read meaning

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By: Alan https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-597345 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:00:51 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-597345 i always thought it was about making shaped biscuits

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By: Jack Fear https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-597344 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:56:40 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-597344 Point taken about the self-harm angle — it’s likely a dead end, interpretationwise. But it is so terribly tempting, I think, because the language of the lyric — filled with images of frustration, failed self-discipline, and feelings of shame and worthlessness – maps onto the psychology of the self-injury phenomenon at interesting angles. As appalling as it is to imagine a Bunnymen song as actually being “about” anything (as if McCullough were Nicky Wire or somesuch), “The Cutter” invites interpretation even as it eludes it. And there’s always morbid fun in this sort of diagnosis-after-the-fact; witness the frenzy of close re-readings in the pop press whenever a musician commits suicide, looking for “clues” in the lyrics that might have “warned” us of that fragile “state of mind.”

Scare-quotes a go-go, today.

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By: byebyepride https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/03/the-ft-top-100-tracks-of-all-time-no-33-echo-and-the-bunnymen-the-cutter/comment-page-1#comment-597289 Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:00:19 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=13449#comment-597289 I’m pretty sure I’ve always assumed that the title was a nautical reference, but reading this I also realise that for about fifteen years I’ve had the song confused in my head with ‘The Cutter and the Clan’ which is a Runrig album title.

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