Day 12: Eruption
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 LOUSY TUNES
I did not have much time to react. The rumbling of the ground signaled either a very heavy bassline being played (say by the dual bassists of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin) or a major plate tectonic shift. Neither would be a good thing for me. I quickly looked around the lair of the infernal Lawley for something that could help me. Why did people on Desert Island Discs never take emergency lava proof safety craft with them. It was clear that lava had passed this way before as I could see above an old chimney of a dormant (but not for much longer) volcano.
The shelves which had house the infamous discs seemed rather robust so I tipped them over and covered the largest vent with them. I them insulated the whole affair with a four poster bed (possibly the pick of some Lord) under which I found a paragliding parachute. An idea came into my mind based on the properties of hot air. And I don’t mean the ability to send me to sleep when being expelled by Sir Bob Geldof on yet another one of his rants about how fathers are hard done by. No court in the land would grant a man who looks like a tramp and writes songs about mass murder custody of his kids.
As the room rumbled to an alarming degree I fixed the parachute firmly to the four poster bed and the shelving. Then, using a piece of plumbing that only the most anal of castaways would have chosen, I made a rudimetary exhaust to force the supeheated air up.
Needless to say, it worked and soon I, the bed and the shelving were soaring up the chimney. Not a moment too soon, as with a loud Bang, the volcano below me erupted. The slow progress was sped up by the jet of java which was luckily deflected by the metal shelving. Nevertheless, in seconds I was shot free of the volcano, the island and into the strasophere – only to drift over sea, towards land on the parachute.
Landing on a cold, rocky promontory, I took stock of the situation. And then went to sleep. Well I did have a four poster bed.
VAN HALEN: Eruption
Eruption is an instrumental. So at least we do not have to contend with the god-awful lyrics that heavy metal bands shoehorned into their songs. Instead, like all instrumentals, we get to project meaning fromt he ood of those playing, and from the audience reaction. The only hint we have is the songs name to its true meaning. Eruption. What could that refer to.
Well it could refer to a volcano of course, and it is in this sense I am using it. However in reality one need only look at the standard Van Halen fan to deign its true meaning. Lank, greasy hair, leading to the kind of problem combination skins that Laboratoire Garnier blanch at. Such skin which can only be improved by the nocturnal habits of such fans – and I don’t mean air guitar. No, eruption clearly refers to big, fat pustulating zits bursting with zealous glee. The zits being formed by a rebellious body which wants to do anything it can to get away from the appalling guitar wankery of Eddie Van Halen.
And as for David Lee Roth. Well if the words spandex, Pat Sharp hair, mouth the size of the Mersey tunnel, brain the size of a pea do not scare you off, then a quick listen to Why Can’t This Be Love* will soon convince you that this man is a aberration of nature. It could not be love by the way for much the reason their fans could not get girlfriends. You cannot love something too ugly to look in the eye.