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Lost in music

August 01 2023
A vibrant scene, by Chris Bird © Chris Bird A vibrant scene, by Chris Bird © Chris Bird

A deep dive into the music soundtracking our writer’s day-to-day. What does it mean and how does it relate to mental health?
By Chris Sampson

In the run-out grooves of the Annihilation of Authority 7” single, there is a message scrawled onto the vinyl by someone at the pressing plant where it was made. You don’t see it at first, only when the light catches it. It reads:

“He who makes peaceful revolution impossible makes violent revolution inevitable”
– John F Kennedy

Most likely you’ll never have heard of, let alone heard, Annihilation of Authority by Poopy Nappy. Lucky you. I’ve heard it untold times. An earworm? No, much more than that. An essence-worm, if that makes any sense. I felt it seep into my very soul.

So there I was: not so much lost in music but trapped in it; in that one song in particular. The badly recorded lo-fi bassline! The tinny drums! The slightly-untuned guitars and scrawny vocals! And the lyrics! Awful, really. Chris Hideous – not a “singer” as such, more an interpreter of noises – also penned the words, concerned with slagging off the Powers That Were. At the time of composition that was the Thatcher government of the early 1980s.

Only 100 copies were ever printed, sold at chaotic gigs where crowds of 50 were seen as a good turnout; a poxy band’s one poxy addition to yer cultcha ov the Arts an’ all that…

So, how did I escape Annihilation of Authority to become the well-balanced individual and wordsmith (ahem!) you know today? Well, I never really did. See, the song permeates my waking mind, and haunts my dreams. It “means something” to me, clearly.

Its message is simple but none the worse for that: Get Rid of Bastard Tories! – as worthwhile a point today as it was 40 years ago. Did it bring Thatcherism crashing down? Nah, gawd bless ya! Course not, not a chance. But what songs like that do, however unpleasant and unpopular they may be, is soundtrack the emotions inspired by the lyrics, or even the song’s title. And given that successive UK governments have continued with the problem (i.e. self-centred c***ishness) for 40-odd years, it is vital to keep resistance in the hearts of those opposed to the aforementioned political scumbaggery.

OK, you might say, this is all very well, but what’s it got to do with mental health issues? Some old punk song? So what? Well, the thing is, there is no such song as Annihilation of Authority; no such group as Poopy Nappy.

I’m the only one ever to have “heard” it, and then only in my mind. Is that mental enough for you..?


Lost in music (Version)

In the run-out grooves of the imaginary Annihilation of Authority 7” single, there is a message scrawled onto the vinyl by someone at the pressing plant where it was made. You don’t see it at first, only when the light catches it. It reads:

“He who makes peaceful revolution impossible makes violent revolution inevitable”
– John F Kennedy

The point is that as we limply watch governments legislate against our right to protest, erode our freedoms, try to deport us to Rwanda and try to turn us into good little consumers, that instinct of resistance comes closer to the surface, bubbles away, informing our outlook.

One day, we sense, we won’t watch limply. They will push us too far and we will start to push back. Like as not, Annihilation of Authority will not be the soundtrack of that rebellion – it could be Agadoo for all I know – but it doesn’t really matter. The pushback is coming.

Vive la resistance…

THE END

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