To the Stranglers

This is a sad day-I am struggling to save myself from getting drowned in a quagmire of indignation and disappointment today. I still cannot overcome the sense of disbelief which gripped me when I discovered that the press had accused you of writing a sexist song. Why did that have to happen to me? I have already spent two hours in the morning listening to the song over and over again trying to analyze its lyrics and mulling over its semantics in a desperate attempt to detect misogyny in it. But I still cannot fathom what was there in the song which made so many consider it to be disrespectful towards women-maybe, that’s because English is still an alien language for me; a mystery which tantalizes and teases me every evening that I meet her in the company of Joyce or Woolf or Banville or Poe but remains nonchalant to me every time I try to have a rendezvous with her by myself. But it is equally likely that I have been in love with you for too long to be willing to admit even to myself that you could write a misogynistic song, though there is certainly something sexually evocative about it. Well, did you intend the lyrics to be sexist? Strolling along minding my own buisness/ well there goes a girl and a half/ she's got me going up and down/ she's got me going up and down/ walking on the beaches looking at the peaches/ well i got the notion girl that you got some suntan lotion in that bottle of yours/ spread it all over my peelin' skin baby/ that feels real good/ all this skirt lappin' up the sun/ lap me up/ why don't you come on and/ lap me up/ walking on the beaches looking at the peaches/ well there goes another one just lying down on the sand dunes/ i'd better go take a swim and see if i can cool down a little bit/ coz you and me woman/ we got a lotta things on our minds (you know what i mean)/ walking on the beaches looking at the peaches/ will you just take a look over there (where?) there/ is she tryin' to get outta that clitares?/ liberation for women/ thats what i preach/ preacher man/ walking on the beaches looking at the peaches/ oh shit/ there goes the charabang/ looks like im gonna be stuck here the whole summer/ well what a bummer/ i can think of a lot worse places to be/ like down in the streets/ or down in the sewer/ or even on the end of a skewer… Well, yes I just listened to the song once again and it is indeed laden with sexual innuendos but I still cannot feel anything save perplexity as I try to understand why did it outrage women and journalists who acrimoniously alleged that yours was a band of male chauvinists and the song was distastefully sexist. It also won’t be easy to try to quit being in love with you. I have spent so many Sunday afternoons downloading your songs from the internet, reading your interviews available online and watching videos of your songs on Youtube that nothing seems to be of gloomier prospect than weekends without you. Ah! Those afternoons have been a veritable feast for my senses. Every time I listened to Hugh Cornwell sing ‘Golden Brown, texture like sun…’ I found myself being transformed into a lotus-eater enjoying the melancholia, the day dreaming which languor invokes. I on the other hand, found that my heart was replete with an ineffably exciting energy whenever I watched JJ Burnel croon ‘Something better change’; can listening to a song ever lead to the release of endorphin in the body? I am not sure; my knowledge of biology has always been rather poor. As I discovered more and more of your songs, I so much wished that I was a young woman living in England in the 1970s so that I could attend your concerts, admire your irreverence, despise the mainstream media for being hostile to you and investigate the revolutionary potential of your songs. I don’t know if I like ‘No more heroes…’ better than ‘Get a grip on yourself’ but I listen to both of them whenever I need to reassure myself that my solitude does not make me lonely. I am not sure who I think was hotter-Hugh Cornwell, the lead singer with a maddening, haunting voice or JJ Burnel, the bass player with disheveled hair but I know that their sensuality laid in the eccentricity which they exuded as they performed. I have been so madly in love with both of them along with the astonishingly strange songs which they created with Dave Greenfield on the key board and Jet Black, playing the drums that I almost loathe myself for not discovering them earlier and for allowing myself to let my taste in music remain weak due to listening to too much of Bollywood music as a child. Yet the question shall always chafe me, vex me if you actually have a sexist song or two-I am too scared to listen to ‘London Lady’ lest I should actually discover that you had, in your enthusiasm to portray yourself as bold and menacing, allowed yourself to do something as banal and commonplace as write a misogynistic song- in your otherwise brilliantly original oeuvre. It is excruciating a discovery that you who composed a song like ‘Strange little girl’ could have referred to us as a ‘piece of meat’. But then JJ Burnel said in an interview in 2011 “I think probably politically we f@@@ed it up. We made so many enemies we screwed up a lot of people…. I never got the sexist thing.” I think I will believe him. He thinks that you are still a viable band; maybe I shall get to attend your concert some day in near future. Maybe, I can meet JJ Burnel and clarify for myself if lyrics of ‘Peach’ and ‘London Lady’ actually had sexist connotations? Were you ever a votary of male chauvinism?

The Raven and the rain...

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more,'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -
Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as `Nevermore.'

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'
Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
`Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never-nevermore."'

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking `Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;


And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!
Edgar Allan Poe, 1845.

I wish I could encounter and engage with the raven perched on my chamber door more often than I can. I wish I could devote myself to reading Poe more frequently than I do. I wish I could read 'quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore' for a living. I wish, I do wish.