Quentin S Crisp

Posts tagged with "The Dead Bell"

Snubbed Again

Friday, 17. April 2009, 14:08:04

Pete Black, formerly of Dorothy, and also formerly of The Dead Bell, of which I was also a member, has put some of my lyrics to music, at this link.

Here are the lyrics:

Snubbed Again

Am I not beautiful?
Am I not brilliant?
Are these limbs of mine not godly in wit?
And yet it seems the greater part
Of those who tread this Earth
Don’t get it.

Can you imagine?
I’ve been snubbed again,
Drubbed again,
Had my face rubbed in it again.
I thought I was addressing the Commonwealth,
But I was talking to myself, again.

There’s some discrepancy
Between the reality
And the self-image I thought self-evident.
It takes a special kind of poet
To know the world is blind
And show it.

Can you imagine?
I’ve been snubbed again,
Drubbed again,
Had my face rubbed in it again.
It’s worse when you’re snubbed by some hard-nosed girl you meet,
And gush upon in your initial greeting.

But at least I’m in good company.
At least I’m in good company.

6 comments

I Was a Teenage Punk Einstein

Wednesday, 30. January 2008, 13:17:53

takamine hideko, naruse mikio, The Dead Bell

Well, not really, but close enough.

I was a member of a band called The Dead Bell. Some of you may know of this already, but I am reminding you now (and informing those of you who never knew at all) because the singer, guitarist and general musical maestro of that band has just started to put up a website of his work on the hinterwub. There are already a number of Dead Bell sound files there available for free download. There are also some sound files from Pete's next band after that, Dorothy, though there are some glitches in the recordings here, I notice, that are not present on the Dorothy CDs I have. Perhaps if you send a message to Pete via his site, and offer to make him some sticky toffee pudding, he'll be happy to do you a CD, but don't quote me on that. Do pester him to put up more stuff, though. We await sound files under the category 'current' with pleasure, in the hope that Pete did not intend to write 'currant'.

Here's the info on The Dead Bell from the site:

Music written, performed and recorded with Quentin S. Crisp around 1987-1992 if memory serves. Quentin wrote the vast majority of the lyrics and has a real gift with words ... This was an intense period and I recall feeling quite scared. We recorded on to an old 4 track tape machine in bedrooms of the various houses I was living in at the time.

Hmmm.

Well, I still have my Address to the Nation to finish. Is it worth it, I wonder? I noticed, looking in my old files just now, that I started a review of the biopic of Bettie Page ages and ages back, intending it for this blog, but never finished or posted it. That's what happens when I don't write an entry in one sitting.

Since I've just written a couple of reasonably long posts, I now feel justified in being self-indulgent and ending in a completely unrelated Youtube clip: