We wrote a song out of the week’s headlines, argued about a comma and lost the kettle for good
Rehearsal in a Railway Arch, With Trains
Thursday. Rehearsal day. I love rehearsal day in the way you love a relative you would not choose to holiday with.
Our room is a railway arch in south-east London, the far end of a row of them, past a man who mends taxis and a unit that claims to be a bakery but which I have never once seen produce bread. We share the arch with two other bands on a rota written on the back of a pizza box. It costs us twelve pounds an hour between four of us. There is no heating, one working socket and a damp patch on the back wall in the shape of Ireland. Every nine minutes a train goes over the top and the whole place hums like the inside of a bell.
We have learned to write around the trains. Our songs have gaps in them at roughly nine-minute intervals. Critics would call it dynamics. There have not been any critics yet.
Attendance
All four of us, which is rare. The drummer arrived with a swollen jaw from Tuesday’s dentist and a bag of frozen peas held to his face with a scarf. He looked like a Victorian with toothache. He played better than he has all year. Pain suits him. I have suggested regular dental work.
The bassist brought the new fuse. The guitarist brought her little brother, who is fourteen and sat on an upturned crate in the corner with his hood up for three hours and at the end said, it is all right, I suppose. I have had worse reviews. I have had worse reviews from my own mother.
The Headline Song
Here is what we did, and I am quite pleased with it. I have been reading the funny papers on the bus all week, as usual: the Mash, NewsThump, NewsBiscuit, the Squib and the Prat’s own English satirical news pages. I had the idea of a song made of nothing but headlines. Not theirs. I am not a thief, or not that kind. Ours. Written in that style, about our own street.
So we sat on the amps and shouted them at each other for an hour. The rule was that each line had to sound like it could be true and had to be about something that had really annoyed one of us that week. The bassist did one about her landlord putting the rent up to cover the cost of a repair he had not done. The drummer, through his peas, did one about a dentist. The guitarist’s brother, from under his hood, offered one about his school banning hoods. It was the best of the lot. He is not getting a writing credit.
We ended up with fourteen lines and kept nine. It runs one minute fifty. There is a gap for the 16:42 to Dartford.
The Argument About the Comma
We then had a row lasting twenty-five minutes about whether one line needed a pause in the middle. I said yes, because the joke is in the pause. The guitarist said punk does not do commas. I said the Clash were full of commas. She said name one. I could not, on the spot, which I am still annoyed about.
What I was trying to say, badly, is that timing is the whole thing. I had been reading that piece on the Prat, what satirical commentary is, and what it is not, and there is a bit in there about how the joke only works if the reader can tell what is being aimed at. Same with a lyric. If you rush the line, nobody hears the target, and then you are just four people making a noise in an arch. Which, to be fair, is what the man who mends taxis already thinks.
We kept the comma. I won. I will pay for it later.
On Getting It Wrong on Purpose
Something else from the bus. The Prat has that UK checklist for telling satire from real news, and I went through it properly this time with our song in mind, because I wanted to know whether somebody hearing our headlines cold would think we meant them as fact. And the answer is that it depends on whether they are listening.
That is always the answer. Poly Styrene sang a whole song in 1977 that opens with a little-girl voice saying something sweet and obedient, and then she screams the title, and the entire record is the gap between those two voices. If you only heard the first line you would get it completely backwards. People did. Some radio stations would not touch it. But she was not being unclear. She was trusting you to stay for the second line.
I think that is what I like about both trades. They assume you are clever. An awful lot of things in this city assume you are not.
The Kettle
I regret to report that the kettle, which I left here on Monday, has gone. In its place was a note from one of the other bands reading: borrowed your kettle, cheers. No name. No date. No kettle. This is the third kettle the arch has eaten. I am beginning to think the damp patch is involved.
We had our tea from the cafe by the station, which charges two pounds sixty for a cup and calls it artisan. The drummer could not drink his because of his face. He held it against his jaw instead, for the warmth. Nothing is wasted in this band.
Afterward
Carried the gear to the bus stop in two trips. A man outside the pub asked what we were called and, when I told him, said he had seen us, and that we were loud. I said thank you. He said it was not a compliment. I said I knew.
On the bus I typed up the nine lines and sent them to the editor at the Prat, to see if there was a piece in it. There might be. The London satirical news desk likes a thing with a tune, and I like being paid twice for one idea.
Home. Beans again. Ears fine for once. The guitarist has just messaged the group to say her brother wants to know when the next rehearsal is. From him, that is five stars. The comma stays, the kettle is a write-off, and the rest of the week’s damage is logged in the usual place.
