THE MEMORIES FROM THOSE DAYS OF PUNK.

Just one specific occasion. In general, it was a period of life you wouldn’t change at all. Just the one night.

Way back in 1977 or 1978 I wrote this song below ‘Innocent Victim’. Being born in 1956, I was a 21/22 year old. Now, reflecting on the instrumental nature and value of this song, I believe it has potential to be completely rewritten. The lyrics certainly have to be rewritten to have a completely different up to date story. Naive and didn’t keep well at all. The whole energy of the punk vibe with ‘play fast and rush to the end of the song to avoid so much ‘spit’ coming your way from the audience whilst we were playing on stage’ has to be slowed down too.

Yes, Punk! We had ‘gob’ spit-thrown at us on one specific gig that was truly atrocious. Disgusting on hindsight. A sign of appreciation! We were the victims of punk driven rock and roll frenzy and fantasy. Pogo dancing audiences, punk style, was an essential to get to a height where a well aimed projectile of deeply brought up spit could be aimed and received where the individual wanted it to land on you. That awful substance of expectoration came from saliva glands that were located in the lower body anatomy that only aliens possibly possess. Yes…..I was a nurse. Hence the posh medical words.

INNOCENT VICTIM AUDIO. NEEDS CRANKING UP. VERY QUUET RECORDING…..

A really rough cassette copy recording. Recorded from a live rehearsal. Very much in the nature of Punk quality wise. If you were there…….you were there.

After this particular filthy gig, Brian James, the guitarist from The Damned, came up to us afterwards and said ‘Well done for tolerating the vile deluge’. I am posh paraphrasing here. He probably had more appropriate words of sympathy. His heart was in the right place. Empathic really, because of his witnessing ‘from the outside looking in’ reality. He’d probably suffered the ‘on the inside looking out’ equivalent reality at times with his own successful band. Don’t know that for a fact though. So don’t quote me.

This song? I loved writing this melody and song’s dynamic as a younger guy fairly new to punk culture. Never witnessed the intensity before at the extreme end of how appreciation from an audience at a gig was shown. But this song, and another song called Audience, especially remind me that we were a part of the true punk vibe. Got the T-shirt so to speak.

So…..’Innocent Victim’. Maybe a rewrite is definitely needed to exorcise the memory demons. I love an emotional challenge of ‘getting rid of past negatives, change the old realty of awful memory to a new cleaner/powerful vibe reality and ostracise those past experiences to Hell’s oblivion’ scenario.

I appreciate now that the audience wanted to be included with the frantic vibe we had produced. Albeit the nature of the way appreciation was demonstrated. And, a much self-liked, self written song is a song to be lovingly altered to a hoped for decent self-loved, rewritten song. Could an update get a similar positive reaction? At 68 years old? A ‘Well done old bean’ will suffice. Hacking up phlegm can still be a reaction. But spit it out into your newly ironed handkerchief. And when washing it afterwards, don’t put it in the washing machine with the tea towels. Better still, buy those little packets of throw away paper tissues and use those. Then put the offending used article into a suitable hazard safe container ready to be disposed of correctly by burning.

As said…..once a nurse, always a nurse. Infection control matters!

That was a very weird blog write up! I reckon contamination from those days has finally took hold and escaped from the body cells that they’ve been hiding in for decades. Crossed my blood/brain barrier and are creating the crazy stuff that nighttime haunted dreamland produces. The dreams that make you wake up sweating and flailing your arms about so as to ward off the viral punk driven enemies from cuckoo ‘spit-pint’ land’.

Innocent Victim? A rewrite? Nah! Leave it where it belongs……,