Lone Gunmen

Tonight I am listening to a sequence of songs that somehow, for no obvious reason, reminds me of the phrase 'Lone Gunmen'.

From Eleanor Rigby, The Beatles:

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

From Let It Be, The Beatles:

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.

From State of Grace, Billy Joel:

There you go, slipping away into a state of grace
I know the look that comes across your face
It's so familiar to me
Here I am, trying to keep you in my line of sight
I'm never certain that you read me right
Sometimes you don't want to see me...

From America, Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel:

"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"
"We smoked the last one an hour ago"
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all gone to look for America...

This was followed by ABBA's Eagle and St Etienne's Milk Bottle Symphony. There is a certain colour of loneliness, somewhere in the long wavelengths beyond the microwaves, where the sea edges towards flatness and the frequency approaches never. Somewhere out there is the null, the opposite of singularity. And maybe, there is a lone gunman.

Private Lives

Sometimes I wonder how some authors can so convincingly get us into the heads and private internal lives of their characters. John Lanchester does it somewhat scatologically in his Mr Phillips, that old hack and wonderful enchanter James Joyce does it surpassingly and mystifyingly well in Ulysses; other examples abound (mostly in metropolitan life, and often in Irish literature — or literature written by the Irish).

One of the most acute examples, which at first sight or hearing doesn't seem to do much (and yet does enormously much, on a second or third hearing) is this one from that great London indie Brit-pop band, St Etienne:

The Milk Bottle Symphony by St Etienne

Tony leaves the Depot late.
Seventeen years with the Unigate,
Drives his float down Goswell Road at twenty-five to eight.

Number Nine, Mrs Doris Brown.
Pulls on her quilted dressing gown,
Shuts the fridge and boils the kettle,
Wipes the table down.

La la la la la la
Just as she pours the tea,
She's whistling randomly,
The Milk Bottle Symphony.

Milk Bottle Symphony

Number Twelve, there's Amy Chan.
Writing down a line for the CandyMan,
About the time she saw Tom Baker,
Drinking down the Hat and Fan.

The man next door is Gary Stead.
Shuffles downstairs with heavy head,
Scans the paper, takes a pill,
And stumbles back to bed.

La la la la la la
Didn't get home till Three
Singing appallingly
A Milk Bottle Symphony

Milk Bottle Symphony

Emily Roe's at Thirty-One,
Twenty minutes left to get her homework done.
Leaves her cornflakes on the sofa,
Says good-bye to Mum.

La la la la la la
Jumps on the Forty-Three,
Humming unconsciously,
A Milk Bottle Symphony

Milk Bottle Symphony...

A Milk Bottle Symphony is of course that great and subtle random orchestration of early morning noises one is treated to in a the early morning, if you live in a country (as I used to) which still has morning milk deliveries in glass bottles that clink as the milkman puts them outside your door. Delicious milk, fond memories. Being a student in England was one of the best times of my life.