A Question of Culture

What is Katie’s Price?
Can Alex Reid?
Is Ted Danson?
Are you asking?
Then Ted’s Danson.

What is Vincent’s Price?
We all know that Vanessa Mae,
but Ronnie Wood.
Is Barry White?
Is Cilla Black?

What is the asking-price for a has-been?
Slightly more than for a never was.
Is the footballer playing with an empty net,
or just an empty head?
Pretty boy multi-millionaires
with sponsorship and endorsement deals,
and super-injunctions taken out,
just to keep it real.

Even Jordan tops best-seller lists,
and Jeffrey Archer’s books have fewer twists,
than his life spent at her Majesty’s Pleasure.
Shakespeare has less pull.

Simon Cowell seems to be the go to guy,
when we want a serious discussion about music.
Have we forgotten that he inflicted Robson and Jerome
upon a nation that did him no harm?
Multi-Millionaire Politicians are tarring Millions with the same brush,
saying that they understand, having rubbed shoulders in Job Centres,
next to the common man.

So, a Question for Culture
Is this what we need, or just what we deserve,
when we take the lowest common denominator
at its very first word?

Man, you should have been there

Guess who just got back today?
Those wild eyed boys who had been away.

So we strike up the harmony guitars,
and the crowd sing along.

Hadn’t changed, hadn’t much to say,
But Man I still think those cats are great

Just for one night we can forget,
forget about everything.
Tonight, we are Kings.
There are girls watching.
Men in too much denim are
buying us drinks,
and the beer will flow along with the solos.

There she stood in the street….
Smiling from her head to her feet……..

Years have passed since those nights,
and neither of us are in bands,
but we talk about what we did
15 years ago, playing songs older than we were.

He stopped soon after, but I carried on.
he wanted the fame, I wanted the experience,
so we talk about gigs, and how we used to say
Man, you should have been there.

Those nights were unrepeatable, until the next time,
when we load up the Drummer’s van
with our kit, and a PA,
that we inherited from another band
who saw something of themselves in us.
We took the songs from the radio,
added our own flavours,
different solos,
different harmonies,
but still the crowd sang along to the versions they knew,
and complained when we changed the order,
or even dared to play an instrumental,
or something that we had written ourselves.

The Landlord seems pleased.
He says trade is doubled on his normal weeks,
but knows that any profits he has made, we will take.
The time of 4 musicians doesn’t come cheap.

So, we get £20 an hour for doing something we love,
Knowing that tomorrow we will get £8 an hour
Doing something we hate,
But when people ask about the gig,
We will say, Man, you should have been there.