the sinning machine
When I first arrived in London, like most people experiencing the city for the first time, I was completely blown away. Having been brought up to implicitly loathe the capital and all it's pampered and over indulged occupants, I didn't expect to feel the way I did as I walked across the Victoria Station concourse - I was excited yet slightly overawed (but in a good way).
Unfortunately, although my new job was in Tooting (and how I laugh now when I remember it as the centre of my cultural universe for two years), I was only passing through on my way to live in a small Kent town near East Grinstead with my then girlfriend. I subsequently moved to a medium-sized commuter town in the Surrey broker belt - it was okay, but neither were London proper and neither felt like home.
I was approaching the end of my first year there when I started getting itchy feet, and I wanted to spend more time out and about with my workmates in Tooting rather than getting back to the broker-belt to do nothing much in particular. The train home arrived later and later and change, not that I knew it yet, was just around the corner.
It was about this time that "Monster" by REM and "Dog Man Star" by Suede were my constant audio companions, and it was the latter that inspired the following poem by in the now usual way of providing a rhythm to hang my made up lyrics onto. There was a near-future dystopian feel to the word in general that appealed to the post-apocolyptic sci-fi geek in me, and it empathised with my ongoing situation wasting my years in a nowhere town.
However it wasn't a track from the album that pricked my consciousness, but rather a b-side (if such a thing could exist on a cd single) from one of the track releases. "Together", track two on the "New Generation" release, was the first Suede track written by (the irreplacable) Bernard Butler's replacement Richard Oakes, and I was keen to hear how it stood up.
It fared pretty well, but more importantly for me it became the vehicle for some lines I had jotted down about the darker side contained within us all, and a nod in the direction of my changing relationship and the other avenues - or more specifically, avenue in the singular - that was presenting itself to me.
Unfortunately, although my new job was in Tooting (and how I laugh now when I remember it as the centre of my cultural universe for two years), I was only passing through on my way to live in a small Kent town near East Grinstead with my then girlfriend. I subsequently moved to a medium-sized commuter town in the Surrey broker belt - it was okay, but neither were London proper and neither felt like home.
I was approaching the end of my first year there when I started getting itchy feet, and I wanted to spend more time out and about with my workmates in Tooting rather than getting back to the broker-belt to do nothing much in particular. The train home arrived later and later and change, not that I knew it yet, was just around the corner.
It was about this time that "Monster" by REM and "Dog Man Star" by Suede were my constant audio companions, and it was the latter that inspired the following poem by in the now usual way of providing a rhythm to hang my made up lyrics onto. There was a near-future dystopian feel to the word in general that appealed to the post-apocolyptic sci-fi geek in me, and it empathised with my ongoing situation wasting my years in a nowhere town.
However it wasn't a track from the album that pricked my consciousness, but rather a b-side (if such a thing could exist on a cd single) from one of the track releases. "Together", track two on the "New Generation" release, was the first Suede track written by (the irreplacable) Bernard Butler's replacement Richard Oakes, and I was keen to hear how it stood up.
It fared pretty well, but more importantly for me it became the vehicle for some lines I had jotted down about the darker side contained within us all, and a nod in the direction of my changing relationship and the other avenues - or more specifically, avenue in the singular - that was presenting itself to me.
The Sinning Machine
I'm a monumental sinner
With a sackful of pain,
A convoluted Non-diluted
History of senselessness and shame -
(A nice line in degradation and pain!)
But why should I bother to explain?
I don't believe I'll ever change...
February 1996
6th st salvation
image © deneyterrio
Labels: 1996, dystopia, london, post-apocolyptic, suede, tooting
posted by Paul Allan White at 6:44 AM
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