Smoz wrote:Philip, was there ever any consideration given to you singing the lead vocals on the album version of thousands? Did it seem odd performing this live when Shane used to sing on 'your' song? And when did you get to reclaim it live? I think Shane sang it at the T&C in 1988, I don't recall Shane performing it live in any of the post 2001 reunion shows.
I think the feeling was that "1000s" was a potential single - if we could get it down below 5.5 minutes which, despite several promptings from Steve Lillywhite, I was either unable to do or unwilling to do, I honestly can't recall. But working on the assumption that at some point we
would find suitable edit points, we worked as though it were a possible single in which case it made sense for Shane to sing it. Plus he
was the lead singer and wanted to do the song which was absoutely his prerogative and a choice I felt flattered by anyway. In the event, "1000s" was not a single except in Canada, where it was a Double A side with "Fairytale" and in the US, where it was a 12" radio promo only (both on Island). Though the 12" was supposed to be limited to 500 copies only, it seems likely it flourished at a level that makes Jesus look like an amateur with his loaves and fishes scam. It can still be picked up for $5 or $10, I think.
At some point in its performance history, Shane became uncomfortable with a couple of things in the song. Specifically Brendan Behan dancing: despite overwhelming evidence that Behan was light on his feet and an instinctive booty-shaker, Shane refused to believe that Behan would ever "dance up and down the street" and began to invent other, more raucous activities for the great man. But also the entire final chorus, which takes a large swipe - admittedly with a degree of gratuitousness - at Roman-Irish Catholicism, with which I think Shane has more of a cultural, if not religious, connection than I do. My justification for it was basically that while Catholicism
was a rallying point and a source of focus and power for immigrant Irish-Americans between the 1840s and 1950s, the benefits accruing from that phenomenon were
never outweighed by the corrosive abuse of that power which, when seen in the wider context of American public life, went on to give us Rick Santorum and Calista Gingrich, among others.
An early draft had some stuff about kiddie-fiddling priests too, which I dropped. Too specific, and I already knew that Pedo prelates was a matter which migrated around the world for reasons that had nothing to do with economic or political deprivation and everything to do with keeping the bastards on the fugitive move, from parish to parish and, if needs be, continent to continent. Shane never saw this draft but in any event, I was already certain I was not going to use it. "1000s" was my second attempt to use clerical abuse in a song - a very early Radiators song, "Christian Muggers" [the title alternated with "Christian Buggers" during its development] which never made it to the first Radiators album because I was never remotely satisfied with my work on it. Jimmy Crashe's lyrics for "Dead The Beast, Dead The Poison" on the second Rads album were more effective about paedophilia in general, even though they seemed mysterious and allusive rather than direct, but I myself could never crack this particular nut. That said, I'm reasonably happy with the Radiators' version of Rory Gallagher's "It's Happened Before, It'll Happen Again" on the
new Rads album
Sound City Beat. Although neither this song or Rory's classic "Messin' With The Kid" are remotely about child rape, quoting the title of latter as a sort of coda to the former offers a slightly surprising new subtext to Rory's lyrics. In the end, that small twist was more eloquent and direct than all my own previous failed attempts to address the issue.
But I've drifted off into diversion. Shane's live version of "1000s" began to irritate me in its constant battle with the song's meaning and I took the opportunity to reclaim it when his performances of
all our songs started to become increasingly erratic, under the pretext of reducing his burden. He has, over the years, had a couple of shots at taking it back, notably when I was on medical leave in 2007/2008, but it's a long lyric and there's a lot of it to remember, so that didn't last long. I think it's right that I do it, I believe it marginally more than Shane does and love singing it, which is not to say I don't sometimes get the choruses a bit mixed up myself.
Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 7:18 pm