In 1989 Big Hard Excellent Fish, a duo of Josie Jones and Jake Walters, were asked to write a piece of music for the punk ballet dancer and choreographer Michael Clark. Josie asked her then boyfriend Pete Wylie to help out and they recorded Imperfect List, with Robin Guthrie of The Cocteau Twins producing. It was released in 1989 and then again a year later with remixes by Andrew Weatherall (subtitled Rimming Elvis The Andrew Weatherall Way). I've posted the Weatherall remixes before (or at least a couple of them, there are four on the 12" single). This is the original version.
Imperfect List
In Imperfect List Josie lists 64 things that her and Wylie hated starting with Adolf Hitler and taking in various other named or famous people from Terry and June to Bonnie Langford to 'fucking bastard Thatcher' to Stock, Aitken and Waterman, some unnamed people (macho dickhead, accusing ungrateful mate, weird British judges, tasteless A&R wanker and the dentist), some daily irritants (lost keys, neighbours- or is that Neighbours?), some entirely appropriate late 80s targets (the Tories, Hillsborough, Heysel, the poll tax, apartheid, acid rain, Clause 28, Nelson Mandela's imprisonment) and some universal hates (cancer, miscarriage, loneliness, hunger, murder, gut wrenching disappointment, the Sun newspaper) and plenty more besides.
'Where were you?' Josie asks at the end, leaving the question hanging and unanswered.
If any song can be seen to end the 80s, Imperfect List will always be my choice! Josie was a brilliant foil to Wylie's off the rails attacks on the world. One thing I've always been left wondering, is what would a Wylie album produced by Robin Guthrie sound like.
ReplyDelete