Song Of The Damned
If you were to hear The Song Of The Damned, not long after you’d probably find yourself in quite a bit of trouble, right? It’s standard for woe to betide you when you hear unearthly wails and everybody knows it.
But what if you don’t find yourself in quite a bit of trouble? What if you genuinely – without a doubt – sure as Cindy McCain is attracted to a bold palette for her Fall wardrobe – heard the Song Of The Damned…but nothing bad happened? What if for weeks, years, decades passed and things actually went surprisingly well? Would you live large, feeling you had cheated Fate and slipped by somehow, or would you live every hour in dread of what you know must surely come?
Well that’s exactly the dilemma of a friend of mine. His name’s not important but it’s Douglas. Douglases were once much more important. For example, there was: Douglas MacArthur; Frederick Douglass; Douglas Adams; one Douglas even had a fir named after him, so important were Douglases in the olden days. These days you’re hard pressed to find a Douglas more important than this one. That is why Douglas’s name is not important.
So, Douglas is minding his own business one lonely night, compiling a list of all the foods, in descending order, that he’d prefer the circa 1979 Margaret Thatcher to lick off his naked body, when, all of a sudden, he hears the Song Of The Damned! Just like that! He says he can’t really describe it but you definitely know it when it hits you, kind of like love and the odor of a “Natural Choice“-fed labrador’s fart. The best he could say was that it sounded a bit like Kate Bush’s voice carried on a storm-force, terrified-seagull-filled gale, if Kate Bush kept turning into a snarling beast every other minute. With an upbeat Bluegrass tempo and occasional virtuoso triangle solos. It seemed to be coming from the fridge.
Well, Douglas, he got a bit of a start, allright. It’s not every day etc. etc. But it’s been 17 years now since that night and poor Douglas is still haunted by what Fate might have in store for him. When will the demons come? he wonders. How will I tell that they’re not the nice Jehovah’s Witness couple from round the road? He cowers by hedges and trembles when he has to interact with other people. He can’t look them in the eye for the pants-pooing fear of seeing no pupils there. He probably would have been like that anyway because he is, after all, the kind of man to compile a list, in descending order, of what foodstuffs he would like the circa 1979 Margaret Thatcher to lick off his naked body. (Dream Topping narrowly beat Miracle Whip on account of its lower heat-transfer coefficient.) But I think it’s got worse since the whole Song Of The Damned business.
What would you do? How would you live your life after hearing the Song Of the Damned? The Terrible Tune? The Unholy Unharmony? That most Diabolical of Dirgey Ditties? What would you do?
October 20th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
It couldn’t be worse than hyenas yelping in the dark. I’d stick in ear plugs – into my ears.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:10 am
But where do you find ear-plugs in the Congo, Nanas? Tufts of shredded lianas? Otter tails? Little dead mice?
October 21st, 2008 at 1:10 am
Yes, but you know that she only calls those of the Old Names. Many hear her, but few have the joy of the personal visit. But Kate Bush, well it has to be better than Enya or that funny odd-faced french-Chinook. Who as far as I’m concerned is the sole cause of the iceberg. And this is one of the few times where I delighted with my brains inability to remember names of people living.
Now, to the Douglas, of all the families in Scotland, the two world wars near on wiped out the male line, but what with the bit of incest, suicide and a none to latent leaning to, or uncertaintanty with, which of the two sinks they working with. It was a blessed wonder that they lasted that long. Nowadays much would be made of a co-joining of the two titles QUEENberry and DRUMlanrig.
October 21st, 2008 at 4:36 am
I heard it once, the siren song of the damned.
It was worse than the big black dog I saw outside my bedroom window. I was three and a bit, we had just moved house. The dog was looking in at me from the top of a twelve foot wall. His eyes were ochre. I can touch him still with my mind. The wall was inaccessible from the ground.
The song of the damned was worse, much worse.
October 21st, 2008 at 6:01 am
Ah, you mean a first grade plastic flutophone band rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” No need to worry after that. That’s the worst thing that’ll ever happen to you.
October 21st, 2008 at 7:40 am
A name change would seem to be in order after hearing that, Sam.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:32 am
Was there jazz involved?
October 21st, 2008 at 10:03 am
Vincent, I too believe Celine Dion is causing global warming! I’ve been saying so since the mid-90s. Her held-notes are shattering ice-bergs thus accelerating the rate of melt. She should be moved to the tropics where she can do less harm. Or perhaps to a granite quarry somewhere. Get some use out of her.
Conan, that wasn’t the siren song of the damned, my friend, that was that lady from the internet come tapping at your window. “Conan, it’s me, internet-ladee, I’ve come home, so cohohohohold, Let me into your windowhohoho.” And you were quite right to draw the curtains.
Rand, what about the kindergarten kazoo-band version of “Jingle Bells”? If that’s not just like the Song Of The Damned, it sure is The Song OF The Darned.
Medbh, thank-you, Medbh – the first practical piece of advice. I shall p-mail Douglas directly. We have to communicate via pigeon-mail now because he swears my teeth and ears are getting pointier. Actually, to him they are. I like to wear prosthetic ones. Just to mess with his head. Mwahahahee!
fmc, actually a major influence on the composers of the latest Song Of The Damned (available on dieTunes) was experimental jazz with lounge-scatting.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:22 am
I hear she is in Vegas much of her time. Shit, there is a thousand miles of sand all round the place, most of it radioactive, and still…. But the berg, was the one that sank RMS Titanic, it knew, ya see, knew. She was on the way. Them ‘bergs know things. Fear, pure and simple drove it from its womb, helter skelter in to the side of the boat.
October 21st, 2008 at 1:44 pm
They say she is the youngest of 14 children which is where, to make herself heard at all, she probably learnt how to wail and scream so granit-shatteringly
October 21st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I think I just heard it.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Can’t say I ever heard the Song Of The Damned, but I’ve both heard and smelt “Natural Choice“-fed labrador’s fart. Now that’s a killer.
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:03 am
Tell Douglas not to waste his life waiting for the sword of Damocles – that is almost as bad as committing a sin. The first really naughty thing I did – decades ago, I was in fear and trembling waiting for the Heavens to open and Damocles or whatever to exact revenge. Every train I was a passenger on, chanted my misdemeanour – Di dum dee dee. Di dum dee dee but as time went on and I survived I stopped worrying – quite so much.
The point is I would do the same again but I suppose you have to be prepared to pay the price.
October 22nd, 2008 at 6:04 am
Met her at a disco in 1977. “I will survive” was playing. I couldn’t hear her properly, concentrating on Gloria’s words, This is my earliest memory of getting in touch with my better feminine side. I think I frightened her, I think she said dammed or dam it, or maybe that she was afraid or petrified. One of the lads told me they met her later on getting a curried chip. She looked a little scared though.
October 22nd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I thought i did a little while ago too, but turns out I was just hungry.
Primal, They have “Natural Choice” fed labradors in hell instead of air conditioners.
Pat, at last, some proper advice for Douglas! But Damocles doesn’t really have a sword. It’s more of a penknife but yer Mediterraneans talk these things up to make the legend sound mythier. If you told Damocles his flies were undone, when he peers down to check, there’s a good chance you could quickly hide behind a bush til he’d gone. (He’s awffy short-sighted and they’ve recruited his seeing-eye labrador as an Air Quality Deteriorator in the special new extension of hell they’re building for Wall Street workers.)
Sniffle, I’ve heard that if you play the 1977 best-selling Song Of The Damned backwards, it sounds a lot like I Will Survive. Played forward it sounded a lot like Kenny Rogers.
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
That Thatcher thing is just so … just … I don’t know.
It’s just wrong.
Wrong, and possibly revolting, if I thought enough about it, which I won’t. It’s too, you know, wrong.
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
i guess i’m not totally following. i mean, is it like watching the ring? except you may have more than 7 days? well, isn’t that kind of just life in general? hoping you get through the day without getting hit by a bus?
October 24th, 2008 at 6:34 am
I wouldn’t believe it. Powers of prediction have never worked either about me or by me. In fact it’s almost uncanny how unaccurate they are. Random chance should dictate an occasional hit, but no fortunte teller has ever got it right about me.
October 24th, 2008 at 6:39 am
If I heard the song of the damned I’d…I don’t know, put on some Lloyd Cole really loud to drown it out.
Then I’d come out in a rash.
October 24th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I thought I’d heard it. But it was only the Song of the Damned being played for someone else in the next room. Maybe it was coming through on their iPod headset, a sort of bleed through Song of the Damned.
It still made my blood run cold.
Since then, I’ve kept up my medical insurance, and I’ve been stockpiling peanut butter and bottled water. I think I could give a tracheotomy with a knife and a pen, and I’ve tested myself by living outdoors on only the food and water I could find. I only need to learn how to build a fire without matches, and keep woolens from shrinking, and although I won’t be able to outrun the Song of the Damned, I may be able to fire walk through it.
October 24th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Dammit, I have Song of the Damned stuck in my head now. *sigh*
October 25th, 2008 at 5:32 am
Mind you, if I did hear the song of the damned, I’d probably record it and put it up on YouTube…
October 25th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
…first thing I’d add add some catchy bontempi chord organ rhythm with a subtle Rolf Harris didgeridoo melody and an Ian Paisley sermon, and …. no that’ll do..
October 28th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
over from Halushki…
I assume my boys would be so loud they’d drown the music out. At least that is my hope.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I keep returning to Douglas Bader, He wrote a book called ‘reach for the skies’. Anyhoos, one of the first red arrows, where he flew his craft into the ground. Bloody near died, but lost both legs. Flew a desk but was eventually retired on half pay.
WW2, came along and he pestered all and sundry to return active. Eventually got his way, where he developed the strategic and tactical aims and methods to smash the luftwaffen. Then, over France got himself shotdown, crashed. This time his fake legs saved him, as he unstrapped them vaulted from the cockpit an instant before the castor oil ignited. The Germans asked that he be sent new legs. And when he received them, promptly vanished.
Well, you can understand that the germans now properly peeved with his lack of simple Graces, for he insisted on trying to return to the UK, sent him to Colditz.
All true, and much much more, but if his name was Tommy Charles or Adrian would he have the same level of luck. AND I’m not even sure luck is the correct word.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Vincent: but I bet Douglas was hell to live with:)
October 30th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Which one, Pat. Boise Douglas was Oscar Wilde, friend. But these days you have to admit that Queensbury problem with Wilde was more to do with his Aunty.
Bader played scratch in ‘38 with tin legs. But to and in my life, living with a whiner who is always on the brink. That is hellish in my opinion.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Bock, it’s wrong, baby, oh, yeas it is. But I know there’s a dark side to every man who wants to know all about that mysterious pocket filled with her secrets. Her handbag is a beguiler of men.
Kara, I don’t know what the ring is so I’ll say, yes. Yes indeed, it is very like the ring.
Kim, you sound like me, buddy. I too suffer from myopia of the Second Sight with cataractic complications and a squint.
Andraste, You know what, I haven’t listened to Lloyd Cole for donkeys. Tonight. Thanks for jogging the memory.
Jozet, And you will need bandages and many dressings for your ears to stem the bleeding. You can only pray for clots to form in there and muffle the demonic music. With that in mind, you should avoid aspirin and aspirin-based products in any high-risk situations – malls and company picnics and the like.
K8, fight it girl! Don’t go to sleep like Dorothy in the poppies. Huge flapping monkeys are coming for you wearing only fezes and embroidered gilets. Close your ears to them! Eat a really crunch biscuit to drown them out! Anything – your children need you to stay strong!
Kim, I knew you were an earthly agent of Beelzebub. It’s the beard and all that goat-sacrificing you do in Castle Douglas.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Donnie, you’re right, the didgeridoo’s exotic winsomeness just balances Ian Paisley’s bile-washed spew. Anything else would be artistically OTT and vulgar. You are clearly a man of excellent aesthetic instincts. I want to encourage more of your sort around here.
Ewe are here, howya? When my kids get noisy I simply get noisier. It really bugs them. Often they shut right up. Challengingly, sometimes they think it’s a great game. I love to scream once in a while though so really the only one bothered is the cat. Oh and the husband. But he knows to be out a lot.
Vincent, wow, that’s an amazing story. Give a guy the legs to escape on, you can harldy be surprised when he does, right? I’m interested. I’ll be Googling that fella for sure.
Pat, he’s probably be terrified of tin openers though. If he got pesky you could always waggle one of them at him.
Vincent, poor Oscar; stupid, beautiful Boise.