Songs on Sunday: Little Drum v Nothing Ever Happens

There has been plenty that I could have said recently about many things, but there didn't seem to be much point. I have often been filled with the desire to be heard, as many of us do, but this is meaningless without connection and that seems to be significantly lacking. I've been feeling more aggrieved with social media during the last wee while, seeing movements with good motivations starting well and then quickly becoming subsumed by the seemingly monolithic forces of misery and hate that dominate online and offline presently. Politically, we might want to make capital out of this if it favours 'our side' but the internet, particularly social media, is a system and not a smart one at that. If it is currently favouring you (or your side) then that is because you are participating in a dehumanising process that strips you of your agency. A small price to pay to be continuously winning some might think, but those that originate these sentiments are usually very far from being truly damaged by them.

Anyway, here are two slices of Scottish misery for you.

Personally, I think that in retrospect it was a blessing to feel like nothing much was happening. There's a sense of freedom along with the ennui. The difference now is the constant screaming process of 'events' doesn't motivate the people, it instead gets treated as an entertainment, something to create memes about rather than something to engage with. For all the talk of 'engagement' on social media, really what's happening is a distancing and isolating, more so now than ever before.



"Little Drum" Frightened Rabbit

I was mothered like an orchid
Tethered to paternal sides
I hurried home in orbit
Close to where I know I’m fine
No edge of the seat
No arms ever broken, you see

I waited for
the crash to come
Too many days with
Too little to do
I waited but
Nothing came at all
So many days spent
In empty rooms

The little drum inside
behaves itself until you turn twenty five
And then it strikes us all
We’ve lived this long but only ever half alive

I waited for
the crash to come
Too many days with
Too little to do
I waited but
Nothing came at all
So many days spent
In empty rooms
It’s too late for
A wasted youth
All quiet on the eastern front
We dare not move
It’s too late
To wage a war
So quiet on the eastern front
We are all bored



"Nothing Ever Happens" Del Amitri

Post office clerks put up signs saying 'position closed'
And secretaries turn off typewriters and put on their coats
And janitors padlock the gates
For security guards to patrol
And bachelors phone up their friends for a drink
While the married ones turn on a chat show

And they'll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow

Gentlemen time please, you know we can't serve anymore
Now the traffic lights change to stop, when there's nothing to go
And by five o'clock everything's dead
And every third car is a cab
And ignorant people sleep in their beds
Like the doped white mice in the college lab

And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
The needle returns to the start of the song
And we all sing along like before

And we'll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow

Telephone exchanges click while there's nobody there
The Martians could land in the car park and no one would care
Closed-circuit cameras in department stores
Shoot the same movie every day
And the stars of these films neither die nor get killed
Just survive constant action replay

And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
The needle returns to the start of the song
And we all sing along like before

And we'll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow

And bill hoardings advertise products that nobody needs
While "Angry from Manchester" writes to complain about
All the repeats on TV
Computer terminals report some gains in the values of copper and tin
While American businessmen snap up Van Goghs
For the price of a hospital wing

And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
The needle returns to the start of the song
And we all sing along like before

And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
They'll burn down the synagogues at six o'clock
And we'll all go along like before

And we'll all be lonely tonight and lonely tomorrow