Wall of Mouths

Does anyone else remember Schtum from the 1995 Infernal Love tour (UK)? I’ve had all their singles for years but I finally got round to buying their album this week (for the bargain price of £1.50 I might add) and it’s fantastic.

On the Therapy? front I’m still mostly listening to Shameless, I have to say it’s growing on me now. I found that I needed time to get into it, as I did when Infernal Love came out. Whereas Semi-Detached and Troublegum, for example, I absolutely loved from the very first play. Anyone else found that?

Hi Barnabus11

The thing about being re-educated wasn’t what I was saying, it was what Andy said.

Sorry if we misunderstood each other here, I wouldn’t suppose to really know much about the troubles in NI at all, let alone lecture on solving them!

Hia Tony

Good question. I’ve been wading through piles of old interviews (it’s really bugging me now!) but the only thing I could find about Potato Junkie is as follows:

(Andy) ‘There’s a line in ‘Potato Junkie’ - which is the only political thing I’ve ever written - and it goes ‘How can I remember 1690? I was born in 1965’.

1690 was the date of the Loyalist victory over the Catholics. Why are people still clinging to this old bollocks? It means nothing anymore and it’s time people woke up to these kind of things. I hate seeing people, their culture and their opinions and their personalities strangled by their upbringing. It’s such horrible, dated bollocks.

It’s such a small country and there’s so much hatred there. It needs to be re-educated. There are too many people clinging to these old cultures.

It would be so easy for Therapy? to write a song like ‘Across The Barricades’ and I think that’s something the media expect. They want a ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ for Ireland and I couldn’t do that. I don’t really believe in it, cos the whole problem is too complex. And sadly, I don’t think there’ll be any kind of a solution before the end of my lifetime’.

(Melody Maker, 11th June 1994)

I don’t know much about James Joyce, but he was raised as a Roman Catholic. Another line in the song is ‘This business is pointless, to think that green is the only colour on the atlas.’ Green being a reference to Catholicism I assume.

I think the line in question is probably there for shock value more than anything else. I suppose it could be saying that the past is still affecting everybody in Northern Ireland on a personal level (James Joyce being a historical figure and the sister representing the modern day - it being his ‘sister’ indicating familiarity).

I wouldn’t like to venture anything further as I don’t know enough about Andy’s politics. I think I once read that he was Catholic and Michael was Protestant but that could have been the other way round, which doesn’t really help!

Anyone else want to have a go?