Re: Organic Acid lyrics

[Steve ZPJ <zpj@huskbeat.demon.co.uk>]

On 30 Jan 1996 15:50:58 -0800 IEDSRI@aol.com wrote:

> >     I just heard the "Organic Acid" demo for the first time (Thank you
> > VERY much, Emmy!) and I was wondering if anybody has transcribed the
> > lyrics yet?  Especially, Paddy's very unusual poetry. 

>The lyrics unfortunately were never properly placed in
>the complete lyrics section of IED's The Garden text, 
>but he knows that they were posted in their entirety
>by him (and perhaps by others, as well) years ago in 
>Love-Hounds.  IED also provided (if his memory serves
>him) both the song's version of John Carder Bush's 
>poem and the earlier edition, as written for publication
>in the late 1960s/early 1970s under the title "Before
>the Flood" (?), which is probably the actual title of
>the song, the identification of which as "Organic Acid"
>is almost certainly erroneous.

>-- Andrew Marvick (IED)
>     S              R              I

I've got IED's original post to Lovehounds right here. It took a
little while to dig it out but here it is (forgive the formatting, I
had a different mailer back in those days):


Date:    Sat, 23 Jun 90 10:49 PDT
To: LOVE-HOUNDS@EDDIE.MIT.EDU
Subject: "Organic Acid": the _official_ lyrics
 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: "Organic Acid": The _official_ lyrics

   IED has managed to find a copy of John Carder Bush's originall
poem, _Before_the_Fall_. This poem formed the basis for John's spokenn
text on the early Kate Bush recording which bootleggers and we havee
mistakenly taken to calling _Organic_Acid_. That is, of course, nott
the actual title. And although we still don't know what _Kate's_
original song was called (after all, it was almost certainly not
written for JCB's poem, but was simply combined with it later during
performances),
_Before_the_Fall_ now seems a more legitimate (though admittedly less
fun)
title than _Organic_Acid_. Here is the poem exactly as it was
originally
written (it includes many lines that were omitted from the recordedd
version, and lacks a word here and there as well):

                           _Before_the_Fall_

He got her drunkk
very quickly:
holding hands they found the broom cupboardd
where he had control as far as the fall,
the rasping descent of her tights.
When his hand covered wet hairs
she took over among furniture wax, dust,
the cloying yellow of polishing cloth.
When he was sickk
she comforted him.

He couldn't do it properly: the club,
the office had left out details of delight.
Satisfied, he would collapse out,
puzzled at why she still squirmed,
held on to him, tears curling into her mouth.
This was something stories always omitted:
that her joy would seem like painn
when he focused after release.

In the third week of the relationshipp
she was tripping on organic acid,
would stop, pick up a rained out leaf,
would give it into his hand,
full of dead things before they reached the car.
When they drove she sat with mouth openn
as though photographed on the impactt
of a stomach punch, her right hand grippingg
the skin of his leg: he feared her,
slapped out sideways into her face.
She touched the cut with her tongue,
gurgling gratitude for the strange taste.

He stood looking through uncleaned windows,
concentrated on the yellow of his car below.
On the uncarpeted floor, with practice,
she closed her eyes and drew on the cigarette.
Twill jacket and polo-neck made him sweat,
his nape skin red from a hair cut.

Between two smokers she smiled up at him;
as the weed approached he apologised
suddenly wanting familiar territories:
beer, to put his hand up her skirt.
At the bottom of the limbed stairs
he booted the cat, a drop kick in their twenty-fivee
as he imagined her sylph laughh
gathering chuckles around the room.

There was no premonition of the wet Hog's Back,
sports car slumped snout into a beach,
their corpses giving the vehicle arms,
petrol and blood at last dripping togetherr
but quick flashes of a planned lunch,
cold red beef and a cherry wood fire,
game pie and for him two pints of colder beer,
the winter air tucking under their eye lids,
spinning on the gravel at Clandon:
the hand steaming from quick moisture,
the aromatic finger drawn back into his nose.
Dazed after mutual masturbationn
they slewed into a conservative end.

-- John Carder Bushh
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Andrew Marvickk


__
Steve ZPJ

-- Anyone who can stay sane in this world must be mad --

zpj@huskbeat.demon.co.uk