Vicarious

Hey look it’s Jim, Jimmy, Jim-bo
How ya doin!? Want a smoke?
Light up, come on, be a good boy now
Beautiful, get us two Bourbons with coke!
Chlink chlink, knock that down JimJim,
Feels good don’t it?
Just you n’ me tonight like ol’ times
Man you lookin’ good Jim!
Me? Nah, look at this here gut
Beautiful, two more won’t ya
So what you been up to?
Really? You don’t say?
Seems like you’ve become a regular romantic
A silver tongued, sheethopping, freewheelin’ romantic
Good on ya, good on ya
Lucky ess oh bee
Bet you wouldn’t wanna trade with me?
Ah nah, cahn’t complain, not really
Jane? She’s been better to be honest
She once glowed, now she leaves perpetual shadows behind her
There’s that something missing
Every mornin’, ya know?
Dark circles beneath those eyes
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know
And I do Jim, I really do
And I know she does too,
Well you know, deep down I do
It’s not easy, but hey let’s not dampen spirits
Two more, chlink chlink
So tell me ‘bout life away?
How did you do it day to day?
You didn’t get bored?
Man, one day I’ve gotta go,
Haha, I know, I know
But better late than never as the suburban say
And don’t it get lonely?
Yeah, yeah
Well bless yer honesty
A day in the life, a day in the life
Believe me, that’s all it would take to make you run away
Drink drink Jimbo
It may not be festive season
But tonight let’s make merry
Beautiful … thanks
When we were young Jim you were my idol man
Funny how things don’t change
You’re still the silvertongued blue eyed boy you used to be
An idol for all o’us stuck on Humdrum Street
You took the road less rambled
The course less crossed
The path less pa.. pa … ahh fuck it
Hhhhhhhhhhhh
Riddle me this Jimbo!
Whatya call a blonde standing on her …
Hey! Hey! Watch it mate!
You just gone an’ spilled half my friend’s bourbon
Nah nah, it ain’t alright Jim,
Hey I’m talkin to you son
Bbbllllll
Aahhhhh ‘k Jim, aaahhh’ k
Byewtifull, yeah yeah two, sil vu play
Hhhhhhhh
Say say? You ain’t with anyone are ya?
My mate Jim here, he be the best there is
Hey come back, come back,
Jim, I'm sorry, I was jus’ tryin’,
How’d d’ya do it Jim?
How’d dy’a do it?
I’ve been tryin’ for fourteen years
Fourteen drawn out, drab, long long years
Still haven’t managed
And ya know what depresses me Jim?
What really jolts my innards into pitiful gloom?
It’s not that I wouldn’t out of some decisive piety
It’s that I couldn’t.
I couldn’t even if it was laid out pretty on a plate and all I had to do was dig in
The damn thing would somehow grow legs and run the hell off
Got no talent for it you see
Got no God-given talent
Hhhhhhhhhuhuh
Guess it wasn’t meant for me,
But it was the life for you JimJim
It was, the life, for you
Nah, nah, you just say that Jim
Cos you don’t know what it's like on the other side
Got no idea, too busy sowing your wild oats you’ve been
Ahhh Jim, JimJim,
Two mowr, twoooo, one-ah two-ah
You’re a good guy Jim,
You’re a good good guy
Goooooood
I-I, I’m hungry
Le’s goww get some foowd yeah?
Tell me more 'bout away
Just you n’ me Jim, like ol’ times

Threaten me with violence ...

Point a gun at my head and I'll dance for you
My feet will flex, my body twist
I'll take to the air
Watch Fred Astaire blush

Hold a knife to my throat and I'll sing for you
My voice will tower and soar
The crowds will gather, open jaws
They'll be asking for autographs later

Threaten me with violence and I'll find the cure for cancer
Innovate renewable energy technologies
Travel through wormholes
The world will never be the same again

Leave me alone, let me be and I will waste away
A nothing, a drifting nobody
Work, home, sleep, play, work
Home, sleep, play, work, home, sleep ...

Patrick Duff ~ Coach & Horses, B’Kara, 19/02/2011

{Published in The Times of Malta, 23/02/2011}

Dead Man Singing

Type ‘Patrick Duff’ into the search bar of video-sharing site YouTube and you’ll come across a clip of Duff’s 90s Britpop band Strangelove, performing their single Freak on some UK TV show. In this video the young Duff, all pasty white skin and greasy hair, frantically struts around the TV studio, jumping up onto an interviewer’s desk, arrogantly kicking off the few props there.

It is hard to believe that this is the same Patrick Duff who is now making his way to a lonesome stool in the middle of the inconspicuous Coach and Horses pub on Valley Road in Birkirkara. Wearing a snug ushanka on his head, there is an unmistakable air of gravitas to Duff’s languidly heavy movements and expressionless face.

He spends the first full minute or so, playing a morosely steady one-chord guitar shuffle, looking straight into the eyes of those in the room with his piercing stare. The babble gradually dies down until all that is left is the rattle of bottles and glasses at the bar.

When he feels he has everyone’s full attention, Duff croons his first words of the evening, a somewhat unsettling “Listen to a dead man singing.” The gloomy jazz-like melody calls Leonard Cohen’s Dance Me to the End of Love to mind. There is also an immediately noticeable Jim Morrison-esque quality to his vocals. By the end of the song the audience sounds surprised with a mixture of both wonder and amusement.

Duff introduces next song Spider Woman as being about falling in love with a woman who is an alcoholic. He sings with a frightening intensity; lips curling at the side, an almost psychotic look upon his face.

Much of Duff’s life seems to have been filled with events that have left him rather disillusioned with modern life and Western mindsets. He shares how since childhood he has been consumed with feelings of foreboding and despair. His ten year stint with not-so-commercially-successful Strangelove left him feeling lost when it all ended, all the perks of a rock ‘n roll lifestyle instantly vanishing.

Duff’s turnaround moment was when he discovered meditation some ten years ago, and this is what he expresses has finally allowed him to be at peace within. Yet Duff’s alleged inner peace is at odds with the subject matter of his meditations that seeps into his songs. These mostly feature ancestral or damned souls manifesting themselves to him, such as on the disquieting, if entrancing, King of the Underworld and Old Man Dewydd.

Six songs in and Duff abandons the microphone and continues in a truly unplugged format. “This is how they used to do it in the old days,” he jests. Flowers on my Grave is dedicated to Tim Ellis of local band Stalko, who “made contact with me, invited me over ... and has treated me like a brother.” This gratitude song’s sweetness offers a brief ray of light in a songlist that is otherwise laden with gloom.

Duff’s performance does become unintentionally farcical at times. He harshly howls melodies at the top of his lungs like a deranged drunkard, and then reverts to moments of almost incomprehensible whispers. During a cover of The Doors’ The End, he replaces the original’s spoken-word Oedipus narrative, with his own bizarre story about the sister of the sun in the middle of the Earth, repeating lines like “the sun loves its sister” over and over.

That having been said, Duff appears to have captured most of the audience’s imagination with his enigmatic persona. He may not go down in musical history as one of the greats of the Britpop movement that he was part of, but Patrick Duff’s newfound musical output is certainly much more intriguing than most other releases by survivors of the same scene.

Maybe

Maybe I’m the boy who never ran in from the rain

Hear the voices calling me in, but I just want to play

Maybe those were the better days

But they’re over now, wake me up somehow

‘Cause I’ll just get soaked again and again and again ...

Maybe when I lie awake at night you do the same

When morning comes the troubles of past days won’t look the same

Maybe promised dreams won’t set me free

But they’re all I have, so while they last

Just hold my hand and dream a dream for me

Don’t tell me now that I look sad

I was the one who made you laugh

The dreams we have they slowly slide away ...

So let me know what’s in my head

Then I think I’ll go back to bed

Where maybe I can dream a dream for you

Now maybe I’m the kind of guy who sleeps in everyday

Wakes up in the afternoon to see the sun set again

Maybe you’re a different shade of me

Though we’re older now we’re the same somehow

Lay beside me dear and we’ll talk tonight away

Maybe you’re the girl who dragged me in the rain again

You got me soaked, you got me breathing, to see my smile again

Maybe better days are yet to come

And the songs you sing were the songs I sung

When dreams were dreams, and life had just begun