I wrote a song called “Shadow Of The Factory”
At that time I was working at a slaughterhouse
Hosing down beef carcasses and listening to Hamlet on my sony walkman…
Here is that song. BTW – my Best of Album is now on bandcamp
The headphone speakers were installed inside ear muffs
I was pleased with my innovation
My dayjob was merely theatre
The Royal Shakespeare Company performed Hamlet with me in my little world of slaughter
Nice
All day long I would ride up and down on my pneumatic platform high pressure hosing down the bodies swaying on their hooks
I had the cleanest job on the line until………
One day I was shown another job ..this time in the offal department separating entrails.
The guy who showed me this job was-I thought- just being friendly and letting me see another side of the work being done in our house of horrors
I told him I was very happy I didn’t have to work in his department and thanks for showing me another side of the works.
He told me to wait a minute while he had a chat to his boss When he returned he announced cheerfully “Guess what your new job is?”
In my spare time I used to get wasted in The Tai Pei owned by Eddy Chin. He didn’t book me too often cause I wasn’t a BAND. One act he booked called COOL BANANAS didn’t turn up. His response was “They not Cool Banana..they rotten banana”
I felt like a rotten banana myself in those days. I was writing my best stuff but the venues paid nothing for original acts (they still don’t) Furthermore no one knew what I was on about
I wrote the Shadow Of The Factory to unburden myself of the sense of meaninglessness I was feeling in my work. I invented a factory and a disgruntled worker and put them in a song
“I worked for years and your factory
You say there’s no more work for me
For what its worth I’d work for free
For what its worth in your plastic money
You phase me out
You phase me out
I live in fear
Cold as ice
Just as clear
That you only be so strong
While the power is on
When the big fuse blows
Gonna have to go
Digital watch don’t tick or tock
This is the age of the civilised robot
Profit for the big think man
Do you fit that big think plan?”
A disgruntled factory employee is laid off by the factory boss who later re-employs him as a golf caddy
First opportunity the factory gets to automate what he’s doing
And he’s gone
All done with “plastic money” by masters of high finance
The last verse has our disgruntled working class hero playing his part in the leisure industry
His boss makes him an offer he can’t refuse
He reflects thus
“Pretty soon you gonna say
I can work as you play
Hey Louie be my caddie today
36 holes and I plainly see
36 holes in the shadow
Of the factory”
So he gets a new job working on the golfcourse next to the factory he used to work in
Same boss lower pay the shadow of the old world cast across the new
I am told that the NSA is known as the shadow factory
I had no way of knowing this then of course
I will have to sue the NSA for stealing my phrase
Ha ha
“This is the age of the civilised robot”
We can survive but do we have to dump heart and soul to do it?
“Not worth to do that” as Eddy Chin would say. What do you think?
