The final track on the album
The protagonist is cut loose in a cold world with the scars and in the uniform of his struggle
Prison clothes or a de-mob suit
It’s a kind of elongated funeral march into the unknown ahead
There’s a loser on the loose
And he’s wearing clothes like mine
Someone ought to give him the message
I got my number on my jacket
There is that slow bluesy guitar riff that drives it almost reluctantly on like a desert snake in a cold landscape
Crawling forward over the frozen tundra towards a sickly setting sun
The glory of the empire of a life fading like the secret of how to write in a relevant and ground-breaking way
Our snake, though doomed, still has some time and the ability to eat its own tail
There’s a cool breeze on the tundra
And it’s crawling just for you
Someone ought to tell you about the vacuum
Sit for a number of years in the wreckage
And so it comes back around re-digesting the subjects and substance of its purpose for fewer and fewer returns
I’ve spent the last nine months pouring all my resources into this album project and it’s taken its toll
Deep in debt and run down by this fixation with essential elements of day to day living on hold
Now it’s nearly done I find myself hollowed out and sitting in the wreckage of the life I’ve been letting slip
There goes the view
There goes the last of any substance I could use
There goes the rest of any subject I could do
There goes the last of any secret that I knew
I’m under no illusions that this record is going to save me but it did need to be done
Like with this weekly journal – the need to push my work into a place where others can access it before the inevitable
I was saying to a friend of mine a couple of days ago that I couldn’t see a future beyond the end of the record – fatalistic was the word I used
She was very supportive as are all my friends but it comes back down to me in the end – the mindset
There’s a blank kid on a mattress
It’s a meeting of the minds
Someone ought to tell you about the glory
Went too many miles in a hurry
So where to from here?
Well it’s still not over – we have to go through the hoops of trying to release it in the most professional way possible given our limited resources
There are still albums of songs I want to record before I’m done too – that tank isn’t entirely empty
I’m proud of this record, my band’s efforts and especially John’s work in recording such a wide range of material and instrumentation
There goes the view
There goes the last of any substance I could use
There goes the rest of any subject I could do
There goes the last of any secret that I knew
The hope is that people will get it and gain some pleasure from hearing it…
The Ghost of Electricity – War Stories by Jon McLeary is a new initiative at Off The Tracks, a series of stories and reflections from painter, writer and musician Jon McLeary