Cardiacs: Album by Album

[loosefish]

I'm 99% sure it is Cawthra based on the live recordings i have of Hopeless and A Picture Of Misery of which he both wrote and takes lead vocals on.

Also, a 25 year gap will change the voice somewhat. Even Tim doesn't sound like Tim here

Food On The Wall is Jim singing (or at least the Garage 2003 version is because i've seen the video) and that's him at the begining of Joining The Plankton ("RELEASE MY HAND!!")

[Lieto]

Love this 'lost' track:

I think that's Mark Cawthra alternating with Timothy.

So do I! The Garage Concerts has recently made me fall in love with this one, its a gem in a half.

[PeterG]

Going through some old threads on that other discussion forum, I found this post I wrote in 2007, the discussion had turned to each posters' favourite version of Nurses Whispering verses, and I wrote this, "I'm with you, definitely the version on The Seaside. The Toy World version lacks something, I'm not sure what. And the STG version is too polished & modern." And the discussion carried on pretty much in that vein. 1. Seaside 2. Toy World 3. STG.

[chalkpie]

I love the version on StG personally - its different for sure - but its powerful in a way that is unique.

[at least 100 dead]

Love this 'lost' track:

I think that's Mark Cawthra alternating with Timothy.

And they left that gem off the CD? This is good enough to be released as is! Same with this one:



The ABC is just messing with us. Because they can.

[at least 100 dead]

Peter's Cardiacs' Anomalies No. 6. - Borrowed lyrics and texts

This is just a sampling of my extensive study of Cardiacs lyrics I could almost write a paper on the subject....no, seriously.
It's a Lovely Day

Wild thing you make everything groovy
You make everything groovy

Borrowed from The Troggs Wild Thing

You are now officially Cardipedia. And yes, you should write a thesis on the lyrics. Very intriguing stuff, sir.

(That Troggs quote also pops up in “Dergo”...)


I only have this:

Slapp Happy/Henry Cow: In The Sickbay
Still awake as day is breaking
My spirit's broken too
Fed on leeks, by now too weak
To speak when spoken to
Nannies, fussing with flannels
Feeding the spaniel celery

These grey sickbay days
Slowly the sacred core decays

Above the bed the Virgin's head
Perspective all askew
On the rail a grail of pale
Medicinal gruel
Nurses, whispering verses
Click shut their purses and depart

[Kavus Torabi]

There are also two quotations from Kafka's Great Wall Of China in Dergo which I discovered when reading it a few years ago.
I won't tell you which, but typically with Tim, they are taken brilliantly out of context, as you'll see if you read it (it's only a short story)

Tim seemed surprised when I pointed this out, saying he had never read the book, but that it was probably something lying around when he was living with Matthew (Cutts)

[Kavus Torabi]

Also the lyrics to My Trademark are lifted directly from the rules of Scrabble, while the opening line of Two Bites Of Cherry is from an exercise in a book to improve your typing.

[PeterG]

I only have this:

Slapp Happy/Henry Cow: In The Sickbay
Still awake as day is breaking
My spirit's broken too
Fed on leeks, by now too weak
To speak when spoken to
Nannies, fussing with flannels
Feeding the spaniel celery

These grey sickbay days
Slowly the sacred core decays

Above the bed the Virgin's head
Perspective all askew
On the rail a grail of pale
Medicinal gruel
Nurses, whispering verses
Click shut their purses and depart

Yea, good one, that was 1975, so 6 years before Cardiacs released it on Toy World.

[PeterG]

Thanks Kavus, great stuff, and it did surprise me.

[Kavus Torabi]

XTC's Crosswires (covered by Panixphere) contains the line 'On land and in the sea'


...ok, that's maybe a bit too geeky.

[zombywoof]

XTC's Crosswires (covered by Panixphere) contains the line 'On land and in the sea'


...ok, that's maybe a bit too geeky.

Someone posted an early XTC song once that had a riff that sounded like a really *slow* "Fiery Gun Hand". Definitely an influence!

[PeterG]

XTC's Crosswires (covered by Panixphere) contains the line 'On land and in the sea'


...ok, that's maybe a bit too geeky.

Nothing is too geeky on this thread Kavus... FFS man look at the stuff I'm posting

I wonder did they play that at the Camden pub gig I saw back in the day.

[PeterG]

Q: does anyone have any good quality audio only files (i.e. not youtube) to live or studio versions of the following:

Sea Nymphs - W. Drake
Engelheart
Sea Snake Beware

Sea Nymphs - J. Poole
Summer is-a-coming in

Cardiacs
Sparkly Silvery Sky

[loosefish]

Also the lyrics to My Trademark are lifted directly from the rules of Scrabble

What is he even saying there? It sounds like "Rules for playing to begin (x3)/Farm, Horn, Paste, Mob"

XTC's Crosswires (covered by Panixphere) contains the line 'On land and in the sea'

There's also a song by Brian Eno called The Big Ship.... but i've never heard it.

Someone posted an early XTC song once that had a riff that sounded like a really *slow* "Fiery Gun Hand". Definitely an influence!

It's interesting to read about all the lyric homages/steals. I only really knew about the "Seething Eddies boil" one and i'm sure the phrase "Loosefish walk as like one dead" cropped up somewhere else too

[loosefish]

John Milton - Lycidas, 1637

Alas! What boots it with uncessant care
To tend the homely slighted Shepherds trade, [ 65 ]
And strictly meditate the thankles Muse,
Were it not better don as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise [ 70 ]
(That last infirmity of Noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious dayes;
But the fair Guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears, [ 75 ]
And slits the thin spun life. But not the praise,
Phœbus repli'd, and touch'd my trembling ears;
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to th' world, nor in broad rumour lies, [ 80 ]
But lives and spreds aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfet witnes of all judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed.

Edit to add
Bloody filthy thief!

[PeterG]

Nice one Loosefish, I didn't know that one. I will credit Mr. Loose Fish as a researcher in my paper

[PeterG]

Also, I have a feeling, a vague memory somewhere in my head, that somewhere amongst the lyrics I once found some Dryden or Spenser... bollox...that is going to bug me now until I find it again...feck!

[loosefish]

This might be dead obvious, but there's also the Night of the hunter inspired bits on Guns (or more specifically, 'Clean that evil mud' and 'Wind and rains is cold') and this suspiciously familiar image from the same movie (linked as it's huge). Fookin' tea leaf

Hah! check out these chapter titles from Moby Dick

Chapter 51 The Spirit-Spout

Chapter 89 Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish

Speaking of fish, where did Action Fish come from again? Was it from a childrens story?

[iguana]

I'm 99% sure it is Cawthra based on the live recordings i have of Hopeless and A Picture Of Misery of which he both wrote and takes lead vocals on.

Also, a 25 year gap will change the voice somewhat. Even Tim doesn't sound like Tim here

yep… tim’s happy-go-lucky vocal style on “the seaside” got traded for his trademark post-punk estuary english snarl by “AlMaaHatWWW”. and cawthra's “plastic doll” is actually a very fine and moving vocal performance which matches the melancholy of the occasion well.

call that geeky if you wish.

[zombywoof]

Above the bed the Virgin's head
Perspective all askew
On the rail a grail of pale
Medicinal gruel
Nurses, whispering verses
Click shut their purses and depart

ha! at the beginning of "Nurses Whispering Verses" on the radio sessions, Tim says "Sorry Dagmar, hope you don't mind".

[thehard]

faster than snakes has "cowboy O" which is found in sesame street.

ditzy scene was inspired by the book riddley walker OR SO I HEARD don't shoot kavus.

many tim lyrics, especially on guns, pony, and likely later works come from "English As She Is Spoke"

Otherwise: http://www.cardiacs.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=284

There's also some "recurring" lyrics in Cardiacs' own works:
"that's the way we all go" in A Little Man and a House and R.E.S.
"is everybody happy" in The Whole World Window and R.E.S.
"planes against the grain" = Big Ship, There's Too Many Irons, and its own namesake
Hope Day in R.E.S.
On Land and In The Sea from Big Ship (and as mentioned, also from XTC's Cross Wires),
As Cold As Can Be In An English Sea shows up in Baby Heart Dirt,
"a precious red ruby all dirty" in Ain't He Messy Though and Sang All Away Away
"praising/praise him off his pins" in Dog-Like Sparky and Dirty Boy
"brand him in the eye" in Faster Than Snakes, Cry Wet Smile Dry, and Ain't He Messy Though

And Jim jimself in Stoneage Dinosaurs, A Horse's Tail, and Core

EDIT: OH!!! and "So we'll swim and froth with limbs the blue" from Joining the Plankton and Snakes-a-Sleeping

[thehard]

Also, Cardiac Arrest demo cassette from 1978:

1) When I See That Certain Look in Your Eye

2) I Bit the Vicar

3) Vic Bite 3a (became Bite 3/a)

4) Minnow Bandage (possibly became Hello Mr Minnow)

5) Pilf

6) Ants (possibly became An Ant)

4) Trade Mark (became My Trademark)

[moecurlythanu]

Question for Kavus - Just curious, are you related to Arash Torabi of The Granite Shore?

[Kavus Torabi]

^Yes I am! He is my cousin but we grew up together so he's sort of like a brother. We got into music together, both played in the same bands, and made countless 'experimental' recordings throughout our school days. He's a couple of years older than me. Our tastes are a little different but there is quite an overlap.

The lyrics for Made All Up were inspired by Ridley Walker, which I had just read and loved the language.