The Cult of Impotence
Nothing Ever Changes
Listen Here- Podcast Style
Violence is an expression of impotence.
Hannah Arendt
The smell of the vinyl. The smooth feel of the album cover. It was poetry. The sound of static from the needle. A dopamine rush? Absolutely! The orchestral sounds made me salivate. They still do. Pink Floyd. Even the name of the band was poetry. The music was a symphony of sound. It was the sound that brought the words. Any deep meaning in the lyrics was beyond the grasp of a 10-year-old boy liberating a record from his parents album collection that ritualistically resided in milk crates. Us and Them. Those words and the melody that held them together just felt right. It was the second song on the second side. It arrived right after the hypnotizing dancing, falling coin sounds of Money. Us and Them was ushered in by some ghostly voices or were they angels? The babble was closely followed by an organ and a gentle raining anthem that invited me into the church of The Dark Side of the Moon.
Something mysterious and unknown was being opened up in the echoes of the music. It wrapped all around me. I understood something but I couldn’t explain it. Us and them. Me and you. Who knows which is which. Who is who? The insanities of war. What do we fight for? What do we die for? Do we ever learn? Do we ever change?
“For want of the price of tea and a slice, the old man died.”
Forty years later I was in a small music club in my hometown that held about 250 people. There was only room for standing with no seats to hide in. A stage and a floor. It was a free show, given by the artist as gratitude for teachers. A free show! The 13 piece band walked on stage and the music started to play. Within 30 seconds I was knocked on my ass in unexpected wonderstruck awe. The words sang out…
“The old men make excuses
While the young men bring the noise
And nothing ever changes
Cause boys keep being boys
And the women just surrendered
While Cinderella slept
Now they know they’ve waited too long
There’s nothing worth stealing left”
It was the words that brought the sound. Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul were baptizing me with the hypnotizing transcendence of The Camouflage of Righteousness.
I was blown out of my body. The small club had no right to be hosting this brilliance!
I was 10 feet from the stage. The close distance between the stage and the crowd felt more like a sacred ceremony as opposed to a music show. Yes there was physical proximity, but there was an ineffable emotional proximity present as well. A stoppage of time and a disappearance of space. I was swallowed whole by existence. The words in the song were a poem. The music made them clearer and gave the words a voice. The song is a poetic ode to our times. Honestly it is an ode to the whole of civilized human history. Far from just another prophecy the song was a lament to the fact that all we ever do is repeat the same cycles over and over again. Nothing ever changes. Little Steven sang…
“We give you politicians
And you call it choice
We let you do the voting
And you think you have a voice
We control the information
And you call yourself informed
We give you our religion
And you believe it’s yours
Under the camouflage of righteousness
We supply the sins while you confess
You’re seduced by the vampires’ sweet caress
Behind the camouflage of righteousness”
Goosebumps. Three minutes into this show and I was already deep into a spiritual experience. Nothing ever changes. The noise. War will be war. Boys will be boys. Old men make excuses and women are made to stand in line for a world that only they can save. Are we too late?
I’m not a political person and I don’t often drift into the anger of collective protest. Yet as my bones get older, I do admit to more of a pissed off vibe pertaining to what I will leave behind. Did I leave it better than I found it? A little lament here and there will show up in my writing. I still bleed. I am fully aware that as I point a finger, that there are four more of my own pointing back at me. I play and have played just as big a role in what inheritance that I will leave behind for my children. Have I always just danced along to the helpless powerlessness of impotence?
As Mick Jagger shouted out in Sympathy For the Devil, “Who killed the Kennedys?” Well, after all, it was you and me!
The Cult of Impotence
Convenient denial
is the ghost to the blind faith
of entitlement
Camouflaged as righteousness
Self-Interest spread as sanctimony
from the pulpits of privilege
Masquerading vice as virtue
Harvesting a hoard of hypocrisy
into languishing lies of legacy
Fabricating fallaciousness to fact
Stealing an inheritance
Never intending to give it back
© Jamie Millard
Words added to music or music added to words. What comes first? Does it matter?
In the end it’s still a song. It is a communion beyond mere communication.
We are the song.
Does anything ever change?
If there was no change there would be no butterflies.
Where do we start this rewrite?
Do we change the music or do we change the words?
Are both sides willing to change?
Can I be part of the change?
What inheritance will I leave behind?
Thank you for being here!
May you write to sing and may you sing to write.
Thank you for being my witness as I dance in the spaces between both.
Sometimes it’s hard to see any change and our own role in that change.
Looking back we see how far we have come. Looking forward we see just how far we need to go. Breathing into the present moment we sing on.
The full audio version can be found under the titles at the start of this article.
Lots of love,
Jamie
References:
Us and Them (Pink Floyd)
The Camouflage of Righteousness - Live (Little Steven and The Disciples)
Great posting, thanks Jamie. Thanks too for the introduction to Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul. Good stuff is still out there. My claim to fame is that I went to a Pink Floyd concert on their Dark Side of the Moon tour ... err ... that must have been 50 years ago, noting the anniversary disc out now. They had a giant circular screen behind them, onto which was projected moving psychadelic imagery. And the sound quality, amazing. I think it was in Newcastle-upon-Tyne where I was a student. Anyway, enough of reminiscing.
It seems 1945-1980 was a 'golden era' of "we all rise together after the horrors of two world wars" ... which was the mantra or 'ethic' I was brought up on. To see it all go downhill since Thatcher/Reagan into the pitiful state of politics and deliberate immiseration of the masses can be pretty depressing at times. I admit I struggle with the 'lost opportunity'. I can only accept there are hugely bigger forces at work, shaping history - and the challenge is to stay steady pyschologically & spiritually through it all. What can I do to 'save' my grand-children from all what might be to come? Quite honestly, I've no idea. Maybe I can bequeath a productive quinta in Portugal, and that's good enough.
Your poem is great; in a few short words it captures a real essence. Great stuff. Cheers, Josh.
Excellent post, Jamie. I can remember the first time I heard Dark Side of the Moon. It was a spiritural experience. Then I saw Pink Floyd at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, back in 1977. Music and poetry speaks a language that enters the heart.
Anger and rage are normal human emotions that come out of pain and disappointment. Even so, we need hope and joy to sustain us and move us forward. Hope and Joy. Thanks, Jamie, for this insightful piece.