My Favourite piece of music by...

Carter, The unstoppable Sex Machine.

Now, I decided to kick off a series of blogs about music after spending a few hours putting together a playlist for the car.

As for starting with Carter, well, they are playing a couple of sold out gigs soon & I have been a fan since I was 17 and first heard “Sheriff Fatman” on the radio. That, however, isn’t my all time favourite track. Billy’s Smart Circus has that honour. Its as good and means as much today as it did the day it was recorded.

And it’s saved my life, more than once.

For me, music is the most wonderful invention of mankind. It evokes so many different emotions in people and is always evolving. What my Father listened to in the late 50′s is very different to what my 10-year-old wants to listen to today.

One thing I can’t abide is the music snob.

You all know at least one, who wont listen to Rap because they think it’s all about guns & violence, or the one who wont listen to Folk as it’s all hippy shit…Or the prog rock fan who thinks music died in the late 70′s.

I can honestly say, I will listen to anything. over 37000 tracks on my hard drive attest to that! There is stuff from all sorts of eras and genres in there.

I’m kicking off with Carter as they were the soundtrack to my youth.

So, of everything they put to record, how did this track come to mean so much to me?

Well, for someone who was a serving Soldier when I first heard it, and someone who was having difficulty with the old “does god exist” question, it really touched a chord with me.

Have a read of the lyrics (BELOW) & I’ll see you on the other side:

Read them? Good. Watched the You Tube clip? Even better.

I suffer with quite severe bi-polar and some of the low’s I experience have left me suicidal. I have tried a few times, but it’s just another thing I’m just no good at…

“To Die for his mother Country, isn’t every fathers wish” Well, it was in our house. Dad was a Royal Marine, Grandad was a Master at Arms in the Navy, so my joining up was a foregone conclusion. Dont get me wrong. I loved the Army. I made mates I still have to this day, indeed I work for my regiments museum in my spare time, recording the tales of former members for posterity, but after a while, I was a little disenchanted with the bullying & racism that I saw going on. I also saw a lot of the work going on to eradicate such problems, but it was going to be a very hard road for some to take.

I would dearly have loved to be a rebel, but it was out of the question for me. For me, rebelling was about the music I listened to. Transvision Vamp, Carter and PWEI were just some of the bands that shaped my musical youth. This track stands out for me on a magnificent album because of its lyrical content.

20 years on & we have both Labour and Tory parties, happier with a part privatised NHS (Bullied beat up cabbaged kids,To be patched up by the nurse,Who’s carrying the baggage in,For the private patients first) than the option of a health service that is equal for everyone. I’m not against Dr’s making money, but it shouldnt be at the cost of NHS patients being shoved onto waiting lists that are growing ever longer.

Luckily, the fashion of celebrities finding god when they’re caught with a bag of class A or a hooker seem to be over (As the actress said to the bishop ”I stand accused, your grace of the 7 deadly cynicisms and a total lack of faith). These days they turn to the temple of spin to make out that they had a troubled childhood/abusive parents/were cut up by a bad driver and that’s why they turned to drugs/hookers/little boys in their time of need.

Either that or claim to have bi-polar…

Whilst I accept there are many celebrities who will actually have the illness, if there was a cure that took 2 weeks, I’d have sold all I own to take it. It does seem to be the fashionable illness of choice for today’s “wannabe” celeb.

We didn’t quite have the under funded OAP’s turning to a life of crime this year, it was a supposedly disenfranchised youth who turned to it. The great Playstation robberies of 2011 (Underfunded O.A.P.s turn to life of crime the great cucumber robberies of 1989 Send ‘em down and bang ‘em up in a South London maisonette Unlicensed and unregistered it shouldn’t happen to a vet). I’m not passing judgement on those who did riot in the UK, but I do want to know why it happened. I know all about the Mark Duggan killing in Tottenham sparking the problems there, but why did Salford riot? Did Mr Duggan have family in Birmingham who felt left out & decided to join in? Surely these are the questions that need asking, Why did it happen & why did people feel the need to turn up in wheelchairs to steal a TV…Once again, we sent ‘em down & banged ‘em up, but tried to take away their maisonette/flat/house as a consequence of breaking the law. How was removing someone’s place of residence justice? Surely, that’s what the prison sentence was for?

This song is as relevant today as it was on the day it was written.

For me though, it’s the chorus that has saved me more than once. That set of words (And if I put this gun against my head
And pull the trigger I’ll be dead But if I listen to my heart It says, Billy that ain’t smart So I’ll do something else instead) has helped me get up from my malaise and force myself to actually look at myself and realise that killing myself is not going to be the answer to my problems.

I’m certain Jim Bob & Fruitbat will be rightly proud of every Carter track, but for me, this one stands head and shoulders above the others.

I have also been saved by a friend who s a Vicar, but that’s another story & I still don’t believe in god…

To die for his mother country
Isn`t every father`s wish
But if you7re ever feeling hungry
Feast your eyes on this
Bullied beat up cabbaged kids
To be patched up by the nurse
Who`s carrying the baggage in
For the private patients first
And the doctor`s praying to Buddha,
`Send me to another town!`
A shovelful of sugar
Won`t help that medicine go down
As the actress said to the bishop
I stand accused your Grace
Of the seven deadly cynicisms
And a total lack of faith

CHORUS
And if I put this gun against my head
And pull the trigger I`ll be dead
But if I listen to my heart
It says, Billy that ain`t smart
So I`ll do something else instead

(Billy`s smart, Billy`s smart
Circus for the bleeding heaarts
Feed the world, heal the sick
Take the piss out of the shit
Live your life without a net
Stick your head down the lion`s neck
And listen to the people cheer
Send in the clowns
Don`t bother they`re here)
To die for his mother`s country
Isn`t every father`s wish
But if you`re ever feeling hungry
Feast your eyes on this
Under funded O.A.P.`s
Turn to life of crime
The great cucumber robberies of 1989
Send `em down and bang `2m up
In a South London maisonette
Unlicensed and unregistered
It shouldn`t happen to a vet
As the actress said to the bishop
The rabbi and the priest
My eyes have seen the glory
I`m a born again atheist

And if I put this gun against my head
And pull the trigger I`ll be dead
But if I listen to my heart
It says, Bill that ain`t smart
So I`ll shoot someone else instead

I hate the world, but cant die.

I don't want to die, I just cant stand my life when I get these long, protracted bi-polar lows.

Really, this one is long because I went and pushed myself to hard into something I needed to do, which was write an article for a magazine.

Rather than rest as I knew I had to after a very hard 36 hours, I was unable to sleep & couldn't get the rest I now needed.

I compounded this by going ahead with a radio show I had promised someone, when I could have put it off.

I also arranged to guest on a show for someone as part of a series he is doing (discussing my mental issues) called "living with". Later the same day, I went and recorded my own show.

I was already chinstrapped, but then took on a commission to script a corporate on line video for a local firm.

Basically, I pushed myself far too hard and am now paying the price. 

I cant sleep, relax or eat properly.

No matter what I do, I am in a low that I just cant shake off, and that's all it needs is shaking off. Putting into practice techniques and tricks I've picked up does usually make it that easy.

I'm now well into week 3 of this one.

One of the reasons I let myself slip so deep was the fact we are moving home. Normally a stressful thing in itself, but add in limited mobility, a housing association with very little care for its residents well being or needs and a home at the bottom of a 100 foot long 1:16 hill and you can see why I began to give up.

My wife has (as usual) been an absolute rock.

So, here I am, 5am, not quite as wide awake as I have been, but still unable to sleep.

I don't want to die, I just cant go on living like this. I console myself that once we do move, the association have grudgingly agreed to fit an access gate to allow me level access out of the property, and we will be tucked away in a corner of a cul de sac, away from most of the nosey, gossiping and back stabbing people that also live here.

Problem is, I have neither the energy nor inclination to move house.

What do I do?

I cant go on like this, but I cant take lithium as it kills any ability I have to think straight and put that into my writing.

The other prescribed options just don't work for me.

I have to listen when my wife tells me I'm over reacting, but I was that bad today, I couldn't even cook & told her before she left for work. She asked me to take something out & she would cook it.

She promptly came in and asked me to do it. 

I lost it.

This was the wrong reaction, but I really was at my wits end. I had deliberately taken out "fast food". Chicken Goujons. Toss some chips in the actifry & Robert is your mothers brother. 

But she wanted to go to the local shops to buy a pack of cards for some swap game for the youngest.

I ended up crying like a baby.

I feel like a failure because I am unable to go out to work and contribute to the house.

OK, I do my show, but apart from that, I am stuck in the house, unable to get out because of stairs, and unable to cope because I'm missing parts of my brain.

Problem is I get frustrated because I cant do the things that most people take for granted.

I want to go out, get a job, earn a little, even if for now its part time, but weeks like this make me realise just how far away I am from even taking this little step forward.

So what do I do? 

I really don't know anymore, and that scares me. I know I am capable of slipping deeper and then doing something stupid.

I know I can stop myself from doing that, but I am also scared tha tI wont care if I go on much longer.

Last time, the police had to handcuff me to get me to the ambulance. 

I know I have coping mechanisms in place now that I didn't have then, but can they stand up to this prolonged low?

Only time will tell I suppose.