Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

A Cock and Bell Story

First published on Opera, Wed 19th May, 2004.

Recently I have become very world-weary. Who am I kidding? I was born world-weary. But, let’s not get pedantic. I am resigned. I look at the world, and to borrow the American idiom, as we all must, by law, these days, I think to myself, “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Such is my weariness that I have adopted a certain Morrissey quote as my signature on the Terror Tales message boards. The quote runs thus: “You must be such a fool to pass me by.” Do I feel arrogant adopting such a signature? Do I feel as if I might be a tad paranoid, defensive, self-important? Well, yes, but it can’t be helped. A quote from Philip Larkin comes to mind, “I’m not really that good, it’s just that everyone else is so bad they make me look good.”






But all this is something of a digression. I only wanted to say that, whereas I have reservations about blowing my own trumpet – ahem – I don’t mind blowing someone else’s. Less back strain, for one thing. But seriously, I am about to tell you the story of The Greatest Band That Never Was, namely The Dead Bell, of whom you almost certainly have not heard, and of whom I was a member for some five years or so. I played bass and wrote lyrics for the band. Actually, it was more of a song-writing partnership than a band, consisting of myself and Pete Black, until quite late on when John came along, and at last we did some live stuff. The Dead Bell is not I, and so I do not feel arrogant saying that it – or should I say ‘she’? – was living proof that talent and originality count for nothing in the success stakes, and that being a loud-mouthed pushy git counts for everything.




I will tell the story briefly now, and at greater length later. Pete married my sister, and as a result, as he remarked later in a radio interview, he was contractually obliged to play music with me. We had similar interests and tastes. I played bass guitar and he played spectacularly original lead guitar. We were both bored with the utter lack of imagination in the music scene around us – it’s even worse now, which I would never have believed possible. We jammed. It was just messing around. At first I did bass and vocals, and the band had no name. We made a tape that Pete dubbed ‘marauder music’. It was very messy and raw. I do believe that the first song that could really be called The Dead Bell, though the name was to come later, was one entitle Sleeping on Waves. It consisted of bass, acoustic guitar and lead guitar. I remember that Pete had been listening to U2 and remarked that Bono had obviously just recently learned to play the guitar, because all the songs on the new album were two or three chord tricks. I was about sixteen then, and I had been learning the six-string for some weeks, and I came up with a few chords and some lyrics – heart-rending plea to the person who was at the time the ‘love of my life’ – and Pete came up with a real goose-bumps kind of melody and mesmerising lead guitar loop. In fact, we just kept on playing that loop until one of Pete’s guitar strings broke, and so we finished the recording there.


Later we were to become more purposeful about what we did. We trawled through books of poetry for a band name, and finally settled on The Dead Bell, from a poem by Sylvia Plath, for its abstract quality. For about five years we recorded songs on a four track. Pete’s ability to get good recordings within these technical limitations was was impressive. I still think that the recordings we made piss all over every other recording I’ve heard made on a four track in terms of pure production. Sample the tracks now up at The Dead Bell Archive if you don’t believe me. All recorded on an old four-track, held together with selotape and bits of cardboard.


As The Dead Bell we must have recorded somewhere in the region of forty songs, and during all those years I dreamed of us changing the face of music and even the world. I was a bit of a dreamer, you see. But it was not to be. Perhaps the greatest disappointment of my life was the fact that The Dead Bell came to an end in utter obscurity.




However, recently Pete has informed me that he is playing in a new band called The Cock, about which I am very happy. I think that Pete is a truly original and brilliant musician, and I’d hate to see him let his talent go to waste. Anyway, he has asked me to write lyrics for The Cock, and I have gladly agreed. Here are some lyrics I finished recently. I hope you enjoy them, and I look forward to seeing what The Cock can do with them:


The Middle Men


We are the middle men

The nothing-to-do-but-fiddle men

We know what the public wants Because we've told them time and again

And now we'll take our ninety-five per cent, thank you.


And we're not a charity, you know,

We're here to make money

And we're not ashamed, and what's more,

We're here to make sure

That everywhere you go it's just the same

And you can't blame us 'coz


We're only giving people what they want, you know,

And if we didn't do it someone else would have a go

And there are so many shits lining up to replace us

It only goes to show, and oh, it vindicates us

When we advertise the babies

With gene-designer labels

And copyright for Doctor Spin

The medicines we helped push through

To drug the soldiers that we need

To secure the oil fields

For the cars we advertise

To drive the government to modify

Whatever people buy.


We are the middle men

And we'll take our ten per cent

And then another ten, and ten again

And then some more and then some

I'd say we're truly indispensible, wouldn't you?


And it's true we can't create

But what we can do

Is mistranslate your creativity for you

At competitive rates

Our genius lies in making sure

That nothing comes out straight


But we're only giving people what they want etc. etc. etc.