Stella's Lyric Log: Edition Eleven - The Nature of the Squirm

Gag reflex is a very important survival instinct. Last night we re-recorded a seminal piece called "S&M" which is designed to help exercise that reflex.

Our little 80s casio keyboard has a number of predesigned rhythms, none of which are playable without a certain amount of objection from the brain and spinal column. S&M is named so because the lyrics are all British Slang words beginning with the letter S, with the exception of the final word, Mommerset. This was an arbitrary structure and could as easily have been letters D&G, say. We could have called the song Slangboy, or Partridge Noodle, or something, but in order to sell records in some circles we thought it smart to call the song S&M, so that those who go in for anything sado-masochistic would also be flagged appropriately. It is a sadistic song and the masochist would be the one who would put the headphones on and listen to this one again and again. The other sado-masochistic element is the "safe" word, beginning with M - which cues an abrupt halt to all the shenanigans, and the safety valve of cessation is released.


Shifty Hatch! Silly Sausage! Single Bagger! Significant! Singapore Tummy! Silly Kipper! Silly Bugger!
Mommerset!

The piece reminds me of the awful opening music to the Brit Com "Are you being served?" There is a swanky ersatz organ with some jaunty electronic dribbling accent notes to lay the ground for a winsome hostess to announce the list of words (found quickly in Partridge's Slang Dictionary). Like the supposed elevator operator/hostess of that aforementioned tv show, ("Ground Floor notions kitchen supplies and blah blah blah - Going Up!") there is confidence and an assumed license to proceed. As the words are called out they coax you to vogue into brief stances conveying some kind of suspended alarm, vulnerable to your own cool. Your face should appear oblivious to the fact that your posturing, in collusion with the dominatrix hostess, is receiving affirmative praise from a type of "Mr. Devlin" character, over by the bar.

When we fisrt recorded it Agent Q fell ill in a moment of "what have I done?" - but the next day, after proccessing the purgative truth of the piece, Q hailed S&M as perhaps "the greatest song ever recorded."