Skip to main content

CANCER COFFINS



XYCHQ "Cancer Coffins" MP3


February 1989. Michael and I were in two bands together simultaneously. XYCHQ and (in Parentheses). Both of which played at this particular party.

XYCHQ was normally Ray singing, Jeff playing bass, Michael on guitar, me on drums. But there were one or two songs that I played guitar and sang on. "Things I Hate" was one, "Cancer Coffins" was another. Both were "searing" (cough) indictments of the shallow world around my 17-year-old self. Y'know, the social injustice of um people using tanning beds.

So yeah, this song "Cancer Coffins" was sort of a funky metal thing at the beginning. Then a thrashy riff for the chorus. And then the breakdown, which will be familiar to anyone who ever heard Devilcake's song "Fribble." or the (in Parentheses) track "Enthalpy." Hey, never let a good riff go to waste.

Michael slays the drums on this one. Jeff still on bass. I'm not sure why I was yelling the words.


Ya look so fake with your February tan
soak up as much fluorescent as you f'ing can
don't you see you look stupid as hell
just for a tan your fertility you'll sell

climb into the coffin to brown your skin
but you're getting cancer, you just can't win
your f'ing false tan looks stupid as sh!t
they say it's unsafe but you don't listen to it

lay down lay down
in your coffin
lay down lay down
and get a tan


stupid little goggles on your face
be the winner of the tanline race
?
?

take off your clothes lay in the tanning bed
but is it worth it for you to be dead
the winter is not the time to peel
your face is so red it's unreal


repeat with increasing petulance. Take that, orange people.
Labels:

Comments

Darrin said…
Part of the missing verse lines had something to do with a 'microwave' and 'saved'.

I'm still trying to figure out what the hell that is next to your bed.... it looks like an ancient desktop PC cabinent with a 8" midrange speaker and a light switch. What the hell is that thing???
July 25, 2007 at 9:16 AM
Ian Stewart said…
The speaker......oh hey, that's Christine The Deathbox. Which I think resided on the desk in your basement for a while if I'm not mistaken...?

Not forgetting the plant stand that I painted & used as a night table.

And the Vanilla Ice notebook I used as a diary. I also had Milli Vanilli and Richard Marx notebook/diaries.

:)
July 26, 2007 at 5:23 PM
Darrin said…
Ahhhhhh... now I see Christine. Derrrrrrr. Yeah... that resided in the basement for something. Maybe even Samarkand 2004... or did we have the 8 track for that one (since the brushes sounded so clean).
July 27, 2007 at 8:33 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THESE CHORDS ARE LIKE FAMILY TO ME

Ian C Stewart "These Chords are like Family to Me" MP3 From the 2003 made-to-be-made-not-made-to-be-heard album I Don't Know Why You Think I Won't Kill You .... this is the last song. This was the beginning of my dabbling with intentional randomness in songwriting. The lyrics for the whole album were compiled from albums by other artists that I enjoyed a lot, such as Adrian Belew's Twang Bar King , The Cure's Pornography , Voivod Nothingface , Mercyful Fate Melissa etc. I wrote out entire lines of their phrases and chopped them together. I think at the time I described it as 'sad psychedelic love songs about satan' overall, which is really being too generous. The music was also randomly chosen from tablature found on t'interwebs for favorite songs of mine. In general I played the chords in reverse order to the original songs but I can still kind of tell in a couple of places what the songs were. The titles were my own, obviously. Although I did cho...
3 comments
Read more

Until 91

Ian C Stewart "Until 91" MP3 Even though I had a girlfriend, I wrote the occasional song about other girls. "Until 91" was one such thing. It was recorded on my brand new Tascam Porta 05 4-track. That thing was my pride & joy. I used it more or less constantly until it gave up the ghost in 1992. "Until 91" adheres to the strict 4 tracks/no overdubs idea, maybe I hadn't learned how to overdub by that point. My first Casio keyboard supplied the drums. It was a PT-something. Uhhhh, clean guitar = Jaguar. Fretless bass = Michael's black Ibanez, last seen onstage with Raymond & Devilcake in 1992. I'm not sure where the funky folky vibe comes from. Satan? You came into my life bringing mucho confusion I didn't know if you were real or just an illusion I thought I was happy as I screamed in pain You turned around and left as you came me drumming with XYCHQ!?, January 1989 This was my first gig playing drums. It was horrible, I was horrible...
2 comments
Read more

ACCOUNTABILITY

Ian C Stewart "Accountability" MP3 Hah, remember those Maxell Capsule tapes? Nice. This mixdown album.... laughingly titled Mama .... which came from one of the XTC live-on-radio 1989 acoustic recordings. At the very very end of one of the songs, Andy Partridge sang "mama," for no apparent reason. Maybe he was trying to tack on a Led Zeppelin-esque effect. Whatever, it was funny as hell at the time & I made it my goal to finish every song on this tape the same way.... anyway, this album features an early appearance by the Boss DR-550 drum machine that I got in August 1991. Mama was the first or second batch of recordings. That's also the time just after Evil Bread disbanded. I answered a Drummer Wanted flier & jammed a few times with a nice but directionless trio of older musicians. The guitarist left all his gear at my place, as was the custom at the time. So between jam sessions I spent hours (no, really) upon hours experimenting with his e-bow (well.....
1 comment
Read more