My attention was drawn to a youtube video today, featuring the band ‘Focus’ whose best-known single was ‘Hocus Pocus.’ I really like Focus – it’s my era, unlike, say, ‘The Smiths’. I really can’t stand The Smiths: as far as I’m concerned they only sing on three notes. Leonard Cohen may not have known more than three chords, but at least he sang on more than three notes. (Actually, as he once pointed out in an interview, people were very cruel to him. ‘They said I only knew three chords when I knew five.’)
It’s an odd thing, but Cohen fans also tend to like TS; and I have to acknowledge that lyrically they are very witty. ‘I was looking for a job and then I found a job/and heaven knows I’m miserable now’ just about sums it up, in my experience. When I lived in Leigh, Lancashire in the 1980’s people used to say ‘there’s money in owt but work,’ – and it was true. Work hard in a factory (shop, bar, cafe) and someone else will get the rewards.
Of course, it’s a free country. If you don’t like it you can always start up your own business. Then when you get successful you can start exploiting other people.
I’m sure I’ve blogged about The Smiths before – but it’s lost in the annals of the past. What is an annal these days? Something annual? Something anal? There was a Roman bloke wot wrote annals, wasn’t there. Juvenal?
Juvenile?
No! How could I forget – it’s Tacitus!
He kept them quiet, ha ha.
We have now received the solutions to the Latin crossword we attempted a while back. We haven’t done the next crossword though. Might have a go with the doctor on Saturday I suppose.
Bit of a mixed bag today but I’ll leave you with a bit of Focus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUODEo8SORU&feature=youtu.be
Kirk out (of focus)
Sarada Gray 
I’m from the north-west and the Smiths were ‘my’ era but I never liked them at all. Possibly because a lot of people whom I found very arch and pretentious DID like them.
Leonard Cohen is a very under-rated guitarist: his songs are NOT that easy to perform. He uses a lot of barre chords, which I have to cheat as my hands aren’t big enough/the fretboard on my guitar is too wide (or something). Surprisingly, a lot of highly esteemed guitarists (David Gilmour for one) also have this problem. His plucking style on songs like Avalanche is very distinctive and instantly recognisable; and his songs are very uplifting and cathartic, whereas the Smiths just made music for the wannabe disenfranchised.
You are entirely right about Cohen’s guitar playing. I had a couple of books of his songs and some of the finger-picking is impossibly fast
I remember The Smiths from my student days. Must admit I find Steve Wright’s analyse “I’m-so-depressed” accurate, plus of course, my friend’s addition of “and-I-want-to-live-in-a-cupboard” even more hilarious. Thanks for the post – I’m chuckling even now…
🙂
I like both The Smiths and Leonard Cohen. I am however recently very peed off with Morrissey because of his recent comparison of eating meat with pedophilia, which I felt was attention-seeking and counterproductive.
Just on the subject of Focus, though, as I said this morning, they are the opposite of Blur, which leads me to wonder what other pairings of that ilk might be possible.
Focus and Blur! I like it!