Swan songs, p.1
Swan Songs, page 1
Published by Repeater Books
An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd
Unit 11 Shepperton House
89-93 Shepperton Road
London
N1 3DF
United Kingdom
www.repeaterbooks.com
A Repeater Books paperback original 2021
1
Distributed in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.
Copyright © Lee Scott 2021
Lee Scott asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
ISBN: 9781913462574
Ebook ISBN: 9781913462635
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Printed and bound in the UK by TJ Books
Thanks Mum.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
CONTENTS
No Vacancies.
The Town.
Garry or Pete (or Pete or Garry) in the Unmade Movie of his Life.
Swan Songs.
GENPHARM.
The Factory Floor.
Work.
The Break.
Shi(f)t Work.
The Boss.
Leonard in the Sky with Diamonds.
The Town: A Walkthrough.
Rob the Bike.
Home Sweet Home.
Writer’s Block.
Day 1.
Back at the Factory.
The Shit: A Monologue.
Purgatory.
Big John.
The Last Ralph.
Big John Continued.
June I.
Joe.
June II.
Nowhere.
A Hostel is a Hostel.
A Brief History with Mike.
Life Comes First.
The Saga of Rich Bestard VIII, Chapter 1.
The Saga of Rich Bestard VIII, Chapter 2.
The Saga of Rich Bestard VIII, Chapter 3.
The Saga of Rich Bestard VIII, Chapter 4.
One More Night in the Hostel.
Housing.
Trusting Tamara.
The Last Tamara.
Back to Church.
Jay.
Temporary Puppet.
Album Finished?
REPEATER BOOKS
No Vacancies.
Roadless closes
abandon your vehicle at its feet and continue on yours
where the weeds burgeon through every crack
where the streets are held together with white tiled alleyways
with wobbling metal handrails
with shadowy corners hiding from the quiet roads above
with grass verges hosting 1970s-built concrete monoliths
where cocktails of native hedge plants fight for space in the
gaps of the chain-link fence
There are no vacancies here
The town is full, mate.
The Town.
The town is full.
And not with money.
A lucky person might pluck the odd piece of shrapnel from the side of a stranger’s couch but it would never be enough to feed the cat and the kids. But then, what do you expect? This is a place that has only existed for forty-odd years. And if this place could speak for itself, that would feel like a good excuse. If it was a smarter, more sentient town, it would tell you that it didn’t ask for this, that it is only forty-odd years old and that there are sixty thousand of you. And the town would stop there, because this town would be smart enough to know when nobody is listening.
Here the men work in factories and the women go to college to become beauticians... and then work in factories. To secure a job at one of these factories, you’re required to complete the registration process at one of two local recruitment agencies. Most of the recruitment agents themselves eventually get confused onto the production lines of the same factories. Those poor recruitment agents, daring to think on the cusp of the outer centre of the box, let go due to a “lack of work.”
“Don’t worry Peter, yeah unfortunately what you’ve always known would happen has happened. You no longer have a place with us here at one of two local recruitment agencies, but it’s not the end of the world, mate. We’ve had words with a few people, actually, full sentences were exchanged on your behalf. And guess what? We’ve managed to get you a job in one of those terrible factories you yourself promoted with such optimism. What was it you told that fella the other day? That was it, you said, and I quote: ‘This factory is a true and absolute delight and any man or woman lucky enough to secure a job here is in fact a man or woman worthy of envy!’ You told him the townsfolk would worship the ground he walked upon. Well lucky you, get ready to tread upon your own hallowed ground Garry… Sorry, Pete, Pete? Either way, Garry, mate, if you hang on in there without literally hanging yourself, you’ll still have a few years left when you get out!”
Garry or Pete (or Pete or Garry) in the Unmade Movie of his Life.
LONG SHOT/EXTERIOR
Garry (or Pete (or Garry)) stumbles out of the building confused, tie loosened, shirt untucked, beaten, head down. Usually he would drive home in his fancy company car. But thankfully the good people of one of two local recruitment agencies have relieved him of the keys, saving him any unwanted future hassle. His usual radio chart music-assisted ten-minute journey takes him an hour of silent trudging.
INTERIOR GARRY OR PETE OR GARRY’S HOUSE
In through the already wide-open door of his wonky redbrick house, ignoring his wife Denise and the filthy children sitting in the living room as they ignore him back, he marches straight up the stairs, penguin dives headfirst through the window directly at the top, hits the paving in his back garden and shatters into a thousand pieces as his wife sits watching four different soaps simultaneously, one on TV, one on an iPhone, one on an iPad, one on a laptop, all volumes turned up to 1000, screaming incoherently at the filthy children as the filthy children scream incoherently back.
FADE TO BLACK
The next day after dropping the filthy children off at what the locals call a “school,” she realises she hasn’t seen Garry or Pete (or Garry) that morning.
EXTERIOR PETE OR GARRY (OR PETE’S) GARDEN
WIFE:
“Where are you P… Garry?”
She asks the clouds through squinted eyes, standing on the patio, plastic brush in hand, not realising she is in the middle of sweeping him into a dustpan.
RAPID MONTAGE
Denise shrugs and gets on with her day, week, month, year, life. Meets a new Garry or Pete, the filthy children eventually begin calling “Dad” while she goes off to her factory job, strutting to the bus stop full of vigour and pride, the townsfolk staring their envious stares, whispering their envious whispers as she passes them by, like a ray of morning sunshine behind a breaking cloud.
EXTERIOR BUS STOP
ENVIOUS WHISPERER NO. 1:
My god that’s her! That’s that new agency staff member down at whatever that factory is called next to the other factory where all the factories are. God I am envious!
She struts on by, dreaming that one day, with the right lack of education and a bit of misguidance, the filthy children will also be struck with enough luck to join her and their de facto father at one of several other miscellaneous factories.
Swan Songs.
Pete or Garry or whatever his name actually was, was not as rare a case as he should have been. Pete, let’s just settle on Pete, was actually one of many lost to the top window of their two-storey terraced houses, never to be seen or heard from again. Wiped from the collective consciousness of the town. That is until their unconsenting resurrection amidst the memoirs of the making of the greatest rap album of all time. Swan Songs is what it was to be called. Leonard Swanson — Swan Songs, perfect! A great name for a great album by a guy called Leonard Swanson.
I decided against following in Pete’s forgotten footsteps, although I admit my decision-making has been described as hasty even on a good day.
The town had a knack for swallowing you whole but I planned to unsettle its guts enough for it to spit me back out at such a speed that I could burst through the borders of any obscure neighbouring settlement I pleased.
I grew up there in Church Town, kicking a football across its bumpy surfaces, through its peculiar streets, along the raised concrete walkways of its flats, drawing on its walls and climbing its stone bridges and trees, mazing my way through nettle bushes to hide from its residents.
A town built in a typical concentric fashion only with its central district being the old church responsible for its creative and apt name. As a kid I would amuse the drunken punters outside the Queen’s Legs with comedic tangents such as, “if its centre point had been something more worthwhile, such as the shopping centre, would the town be called Shopping Centre Town?” to bawls of laughter and splashes of golden lager, and “if it were the statue of a long-dead historical figure, Long-Dead Historical Figure Town?” met with equally enthusiastic chuffs of chortling.
The hill atop which the church was built was christened with an equally creative name: Church Hill, because it was a hill, with a church on it. Church Hill and its church could be seen from pretty much anywhere in the town, providing one had their eyes open and they were looking in its direction. The sight probably would have been impressive at some point in history, but by this point it was just a thing that was there.
And down the hill, navigating the alcohol and concrete, the drunken chortles and grit and idle hooded teenage rebels and grafting parents, past the smoking pensioners and gossiping neighbours and alleyway drug deals, an unusual sound could be heard through good ears and followed to 32 Bromley Close.
If you were lucky enough to be let in by an unsuspecting resident conveniently heading out to work as you were standing at the door to the building, the sound could be heard in higher definition and followed further to door number 18. Behind it sat I, Leonard Swanson, on the edge of my bed in the cramped studio flat I had confined myself to for most of 2004, ignoring the church on the hill and its surrounding delights.
I hammered and bashed pieces of music equipment together like a lunatic child with a box of Mega Bloks. Wires manically criss-crossed the room, a minefield of records, CDs, cassettes and plastic things that made noises if you struck them in the right way. A manic home recording studio held together with tape and string.
In it was a dented third-hand SM58 microphone clipped into a leaning mic stand held together with a shoelace and a tea towel. Taped to the mic stand, twisting around in front of the microphone, a pop shield fashioned out of a metal coat hanger and a pair of tights, the excess of which dangled below. If you were able to follow the XLR cable held into the SM58 output with duct tape, it would take you to the back of the Numark mixer where, for once, no tape was needed to hold anything in its place. The face of the Numark mixer, however, with its missing screws and volume fader, was a different story. Mummified in a variety of adhesive tape — the thin red kind, the standard transparent kind, even the grey electrical insulation kind. The knobs and remaining faders all poked through. The only reason I knew the brand of mixer was due to the back being free of tape. I was never sure as to why it was covered in so much tape, but this is how it was given to me and how it remained.
A phono-to-1/4-inch jack cable with a 3.5mm jack adapter connected the mixer to the mic input at the back of the PC tower, which ran off a cracked copy of Windows 2000 and stood to the side of the CRT monitor. Both the tower and monitor were tobacco-stained-yellow and outdated even in 2004.
The monitor, without its stand, sat directly on top of an old-style 90s twin-cassette deck. The tower, with its side missing, exposing its noisy innards, took up the remaining space between the cassette deck and the edge of the desk. To record vocals without the noisy mechanical interference I would be forced to shut it all down, allowing it to cool off. An hour of nervous ticks and impatient pacing later, with the computer loaded up and ready to go, it was a race against time before the malfunctioning robot sounds returned.
In front of the PC monitor and tape deck was a temperamental M-Audio midi keyboard controller I had actually purchased from a shop brand new a year or so prior. On each white key was a small strip of masking tape with the notes written on them. Underneath the desk, on the dusty worn-out grey carpet, a cheap belt-drive turntable vaguely borrowed from a friend of a friend whose name I had long forgotten.
A single four-foot, floor-standing vintage Sony tower speaker stood wedged between the desk and kitchen worktop. Due to only having the one speaker I would usually work in headphones, occasionally lifting them from my ears to hear the bass out loud or to write.
Taking up vital food prep space on the kitchen worktop to the right, the only piece of equipment to make it through the home studio adhesive-tape-free, was the MPC2000. A beaten-up, classic sampler and sequencer, originally released in 1997, that I only ever powered up to record the drums I had programmed on the computer. I liked the way it made them sound but could never concentrate for long enough to figure out how to use it as it was intended.
In the opposite corner was an old fat-back grey TV which sat slumped at an ever-increasing angle due to the plastic box it was slowly sinking into. Three empty DVD cases that used to sit on top of it had, at some point, slid off onto the floor where they remained until I moved out. The actual DVDs themselves lay on top of each other on the window sill to the right: They Live, Being John Malkovich and some French time-travelling movie I didn’t understand but for some reason found myself grunting at quite regularly.
A head full of haze had to navigate such terrain with extreme caution until every potential hazard had been thoroughly committed to muscle memory. However, even an expert could occasionally be brought crashing down to Earth by a newly introduced dirty dish or upturned plug.
The unusual sound spilling through the cracks of Flat 18, 32 Bromley Close, the beginnings of the greatest and only rap album Church Town has ever produced. Songs obsessively under construction in my live-in-laboratory. Some good, some great. The great songs were put in one pile as album contenders and the good songs thrown into another. Every now and then I would peer into the “good songs,” pick one out and decide it was great but not the right type of great required for the final album. These particular good songs I had upgraded to great, albeit not the right type of great, would then be put into their own, new pile. This new pile, the great-but-not-the-right-type-of-great pile, would very slowly and meticulously find itself drip-fed into the digital consciousness of the internet. Usually via Myspace.
A day or so after uploading one of these songs, my internet was cut off due to an “unpaid bill,” they said. “Oh well,” I thought. Although I believed the song was now great, I didn’t hold much faith in the people beyond Flat 18. I imagined the song would simply be forgotten like Pete or Garry.
Who knows, maybe it was all a waste of time? But then again what is time if not something to waste? Surely it’s not any more a waste of time than anything else?
A few foggy weeks down the line I stumbled my way into enough funds to reconnect the internet. I wouldn’t have bothered had I not decided I must upload another one of those good, now great, but not the right type of great songs. Obviously I could have gone to a friend’s house and used their internet, but back then was not the time for friends, my friend.
And just like magic, the internet fairies had the little green modem lights dancing once more. To my surprise the song I had uploaded to Myspace a few weeks back seemed to have become quite popular. Racking up over 8k listens and a bunch of downloads. Clueless as to how, I wondered what it was about a song called “GENPHARM” that people found endearing. Or maybe they didn’t find it endearing at all, maybe it was just odd enough to peak a certain type of weirdo’s interest. Maybe the lyrics had nothing to do with why people liked it, maybe it was entirely due to the beat.
The beat was relatively simple. A pitched down, fuzzy lo-fi, synthetic string interpolation of Vivaldi’s “Spring”, repurposed from the outro music of a menial daytime TV talk show. I recognised the Vivaldi melody not because I was any sort of classical buff but because I had spent many hours listening to it while on hold to the Jobcentre. The quirky talk show version of “Spring” had already been floating around my peripheral consciousness since accidentally unmuting the TV several days before I managed to capture it. Finally, when I noticed the talk show was on again, I snatched the mic from the stand and rushed over to the TV. Kneeling in front of the screen with no idea when it would end, I held the microphone out like a religious offering for the TV Gods and captured its message for potential monetary gain.
Daytime talk show music chopped and slowed down to 83bpm, I dragged in a pre-recorded drum break from a 70s funk record. The break was then lovingly dismantled and chopped into pieces: kicks, hats, snares and put back together in its new form. “BOOM BOOM CH, B-BOOM BOOM CH” and so on. I filtered out the low ends of the daytime TV music and loaded a long-isolated bass note into the M-Audio midi keyboard I could barely play. After an hour or so, punching every letter on the keys over and over, I fell upon a sequence of notes I was OK with. “That’ll do,” I said to the computer screen.
