RECALCITRANT RADIO 0030

Mekons - Ghosts Of American Astronauts

From Mekons - So Good It Hurts (Sin Records 1987) First posted April 19, 2015

The Mekons started out as one of the leading lights of the second wave of the first British Punk Rock scene. They started around 1977, made an album for Virgin Records which didn't sell that well, made a couple other records and fizzled out. In the mid-80s, Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh, the key members of the original band, got a new lineup together and have been performing and recording somewhat continuously ever since. There was some consternation among the punk rock purists, though. The word was that they had gone country. One of the new members was Sally Timms. While she had played in a punk rock band, she now sounded like Karen Carpenter doing Sandy Denny. Another new member was Dick Taylor - one of the founders of the Rolling Stones and then the Pretty Things (more consternation from the purists - the Rolling Stones were not cool and Taylor was considerably older, grayer and more bearded than they were comfortable with). Fiddles were scraped, Hank Williams and Gram Parsons songs were sung. The new original songs were a sort of working class Marxist surrealism that incorporated rock 'n' roll degradation along with gallows and other types of humor.

The So Good It Hurts album was released in 1987. Shortly after that, a large American record company, A&M Records, signed the Mekons. I was present at a showcase performance at the Roxy on Sunset Boulevard. Although I had been buying their records from the beginning, I had never seen them perform. It was one of the best shows I've ever seen. The band had great songs, rocked with a vengeance and the between song talking (and gesticulating and stumbling) was hilarious. Langford was the jovial yet biting master of ceremonies. Sally Timms sang like an angel and cursed like a sailor and traded barbs with Langford. The Rasta roadie had a small turn as the "hair conditioner roadie". I could see the A&M executives showing evidence of great enthusiasm. It seemed that they were all thinking that they had a live one there. Twenty-five years later, I wonder if those executives acted like that at every showcase. In the cold light of day, the Mekons and A&M didn't succeed together. The Mekons next signed with a label that made them somewhat appreciate A&M and then they ended up at Quarterstick Records, a tiny independent label in Chicago they are still with after releasing many more albums. They have a cult following and they still put on a good show and produce good music.

Ghosts of American Astronauts was written by Tom Greenhalgh. Langford writes more of their songs but their styles are similar. This one has a somewhat pop sound, especially in the Timms vocal but the words are recognizably Mekons words. It starts with a stately introduction sort of in the style of the early Fairport Convention, when they were still sounding a bit like West Coast bands like the Byrds and Jefferson Airplane.

In the first couple verses, the moon landing might be viewed as a possible hoax to distract from the Vietnam war. They also could be taken as making fun of people who concoct conspiracy theories about the moon landing being faked. The ghosts of the astronauts keep wandering through the moments of war. Even though the song has its jokes, I feel that they result in a mood of sad nostalgia. It's less explicit but reminds me of Recalcitrant Radio #10, Noble Experiment by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. The tone seems elegiac to me.

Hear it here:

Looks like they actually made this video for the song back when it was first released. Here's a pretty good article about the band and their history: http://www.propergandaonline.com/in-depth-mekons/ [Whoops - that article is gone now. So here's a very different article that is somewhat arty and pretentious but has some interesting discussions of a bunch of their more "popular" records: https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/a-skeptics-guide-to-the-mekons-1681784000] This article’s gone too now, sorry. You might as well go the mekons.de/archive.htm - there’s a huge archive. It has the long bit on the Mekons from Greil Marcus’ Lipstick Traces but that is in a German translation. I thought that whole book was good but it’s long and I read it along time ago. It’s not a “music” book.

And here's a picture of the band from about the same time. See below for lyrics.

Ghosts Of American Astronauts

Up in the hills above Bradford
Outside the Napalm factory
(They're floating above us)
Ghosts of American Astronauts
Glow in the headlights beam

It's just a small step for him
It's a nice break from Vietnam
(Filmed in a factory)
Out on the back lot in Houston
Who says the world isn't flat

John Glenn drinks cocktails with God
In a cafe in downtown Saigon
(High above them)
Ghosts of American Astronauts
Are drifting too close to the sun

Chorus:

A flag flying in the vacuum
Nixon sucks a dry Martini
Ghosts of American astronauts
Stay with us in our dreams