— Pete Silverton
I last blogged about this Single of the Fortnight way back in May of 2018 when VER HITS was just over a month old. I have to admit that I didn't really know what I was doing at that stage and it shows. Basically, I read Pete Silverton's review a couple of times, I listened to "Spasticus Autisticus" repeatedly and I took a look at the song's Wikipedia article: my piece on it just sort of wrote itself. Looking at it now, I have to say that it isn't one of the more hopeless posts I've made on this blog. I like that I related the disabled supposedly being patronised to the then-current issue of Me Too but I made the mistake of not looking into it a bit more. It might have helped had I flipped through this very same issue of ver Hits, one that included an interview with Ian Dury. How did I manage to miss it?
Titled 'Body Language', this feature is a single page spread which includes the lyrics to "Spasticus Autisticus', a short write-up by Mike Stand and a photo of his nibs. In addition to Dury himself, Stand also speaks with Carolyn Keen, press officer for the International Year of the Disabled People campaign. While the singer is said to have been critical of the IYDP, he doesn't express such feelings here. Instead, his target is people who fail to see the humanity in the inflicted. Dury relates meeting a fan backstage with cerebral palsy who happened to be well educated. People judged him on his condition, failing to see that there could be a thoughtful, sensitive person inside. This, more than Dury's bad leg caused by childhood polio, spurred him into composing perhaps the greatest song about having a disability.
The single caused offence in some circles. DJ's didn't want to have anything to do with it, which no doubt aided its chart failure. As Keen told Stand, "I would have thought the thing for radio stations to do would be to play it and then ask whether it was offending anyone and if so why?" As this quote indicates, the IYDP was supportive of Dury's statement. They understood that it was about how the public should "judge on my abilities, not my disabilities". Yet reaction to it was so poor that the single would end up being quickly withdrawn.
Those who were offended and those who didn't get the chance to hear because of those who were offended ended up missing out. Dury's creative spark was on the wane with the soon-to-be-released album Lord Upminster a disappointment. The eighties wasn't as receptive to a music hall punk, though it should be noted that he was never exactly a hit machine even when he was at his peak. While "Spasticus Autisticus" might have nabbed a spot somewhere in the Top 75, sufficient airplay would not have guaranteed that it would have joined "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick", "What a Waste" and "Reasons to Be Cheerful Part 3" in the Top 10. The public had always been selective when it came to the chief Blockhead — "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" must have missed the charts because it was also deemed too offensive — and this was no exception.
In a way, this is vintage Dury. That facility with words, that louche English charm, that penchant for shifting from one style to another: all are present and correct. But this is a protest song, something that "Billericay Dickie" was not. As Silverton notes, it's harder edged than anything he had done in a long time. If he was a minor national treasure in Britain (something that I brought up the last time), he wasn't languishing in that Sid James-Michael Parkinson cheerful entertainer to the masses mode. His "courage and bull-headed determination to be himself at all costs" was put to the test in a song that laid everything painfully bare.
Not many are able to take such graphic content and turn it into something so thrilling and listenable but that is one of Dury's more underrated qualities. It's just such a shame that very few had the opportunity to give it a listen. Luckily, it has since been given more recognition. It was even performed at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. I previously wondered what Dury, who passed away back twelve years earlier, would have made of this but I suspect he would have approved. An important statement about accepting disabled people for who they are got had an audience of thousands in a section of the proceedings appropriately named 'Empowerment'. That says it all.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
OMD: "Souvenir"
I was crushed when I decided not to include my thoughts on the shimmering loveliness of "Souvenir" the last time I blogged about "Spasticus Autisticus" so I am very pleased to be doing so this time round. Silverton seems to think it's a bad thing that the "futurist gag [has gone] lush life" but that's exactly what's so wonderful about it. If he thinks OMD were becoming too precious, I would have liked to have seen his reaction to the coming deluge of McCluskey and Humphreys tunes about Joan of Arc. In any case, "Souvenir" is absolutely brilliant and sign that they were on creative roll that would eventually result in one of the finest collections of singles in eighties pop. There are a lot of strong singles reviewed in this issue but "Souvenir" is the only one that gives "Spasticus" a serious challenge.
(Click here to read the original review)
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