Ian Dury: "Spasticus Autisticus"

3 September 1981

"Personally, my flesh crawls each time I hear him shout "I Spasticus". And it hurts so good."

— 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 Yet reaction to it was so poor that the single would end up being quickly withdrawn.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.

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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)

The Fall: "Cruiser's Creek"

23 October 1985

"Perhaps Mark Smith is bored by now with his "Last Angry Young Man" label."

— Paul King

Bloody hell, ver Hits is already going downhill? Well, not quite but it's in these waning months of 1985 that it took its first steps down the pop mag dumper. It became glossier under editor Steve Bush but that's no matter. The big change is just a couple pages past the singles, under the headline REVIEW. There are three music books being critiqued (including Dave Rimmer's brilliant account of Culture Club and UK New Pop Like Punk Never Happened) and four home video music collections but the biggest space saved is for films. Films. There's nothing like ruining a perfectly good music mag by filling space with films. Bloody films.

You might be beginning to suspect that I'm not crazy about films but my real problem is films overshadowing music. The eighties seemed to have an even number of blockbuster films to albums but the former really began overtaking the latter over the course of the decade and by the nineties we're well into the era when asking someone about hearing the latest record by such-and-such is thoroughly passe while it was commonplace to inquire as to whether they'd seen the newest must-see picture. By 1996 I began to be irked by everyone talking about Independence Day but ignoring R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi-Fi. What's the matter with people?

But there's also something worrying about a music mag critiquing films (though — also worryingly — this is something one probably only recognizes in retrospect): it sets a bad precedent. Once a music journal begins getting into other areas it's not long before it does a Rolling Stone and begins going on the campaign trail with US presidential hopefulls or a Q which began dubbing itself "the modern guide to music and more". In the case of Smash Hits, it eventually evolved into a teenager's Hello! with early-nineties cover stars from Neighbours and Beverley Hills, 90210 and pages of celebrity gossip. What about covering pop music?

To be fair, there is some effort here to link the movie reviews to pop. The main film this fortnight is the Merseyside period piece Letter to Brezhnev and it includes a glowing write-up on its soundtrack. There's also a review of The Bride starring Sting and, finally, a short bit about how crap St Elmo's Fire is — which it is. An excellent soundtrack (even though it doesn't look like much cop to me), a pop star moonlighting as an actor and the vehicle for a soft rock anthem. Fine, write about films but keep them based around pop and we're good, okay?

Paul King of King (gee, I wonder where they got their name from?) is the guest singles reviewer in this issue and he seems to have been in a very good mood. He's pleased to have been chosen for the task, is taking it seriously and is in no mood to put anyone down while doing so. The closest he gets to bashing anything is by questioning the mixing of "Blue" by Fine Young Cannibals and the slow-as-sludge pacing of Tracie Young's "Invitation" — though, notably, he still manages to praise the efforts of the artists. Elsewhere, he has nothing but good things to say about the hip (Robert Wyatt, Prefab Sprout, Siouxsie), the mainstream (Eurythmics and Aretha Frankin, UB40, Dee C Lee) and those with bleak chart prospects (The Woodentops, The Icicle Works...er...The Fall).

To pick "Mark Smith" and his group of Mancuian louts The Fall for Single of the Fortnight, then, must be high praise indeed given the top-notch quality of the competition. I'm not quite as fond of this batch of records as King is but I can't disagree. "Cruiser's Creek" is ace. (Plus, it goes some way to rectifying the film review nonsense)

It's tempting to dismiss The Fall for putting out the same bloody records throughout their forty years together. I once listened to a cassette of their 1991 album Shift-Work with a friend and expressed interest in exploring their work in more depth. "Why?" she asked me, "if you've heard one Fall album you've heard them all". (I shouldn't get too high and mighty, however, as I began thinking much the same thing not long after) Of course, there are those hallmarks — Smith's gravely voice, repetitive guitar and bass parts, a whole lot of darkness — but their sound was regularly tweaked by current trends and whatever life happened to throw at their leader.

Certainly King is correct that Smith had mellowed somewhat by the mid-eighties. Being married to Brix Smith would have helped (for now at any rate) and her presence moved them in a lighter direction (making her probably the only person ever to convince him of anything). This being The Fall, it's not as if they went pop but many of their catchiest pieces — "My New House" and "Spoilt Victorian Child", both from '85's This Nation's Saving Grace — date from right around this time. Nevertheless, he wasn't about to let a happy homelife and a creative purple-patch stop him from spewing bile all over the place.

"Cruiser's Creek" may sound like the name of an Australian soap opera but it seems to be the setting for where yuppies get together in order to make Smith vomit in his mouth. Perhaps using his modest rock star status to get into exclusive parties filled with market traders with sail boats, he immediately feels like a fish out of water. Yet, he seems to be drawn back to it. His world of "street litter twisting in the wind / crisp bags turning" doesn't quite grab him and he wants to be back where he has "nice pink bubbles" in his mouth and everyone has "Bianco on the breath". (I assume he means Calabrian wine) It's easy for him to belittle the wealthy but he's just as snide about his own culture (he couldn't have pleased many of his peers with a line like "no more Red Wedge in the pub or ZTT stuff", perhaps that's why it got excised from the 7" release). Still an angry "young" man but perhaps one who can enjoy himself knocking back expensive wines and trashing everyone he sees. I can see the appeal.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Ian Dury: "Profoundly in Love with Pandora"

Something of a national treasure in the UK, Ian Dury's appeal never quite translated elsewhere. It's quite possible that his best known song internationally is this one, even if The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole TV series wasn't exactly a mega-hit. Sitcom themes released as singles always seem a bit wrong: they never quite sound the same and there's always that rest of the song beyond the thirty seconds you're familiar with (although, at least they stick to the Mole storyline throughout). King is positive (because of course he is) but I suspect that at least half of his enthusiasm is down to wishing a hit for Dury, which is fair enough. Nowhere close to his best work, it is nevertheless a charming little curio and is accompanied by the equally cute "Eugenius (You're a Genius)" on the flip side with Dury trying his hand at rapping. A one off, as "they" say.

Ian Dury: "Spasticus Autisticus"

3 September 1981

"Personally, my flesh crawls each time I hear him shout "I Spasticus". And it hurts so good."

— Pete Silverton

It should be clear by now that minorities don't appreciate having every little thing explained to them by middle-aged white guys. When Bill Maher devotes a portion of each recent episode of his weekly program Real Time to discussing his perceived grievances with Me Too and doesn't bother including a representative from the movement then there's clearly something wrong. Week after week he's been wondering why these women are unable or unwilling to distinguish between horrific serial sex predators and those who've been accused of creepy though not necessarily illegal acts. Too bad he's unable or unwilling to listen to them; perhaps he'd discover that the vast majority are able to make those distinctions. And, so, he has found himself mansplaining an issue that doesn't exist: hard to believe feminists aren't on his side.

1981 was the UN's International Year of Disabled Persons. Using the slogan of "a wheelchair in every home", it was meant to raise awareness of the plight of the handicapped and how they were marginalised by society. It's arguable that this resolution produced a net good: the increasing prominence of disabled parking spaces and wheelchair ramps by the end of the eighties was likely at least somewhat attributable to the IYDP. Nonetheless, one of its critics was Ian Dury who considered it to be "patronising".

"Spasticus Autisticus" was Dury's reply to the IYDP and it's savage. The near-gibberish of some of the lyrics ("I wibble when I piddle, cos my middle is a riddle", "I dribble when I nibble, and I quibble when I scribble") might delude the listener into thinking this just one of his jolly music hall-inspired ditties. But when he gets to the more delicately sung middle part ("So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin, and thank the creator you're not in the state I'm in / So long have I been languished on the shelf, I must give all proceeds to myself") you know he means business. It closes with the repeated shouts of "I'm Spasticus!" that made Pete Silverton so understandably squeamish. 

Ian Dury has always struck me as one of those odd British national treasures, much like, say, Frank Bruno or Tony Hancock, who have almost no recognition elsewhere. (Prior to becoming a bit more aware of him about twenty years ago, my only previous knowledge of him was that he sang the theme to the TV series The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole) But perhaps a significant portion of the esteem with which he is held in his homeland stems from his courage and bull-headed determination to be himself at all costs. He wasn't about to put up with busy bodies at the UN telling others how to treat him: he could do just fine informing them himself.

But would he have made of his protest song getting played at the Paralympics Opening Ceremony?

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Portsmouth Sinfonia: "Classical Muddly"

It's hard to imagine how something like the Portsmouth Sinfonia managed to catch on (to the extent that they did). Either as deconstructionists par excellence to rival eyeball mask-sporting crazies The Residents or as the self-proclaimed 'world's worst orchestral' doing what they did, well, worst (or is it best?), the Sinfonia unleash a barrage of noises — some of which manage to be musical in some form or other — that make for a fun if awfully chaotic listen. The amateurism of the players is reinforced by the slapdash quality of the mix as the opening bars of Also sprach Zarathustra abruptly transitions into the William Tell Overture which in turn becomes Beethoven's 5th and so on — with the simplest of drum machine beats to barely hold it all together. A shame they didn't just record it all in one shot, though that might have made them sound too professional and there's no way they would have put up with that.