THE SONGWRITER AS POET:
IAN MCCULLOCH AND THE PRE-RAPHAELITE TRADITION

Kristin F. Smith

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Chapter 16: McCulloch's Use of Language

     Ian McCulloch is a careful wordsmith. He is interested in the meanings of words, and the ways those meanings may be changed or put to inventive uses. He likes to 'play' with language. His skills range from the conventionally clever:

"You're putting the 'no' in November
And taking all the 'bes' out of May" [IM; Everybody Knows; FLOWERS; 2001]

to concise, well-defined word pictures:

"I want to write the letters of persecution
To someone I don't know
Who doesn't know me" [IM; The White Hotel; CANDLELAND; 1989]

"She's got everything on her mind
He'll take anything he can find
Small horizons fill her eyes
Got his eyes on her in the sky" [IM; Antelope; single; 1997]

"I walked back inside me
I'd gone back for my youth
As I came down the fire escape
It must have stayed up on the roof" [IM; Candleland; CANDLELAND; 1989]

"Lucky for some
We don't understand
Everything we hear
We just pick out the simple stuff" [IM; Simple Stuff; single; 1980]

to verbal delights:

"Far forgone
Along with my conclusions
That came with much confusion
And led to my delusion
But got me on my way" [IM; Pomegranate; MYSTERIO; 1992]

"Death in a basket
Wrapped up in glory
Left in a casket
To reflect on our story" [IM; New Direction (original version); CRYSTAL DAYS (box set); 2001]

"Smack in the middle of today
Got to find new words
Merely got to simply say
I think we all misheard" [IM; Higher Hell; PORCUPINE; 1983]

Or my personal favorite:

"Just get me out of this jam
It's stuck to me like glue" [IM; Lost on You; WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?; 1999]

     Like a painter wielding oils and brushes, he uses language to create his setting, and establish mood, from dark and disquieting to sweetly nostalgic (and we night note that some of McCulloch's best work is tucked away on the b-sides of singles):

"See the girl with the fish-hooks in her
See the boy in another prayer
See the cross slipping through his fingers
Going, going, gone nowhere
See the man with the necrophilia
Got boxes full of hair
The streets are God dead willing
Someone dying in the dead air...." [IM; Fish-Hook Girl; single; 1999]

"Home is where the house is
House where the toys stay
The sky always blue
With the noises of big days" [IM; Big Days; single; 1989]

     "Noises" is a wonderful choice of words.
He often employs unexpected, slightly off-kilter words to convey his imagery [italics mine]:

"I'll come flaking back to you" [IM; Rust; WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?; 1999]

"Are you the wrongful half
Of the rightful me?
Are you the Mongol half
Of the cerebral me?" [IM; Clay; PORCUPINE; 1983]

"Estoy candalabarar
Obligoing brightly" [IM; Vibor Blue; MYSTERIO; 1992]

"When the moon and the stars go crashing round"
[IM; Don't Let It Get You Down; EVERGREEN; 1997]

"scarred with the taste of angels" [IM; Sister Pain; BURNED; 1995]

"Heaven's scent: the smell of dreams
We'll never find...." [IM; What Are You Going to do With Your Life; WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?; 1999]

     This last has some fun with the name of a famous perfume, Heaven Sent.
     Conversely, McCulloch shows an odd fondness for clichés - 'tried and true expressions', we shall call them here. They pop up everywhere: "couldn't cut the mustard"; "the razor's edge"; "Out on a limb/Did you see what the cat dragged in"; "do or die, what's done is done" (double headers there!); "the blue horizon"; "the wild blue yonder"; "in the same boat"; "the salt of the earth"; "the chips are down"; "through the thick and thin"; "nip it in the bud"; "Spring has sprung". One could spend a month of Sundays ferreting them all out.
     A man capable of producing lines like:

"Burning the witches with mother religious
You'll strike the matches and shower me
In water games" [IM; Seven Seas; OCEAN RAIN; 1984]

writes "that's the way the bee bumbles" because he wants to, not because he cannot think of anything else. He uses clichés as pastiche. Either he finds them amusing, or he simply likes these good old tried and true expressions.
     He can also surprise:

"I need love, a love without question
A clean mind and a pocket of space
I want a map and a sense of direction
Looking for love and the thrill of the world" [IM; Lowdown; BURNED; 1995]

     By avoiding the obvious rhyming word, 'chase', he neatly sidesteps the cliché. Even better, "the lies that bind and tie" [IM; Show of Strength; HEAVEN UP HERE; 1981] makes lovely hash of 'the ties that bind'.

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An Annotated Discography: Works by Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant, Electrafixion and Glide (off-site link)
Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch and Electrafixion: Album Reviews (off-site link)
The Bunnymen Concert Log: A comprehensive, annotated listing of concert dates, venues and set lists for Echo and the Bunnymen, Ian McCulloch and Electrafixion (off-site link)

Bunnymen.info - The (Unofficial) News Source (off-site link, run by Charles Pham)

Aldems' Political Quotations: Apt and Otherwise
BlindFool and Scruffy Dog: Dilettantes-at-Large

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