Because it pleased me to do so (an ode to terrible writing)
Today I bought my first piece of vinyl for the record player that Nick and I having delivered tomorrow. Finally out of self-isolation after being knocked for six by Covid, we wandered through the North Laine area in Brighton, in and out of record shops.
In the second shop, I found myself drawn to the gospel selection.
I often feel a bit intimidated by the Big Names and Most Popular Genres in music. There’s so much I haven’t paid proper attention to over the years, and it’s hard to figure out what I would be genuinely excited to listen to versus what I think I “should” own.
But I did know that I liked the idea of gospel on vinyl. I love the passion, the harmonies and many of the songs (and even did a term singing in a gospel choir a few years ago). Every now and again, I go through a spell of immersing myself in various gospel choirs’ back catalogues and blasting it through the kitchen.
One album in particular jumped out at me, because it was clearly not by a gospel choir.
I read the blurb on the back – a full 500 words of exaggerated hype that is one of the most ridiculous, outrageous things I’ve ever read. It is perhaps the best bit of bad writing I’ve ever come across. Wildly enthusiastic, over the top and overstatement at its best.
The sleeve photography depicted this group (the identity of which I shall reveal shortly) as an Arcade Fire-esque assembly of a few dozen extremely happy singers. Mostly white, jiving away in various photographs, straight out of the sixties, manically beaming smiles plastered across their faces. No one is ever this happy. The song names were excellent too: songs like “What colour is God’s skin?”, “They will not let me introduce the band,” and “Shine on, shine man.”
This was going to be £6.99 well spent.
I bought the record because it pleased me to do so. I had a smile on my face for most of the day afterwards.
* * *
The idea of doing something because it pleases you to do so is something an amazing drag artist, who goes by the name Virgin X, talked about at length in an amazing talk we watched them do at Camp Wildfire. They talked about how, for them, doing what pleased them in life was a revolutionary act.
There are big, deep important things in this idea, things that it doesn’t please me to go into right now. You can do your own thinking about this, about the importance of doing what pleases you (as long as it isn’t hurtful or harmful to others), and letting others do what pleases them, particularly if you or they are in any kind of marginalised, underrepresented or historically oppressed group.
For me, it feels like an act of rebellion, of empowerment and of agency, especially as a woman in a society that tells women that our role in life is to give wholly and completely unto others, that to be otherwise is to be an Inadequate, Selfish Woman.
I will also point the way to the work of Tricia Hersey, who founded The Nap Ministry in 2016. If you want to understand the connection between rest and resistance, she is a powerful leader in this area.
* * *
But right now, what I want to do, what pleases me the most, is to share with you the incredible blurb from the back of the album I bought today. Unfiltered, unedited. The paragraphs are LONG (get ready!) and so are many of the sentences contained therein. I cannot change a thing, because it is so bad that it’s pure gold.
So, initiating an imaginary drumroll for you right now… may I present to you, UP WITH PEOPLE and their definitively non-gospel album. I am hoping that this pleases you.
I wish I could find the person who wrote this copy. It might just be one of my favourite bad pieces of writing of all time.
“There are many startling things about UP WITH PEOPLE and two of them come immediately to mind: one, where it has been, two where it is going. It has been just about everywhere – campuses, city streets, Carnegie Hall, The Hollywood Bowl, Paris Olympia Theatre, Olympics in Munich, Japan, Africa, South America – you name it. Go to Spain and say “UP WITH PEOPLE” and the Spaniards smile and want to shake hands. Mention it in Belgium, and you might get a ride to wherever you want to go. Say it almost anywhere in America or around the world and you will find people who have seen it, dug it, and want it to happen again. And as for where it is going, any guess is likely to be right. Hundreds of cities and towns and probably a lot of places around the world where no show has ever been before. Because that’s the way UP WITH PEOPLE is. Their audiences include not only the veteran concert-goers of New York City and the college scene or the big European halls but people in out of the way places who can sing and UP WITH PEOPLE number in English when that isn’t even their native tongue. If you don’t believe me go ask them. UP WITH PEOPLE sing like they were born to do it, play a variety of instruments from electric guitars to funky brass, dance up a storm and generally carry on with a professional but human touch you will seldom find in so large a production. Their music is all original, from rock to country to anything else that really comes across, and they put it out for two unforgettable hours a night. And it talks to you. Their concerts are contemporary and serious but somehow exhilarating. They make the faceless crowd feel like real people again from the first beat to the last and usually a lot longer.
When you walk out of one of their shows, you feel a little more tolerant, a little more involved and a little more human. They must be among the busiest people in the world. Not only do they perform but they do all their own stagework, moving and setting up nine or ten tons of equipment, everything from the stage to elaborate lighting and sound systems. On top of that, many of them study as they travel. In a year, they may do 150 to 200 performances, complete eight or ten academic courses, travel fifteen to twenty thousand miles and talk to several thousand individuals in a hundred different towns and three or four countries. They do special gigs for prisoners in penitentiaries or patients in hospitals and nursing homes. It is all part of the UP WITH PEOPLE thing but it’s still that big evening special that tops it off. A professional show of good music and good things and you won’t find anything like it anywhere else. No way.”
Nothing I say can improve upon this. It is sheer perfection, every gushing, hyperbolic, strange syllable of it.
I CANNOT WAIT TO LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM.
If it doesn’t change my life like it promises to… well, I won’t care quite frankly, and I won’t want my money back. Those words have given me more joy than anything I’ve spent £6.99 on, ever.
I bought this album because it pleased me to do so.
What pleases you?
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*(Incidentally, they have a reputation for being slightly cultish, which is a bit of a running joke in my family and with Nick. Trust me to find the only album in the shop made by a cult!!)