One Three One: A Time-Shifting Gnostic Hooligan Road Novel by Julian Cope Read Free Book Online Page A

hope to imagine. It started out in the mid-’80s as an epic poem that Mick told at pubs before Liverpool matches. Stu and Gary Have-a-laugh would be strategically placed at the bar to offer homey support, questioning and urging: ‘Was it the final Britvic in Bury?’ ‘No, it was the last Tango in Paris.’ And Mick only wrote in that twee dodgy third verse for the primary school kiddies’ choir at the behest of producer Arthur Tadgell, who believed it could be a proper hit. Have a re-listen to that flailing M. Goodby vocal on the 7" single version of ‘Last Tango …’ and, well, Mick’s semi-pro Northern accent always floated somewhere between Stoke and Lancaster at the best of times, but never was it so Pan-Pennine as on that hit single. Tell you what, how about I here proffer the entire lyrical libretto to M. Goodby’s ‘Last Tango in Paris’, so you can understand why Hertzog got so mad, not.
    Last Tango in Paris
    (
Spoken
)
    Sugary drinks across the ages,
    Tales of pick-me-ups by sages,
    Caffeinated to the max,
    Delivering drinks down ancient tracks,
    ‘The King of Vienna needs some sugar,
    You’re heading east, you lucky bugger.’
    1.
    Red Bull comes in cans, I know,
    I’ve followed its career,
    Since I chanced upon its Austrian debut,
    It was 1987 and our youth team played East Tyrol,
    Where the fighting hordes are few.
    So we loaded up with Kola Max,
    We loaded up with sickly snacks,
    Got overloaded on the aeroplane,
    Then descended as one sugary mass,
    We crossed the tarmac,
    Reached the grass,
    Then retched collectively, ooh!
    (
Pause
) Let’s start again.
    Sugary drinks across the ages,
    Tales of pick-me-ups by sages,
    Caffeinated to the max,
    Delivering drinks down ancient tracks,
    ‘The King of France, he needs some sugar,
    You’re heading south, you lucky bugger.’
    2.
    Red Star, Paris: green-and-white,
    A year or so ago,
    Your soft drinks were all gone long before Half Time,
    So I had to mug a tourist fairly near the Eiffel Tower,
    Half a Tango is no crime!
    Your Honour, it was lack of fizz,
    Your Honour, Coke won’t do the biz,
    And your baggage handlers cracked the fizz I’d packed,
    If you run a Euro football club,
    We Anglos don’t all need the pub,
    White sugar: it’s a fact.
    3.
    (
School choir
)
    Mick collects the kind of drinks that keep you up all night,
    All you kiddies, too much pop will make you sick,
    Unto every son and daughter,
    Give them juice and give them water,
    Then there’s all the more for Mick.
    Chorus (
Vocals shared between Mick, Stu and Gary
    Have-a-laugh
)
    Was it the first Vimto in Cannock?
    No, it was the last Tango in Paris,
    Was it the final Britvic in Bury?
    No, it was the last Tango in Paris.
    It was not the penultimate Coke in Berlin
    Quaffed down with a bongload of charis;
    Indeed, it would go down in history
    As the last Tango in Paris.
    Was it the final R. White’s in Westminster?
    No, it was the last Tango in Paris.
    It was not the penultimate Tizer in Hull,
    It was the last Tango in Paris.
    Was it the ultimate Fanta in Nazi Germany?
    The last Dr. Pepper on Broadway?
    The last Kia-Ora to escape from Andorra?
    Just take this Ribena and go away.
    Was it the last Dandelion and Burdock in the Quantocks?
    No, I won’t speak of it longer,
    The only contender was My Mum’s Cola,
    And that’s only because it’s stronger.
    Was it the second-to-last Irn Bru in the Shetlands?
    Or the final Corona on Skye?
    Well, me I can’t answer,
    All clammy and sweaty,
    Just gimme one quick or I’ll die.

9. TRANSMISSION FROM THE ALTAR OF PUNISHMENT
    Late afternoon, Saturday June 10th, 2006
North of Macomér, N.W. Sardinia
    Musing that only a psycho could have interpreted ‘Last Tango in Paris’ with such venom and twisted spite, I clocked a road sign that put us just fifteen or so kilometres north of Macomér, the very place we’d been kidnapped all those long years ago. Do I not let on to Anna and just keep my head down as we burn past on the 131? I’ll keep my