Feast of Fools

Laughing, shouting, screaming, pouting,
Spinning, wheeling, double-dealing,
Up and down and in and out,
Nameless faces, I can’t count,
Dancing, prancing, dicing, chancing,
Running, jumping, leaping, bumping,
Never stopping, never dropping,
Going on and on and on,
This is all my life is for,
Had enough and still need more,
This is all I’m going to,
This is a Feast of Fools.

Revelling in the summer sun,
Dance away a winter’s night,
Alcoholic hazy blur,
No-one’s worried, I don’t care,
Always happy, sorrow scorning,
Still rejoicing, never mourning,
Still goes ever, ever on,
Never finished, never done,
I can’t stop this tangled mess,
Deep inside me, that’s the test,
Try to stop it, cannot shake it,
My life is a Feast of Fools.

1990
The Mill Pond, Cambridge

Sleeve Notes:

This track will start chapter 2 of the Album, and obviously where the iconography of The Fool comes from. This is full on Party, Cambridge at the turn on the 1990s, and all the baggage that comes with it…

I created the image for this track a log time ago, this is the Cambridge Arms on a hot and sweaty night…

For the gear heads… This was an incredibly complex song to produce. I started with a chord pattern and the drum and bass/dubstep beats, but then the whole melody, harmony and phrasing changed part way through. I wanted to mix electronics and the folk sounds from the Appalachian Dulcimer in a soft of Afro-Celt Sound-system style, with some heavy guitars. I used the Vintage Metal Axxe and also a synthesised guitar from the VST Slayer, heavily effected Electric Double Bass and a pile of soft synths.

Thanks to Si (RIP), Ben, Jo, Sean, Tara, Steve for the Foley (A feast of fools from a later age)…