instant karma: completely gone fishing

liner notes: a word from our sponsor

"This one started out as an exquisite, beautiful but yet slightly boring instrumental. Exquisite, beautiful, slightly boring? Er, sounds french to me. But alas, we just had no french person handy - in comes one of the better aspects of Europe: household appliances ship with multilingual manuals! So, put a couple of `ch'ri's and `mon amour's in there and we`re okay. I sure hope we don`t get sued for copyright infringement."

Lyrics censored.

--Gordon

liner notes: distorted

'One of IK`s little punk rock tunes in the tradition of `Bird' (Mother Album) or `Herpes' (Lost Album), only this time with Tom in the driver seat. Why only two and a half minutes? For us, stuff like this only works with hit & run tactics. Gary Toth, drummer in the original line-up of Chicago, said after listening to the whole album that `Distorted' is really the only proper single on the album (Unbelievable ...). How do you meet people like that? Well, Gary is nowadays a colleague of my dad. Not all of them stay popstars, you know ...'

Higher than nothing, lower than everything. Crawl on the floor and wait for someone, someone to pick you up. And they'll make a small boy grow, but did you do your homework? You say it`s nice of me that I care, wait till you read about my anger. Isn`t it far more important that you care? Start to care, straighten up, it`s not my turn to smash all the bottles for you. Times where everything is nothing. Where`s your place? Here? There? I used to betray myself like you do, I never liked damn aliens in me. I`m starting to act like I am funky, I always hated `sure, I`m fine'-talk. Higher than nothing, lower than everything. Laugh on your surface and you`ll kill your inner fun. Times where everything is nothing. Sweets you chew turn out to be deadly poison. Times where everything is poison. . Sweets you chew turn out to be deadly nothings. It`s all distorted.

--Tom

liner notes: 2 o clockwise

"One of the IK Glamrock-Classics with lots of unexpected chords in it - pre-destined for the reaction: 'Sounds great, but we'd like to do a single-cut of that!' (also known as "castrating the artist's dignity"). This song is a good example of how I.K.-songs used to work at that time. It had that commercial chorus in it which made up for the anarchist-"we don't give a shit"- parts that the record-company especially hated."

Couldn't sleep at night, I've been crying all day. Couldn't eat a thing, had to throw up again. Couldn't be on my own, had to talk to a human trashcan. Couldn't walk in the crowd, it's not how many there are, but how long it takes to get through them. My fun begins on the fireplace of my last crisis, I dance and say here's to the times where you break up and feel intensively. I lay a tree trunk over the river, sit on it, let time go by, keep cool, keep cool water. Close my eyes in anger, open them in joy, don't you know that it's hip to be in a bad mood? Well I don't think so ... My fun begins on the fireplace ...

--Tom

liner notes: live on

'This was probably the first song that was more than our school band attitude was worth.. I had dreamt of breaking into the recording industry for a long time, but rehearsing this one really gave me the confidence that we actually belonged there. It was the first IK song ever I was fully satisfied with. Ok, ok, it still had that 5 minute rumba part in the middle which was scraped for the album. The original demo tape that found its way to EMI (Every Mistake Imaginable ...) included `Bird', `Firehead', `Small Mother', `Square Minded Jack'and as the opener, `Live On'. So in many respects, this track started it all.'

Woke up this morning, pale, still vain, when my body said `No, I won't bear it'. Blood has gone nowhere, nowhere to see. Not for days, not for miles there will be a repeat. Half past two the vegetation is over and Captain Breakfast could just as easily piss off. I don't mind his reputation or mine, life's lost, life's lost. The moment I grew up I could still stun the flesh but my mind is so clear, I feel no kick. The moment I grew up I could still stun the flesh but my mind is so clear, I makes me sick.

--Gordon