instant karma: completely gone fishing

liner notes: planet spain

"Basically I'm telling people not to watch too much TV, and at the same time I'm watching TV like hell myself!! Apart from that, it's dealing with the fun-orientated generation who are far from leading poetic and really deep lives like we do. (Bollocks!) The producer was quite provocative about the lyrics and suggested that we should sing something like: "making love to the IRA". Bound to be a hit, ey!?"

Everything is possible today, just as long as you're up to date. With the latest fashion to approve everything that's so real. Watch the man on the stool go to hell, see how he looks with the juice in his veins. As the spit runs down your mouth, you reach out for the sweets next to you. If I had the remote control, I`d zap you away to where you really belong, TV today. Now you're off on a holiday, having sex in the orient. As the spit runs down your mouth, you'll pull out your card and pay for the boy. Somebody has to drive the car tonight. So we can get into town and feel alright. If I was to book your flight, I`ll send you to space. Where you really belong, to Planet Spain. Viva Espana.

--Tom

liner notes: breathe

'This track features Gordon on rare lead guitar. So be nice, check it out, after all the solo took one whole day to get it onto tape ...'

When I`m scared, I start to shiver. Don`t see no reason, why not. When I`m sad, I let my hair hang down. I start to wear a frown, don`t take it personally. Is it easy for you to breathe? Come on, take off your shell before it breaks in two. When I`m sick, I start to puke it out. The pressure was too loud, it`s not that I don`t want to eat. When I`m happy as a boy can be, I smile so easily, don`t take it personally. Is it easy for you to breathe?

--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: sorry, wrong planet

'I wrote and recorded the demo of this song after a good night out and rather too many toxic fluids. So there I was, 4 AM, totally drunk with this brilliant idea in my head, no microphone, just a metronome, an electric guitar, my 4-track tapemachine and headphones. Because I was living in a student home with paper-thin walls and hundreds of direct neighbours at the time I had to be all quiet as well. OK, I could use the headphones as a mic, just plug it in and record the metronome at 120 beats per minute. What do you do when you've got no guitar amp or fuzz and you still want a bit of distortion? You just use the transistor line gain on the 4-track and make due with the rather edgy outcome. Singing? All quiet? and just one set of headphones? I put the headphones on, left side on my mouth, right side on the back of my head, watched the VU-Meter of the metronome on the 4 track, counted my way through the song and whispered the lyrics. All done, I repulsed the phones to the appropriate input, noticed the recording level was near zilch, turned the volume to max and printed it to tape. You can imagine that this technique increased the overall noise level to unbelievable heights. And we even managed to recreate all this in a proper studio for the opener on `Small Mother'.'

Oh, I'm sorry this is the wrong planet that I put you down on. Though the clocks are ticking forward, time stands still for all but one. They all look like humans, yet nobody's sure the are. More than one. Beam us up, spare us the pain, all is hot, too hot to care for. Taken time, we feel the need to blank our minds and start to read. Books surpassed our deafened eyes and all that turns our heads are flies. Are flies ...

--Gordon