50 Twelves Inches – #46

Jesus Built My Hotrod – Ministry (1992, Sire Records)

“Is this a religious song?” asks my daughter as I drag the record that that finger of fate stopped on this week, out of the cupboard.  I’m tempted to say yes.  I’m tempted to tell her that it dates back to a time where I flirted with joining the monkhood and dedicating my life to building big noisy cars with my friend Jesus and that this was the song that I needed to learn in order to earn my cloak. 

But I don’t.  I tell her to hold that thought and tell my daughter to tell me if she still thought that after 45 seconds and then I press play and watch her face, which after 45 seconds looks like her brain has exploded.  I press stop after 45 seconds, which conveniently is just before the demented and virtually unintelligible vocals of Gibby Haynes come crashing in through a distorted microphone.

The first twenty seconds or so are also gibberish, a spoken word monlogue about Jerry Lee Lewis being the devil, Jesus being an architect and a man wanting to ding a ding dang his dang a long ling long before a cascade of thrash guitars throw themselves all over the place.

“It’s a stupid song” is her response.  “What even is a dang a long ling long, and how do you ding a ding dang it”.   Which is a good question, or two in fact. I shrug and tell her that it’s not supposed to be mean anything, its probably gibberish and not to worry about it, “It sounds sus she says.   Everything sounds ‘sus’ to her at the moment, the man talking about cows on the telly last night, sounded ‘sus’ because he referred to the cows by name.  Although, with that in mind,  I stop short of telling her that the man who is singing the words is the singer in the Butthole Surfers.  I’m not sure I want to cross that bridge just yet.

He, Gibby Haynes, that is, has form in the singing lyrics that you can barely make out category, of course,

Hurdy Gurdy Man – Butthole Surfers (1992, Matador Records) – I still think that version is several million times better than the Donovan version.

Anyway, if I had gone down the monkhood route, I could have told her about the time I heard a monk on a vow of silence swear like a docker via a tale about the Hari Krishna monks at Glastonbury.

Oh go on then.

The last time we were at the Glastonbury Festival, which was about eight years ago, the wife, the daughter and I grabbed some food, some lovely vegan curry in the Hari Krishna marquee (folks if you can bear the almost constant happiness and the odd bit of harmonious chanting, then the Hari Krishna Tent at Glastonbury is totally recommended, all you can eat vegan curry for under £5 – I imagine its more now, thanks to Liz Truss) and as we sat and mopped our plates with extra Naan bread, one of the monks came and sat with us and gave my daughter (who was four) a flower.  Which was a lovely thing to do.   She’d definitely think it was ‘sus’ now.

Anyway, that was the second monk I’d ever met.  The first one was outside a monastery in a place called Chilworth, which is in Surrey.  The monastery was set in the middle of the countryside but had a footpath running through the grounds.    As you walked up the long driveway a few signs remind you that the monastery is a ‘Working place of worship’ and that the ‘monks are committed to silence’ and that we (the visitors) mustn’t bother them.

I wouldn’t dream of bothering a monk.   Anyway, as I got closer to the chapel building a couple of monks crossed in front of me (about ten foot away) and as they did one of them tripped on a small flagstone and nearly fell over.  This caused the other monk to laugh, it was funny to be fair but not if you were the monk who tripped.  Upset as he was by the other monk and his hearty guffawing, he was heard to say, quite clearly,

“Fuck off Brian”

Committed to silence, indeed.

Here is one more track by Ministry that seems sort of appropriate after that tale,

Stigmata – Ministry (1995, Sire Records)

Here is the no more than five words review, followed by the obligatory recommendation, which I genuinely can’t remember if we’ve had it before or not.

“Stupid, noisy song”

To The Moon – Meghan Trainor (2024, Epic Records)

And here in contrast to that is the new single from a band called Bab L’Bluz who I know absolutely nothing about but I heard it on the radio the other day and I’ve barely stopped playing it since, because its ace, that’s why.

Iwaiwa Funk – Bab L’Bluz (2024, Real World Records)