Jag brukar ju skriva en jul/nyårsnovell, som en sorts helghälsning. Nedan det
jag sitter och plitar på som årets nedslag, anknytande till ett känt musikbands
comeback efter lång, lång tid. Men bandet nedan är från något parallellt
universum och inte riktigt lika helylle. Kommentarer av alla slag emottages!
Den färdiga versionen kommer i Intermission #116 kring nyår, och då det
fanzinet är på engelska är nedanstående parodiska observationer ävenså på
angliskt tungomål... --AE
-----
Our 2021/22 Xmas/New Year's Story: ALL ABOUT BABA!
Here at Strolling Bones magazine we get many questions about a certain somewhat
disreputable band: BABA. We do our best to ignore those letters, on advice from
our legal department as well as from the fire safety inspector. But after
losing a late night bet on our recent wet and wild Christmas party - that quart
of gin simply evaporated! - this reporter is forced to stitch together a few
words on the subject.
After all, BABA has recently released the Christmas single "Worthless Junk",
haunting the charts from Wellington to Murmansk (but perhaps only there). And
these by now 70-plussers in early fall shocked everyone by turning out a new
album: Violation. ("The title is because we used a lot of violines," the press
release says.) It's their first studio album for a very long time, after they
have been mercifully silent for 40 years. Refugees, new Putin pranks, Chinese
threats, inflation, this bloody virus...and now this!
But a disaster is easier to endure if you know the background. So let's have
a look at the rather unique melody quartet of Anna-Magnetha Forcefield, Afrida
Underskirt, Bosse Carlsson and Birger Kanelbulle, better known by their first
name initials AABB...BAAB, ABAB...no: BABA!
Their manager Stig "Sticky" Fingersson first considered using the initials of
their surnames, but abandoned it as his dog had enjoyed himself with the
applicable letters of his scrabble set. So BABA it was. That there already was
a company named BABA, a firm producing condoms, was a potential problem. But
"Sticky" contacted them and got permission to use the name, as long as "you
won't blame us for any offspring that could turn up as a result of your
tours!". They also sent him a jumbo package of their products to be sure.
When they put the band on hold in 1982 they were the second biggest selling
group in history, surpassed only by the legendary Rutles. Critics agree: few
has sold out as much as BABA!
All four had already begun their careers when they first met in the 1960s, as
they happened to be stuck together in an escalator for hours during a blackout.
Birger was a star in the folk band Hotwithnanny Swingers and Bosse was
fingering the keyboard in (and the groupies of) the rock group Hip Czars.
Afrida had won first prize in a national talent competition, being on the
biggest TV channel, the biggest show, with the biggest jerk hosting. Anna M was
already a recording artist with several list hits, for instance "I'm so Blonde
and in Love", "Blonde Dreams of Love" and "Blonde is Love".
As the dog began to howl in harmony when they tested their voices "Sticky"
saw the potential (as well as dollar signs). It was the same dog who earlier
saved the group with its scrabble gobbling. BABA's first attempt at stardom,
"Knock, Knock", became a minor hit in Europe but failed to take them to the
Eurovision Schlager Contest.
But raiding the garage sale of a local theatre company, leftovers from
staging "Madame Butterly", they found the textiles for another artistic attack.
With musical ambitions almost as high as the sole of their boots, they wrote
another entry and this time they made it. It became a very memorable evening
there in Brighton (or was it Bognor?) in 1974 (hm, 1973 perhaps?) as the
foursome entered the stage and sang:
Mein Gott! At Stalingrad Hitler was defeated
Jawohl! And now my love life is completed
The history book on the shelf
Is always repeating itself
The bewildered BBC commentator, noting that the conductor was dressed like herr
H, was drenched by the roaring from the audience.
This forced the European Broadcasting Union to upgrade their 1891 telegraph
line to Stockholm to a TV link , as the competition by BABA's win next year
would be held there in Switzerland or whereever it was. It wasn't
uncontroversial. All universities had at the time given in to French postmodern
philosophers who hated everything, said nothing was true and that the music
industry was evil capitalist colonialism. The local Palestine scarves were
overjoyed: in BABA they finally had an enemy that they could trust! They
arranged their own Counter Festival where they sang about "doing the immoral
schlager festival". This practically saved the alternative music and
kitchenware movement, as nobody there could play (or cook for that matter), but
in the huge hullabaloo nobody noticed.
But BABA actually had to struggle after their Eurovision win. Many saw them
as a one hit wonder. Their next single "OK, OK, OK, OK, OK" barely went OK on
the charts. Birger and Bosse decided they must do something. They disappeared
to a Stockholm island, Långholmen, from which they reappeared after three
months (with good behaviour) having a string of new songs. Particularly
successful was the tune "Holy Cow":
I've been milked by you, you take all my dough
This must come to an end, but I just don't know how
Look at my purse, how much I ever earn
You must reimburse, all the money gone lost
All the cash that's been flying off
and I hear the teller ring
One more look but there ain't anything
Holy cow, here we go again
Moo moo, don't make it persist, you
Holy cow, you are insane
Moo moo, see the bank blacklist you
And "Mayday" that then followed was by the fans seen as a call for help:
So when you're near me, darling, can't you hear me? Mayday!
The cash you gave me, nothing else can save me, Mayday!
If we go broke all we've done will go up in smoke!
Buy this song, hear our plea, no joke!
Slowly they would win the audience over, even if most critics said they'd
rather consume rotten snails while having their feet in a bucket of ice than
hearing one more BABA song.
The next album, Deprival, had a string of hits, like "When I snogged the
teacher" and the classic which landed them their first US #1, "Bouncing Teen":
Monday morning with a throbbing head
You wonder who's beside in bed
Where am I, what happened last night?
Taking just one drink
A few more in a blink
Soon you are in a stink
The night is late and the DJ's high
from a bit of rock meth
Everything goes sour
You're in the mood for a bounce
And when you get the chance
You are the bouncing teen
A sight to be seen
Young and lewd
Bouncing teen
Feel the beat from the...oh yeah!
Not to forget their catchy "Dollar, Dollar, Dollar":
I work all night, I work the street
and smile to every man I meet
Ain't it sad?
And still there never seems to be
much of greenbacks left for me
That's too bad
In my dreams I have a plan
If I can dupe a wealthy man
I wouldn't have to whore at all
I'd fool around and make a score
The Australians are as we all know totally nuts, so of course they embraced
this Swiss or whatever - who cares! - quartet wholeheartedly. There's only one
way to get even lower, and that is to go way, way Down Under. And why not make
a film at the same time?
The script was written on the backside of the airline safety instructions
during the flight. It involved the group desperately trying to book an
interview with a TV station, or radio...or a newspaper, how about a local
paper, well, the school rag...
As they landed there must have been some mix-up: somebody had actually booked
them limousines from the airport. You see, far away as they are, the Aussies
hadn't grasped exactly what BABA was. Or was it that they as descendants of
exiled convicts felt a certain kinship? Thousands of innocent young Matildas
lined the streets, with their for obvious reasons worried mothers,
All the concerts were sold out before anyone had realised what was going on.
It is claimed that a BABA TV show had even more viewers than the Moon landing!
It may be because the Moon is just a sterile piece of barren rock or that the
rating company got a thick envelope from "Sticky". From this came the album The
Ransom with one of their least unpopular songs, "Thank you for the Money":
I'm rather special, in fact I've become billionaire
What I sell you just pay up, that's all I care
I have a talent, I'm so full of greed
Shiploads of bucks is being my creed
I'm so wealthy and proud
I'm not plain or one in the crowd
So I say
Thank you for the money, the sums I'm earning
Now for even more I'm yearning
Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a buck or a quid, what are we?
So I say thanks for all the money
For giving it to me
Their next album, Coucher Avec Moi, dragged them up from the gutters even
outside Kangoroo land, which smashers like "Does Your Pusher Know?" and "Chick
I Cheat Her".
And they even seemed to claim having been abducted by aliens as they sang "I
Have Been Beamed":
I have been beamed, to outer space
They took me up, among the stars
When you see the wonder of a skiffy tale
You will see the future on enormous scale
I believe in UFOs
Flying saucers everywhere I see
I believe in UFOs
Small green men reaching to my knee
Across the space, I have been beamed
Linguists wrote angry protests about the album that then came, named Super
Duper: "How on Earth can you rhyme 'last show' with 'Glasgow'," they objected.
The question remained unanswered. Bosse and Birger just muttered something
about that they like scotch at lot and must have had some at the time.
That album had one of their greatest track ever, a song which seems to
illustrate martial problems (though Birger denies it and says he will sue). As
you may know, but we forgot to mention, Bosse had been first engaged and then
married to Afrida - to solve a complicated question of alimony - and Birger was
married to Anna M. But for tax reasons they had now divorced! Or may it be that
the jumbo pack of condoms were suddenly empty had with it all to do?
Anyway, with a voice full of sadness and disappointment Anna Magnetha now
sang "The Wiener Is Too Small":
I was in your bed
Thinking I belonged there
Figured you're awake
But you were a fake
Building up a hope
Taking off my thong there
My mouth began to drool
But I was a fool
I had thrown the clothes
Is this the way it goes?
The facts are laying bare
You're pathetic down there
The wiener is too small
and hardly stands at all
It was now obvious they were running low on steam. Surrounded by fans, and
creditors, they did their last album, or their last for a long time:
Trespassers.
After that Anna M developed a fear of flying and didn't get around much.
Afrida met a prince to marry (she did indeed dupe a wealthy man!) to become a
princess and moved into a huge castle, negotiating with Disney to sell them the
rights to her fairy tale, to sort of distract from fact that her father may
have been one of those there in Stalingrad way back.
Birger and Bosse spent merry nights on local sex clubs together with stoned
British rockers. Then they relocated to the little town Duvemåla (the name
means "pigeon painting" for some reason) and sat there playing chess. Birger
soon went into business deals, making gold into sand and having doubts about
any God but Mercury, the god of merchants. Bosse started a folk band in which
he played the accordion, as he found it hard to understand what all the knobs
on a synthesizer did.
But in the long run they couldn't escape their reputation. The record company
released a new collection, BABA Fool's Gold, which renewed the unhealthy
interest in the group. The naughty Australians shot films with BABA songs. (The
reason being it was the only music rights they could afford under their
shoestring budgets.) And someone thought there was some green stuff to be
earned by doing a musical, inexplicably based on "Holy Cow".
This show for reasons no one understood began to graze the stages all over
the world. And it too became not one but two films: "Holy Cow!" and "Holy Cow!
Here We Go Again!" BABA's reputation or rather notoriety grew back. It could
be due to that their old critics had become senile or simply had died off.
But why didn't BABA return to the studio or the road? Rumours had it that
they were offered a billion dollars to do a new world-wide tour. (Unclear if it
was US or Zimbabwian dollars.) Other rumours said they were offered two Billion
dollars to stop even thinking of any tour forever.
But one day they met a producer who had an interesting idea:
"Why don't you go on tour without having to travel?" he suggested.
"But how do you do that?" Birger asked.
"I want to know. What's the name of the game?" Bosse inquired.
"Do you remember what you did on the Australian concert tour?" the producer
said. "The girls, and those ropes..."
"Hey!" Birger said. "I though we were alone on the hotel room!"
"No I mean, on stage. That song: I'm a..."
"...I'm a marionette!" Bosse said. "Yes of course!"
"You can do a tour as - marionette dolls!"
They had already dismissed doing a tour as computer generated, virtual
avatars. They thought it would only be the Gates to lots of trouble and Jobs
they didn't want to involve themselves in. But with marionettes all you needed
were some ropes and guys with strong arms.
So they began to prepare their marionette show, which is to open in an
especially built arena in London, BABA Violation, next summer. But to get the
reluctant audience to fall for it, shouldn't they have a couple of new songs?
And in his wastebasket among discarded shopping lists, Bosse Carlsson found a
few sheets of musical notes. He couldn't read music, but her cleaning lady
could and helped him out humming with her hoover This way the thing grew into
the whole new album that we have seen now!
Violation, as it was named, has been the best selling album in the 78rpm
version of the 21th Century. And it has been nominated to a Granny (not to be
confused with the Grammy) in the category Long Play Records That Took Very
Long. Critics applaud this their last album, as long as they can guarantee
it really is the last they hear of BABA. On their new album we for instance
hear the story of BABA itself in the song "Don't Run Me Down":
A while ago, I heard the sound of police sirens
Now it's quiet, so I guess they failed to find their man
Avoiding them is getting harder by the hour
My mood is going down, I'm on the run
I realise my thirst, so down the throat I pour
As I search for my coming goal
The lights are off, it's time to go
It's time at last to trust my old crowbar
I believe it would be fair to say I was bewildered
As the door showed not even to be locked
As so it should, I would
The album also has their Christmas song "Worthless Junk" and as a surprise
hat tip to Irish folk music, "When You Drank With Me":
I can remember when you drank your Guinness
And you told me "Give me another one!"
I never saw that you could hold your liquor
Glasses went by, you were still not done
Was it good for you this darkish brew?
We got the answer as up it all you threw!
You're just here for the beverage, that's all, or could it be
You miss the good old times when you drank with me
Now we all wonder how this will end? Will the planning commission revoke the
approval for the BABA Marionette show, or will an arsonist make it there first?
Will the prosecutor finally find something tangible on "Sticky"? What does the
United Nations Human Rights Commission say?
The worst are the fans of the band! Will this highly disorderly, loud-mouthed
and rowdy crowd find their way to the show? When they get as bombed as Dresden
they are truly scary and dangerous!
Those feared savages we call the...BABArians!
--Ahrvid
Ps. Ang tidigare postning: "The Bite" är som ni kanske såg på TV4, inte SVT.
--
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