As William Blake famously once enquired of a Tyger, “Did he who made the lamb make thee?” We might similarly ask of “Godstar”, “Did he who produced ‘Hamburger Lady’ produce thee?”
There’s always something fascinating about creators who turn out something different to what you’d normally expect them to do. Pat Boone’s heavy metal phase is a particularly shining example of this practice, as is Alfred Hitchcock’s one and only musical, Waltzes From Vienna. (It’s even more fascinating when the attempt doesn’t altogether succeed, as these cases didn’t.) And so is Psychic TV’s 1984 single “Godstar”.
Psychic TV emerged in 1981 from the smoking ruins of Throbbing Gristle, who emerged with punk in the mid-1970s but who were, in their confrontational way, more punk than punk. As much, if not more, of a performance art project as anything else, TG invented industrial music, combining dubious visuals and dubious lyrics into what most people would probably consider a bloody horrible racket (sample lyric: “I hate your little tits, I hate your little clits”).
Psychic TV, starring TG’s main character Genesis P-Orridge, went on to do similar things, pioneering the now ubiquitous art of body piercing and later acid house and techno, as well as being the only band I know of to have their own occult order (Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth) attached to them. As an example of their style, consider their 1983 album Dreams Less Sweet which, along with a few actual songs, also encompassed an aggressive dog, Tibetan bowls recorded in a cave, and the sound of one of the band members getting a tattoo.
Then in 1986 Psychic TV unleashed “Godstar”, which the single cover called the theme to a film about Brian Jones (“the one of the Rolling Stones”). Apparently the film was never actually made, but we still have the song, a heartfelt and somewhat bitter ode to Brian:
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
From RE-Search magazine Genesis P-Orridge had a memorable quote about the state of his member, "I think everybody should pee sitting down".
2 - 23rd peter
i wonder why you only talk about one track when discussing the "beauty from the beast" best-of-compilation. it holds much more tracks than just godstar, covering a variety of well known or at least well respected psychic tv tracks out of almost 10 years. among these are pearls like "roman p." (atribute to roman polanski, or sharon tate, or charles manson, just as you want it to be), and "i.c. water" (a tribute to ian curtis). it also has nice coverversions of "eve of destruction", "good vibrations", and "je t´aime". the compilation is a rather good guide for beginners to see how psychic tv dealed with cultural inspirations to engineer them in their very special way. "godstar" is one aspect, but there is much more to discover. a rather comprehensive discography is to be found at www.fopi.net.
3 - James Russell
Hey, 23rd Arseclown: if you'd read the fucking piece, you might've realised the whole point of it (along with a few other items I contributed at the time) was just to talk about the one song, not the whole album. If I wanted to discuss the entire album, do you not suppose I would have done so? No. I wanted to write about "Godstar" specifically. Therefore I wrote about "Godstar". Not about "Roman P." Not about "I.C. Water". Not about anything else Psychic TV performed, not about the compilation pictured above (purely in accordance with Blogcritics posting rules) nor about Psychic TV generally. Read it again and see if it sinks in this time. Hmph.
4 - Jade Webster
Calm down. It's only a song. *Smirks*
5 - Jade Webster
The Roman P Scrap. Certificate PG.