What a Friend We Have in Cheeses!!!

Many of the songs by Alan Price in the movie “O Lucky Man” flip back on themselves – cheerfully sad or sadly cheerful. This is exactly in keeping with the movie's vibe, and the way it ends, in particular.

The director is auditioning Travis (Malcolm McDowell) for the preceding film in the trilogy. The director commands him to smile but he’s in no mood because he’s been jerked around for the last 90 cinematic minutes like Job's marionette. The director then whacks him across the head and he slowly but surely smiles the most meta-ironic smile ever in the whole, entire history of the motion pictures of the pictures of motion, teh EVARRRRRR!!1!!!1!!!!

Anyway, here’s a song from "O Lucky Man" that’s been on heavy rotation in my skull for about 30 years now.For the first ten years of that I didn't know the song is based on a timeless Christian hymm. That's mostly because I have never, ever, been anything other than a no-good, no-account, scum-sucking, flea-infested, cotton-picking, dirty, rotten, rat-bastard heathen.

No matter. The song makes me feel slightly better on the inside. I confess I don't know why. Maybe it has something to do with the inherent, spiritual goodness of hymms. Maybe it has something to do with how it feels immediately after you’ve been whacked across the head, and you find yourself standing in the exact same spot you were standing the instant before.

Love must always change to sorrow
and everyone must play the game.
It's here today and gone tomorrow
but the world goes on the same.

So go ahead and smile.

For silly goose Bissage.

Please?