You’re No Lester Bangs

You’re No Lester Bangs

 

 

He's a blabber mouth, I’m nearly certain,

rates countless tracks that leave us hurting,

send us straight back to Scottish midwinters

then posted. RSVP, PS, just deliver the letter

my dear, for these were the worst of times,

never bettered, only battered and 100 lines,

hard barracked in some ice box, a facsimile

of a room, that space still lives, it haunts:

Well, it’s not only fire that gives us warmth.

Strumming that bass like Dylan’s Mr Jones,

every festive 50 leaves us ever more lone,

and each track is pack-ice and permafrost,

listen to minor melodies and you’re lost,

bleak in tundra that births wild thunderous,

footsteps ascending, his wrath approached,

her hard vittles gave with caustic reproach

and I can’t get it out of my head, no, no, no.

What use analysis, what use blow by blow?

These charts show what you already know,

hanging labels, lyrics a ringing bell that rang,

but, then again, you’re no Lester Bangs.