This may look like a footnote to the Strip~Mine, and I guess that's exactly what it is. But it's a forgotten and unexplored footnote. None of the three additional songs — Mosquito, Left Out of her Will and New Nature — were included in the B-Sides collection
Ya Ho's tale of taking the plunge is much the most effective.
I nearly died when you jumped in
But you had to drown before you could swim
All the people on the beach, they were so impressed
They wanted to join you
But no, they wouldn't undress
…
Those people sat and watched your stand,
and the weight of their fears pulled them underground
Will anyone learn from the stories that are told
Of the tribe who drowned in a grave of gold
Mosquito is possibly the least interesting song, being an inchoate grumble of social disaffection and against peer pressure. But things hot up on the flipside, when Tim Booth seems to rant against his parents and their middle class aspirational support (they sent him to a private boarding school):
Oh you're nothing, never was your possession
If that's what you banked upon, I was a misconception
…
I'm not some investment; there'll be no dividend
At the time I first heard this, I was 23, Tim Booth was 28, and I kind of knew what he meant. I still do: I know artists and writers older than I am now whose parents still lean gently on them to encourage them to get a 'proper job'. But I also feel for the poor (rich) parents. Who of us can say we have never mischannelled or miscommunicated our love, or projected our anxieties on to our dependants?
In New Nature, Tim goes on further about the "family curse" and claims, "The longer I stayed at home, the deeper I'd have to dig for gold". Now that he's a dad, I'm sure he aims to put into practice his 1988 projection: "I have children / I am caretaker / Will let them fly when they are grown"; I bet it's easier said than done.
Sorry, I don't much go for explaining songs by reference to writers' biography, but these songs seem to invite it. And they remind me, too, that half of the 1988 line-up of James had done time in the Lifewave cult, which may have encouraged them to weaken old family ties in that creepy we're-your-family-now way.
To leave all that to one side, it's another line from Ya Ho, about the fear of failure being the real disgrace, that's alternately inspired and scared me from 1988 until now, when it's more acute than ever.
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