COLD SHOWER, 07:30:

A cold minty one, Clean & serene. Clean towels, clean cubical
& smiles from the chaperones deliver us fragile, sleep-addled,
rocked on roads beneath the sea & psychedelic dreams in our
coffins from Essex to Dour. A smile is like Christmas to a child
when you fall out of bed in yet another field with no clue
when you’ll ever see porridge again. Minty shower gel, minty
toothpaste, clean, clean, clean, remember your manors boy, how you
was brought up boy. Be nice unto others as you would be niced to.

Rick hits the stage at 08:00, Dirty Epic kickdrum familiar.
Hallelujah strings for an empty patch of grass fantasising
the arms of thousands raised.

08:30, I’m numb at the mic, Rick at the desk, hard plastic in-ears,
deep & cold in the holes each side my head. Forgot to stretch (damn!)
in the shower, remember NOT TO DANCE boy ’till you do! I EXHALE,
the throat groans, growls, grumbles awake, sluggish put willing.
TWO MONTHS OFF, the kickdrum, the chords, the surge of adrenaline.
Look to the sky, get lost, electric, the engine starts.

Then they come dancing in across the field, dressed in Green & Black.
The litter pickers, early rises, shit shovelers, cleaners, dusters,
scrubbers, the makers of everything beautiful. The ghosts, the ones
you never see, up before the festival opens, resetting everything to
zero so the party can begin again. They come flooding onto the field
DANCING, SPINNING, SMILING, HANDS IN THE AIR, abandoned in a joy that
transcends anything I ever wrote in these lyrics, Rick ever imagined
in this music. Tiredness & emotion get the better of me. I’m tearing up
at the sight of their unbridled joy. Watching children party in the
cosmic sandpit. I’m choking back sobs, unable to sing, they come right
up to the stage, vault the crash barrier & dance right up to the Subs,
faces raised up to us, laughing. Now every bit of dark is gone,
showered off, rinsed, wrung out & I say the cheesiest thing my
subconscious child can muster,

“I love my job”

Pass the Camembert…

(K)