JOHN HARRIS RIP

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http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Lifeandhealth/Pix/pictures/2007/01/15/jh.jpg

Lord’s lost Him His mockingbird,
His fancy warbler;
Satan sweet-talked her,
four bullets hushed her.
Who would have thought
she’d end that way?

Four bullets hushed her. And the world a-clang with evil.
Who’s going to make old hardened sinner men tremble now
and the righteous rock?
Oh who and oh who will sing Jesus down
to help with struggling and doing without and being colored
all through blue Monday?
Till way next Sunday?

All those angels
in their cretonne clouds and finery
the true believer saw
when she rared back her head and sang,
all those angels are surely weeping.
Who would have thought
she’d end that way?

Four holes in her heart. The gold works wrecked.
But she looks so natural in her big bronze coffin
among the Broken Hearts and Gates-Ajar,
it’s as if any moment she’d lift her head
from its pillow of chill gardenias
and turn this quiet into shouting Sunday
and make folks forget what she did on Monday.

Oh, Satan sweet-talked her,
and four bullets hushed her.
Lord’s lost Him His diva,
His fancy warbler’s gone.
Who would have thought,
who would have thought she’d end that way?

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 16:11 (eighteen years ago)

Heaven needed someone to rep for Ocean Colour Scene.

― Noodle Vague, Thursday, 10 May 2007 16:16 (eighteen years ago)

when did "heaven needed..." happen?

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 10 May 2007 16:17 (eighteen years ago)

Couple of weeks back? Keep up, dude.

― Noodle Vague, Thursday, 10 May 2007 16:18 (eighteen years ago)

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/arts/authorpics/john_harris.jpg

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39453000/jpg/_39453369_lastparty_story203.jpg

Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning,
We will come back to earth some fragrant night,
And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending
Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.

We will come down at night to these resounding beaches
And the long gentle thunder of the sea,
Here for a single hour in the wide starlight
We shall be happy, for the dead are free.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)

He couldn't face life in a world without English Rock.

― Noodle Vague, Thursday, 10 May 2007 16:24 (eighteen years ago)

Here's hoping the black people live in suitably poverty stricken accomodation so they can be more "realistic" in heaven. Godspeed JH, you were too beautiful for this ugliest of worlds.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

where you going with this d?

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 10 May 2007 16:32 (eighteen years ago)

Um, yeah, wtf? Is he actually dead? Or is there just an article today that Dom takes umbrage with?

― Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:19 (eighteen years ago)

It's the new meme! Keep up, people.

― jim, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:23 (eighteen years ago)

I've been in meetings for the last two days; I've no time for memes. I want facts.

― Scik Mouthy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:24 (eighteen years ago)

Show some respect, please.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:04 (eighteen years ago)

Guess we'll have to wait for tomorrow's Guardian Film & Music, then.

― MacDara, Thursday, 10 May 2007 21:39 (eighteen years ago)

I wish Dom would die. Heaven needs more unfunniness.

― bidfurd, Thursday, 10 May 2007 21:54 (eighteen years ago)

Oh no you didn't.

― jim, Thursday, 10 May 2007 21:59 (eighteen years ago)

i would still far rather have a drink with him (Louis Jagger) than many people on this thread.

:-(

Names:
Blount
Ethan
Jess
All cunts.

This does seem to be a US thing. Maybe they learn it at "high school"

-- Bidfurd (Bidfurd8...), October 4th, 2006. (later)

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:01 (eighteen years ago)

Now can we please return to paying tribute to a great man?

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:01 (eighteen years ago)

RIP Dom Passantino. Heaven needed to take him before the body of a music journalist* was found in his cellar, with the words 'OBIE TRICE' written on the wall in blood.

*Probably female.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:08 (eighteen years ago)

RIP

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:10 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.personalizationmall.com/cat_image/3211D-C1.jpg

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:12 (eighteen years ago)

FYI, I only write misogynistic sexual epiphets on women's bodies, usually in lipstick or marker pen.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:13 (eighteen years ago)

haha matt

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)

Who's John Harris?

― Tuomas, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:42 (eighteen years ago)

Now this thread belongs to the ages.

― jim, Thursday, 10 May 2007 22:43 (eighteen years ago)

Who's John Harris?

Apparently he's some Gillian Welch fanboy.

― MacDara, Friday, 11 May 2007 11:23 (eighteen years ago)

No bad thing.

Better than Petridish saying Rufus Wainwright would be great if only he dropped the extravagant orchestrations and high camp and made records he could sell in the racks as Tesco's, like, you know, Jive Bunny.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 11 May 2007 11:52 (eighteen years ago)

"at Tesco's"

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 11 May 2007 11:52 (eighteen years ago)

hey, aim high!

― Mark G, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:07 (eighteen years ago)

Um, doesn't Petridis actually say that Rufus would be totally great if he fully gave in to the high camp orchestrations and stopped occasionally stooping to his ambition to be bought in Tesco?

― Scik Mouthy, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:14 (eighteen years ago)

he definitely said something or other

― 696, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:15 (eighteen years ago)

Doesn't Petridis actually say that Wainwright announced he wanted to sell lots of records yet appears to be trying to do so with the usual mix of swooning orchestras, whistles and bells and this is never going to sell to your average consumer who buys their records in Tesco.

― cheasyweasel, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:41 (eighteen years ago)

Pretty sure it was that Captain Beefheart announced he wanted to sell lots of Greek parentage yet appears to be trying to do so with the usual mix of Girls Aloud, Laura Barton and Select editorship and this is never going to sell to your average blog who buys their white suits in Tesco.

― DJ Mencap, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:56 (eighteen years ago)

Can we all stop arguing please? A man is dead here.

― Noodle Vague, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:57 (eighteen years ago)

Shit man, it gets worse: Alan McGee RIP.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:57 (eighteen years ago)

Emu is alive!

― Mark G, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:58 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.nme.com/images/84_AlanMcGee_L140706.jpg

1960-2007

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 11 May 2007 12:58 (eighteen years ago)

He didn't want to live in a world where the Cosmic Rough Riders weren't Q Artists of the Year.

― Noodle Vague, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:02 (eighteen years ago)

it just seems like everybody's dying recently

― Michael Philip Philip Philip philip Annoyman, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:03 (eighteen years ago)

Alan's running the true "Death" Disco up in heaven now.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:04 (eighteen years ago)

WTF

― Scik Mouthy, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:06 (eighteen years ago)

He was the true original pun..

LOOK I'M NOT JOINING IN WITH THIS OK???

― Mark G, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:06 (eighteen years ago)

I've just off the phone with that guy from 18 Wheeler, he's pretty shook up about this. I hope that Noel and Liam record a suitable tribute track on their next album, it could truly be the indie "American Pie" if they do.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:07 (eighteen years ago)

"Live Forever"'s out I guess.

― Noodle Vague, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:12 (eighteen years ago)

Mishka feat. Sice, The Legend! & Chris McCormack - I'll Be Missing You 07

― DJ Mencap, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:19 (eighteen years ago)

Mika's apparently writing songs for Westlife so you can expect plenty of bells and whistles, if not swooning orchestras, on their next Tesco-friendly platter.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:20 (eighteen years ago)

http://k53.pbase.com/u17/i_fly/large/42381000.Image_31.jpg

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:20 (eighteen years ago)

Westlife and Mika definitely deserve each other

― cheasyweasel, Friday, 11 May 2007 13:39 (eighteen years ago)

two months pass...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2134868,00.html

fuck off.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 26 July 2007 09:29 (eighteen years ago)

yeah too right. not many agreeing yay-sayers under that article either.

― pisces, Thursday, 26 July 2007 13:40 (eighteen years ago)

Skipping 74 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

torn between patience and estie there.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, 21 December 2007 12:38 (seventeen years ago)

11. Decomposing corpse of Ivor Cutler

― The blue-green world is drenched with horse gore, Friday, 21 December 2007 12:41 (seventeen years ago)

That's no way to talk about Polly Toynbee.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Friday, 21 December 2007 12:41 (seventeen years ago)

"Bel Mooney" hahahahaha. God

― Pashmina, Friday, 21 December 2007 12:41 (seventeen years ago)

This dude would catch the right tone

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ilove/years/1986/gallery/340/rhodesboyson.jpg

― The blue-green world is drenched with horse gore, Friday, 21 December 2007 12:46 (seventeen years ago)

Petridish really ought to have gone easier on the candy bars there.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Friday, 21 December 2007 12:47 (seventeen years ago)

i like Hot Chip

― blueski, Friday, 21 December 2007 14:04 (seventeen years ago)

lol

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, 21 December 2007 14:05 (seventeen years ago)

they's sorta ok except vox/lyrics i guess, if kind of thrown-together. indie as balls.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, 21 December 2007 14:18 (seventeen years ago)

How does he shot Hot Chip?

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 21 December 2007 14:31 (seventeen years ago)

He just shot them over and over.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Friday, 21 December 2007 14:57 (seventeen years ago)

three weeks pass...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2240298,00.html

lol irony: professional britpop nostaligist laments backward-looking cultural paradigm.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, 14 January 2008 09:16 (seventeen years ago)

I see no reason why anyone should lament looking backward.

Establish acts dominated most 2007 end-of-year lists. And they did so not because their 2007 albums were all that impressive, but rather because they were no new acts that were able to come up with albums that were good enough to beat them.

2007 was a rather weak year for music. It would have been easy for somebody new to grab the attention. But it still didn't happen, because they were no new ones who held up.

― Geir Hongro, Monday, 14 January 2008 09:28 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.megomuseum.com/teevee/images/robot.jpg

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 14 January 2008 09:30 (seventeen years ago)

Worzel's Top Tips For 2008:
Bandulu
Jack
Octopus
Babybird
Mover
Raymonde
Merton Parkas
Real People
Savoy Brown
Frankie Vaughan

― Dingbod Kesterson, Monday, 14 January 2008 09:38 (seventeen years ago)

Comments box bringing the pain as per

even the much mentioned agenda for change from Barack Obama seems to be more nostalgia for a time somewhere around 1962 when America was much more confident and "happier".

― DJ Mencap, Monday, 14 January 2008 09:41 (seventeen years ago)

i'm not going to try and parse that, but may as well call it racism.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, 14 January 2008 09:44 (seventeen years ago)

three months pass...

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_harris/2008/04/hillary_for_president.html

― the pinefox, Monday, 28 April 2008 22:10 (seventeen years ago)

I've only just found out that he quit his column!

― the pinefox, Monday, 28 April 2008 22:15 (seventeen years ago)

With a loft-style apartment like that who can blame him for wanting to spend more time at home?

― Noodle Vague, Monday, 28 April 2008 22:16 (seventeen years ago)

Look out for Worzel on the Barnbrook campaign trail this week!

― Dingbod Kesterson, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 09:35 (seventeen years ago)

Thought I'd pick this one out of the drossel...

I guess people like Harris are more comfortable with limousine liberals than with actual progressives.

So many posts there saying "There can only be one winner" without them then saying who they mean.

― Mark G, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 09:43 (seventeen years ago)

I was waiting for him to say "Keep the White House WHITE!" but it never happened.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 09:47 (seventeen years ago)

I think Harris is a lazy hack, but I don't think he's anti OBAma because he's black. I think he did that lame video mainly because he got paid for it and he thought it was a controversial message (which it is; it may be simply wrong too).

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 10:21 (seventeen years ago)

HAZEL BL34RS for President morelike

― Dingbod Kesterson, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 10:33 (seventeen years ago)

Harris hates Hazel Blears, as do I.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 10:40 (seventeen years ago)

He used to love her, it has been alleged.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 10:45 (seventeen years ago)

seen it now. what a nob, and what an absurd video. like chuck eddy weighing in on the london mayoral election.

― banriquit, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 10:46 (seventeen years ago)

He thinks the Abyssinians couldn't possibly have made a better album than the Beatles did. Follow from there.

― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Tuesday, 29 April 2008 11:12 (seventeen years ago)

five months pass...

A man is dead.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/09/thebeatles.academicexperts

― the pinefox, Friday, 10 October 2008 09:08 (sixteen years ago)

I once saw John Harris give a plenary lecture at an academic conference on pop music. While almost everyone else had to pay to attend, he was paid, cash in hand. One of the academic bletherers he despises handed him the dirty cash, one tenner, one twenty after another.

RIP

― the pinefox, Friday, 10 October 2008 09:12 (sixteen years ago)

How much longer are they going to discover posthumous work by this guy? It's almost as bad as Tupac :-/

― StanM, Friday, 10 October 2008 09:12 (sixteen years ago)

Yes. But there is surely much more to be unearthed.

My anecdote has just made me realize that another article needs to be written - 'Was John Harris a Poet or a Capitalist?'

― the pinefox, Friday, 10 October 2008 09:14 (sixteen years ago)

Lazy hack takes on half-arsed hackademic, oh joy.

― Matt DC, Friday, 10 October 2008 09:20 (sixteen years ago)

Old bands of the day
You couldn't make it up.
― Dingbod Kesterson, Friday, 21 December 2007 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
"This Old Town by Paul Weller and Graham Coxon is my single of the year, and I don't care."
i had survived the year without knowing this existed, and it kind of saddens me that it does and i do.
thing of it: jude rogers is even worse than this dude. RIP.
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Friday, 21 December 2007

RIP

― the pinefox, Friday, 10 October 2008 09:23 (sixteen years ago)

The academic he's quoting is wrong, but I don't think Harris is dealing with it in a very mature / responsible / intelligent way. I'm convinced that there is ground for academic & pop cultural critique / writing on pop music to co-exist. Yes, The Beatles were capitalists - "you can buy hippie wigs in Woolworths, man", to quote Danny The Dealer from Withnail, a statement emblematic of the kind of rush-manufactured cash-in memorabilia that's surrounded The Beatles for 45 years, but beyond that, the constant quest for invention, for new ground to hoover up, new markets to exploit (be they literal markets, like America, to sell product to, or cultural markets, like Indian music or psychedelia, to steal ideas from in order to develop your own product). Capitalism doesn't have to be deliberate and targeted and self-aware, far from it.

I've been working with a retired documentary maker this week, and he's moaned about film academics a bit; about them not understanding the actual technology, techniques, and processes involved in film-making, and how this invalidates a lot of their theorising. I'm certain there's a middle ground where the theoretical and the practical / technical / actual can co-exist there, too. Pop music academia is dull and uncreative AT THE MOMENT, but it doesn't have to be.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 10 October 2008 09:45 (sixteen years ago)

What's that Chuck Berry quote? Something about "I wouldn't have had time to write those songs if it weren't for the money."

― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Friday, 10 October 2008 20:14 (sixteen years ago)

one year passes...

from the comment page of popular news site guaridan.co.uk it looks like j-har has re-enacted the 'subterranean homesick blues' vid

anyone clicked?

― l'avventura: pet detective (history mayne), Monday, 27 September 2010 12:57 (fourteen years ago)

almost sbed you just for suggesting it exists tbh

― ♫ Ba-sic space, o-pen air ♪ (sic), Monday, 27 September 2010 13:05 (fourteen years ago)

http://www.vegansoapbox.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/why.jpg

― (¬_¬) (Nicole), Monday, 27 September 2010 13:15 (fourteen years ago)

one year passes...

Richard Dawkins defends his atheism
Biologist tells John Harris: 'Somebody as intelligent as Jesus would have been an atheist'

― nakhchivan, Monday, 24 October 2011 18:58 (thirteen years ago)

five months pass...

Since late last week, more of the budget's failings have come to light, many of them as much cultural as economic. Wiping £30m off the share price of Greggs bakers via the loading of VAT on to hot pies and pasties was not just an attack on a successful and expanding British company, but a clear indication that the government knows nothing of either Greggs' place on the high street, or its place in millions of lunch breaks.

― The term “hipster racism” from Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious (nakhchivan), Sunday, 25 March 2012 23:23 (thirteen years ago)

good to see him speaking from the heart

― red is hungry green is jawless (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 25 March 2012 23:40 (thirteen years ago)

it's such a wan argument, as if the major shareholders of greggs are earthy peasants just cuz they sell pies and not aeroplanes or lasers or sthing

― The term “hipster racism” from Carmen Van Kerckhove at Racialicious (nakhchivan), Sunday, 25 March 2012 23:48 (thirteen years ago)

he looks not unfamiliar with the sausage, bean and cheese slice

― red is hungry green is jawless (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 25 March 2012 23:55 (thirteen years ago)

one year passes...

She is personable enough, though as soon as my voice recorder is switched on, she starts talking to me as if I were a public meeting. Throughout, she maintains an intense stare, and seems slightly angry: what with all this, her nasal, estuarine vowels, and a sense of cast-iron certainty (the EU, she says at one point, "dictates to us how we should think, feel and act"), she puts me in mind of the young John Lydon.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/24/ukip-little-england-east-anglia-lincolnshire-elections

― nakhchivan, Monday, 24 March 2014 23:15 (eleven years ago)

one of the minds of his generation

― very important cultural opinions (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 01:23 (eleven years ago)

His journey-into-the-mindset-of-the-modern-British-reactionary pieces are the absolute worst.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 25 March 2014 15:52 (eleven years ago)

it's not much of a journey for him tbf

― nah, really, great post (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 16:05 (eleven years ago)

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