Songs Of Hate And Love
The Lubricants are, as their name suggests, homosexual undertones. Like their country fellows, The Undertones, they come from Northern Ireland, but in a gayer sense. Comprised of musical journeymen, Charles Hatcher and Reggie Chamberlain-King, here working under the pseudonyms, Reggie Hatcher and King Charles Chamberlain, The Lubricants wanted to write music that conveyed their spite, without conveying their talent. And they have achieved that.
Songs Of Hate And Love, their first release, compiles the uncompromising misanthropy of Leonard Cohen alongside the uncompromising misanthropy of Luke Haines, all to the uncompromising misanthropy of tinny drums, tinny keyboards and tinny vocals.
Says Hatcher: "I wanted to create a record that doesn't speak to people in much the same way that I don't speak to people."
That's not to say that romance doesn't get a look in. After all, what is love but the lion's arse of a two-sided coin that has the crowned head of hate as its reverse? But even here there are conflicting ideologies of cynicism and romance. As King Charles puts it: "You can't spell misanthrope without a little bit of hope."
Hate is a bitter pill to swallow, but The Lubricants make it go down easy.
01 To Date You Is To Hate You
02 Love Song #1
03 I Don't Love You And I Never Will
04 A Cowboy Alone On The Range
05 There's Nothing Quite As Dangerous As Love
To Date You Is To Hate You
I never want to hear your voice again
So now my phone is off the hook indefinitely
And the incessant dial tone
Is infinitely preferable
To ever hearing your voice again
I never want to have to meet you
And greet you on the street again
So I've left the city
Yeah, and I've left the country too
Just so I'll never again meet you
I've decided to move to Timbuktu
I never want to see your face again
So I've stabbed my eyes out with a fountain pen
But the joys of guide dogs and Braille
Pale in comparison
To being unable to see your face again
Love Song #1
I can't describe how indescribable you are to me
The English language just can't do justice to my flattery
You're the reason I get up early every morning and stay up late each night
My lack of sleep is causing me to hallucinate, but baby that's alright
Every minute without you seems like an hour to me
A sweet and sour when we're apart just seems sour to me
Having you around makes music sound more tuneful
You can make a grain of sugar seem more like a spoonful
You're the reason that I have friends, so I can tell them about my sublime bliss
These friendships tend to end like fashion trends but what we have is timeless
I Don't Love You And I Never Will
If ever you're lonely, in need of company
Please do not phone me, wailing like some banshee
Don't even call if you're terminally ill
Because I don't love you and I never will
And the letters you've written and sent to me
Sealed with kisses, evincing we're meant to be
Well I'd rather kiss a dentist's drill
Because I don't love you and I never will
If we happen to catch the same bus, refrain from sitting next to me
Please no fawning, grinning and doting in ecstasy
If I wanted that, I'd take a pill
I don't love you and I never will
So yes, I want some time apart, and do excuse my candor
But I hope to break a heart, not make one grow fonder
A hundred years from now I still
Won't love you... I never will
A Cowboy Alone On The Range
I know that our love wasn't intended
But I never once thought you would end it
You were here and then you were gone
Now I'm here herding cattle alone
Yes, sometimes others pass through
But none are as good as you
With my heart or with a lasso
Now folk may think it strange
A cowboy alone on the range
But they don't understand
That you once stood where I stand
That this mountain was the scene of our tryst
That I'm counting the years since we kissed
And they're mounting up like mounds of grit
And I'm thinking of slitting my wrist
There's Nothing Quite As Dangerous As Love
Love is a game in which all the players lose
You'd be better sticking with solitaire
It causes horrid things like poetry and blues
Nothing good ever amounts from a love affair
I know it's foolish to think you might abstain
When burdened by a tempestuous ardour
But, whilst smelling heart-shaped roses and swimming in champagne
Please remember the garden of love is hazardous
Jumping upon thin ice
Swimming far out from shore
Making atoms split and splice
Running with scissors
A crashing double-decker bus
A Franklin W. Dixon cove
None are quite as dangerous
As love
They say it's better to have loved and lost
Than to have never loved at all
But in truth there's never been a higher cost
For benefits so small
A driver under the influence
A spider with stripes of red
A weak heart held in suspense
A cigarette in bed
H.I.V. tailed with a plus
A child by a lit stove
None are quite as dangerous
As love