Gentlemen P.Fur Blondes
We met next to a pile of bricks. Not just any old pile of
bricks, you understand, but that pile of bricks in the Tate Gallery, the one
that all the fuss was over. It was Butler's idea, Butler being a bit of an
aesthete when he isn't being a bit of The Psychedelic Furs (singer and writer,
to be exact). It just happens that the bricks share a room with one of his fave
artists (Sol Le Witt, who chalks patterns on bus-sized blackboards). And it
started me to thinking: how like that pile of bricks, I thought, the P Furs
really are.
Like that pile of bricks, the Furs are often described as
absurd, pretentious, something of a bloody big con. The next thing I thought
was that, well, this is rather unfair. Butler might be a poser-in fact he is a
poser, and doesn't mind admitting it, which I like - but the group he fronts
have plenty to back the showy facade up with. The second Psychedelic Furs LP
Talk Talk Talk' is a fine record, as is the 'Pretty In Pink' single which it
spawned. And as I write, both records are registering in their respective Top
30s. So there.
And so, having met, Butler and I sat down and I asked him if
he was pissed off by the nasty things that reviewers said about 'Talk Talk
Talk'. He said he wasn't. "Anyone's entitled to think what they
want," he said. "They're entitled to hate it, and to like it. Like
I'm saying in my lyrics, or trying to say, just make your own mind up about
things - don't believe anyone until you've heard it for yourself. "What I
don't think people are entitled to do is misquote the lyrics to make them look
like they're sexist." (This was done in a rival paper: a blatant
distortion of the sort which puts the art of criticism into disrepute.)
"No one's entitled to lie about the band. But I wouldn't like to make a
big point of this thing. I just think it's best forgotten about-just like if
some kid turns round to me in the street and sticks his tongue out, I'm gonna
forget about that."
Too-shay, as they say. I go on to tell Butler I like 'Talk
Talk Talk' better than the first LP more melodic, more focused and coherent, less
cluttered. He agrees well he would, I but adds that it's suppose "More
grown up". Where earlier songs such as 'We Love You' and 'Flowers' struck
out in a hundred directions, with almost a surfeit of half-realized ideas
(musical and lyrical), the new stuff is quite straightforward in structure,
direct and emotional in subject matter. Mostly it deals with love and romance,
sometimes in a sad and personal way. Mostly it's composed of Butler's
reflections on a relationship, a real life one, from various angles, from
beginning to end.
"I wrote about that because that was intriguing me at
the time, and worrying me. Maybe some people don't like the fact that I'm not
screaming about politics or something. But I think that if you're intelligent enough
to understand what I'm going on about, then you're intelligent enough to
understand that to be racist is completely stupid, to think that women should
take a demeaning role in life is stupid. "If you're reasonably intelligent
then you know these things already. A pop band might need to say them, but the
Furs aren't crossing over into a massive pop market. I think, for the moment at
least, we're very much a large cult band, and our audience understands those
issues already."
The conversation turns to sex. Because of numbers like 'Into
You Like A Train', 'Pretty In Pink' and 'I Wanna Sleep With You', some
superficial observers consider there's something, uh, ideologically unsound
about The Psychedelic Furs. Of course, some people say all sorts of soft
things, but the point seems worth considering. So we do. "I don't think its
sexist," Butler argues, "to see a girl think 'Wow, I want to sleep you.
I don't want to stay with you forever, which is all the song “I Wanna Sleep
With You says. To say it's sexist is ridiculous: that's sexist itself because
you're putting women on a pedestal, you're saying women never feel like that so
naive to think that. Of course women see guys they'd like screw."
I guess some people just haven't sorted out the difference
between 'sexist' and 'sexual' yet. "Yeah. The whole 'sexist' thing has
turned itself around so now it’s nonsense. Sex is considered sexist these days
which is ridiculous. Instead, these anti-sexist people coming out and saying
women are just like guys, they want to screw just like guys do- which is how I
understand women to be -instead of that they're folding it all in and saying,
no, guys are using women in sex, that women don't feel like that, they only
want to be loved for their personalities. It's ignoring that both sexes feel
the same-it's just the way women have been pushed down, been educated, they
don't express it so openly. In fact it feels dumb to be talking about it,
because it's so obvious, really."
It's a kind of ironic reversion, perhaps, to the prim
Victorian ideal of female nature-ironic, because the people falling into this
trap probably think themselves to be rather progressive.
Changing the subject, I enquire of Butler what he's
listening to these days. Although greatly taken with U2, he says that-like me
and most people I talk to just now-most of his musical nourishment comes from
delving into the past (including, in his case, Piaf and Dietrich as well as the
more obvious heroes). One reason he's not too close to what's going on here is
that the Furs spent a lot of time in America last year, and are just about to
embark on another stint, of which he holds high hopes.
It occurs to me that the group might sometimes regret
settling on a now-faddish name like 'Psychedelic', even if they did do it as
long ago as 1977. He says they don't. "Not at all, no. I think it makes
things interesting. A lot of people have told us 'They won't play you on the
radio' because of the name- especially in the States, where psychedelia really
does mean a heavy drugs thing. But it's not a name you forget, and maybe it
makes you think and that's what we're trying to do, after all. People have
suggested that we officially cut it to The Furs, or make the 'Psychedelic'
littler. But I don't go along with that. I think Psychedelic Furs is a great
name. I mean, it's tongue-in-cheek, you've got to appreciate the humour of it.
"Yeah, it's funny: in the last couple of years maybe we
wouldn't have chosen that name. But when we first made it up no one would even
admit to liking psychedelia, which was why we chose it. Sheer
pig-headedness!"
Now I ask you, and be honest: does this man really sound
like a brick to you?
