*Why, why, why, why are we sleeping?

So why quote this line from the 1968 Soft Machine track?

The lyric was typical of its time, a lysergic bad dream, intoned in Kevin Ayers' dark chocolate voice. But that insistent chorus, which builds in urgency through the song, has been ringing in my ears all the time recently. 

Why is no-one apparently awake to the havoc that these orgies of fossil fuel-burning is causing?

The final straw for me was reading a piece in the ailing London Evening Standard (that reliable source of blood-pressure-popping entitled people's waffle) by the sister of former PM Boris, that is Rachel Johnson. 

It's a typically breezy 600 words or so on how much she's hating our non-existent summer and oh, if only she could blame someone for it.

You could dismiss it as just another inconsequential filler if it wasn't (a) on the main comment page of this august publication and (b) so annoyingly missing the glaringly obvious answers. She asks this question, time after time: "I can't think who to blame for this summer. Who to sue".

Is she being deliberately disingenuous? I mean, sue the manufactuers of gas-guzzling SUVs for a start. The ones I see ferrying Wimbledon tennis stars and VIPs around traffic clogged SW London, by the way.

Well, we really ask you, Rachel. Because you really do know.  We're all to blame. Have you not heard of the climate crisis, of the tilting of the Atlantic jetsream, of our being condemned wet, windy summers (and springs, etc) while most of the planet burns or drowns? We need to sue - ie tax - ourselves, and spend all the money on alternative energy sources.

As if to underscore our collective gormlessness, news had just been released showing higher than expected IC car sales last year and a return to almost pre-covid levels of  tourist air traffic.

How can we thus be surprised when we shiver through the spirng and summer months, and are buffeted by endless Atlantic storms. 

Maybe you only notice when cycling through a city like London, negotiating apppaling congestion, inching the narrow bike between very wide and shiny SUVs. Despite many electric vehicles, the air is heavy with the stench of cars, the extremely hot exhalations of their AC, mixed up with burning chip fat from costcutter delivery vans.

All of this, even into the ULEZ and congestion-charge zones. And, it's even worse in the traffic jams of outer London.

It's just a small example of how the West remains in denial of the mess it has created on this planet. The West, all the former imperialist European states, the UK above all, North America, Australasia. We no longer seem to want to know about the onoging climate disaster, largely caused by our greedy consumption of all the wealth we could dig out of our earth, and the earth of the colonised regions.

We'd rather sleep now. Who wouldn't? 

Maybe I should be more charitable toward Rachel Johnson? I mean, there's a place for frothy, amusing writing in the most austere publications. She probably tossed that piece off in a few minutes, and you never know what the subs will pick out for a headline. But no, she's no starving hackette, no unpaid intern or desperate freelancer. And this piece really wasn't at all funny.

The Evening Standard is said to be in its last few weeks as a daily newspaper. One of the main causes of its decline is said to be the provision of wi-fi on London's underground network, so that commuters can get all the news & entertainment they require via their cursed i-Phones. It's true you now see unclaimed stacks of the freesheets at every tube station.

Like almost every other printed form of news, the Standard  has long been the plaything of billionaire owners. Perhaps this is not all bad. At least there'll be less need for unsustainable forestry methods to produce so much newsprint. 

* Why Are We Sleeping first appeared on Soft Machine's first LP ("The Soft MAchine") released in 1968. The writing credits are to Kevin Ayers, Mike Ratledge and Robert Wyatt

Here's a YouTube link: Soft Machine _ Why Are We Sleeping?

And here are the lyrics:

It begins with a blessing, it ends with a curse
Making life easy by making it worse
"My mask is my master", the trumpeter weeps
But his voice is so weak, as he speaks from his sleep

Saying: "Why, why, why...
Why are we sleeping?"

People are watching, people who stare
Waiting for something that's already there
"Tomorrow I'll find it", the trumpeter screams
And remembers he's hungry, and drowns in his dreams

Saying: "Why, why, why...
Why are we sleeping?"
"Why, why, why...
Why are we sleeping?"

My head is a nightclub with glasses and wine
The customers dancing or just making time
While Daevid is cursing, the customers scream
Now everyone's shouting, "Get out of my dream!"
Saying: "Why, why, why...
Why are we sleeping?"

It begins with a blessing, it ends with a curse
Making life easy by making it worse
"My mask is my master", the trumpeter weeps
But his voice is so weak, as he speaks from his sleep

Saying: "Why, why, why...
Why are we sleeping?"

Editor's Non-Apology:

Given that this blog was originally supposed to be about music on vinyl, cassette, etc, I thought the use of this 56-year-old song was allowable. In fact, maybe this lyric is not so unrelated to the story. Thus, "making life easy by making it worse"....hm, isn't that exactly what we've been doing for too long? If I find any other old or new song titles that seem to fit blog posts, I'll use them!