The name Matt Shepherd was, for a few weeks, synonymous
‘slow still like the river she / cried a sea of tears / bring
with lewd and distasteful perversion. The man’s face was
me to the water baby / let me drink your tears / oh bring me
splashed across the tabloids and the broadsheets, each side
to the water baby / I will drink your tears’ – inspiring stuff
describing his crime in relatively sensational prose, not without
from Dream Circuit – that was ‘Slow Still’, the second single
an obsessive interest in the details, which the gallery were
from the recent album ‘Ordnance Survey Love’, yet another
happy to give, benefiting as they were from the publicity. People
song – you may have noticed – to make use of the river
flooded in to see the abused statue, lowering their voices as
metaphor, a tradition in popular music that is as seminal to
they retold the story according to their will and surreptitiously
the medium as the Doric column is to classical architecture,
pointing to the stop where it was said that the mark of
with its most obvious roots being located in early blues, though
Shepherd’s amorous advances was most clearly evident. At
it makes regular appearances in songs of all cultures. Coming
the same time the man himself was trying hard to justify
up next though we have imagery of a slightly different sort
his bizarre behaviour. ‘I don’t see what everybody’s problem is’
in the Maiming Turtles 1989 anthem ‘I don’t want to kill
he said. ‘Had I raped a real woman there wouldn’t have been
you bitch’. Listen out for the dramatic irony at the beginning
half of this fuss. It’s not like I was even doing it in public. The
of the second verse and stay tuned for a psychic-analytic response
room was empty. And who’s to say I didn’t have her consent?’
to this neo-punk classic, coming right up after the news.
(Pierre Monceau and Jean-Pierre Sertin)
