Best Britton Street Signage Segment

[Urpal]

A poll to select a lyrical quotation from The Triffids album Born Sandy Devotional (the band's first post gestation outing and widely regarded as their finest creative moment) which is most appropriate to form the inscription on a planned sign in the famous birthplace style to be displayed at the former studio building in London at which the album was recorded. But hopefully you already know all that.

If this isn't familiar territory to you, there are more background details in these locations on the forum:

http://thetriffids.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=b3a847782e9790d740355f93cc99e291&topic=254.0

http://thetriffids.com/forum/index.php?topic=380.0


I suggest we delay 24 hours from now - until 00.00 hours GMT on 26.05.2005 - before any votes are cast to allow for any last minute additional nominations from other time zones.

I have set the poll at 1 member 1 vote with a result display post vote only, but if anyone would like to see a multi-vote or end of poll reveal only I'll make the changes required if possible before the polling booths open.

[glee]

The Tender Is The Night quote possible would be better were we to include the first two lines ie I knew him as a gentle young man, I cannot say for sure the reasons for his decline. This is dependent on being able to fit it on of course.
I do have one last suggestion - It's a wide open road

[Urpal]

Duly widened

[glee]

Are you going to vote first urpal, and add a post here to announce the opening of the poll?

[Urpal]

I'll announce the opening for certainties sake, but then its a voting free for all so don't be waiting on me to deliberate - I can be known to take my time to the point of absurdity.

Anyone wishing to make a statement of loyalty to one or other option might wish to do so now to influence the wavering hands.

[Johan]

My vote goes to "Are you drinking to get maudlin or drinking to get numb?", but I could live with "It's a Wide Open Road" as well.

[Eke]

This is a teriffic idea. I hadn't noticed the prior discussions on this topic but I'm with you now. I work in Elephant & Castle in London and Farringdon's not that far away so I could help out with any physical doings if needed.

I'll be going for "It's a wide open road". It's completely open-ended yet universally understandable and as a bonus the tune just pops into your head as you read it.

I should imagine the discrepancy between the lyric and the physical reality of the site would be a nice irony also.

[Urpal]

I'm leaning in that direction as well at the moment, eke, cos that phrase captures a more upbeat message of opportunity and, as you say, would also be loaded with irony placed in a fairly narrow passage.

The issue I have with some of the other proposals is that I see this as a memorial to a collective as well as one dearly departed individual who was the axis of it.

The "I came, I saw" - sorry "I knelt, I aimed" - proposal whilst scurrilous verging on the offensive does have a punky loaded sarcasm/bitterness which might be appropriate given the generation from which the band came and does capture the essence of the "official history" of the band as a whole in current rock who's who style bibles with brevity and a certain poetic truth - particularly if you look at the "place where our love began" as Australia for the band and this studio for many of us fans. And I say this as a person who is not a great fan of Chicken Killer as a song, but certainly knows the teenage experience of kicking a football through a church window and scarpering before the alarms go off.

[Cassiel]

Well done, Urpal, good to see you overcame your teething troubles and got the poll up. I'm leaning towards simplicity and directness too, not only as a fitting memorial both to band, album and singer but also because to resonate with casual passers-by, whose curiosity might then be pricked. I liked 'I watched him fade...' but it's too long, too elegaic even, and conveys little of the flavour of BSD. It's also a bit maudlin. Will give it some more thought though.

[lonesomesquare]

Sorry to spoil the party guys, but isn't "It's a wide open road" a bit too simple and plain as text?  For us fans it immediately has a very special meaning, but for the bunch out there who have not yet seen the Light? I can imagine someone reading the sentence and saying to himself "Yeah sure..."

Personnally I'd go for "Are you drinking to get maudlin or drinking to get numb?"  Thanks to the you and the interrogative form, this really appeals to everyone passing by.  "Hey that's a good one!"  And you will agree with me that standing on its own, it wins the race from the road quote by several miles.

Do we now have a catch 22 here or shall we just await the true poll exit?  Viva Las Vegas!

[Urpal]

Will give it some more thought though.

Good move. Any other suggestions in the right range can still be added, but time is of the essence unless we decide to defer the poll opening by a day or two for everyone to go and have one final trawl through the lyric sheets included with BSD and available from the lyrics section of the main site here to come up with some more options?

[Urpal]

You didn't record an alternate version of Field Of Glass at Britton St did you, Graham?

The line "It's a long way down as the crow flies" captures a few trajectories in one short hit. And speaks of life's inevitable pattern for all of us. Maudlin and flighty at the same time.

[Urpal]

How about "So high you can't get over it, so low you can't get under it,
So wide you can't get around it"?

[Eke]

How about "So high you can't get over it, so low you can't get under it,
So wide you can't get around it"?

That's a bit too much like "We're Going On A Bear Hunt" I think - to Mr & Mrs General-Public anyway.

I like the Tarrilup Bridge lyric:-

I was your best friend
You were my blinding sun
Now the only thing bright is my name in lights
And the night has only just begun


because it's enigmatic and mysterious I suppose. Don't know if it'll have any resonance with passers-by though.

[Urpal]

"There's a dot on a map, it's just a tiny dot,
That's where my sweetie lives, you know that means a lot"

Seems kind of appropriate if this is regarded as a resurrection shuffle.