Short Attention Span Theatre #2: A Case of the Punks!

Probably my all-time favorite song ever put to vinyl: Ashtray Heart by Beefheart and the Magic Band. Don Van Vliet dynamites the punks and new wavers for essentially ripping him off - in particular the 'Man on the Porcupine Fence', Johnny Rotten.

Fair or not, the man had a point.

And Beefheart's word play in this one is simply off the charts.

"Make Invalids out of Supermen..."

You used me like an ashtray heart

Case of the punks. 
Right from the start

I feel like a glass shrimp in a pink panty

With a saccharine chaperone

Make invalids out of supermen

Call in a "shrink"

And pick you up in a girdle

You used me like an ashtray heart

Right from the start

Case of the punks

Another day, another way...

Somebody's had too much to think

Open up another case of the punks

Each pillow is touted like a rock

The mother / father figure

Somebody's had too much to think

Send your mother home your navel

Case of the punks

New hearts to the dining rooms

Violet heart cake

Dissolve in new cards, boards, throats, underwear

Ashtray heart

You picked me out, brushed me off

Crushed me while I was burning out

Then you picked me out

Like an ashtray heart

Hid behind the curtain

Waited for me to go out

A man on a porcupine fence

Used me for an ashtray heart

Hit me where the lover hangs out

Stood behind the curtain

While they crushed me out

You used me for an ashtray heart

You looked in the window when I went out

You used me like an ashtray heart.

- Van Vliet