By The Landlord
”To live well, one must live unseen.” – René Descartes
“Invisible threads are the strongest ties.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” – Jonathan Swift
“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” – Oscar Wilde
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Music is the harmonious voice of creation; an echo of the invisible world.” – Giuseppe Mazzini
“I like music because it's the only invisible art form.” – Sean Lennon
“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamouring to become visible.” – Vladimir Nabokov
“What you see is not what others see. We inhabit parallel worlds of perception, bounded by our interests and experience. What is obvious to some is invisible to others.” – George Monbiot
“The word - that invisible dagger.” – Emil Cioran
“In the best fiction, the language itself can become almost invisible.” – Robert Morgan
“As a boy I believed I could make myself invisible. I'm not sure that I ever could, but I certainly had the ability to pass unnoticed.” – Terence Stamp
“The invisible pieces of code that form the gears and cogs of the modern machine age, algorithms have given the world everything from social media feeds to search engines and satellite navigation to music recommendation systems … One of the problems maths struggles with is that it's invisible. We haven't got explosions on our side.” – Professor Hannah Fry
“I don't know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public; they forget that invisibility is a superpower.” – Banksy
Like ghost train goods that trundle the small hours.
Or dot-dash messages from telegraph towers.
Like subsoil lifeforms that wriggle dark layers.
Or blank-stare tactics of shady poker players.
Like the Pink Panther, a thief in the night
Scarlet Pimpernel, or infrared light.
Like artwork walled by a hooded Banksy
Whisper-spray softly satirical graffiti.
Like a chess player plotting towards checkmates.
Or epoch-slow shifts of tectonic plates.
Like odour envelopes that emanate from flowers,
From all of nature's superpowers,
Like the man in the novel by HG Wells,
We too fell under special superpower spells.
Like silent cells, always divisible,
We chose the secret of being invisible.
———
So we stole into stores to play with the goods.
Broke in car showrooms – planted seeds in hoods.
And we ate in top restaurants entirely for free,
Slipped in first class to our choice of country.
We slid in San Moritz for some après-ski skiing.
Paris and Milan for free shopping and sightseeing.
In Vegas, Monte Carlo, Bejing and San Marino
We moved balls and chips to mess up the casino.
We wandered through the houses of the famous and rich.
We tried on their clothes, and fondled each stitch.
In Hollywood studios we edited key scripts,
Changed happy endings to apocalypse.
At fashion events in the changing rooms then
Saw naked men were women, and women who were men.
We slipped in posh parties to VIP zones,
And posted stupid things from celebrities' phones.
We stole their champagne, snorted their cocaine,
Mischievously whispered things to drive them insane.
Pulled silly faces in selfies by Kardashians
Spied Putin's plans via oil-thieving Russians.
In organised orgies saw leagues of naked bodies,
All were there: West, China, Russians, and Saudis.
We found hidden governments, cloaks of vested interests.
Cruel, cold indifference, omnivorous deliverance.
It felt like a glamour of impossibility.
That's why we chose invisibility.
Would power of flight have been a better choice?
Or having the greatest ever singing voice?
Choosing brain power with lightning quickness?
Or gifts of touch that healed all sickness?
The strength of lions, or even of mountains?
Showers of wealth sprung in forever fountains?
But what does it mean, with what dopamine,
To go anywhere and never be seen?
We did as we pleased, not surreptitiously,
Freely and brazenly, no responsibility.
We skipped through the White House in the naughty nude,
Posed in the Pentagon, exposed ineptitude.
Farted in the face of the Queen at the Palace.
Put ecstasy pills in the Pope's special chalice.
While MPs dithered on scandal Partygate,
We fucked on the Commons floor during a debate.
At Number 10 Downing Street – the PM's flat,
We did stinking turds on the living room mat.
It seemed so very apt, to so neatly fit,
With stench of sick lies, and his daily bullshit.
But who is invisible on work and truth and care?
Johnson of course is the man who’s never there.
——-
But then we got bored of our mischief and games,
Without any credit, and not having names,
Invisible meant power, but we then grew tired,
We gained no affection, no longer inspired,
Invisible was great, but we started to feel blue,
Invisible a state you could see right through.
And like the gold ring that Bilbo Baggins wore,
It became a burden that came to his door.
And as in that old film that starred Claude Rains
Invisibility gradually drove us insane.
So then, in song, what’s hidden from view?
What musical illusions might make a big breakthrough?
Dilemma of the artist, to hide behind the art?
To shine in the spotlight, or just be booksmart?
Songwriters once chose anonymity,
Singers out front took all the visibility.
All kinds of questions, and here’s another pleasure,
Bach and Ligeti’s hidden patterns – comparisons to Escher:
So let’s find the hidden, written to perform,
Lyrical and musical, in all sorts of form.
So nominate your songs, for those we give thanks.
Noodsy is the playlist guest, to help fill in the blanks.
So then, deadline for nominations in comments below is Monday 11pm UK, for playlists published next week.
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