Progressive Music Classics: "Something Bad" by The Fatima Mansions

By Marc McDonald

(Ed. note: Here's another installment of Marc's ongoing series. For the full series, check out his site. -- MJWS)


These days, I think pretty much everyone outside of the Rush/Drudge/Fox crowd now accepts that George W. Bush's eight years in the White House were a true disaster for the American nation, as well as for the world.

Bush's two terms were so awful that it's easy to forget just how bad his father's term in office was, as well. So while the memories are still fresh of how GWB was an arrogant, incompetent little prick and a warmonger, it's important to remember that Bush senior wasn't a whole lot better. Clearly, the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

Bush senior's time in office back in the early 1990s was truly a miserable period. After eight agonizing years of Reagan, it was almost too much to bear.

It was a dark and sinister era in many ways. It was a time well summed up by the 1992 song, "Something Bad" by the Irish band, The Fatima Mansions.

Led by Cathal Coughlan, The Fatima Mansions were (ironically) named after a crumbling housing estate in Dublin. Coughlan was gifted with a wonderful voice. He had a knack for lyrics that could lure you in with their beauty -- and then, when you least suspected it, come at you like a sudden switchblade with deeply disturbing imagery.

Clearly, The Fatima Mansions weren't intended to be easy listening. Nor did they aim for the charts. Instead, they meant to jolt you and, oftentimes, leave you with a queasy feeling. In this, they shared the same approach as other provocative bands like Whitehouse and Throbbing Gristle.

While always intriguing, Coughlan's lyrics were rarely straightforward. But in "Something Bad," there was no doubt as to what the target of his venom was.

One man felt ashamed running guns and cocaine,

For his short-term gain, so every one of us must pay.

In his New World Order, you can have some nerve gas with your air,

Thanks to the CIA pussy in the President's chair.

Something bad is giving birth,

In the sky its belly bursts.

"Something Bad" appeared on the excellent 1992 album, Valhalla Avenue (which sadly was never released in America). It's an album that alternates between songs with lovely melodies and harsh electronic noise (sometimes in the same song, to jarring effect). It's a wonderful antidote to the lame, safe-as-milk, cynically contrived music that clogs up the airwaves these days.

To me, "Something Bad" is a stark reminder that George W. is hardly the only Bush that has inflicted damage on America. The entire Bush family has been a disaster for the country over the years. God help us if another Bush ever succeeds in making it back to the White House.

(Cross-posted at BeggarsCanBeChoosers.)