BLUE MAGIC
I was lying in bed, twenty past twelve,
something blue began to glow.
The wind got up and churned the room,
a pulse began to grow.
Electric room…the air was static!
Have you ever had a dose of blue magic?
I lost control, my mind blanked out,
I couldn’t believe what I’d seen.
I came to my senses, though I thought
I heard somebody scream.
I felt so hopeless lying there,
spinning senselessly.
I followed the fireball down to the river
to see what I could see.
A body and a pool of blood.
Hey, don’t I know you?
Too late.
Blue magic.
Something grabbed me by the feet,
I went into the river alone.
The water was cold, as cold as ice
and it chilled me to the bone.
I realised beyond my control,
that I had forfeited my soul,
to blue magic.
(c) 1977, MAX RECORDS Ltd.
Carlton McRae
AT THE RIVER'S EDGE
Time began, produced the seed,
of what we now call history.
Down through ages, drought or prime,
we cannot change thought or time.
And in the mind, man has pledged,
that life began at the river’s edge.
Time is now, we’ve heard the plea.
All our feelings, are we free?
All we touch and all we feel,
reminds us that we are real.
From hills and trees, east to west…
life goes on at the river’s edge.
Time has passed within a dream,
still many things we’ve never seen.
Unanswered questions are open to suggestion.
From mushroom cloud, the last sunset…
must all end at the river’s edge.
(c) 1979, MAX RECORDS Ltd.
Carlton McRae-Colin McLellan
NUCLEAR FUSION
I looked to the sky.
I heard the roar of voices crying…
then no more.
Here in the forest in the night’s dim blue,
a last, cold flicker on the ghostly dew.
Beneath the shadows on the land,
there’s mass confusion.
Possessed by her gentle hand,
this is not illusion.
This is nuclear fusion.
When earth was in it’s infancy
& lost as waves of flame we see
a lonely rock on a midnight plain,
no shelter from the winter rain.
The perfect crown of human life.
Outstretched arms drop in strife.
Youth has sent it’s fiery strength,
now my own brow falls at length.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
return again, the sun’s in sight.
Close her memory, mind supreme.
Life is but a simple dream.
Come away stolen child.
Come away to the waters & wild.
(c) 1979, MAX RECORDS Ltd
Carlton McRae-Randal McAlister
SUICIDE SYMPHONY
I’ve run a million gauntlets, I’ve died a million deaths,
the agony is endless of a million tortured breaths.
I’ve cried a million tears, prayed a million prayers.
I’ve struggled for so long in hope, yet still I have my fears.
I’m playing this suicide symphony,
was this music meant for me?
I’m giving up, I have to go,
sick of these highs and lows.
I’ve had too much stuff, the question is just why?
I’m feeling pretty rough, but do I have to die?
Time is on my side, I go on without a care,
contemplating suicide and gasping for some air.
I’ve never been reaped with fame and I’m running out of time.
I’m toying with this deadly game, the fate no longer mine.
Now the symphony has ended, there are no notes left to play,
the time has come to leave this place, I can no longer stay.
(c) 1979, MAX RECORDS Ltd
Carlton McRae-Randal McAlister
THE PIPER
What magic he holds, I have yet to find.
That enchanted sound is left unconfined.
The piper will wait in the shadow of time,
his song is alive with rhythm and rhyme.
His music is soft, it hangs in the air.
His own song of love, it’s beauty we share.
His music like fire, continues to burn.
It never will die, the sound shall return.
Oh, why am I here?
Oh where do I go?
Piper keep playing, I really must know.
With a cry that carries, drawing me near.
The piper will play so I can hear.
(c) 1979, MAX RECORDS Ltd
Carlton McRae
FOXY LADY
When I look in your eyes.
I see no lies.
No confrontation,
or false creation.
I adore you madly,
yes it's true...you're a
(Foxy Lady) You walk right.
(Foxy Lady) Lets hit town tonight.
(Foxy Lady) You're turning me on.
(Foxy Lady) I'm already gone so, c'mon...
You know wherever we go,
all heads turn.
All the guys want to know
and certainly learn.
You show them the way,
yes, you're a...
Whatever we do,
wherever we are,
alone in the bedroom,
or the back of my car.
It's you that I want,
you're all that I need,
don't bait me hunny
'cause I'm ready to feed.
(c) 1979, MAX RECORDS Ltd
Carlton McRae-Randal McAlister
VENUS PLUS X
Behind the walls of terror, beyond the farthest star,
there’s fantasy and magic, if we trip that far.
There’s a demon in the mirror, yes, the devil’s loose tonight.
You’ll need to learn to speak your mind, you know it is your right.
Take a ride through time (are we not men?)
Living for the day (Venus plus X).
You get to decide (how, why, when?)
We were created (Venus plus X).
We’re pirates of the asteroids from the other side of time,
playing a survival game and living with our crime.
It’s a cold, hard war and there’s no direction home.
A face from the frost speaks of blood beyond the stone.
A night of ghosts and shadows, there’s nothing left today.
Stonehenge the demon’s here, the rest have gone astray.
Einstein, he called it ‘the Centauri Device’,
but the fall of Vulcan’s hammer is deadly and precise.
(c) 1979, MAX RECORDS Ltd
Carlton McRae
SLEDGE HAMMER SURGERY
The fugitives were looking through their glass-plate diamond eyes,
waiting for the vicious call of eagles from the sky.
Confinement is for those who choose to hide themselves away,
running from an enemy who led them all astray.
They prosecuted perjury, the judges called it fun.
Sledge hammer surgery; your sentence has begun!
Cigarettes and politics are fragments of the mind.
Visions of our barrelled thoughts when lives are on the line.
The prison walls, the iron bars, are picking at our brains.
It’s cold as hell within these walls and everyday it rains.
The villains, well, they’ve had enough, they plan their get away.
Fighting is their only hope when guards have lost their way.
You may not like the way we live, yet all beneath the sun,
can see that life can pass us by before our race is run.
And when we’re wanting peace on earth, we’ll find that there is none.
(c) 1980, MAX RECORDS Ltd
Carlton McRae-Nigel Simpson-Sindy McRae
CELESTRA COLOGNE
He was eighteen, she twenty-five,
but they knew that love would arrive.
They were talking about, while drinking their stout,
spending the weekend together.
He called her next day, he had someone to stay,
a quaint little place in the country.
He said; “We’ll be alone,” he hung up the phone,
the station they met at six-thirty.
What she expected to find, was not on his mind,
she wondered could she be mistaken?
With her case by her side, she couldn’t decide,
when he said to her, chancing his pride;
“You’re the girl of my dreams, though that's not how it seems,
but I love you for all it is worth!”
The night was so cold, they let love unfold,
pleasure, but it had no meaning.
So rather than stay, she floated away,
the end of all their beginnings.
It wasn’t to be, so she said to he;
“Honey, this bird has flown!”
Saddening to say, but it happened that way,
the tale of Celestra Cologne.
A woman that loved her man but left him all alone.
But it was worth the experience, Celestra Cologne.
(c) 1980, MAX RECORDS Ltd
Carlton McRae
DOWN & OUT
I’m tired of being beaten, I'm tired of being down,
always on the wrong end of your world when spinning round.
Things never are right with me and there’s no room in your life
and every time I turn around it’s glory, struggle, strife.
I’m down & out. I’ve taken the ten count, lost the bout.
You, you feel so far away.
You, you’ve got to find a way,
to show me that you care
and let me know you’re near.
‘Cause when I need you girl, you’re never there.
Our love has nothing in it, our well is running dry.
I’ts something that I needed so much,
I often wonder why?
I need you and I want you every minute of the day.
But I don’t know about us, I believe we’ve lost our way.
Oh, why can’t we be happy, just like we were before.
You and me together, we had such a lot in store.
Understanding is the answer to a romance that should last.
But I can’t see solution as this love of ours has passed.
(c) 1980, MAX RECORDS Ltd
Carlton McRae-Randal McAlister
ARE YOU FOR REAL?
Easy come, easy go, the arrow leaves the archer’s bow.
Are you for real?
What a kiss, what a bite, we’ve got time to kill tonight.
How do you feel?
Are you for real?
I’ve got her, he’s got you, do we really have to choose?
You do appeal.
I look at you, you look at me, we’re stuck between the earth and sea.
How do you feel?
Are you for real?
Easy come, easy go, the arrow leaves the archer’s bow.
Are you for real?
(c) 1980, MAX RECORDS Ltd
Carlton McRae-Randal McAlister
STONED TONE
She says that she feels so cool.
The way that she dresses, acting the fool.
Her eyes tell a story of joy and pain,
her mind a kind of hazy insane.
Can you fly home tonight?
Because I feel I’m in flight.
Golden hair, lost look in those eyes.
Mind and mouth escape with lies.
Life is like that burning the blues,
with nothing to win and nothing to lose.
Watching all the daisies grow.
Her mind is wondering just where to go.
But she’s in the daisies that she sees.
Leave them to grow, just let them be.
(c) 1980, MAX RECORDS Ltd
Carlton McRae-Colin McLellan
JADE - At the Rivers Edge. Proposed EP/LP cover.
Original artwork by Colin McLellan (c) 1979.
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.
At 14 years of age, I started writing poetry and developing more of an interest in popular music. It was the mid-70's, 'rock & radio' were enjoying a high profile popularity.
Casey Kasem and the American Top 40 helped me get through the often confusing teenage years, by which time I had aspirations to have a band of my own.
Prior to this I had been a Beatle-nut and grounded myself on the late fabs, particularly, I didn't really go in for the pre-1966 stuff much.
My great friend, Euan James McCabe, was wholly (holy) inspirational in what Tears for Fears would later call 'Sowing the Seeds of Love' from this point on.
If you look at the image at right, taken by my sister Sindy circa; 1977, you'll notice that we even placed an Apple on the lawn.
At that stage, I already had a notebook full of poems and ideas and one of the first was BLUE MAGIC. Later set to music, the original poem was (very) loosely based on a movie I'd watched called The House That Dripped Blood.
The movie had been televised one Sunday night and my mother had informed me that her cousin, Nyree Dawn Porter, was one of the actresses involved.
I was stunned! How had a woman - a relation even - from little old Napier in New Zealand have attained such a role, playing alongside Christopher Lee?
The film also starred Peter Cushing, Jon Pertwee, Geoffrey Balydon, Ingrid Pittand and others from Hammer films and the like. it quickly became a favourite movie.
This however, was at least six years before the VHS system, so I only ever saw it the one time, until later in life...now, you can watch it right here!!
SUICIDE SYMPHONY is a bit of an enigma in the fact that it was predominantly Randal's words and my tune, which was completely at juxtaposition with how we would normally go about writing a song.
“Suicide Symphony” is the only song from what we called ‘the “McAlister-McRae” stable’ where I wrote the music and Randal the words. All our songs, no matter who did what, or what percentage each wrote of what song…they were all under the umbrella of “McAlister-McRae”. But 90% of our collaborations were Randal tunes with a single one-line title and my words.
Verse one of “Suicide Symphony” was written directly from a funeral eulogy that Randal had read in the newspaper.
The idea would have appealed to his sense of (dark) humour and he came up with the balance himself, bar the second half of the third verse, which I changed when I was fitting it to music.
He made up the title and added two more verses and a chorus of his own. He had just taught me more barre chords and I was messing around on the guitar with a B to Em riff.
It was always popular with manic depressants.
THE PIPER was really just a continuation of the Nuclear Fusion theme, more trippy fantasy driven stuff, but it did derive from a dream I had where I was in a forest, trying to find the source of an enchanted flute.
Like those dreams when you're trying to run and you keep falling over, I could get close to the sound, but was never quite able to get a glimpse of who or what was playing the instrument, with such precision and with such perfect notation.
VENUS PLUS X was written during my last term at boarding school in late 1979. In fact, not long before I walked out of the establishment (eventually being returned in a taxi, paid for by the embarrassed Housemaster). I'd had it with the place by then.
Being a sixth former (Y12), I'd become more aligned with my own persuasions (as opposed to the hearsay of parents and teachers). Venus Plus X was a sci-fi book by Theodore Sturgeon that I'd just finished reading. I was also getting into Salvador Dali, particularly his work from the 1930's; Metamorphosis of Narcissus and The Burning Giraffe, as examples.
At the time I thought they were the best set of lyrics I'd written and at 16, they probably were. A decade later, most of them would be re-hashed to make a new song Bohemian Spies, for 'The Pagans'.
SLEDGE HAMMER SURGERY was still more from the stable of experimental words and imagery, which is clearly something that I favoured over other more conventional song-writing formula's, such as love songs or such arrant trite. Still, I hadn't really been in love to this point.
The title was suggested by my sisters boyfriend, Nigel Simpson, whom it didn't take long to recruit as our drummer. This was mainly because I'd spied a drum set in his bedroom at Seatoun Heights Road.
It was Nigel's derivative of 'Emerson, Lake & Palmer's', Brian Salad Surgey LP from 1973.
Nigel Simpson, circa; May 1981 - Mein Street, Newtown, Wellington.
Photo credit: Carlton McRae
As a trial run for that love, which was just around the corner, I found myself involved with a woman I worked with at Avery Motors, the local Ford franchise in downtown Wellington.
She was a decade older than I (the lyrics to CELESTRA COLOGNE refer to only seven, but it had to rhyme with five - and also mask her identity).
Being involved in just such a relationship had necessitated my leaving home (my mother unable to handle the whole thing), so I moved into a flat with another workmate, 'Beaky' Sage at #75 Mein Street, Newtown, Wellington.
I was the more smitten in this new relationship. Obviously, her life experience at 27 (she was also captain of the Wellington women's football and baseball sides) was way beyond my comprehension of survival skills needed for the job, but this only served to ensure that infatuation would not be misconstrued for anything other than what it was.
But it was worth the experience...
Max the dog, symbol of MAX Records Ltd.
DOWN & OUT was written by both Randal and I in an afternoon session at Mein Street, Newtown (the same afternoon as the photo at left in fact).
Randal arrived with the title and we combined two sections from two half composed tunes he was working on, the first for the verses and the second - once adapted - for the chorus.
We pretty much wrote the lyrics together as the song was evolving.
The hook and in essence the counterpoint of the song is the "I'm down and out..." phrase/phrasing that leads into the chorus proper.
Euan, who was officially the manager of WALRUS (as we were known by now), said that this song had the most potential as the 'D & O' bit got stuck in one's head...as had happened to him when he was at home mowing the lawns!
Randal and I composing Down & Out at my flat in Mein Street circa; April/May 1980.
Photo credit: Euan McCabe
ARE YOU FOR REAL? was a 'triffic little song. Very simple Randal tune G Em C D G, very catchy and of course, he already had the title.
I wrote all the words in about 10 minutes. It was one of my favourites, owing to its simplicity and warm friendly vibe.
My main recollection of REMEMBER ME was actually about trying to write a love song on purpose, for no one, but I think I'd been listening to a lot of McCartney and Lennon love songs around the Rubber Soul period and I just wanted to try and capture something in that feel.
Like Are You For Real, it was a catchy little number, but was really just a stepping stone to the future or more pertinent, another rung up the ladder of progress.
Randal and I had been relatively impressed with our own song-writings skills thus far, but when we came up with FOXY LADY (worst set of lyrics ever, but never mind), we were genuinely excited.
It had been a deliberate attempt (one Saturday afternoon in my bedroom at Seatoun Heights Road) to write a song that was 'in the now' - so to speak.
We were still in 1979, new wave hadn't even yet arrived...we were two 16 year olds trying to hone our craft. It would be at least six months before a 4-track fostex unit reared it's head and we were able to record, but one of the first demo's we cut was Foxy Lady.
It also necessitated the formation of a record company, we decided, so Max, the family Beagle lent his name to the new distribution outlet.
The flatting experience was new found freedom. Just moved into Mein Street, circa; March, 1980.
Photo credit: Graeme Sage
Publicity photo of Randal and I at my new flat in Mein Street. Well, the adjacent empty section, which housed this car wreck, circa; May, 1980.
Photo credit: Colin McLellan
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"I reckon we should start a band," I said to Randal. “We could work out five or six songs and learn them and…”
“Fuck that,” he interrupted, “lets write our own songs!”
He’d been thinking along similar lines. He even had a name for the band…Mach 2 Domis (which quickly became Jade)
From that moment on, there was no looking back. It was perfect. Randal had taken his guitar to Rathkeale right from the off, but by the third term of 1978, he was sending me cassette tapes of him playing compositions he’d written. Sometimes he also had just a title. NUCLEAR FUSION was an early example.
A letter arrived for me at Firth House from the Wairarapa. It was a new Randal composition, accompanied by a handwritten letter explaining the structure of the song.
Nuclear Fusion, I thought to myself. It was no doubt something which had tickled Randal’s fancy in a science lesson and also something I bet he was aching to try. The melody to his song lent itself toward some form of cosmic event, I instantly thought supernova nucleosynthesis;
“Well, you write poetry,” he said, “turn them into song lyrics!”
It was actually a brilliant idea. Being given a title was still pretty much an open canvas. I could listen to the melodies of Randal’s tunes and work lyrics around it. If I was going to have a go at singing, it may as well be warbling my own words.
AT THE RIVERS EDGE
I wrote the lyrics, aged 16, in a science lab on the fifth floor of the tower block at Wellington College, during a 6th form chemistry class, in late 1979.
Simultaneously, my good friend Colin McLellan was sketching the cover, which can be seen at left. He came to school the following day with the watercolour additions.
I hadn't really correlated the two though, until I met Randal McAlister, when on respective family summer holidays at the same motel in Rotorua. Randal was already a very good guitarist, but had no words for his compositions.
Sometimes he had just a title and that was as far as he'd gotten. But that was all the inspiration I needed to experiment with writing a set of song lyrics.
Inner sleeve linear notes and lyrics for 'At the River's Edge'. Artwork; Colin McLellan. Handwritten lyrics by myself.
I was entering a period of change myself. I felt I had more control over my life and was feeling the need to be free and have the freedom to express.
This was partially inspired by loving the art class I was in and the sixth form curriculum in general, where at the time we were studying the works of Salvador Dali. I particularly liked his work from the 1930's; Metamorphosis of Narcissus and The Burning Giraffe, as examples.
This led on to the discovery of surrealism and the surrealist movement (or manifesto), as perceived by the great Italian born novelist, poet, playwright, Guillaume Apollinaire (whose grave I stood beside in awe in 2015, at Père Lachaise in Paris).
For me, surrealism was an attraction toward the technique of allowing the unconscious mind to express itself and to muddy the boundaries of reality and the dream state. Later I would embrace expressionism as its equal as an art form, particularly German cinema (particularly the films of Fritz Lang).
Life changed completely after viewing Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It was the dark and twisted visual depiction, unusual filming angles, shadows and streaks of light, oblique landscapes.
I went to the Wellington Public Library and sought out the works of “Les Six”, a name given to six composers who lived and worked in Montparnasse. Again I was drawn to their music, a neoclassic reaction to the operatic works of Wagner and the impressionist music of Debussy and Ravel.
Early performances would see artists like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse decorate the walls with their canvases and of course, Jean Cocteau, one of the foremost creatives of the surrealistic, avant-garde and Dada movements, was an influence in the “Les Six” show.
Naturally enough, what was then termed ‘science-fiction’ was my favourite genre of film (especially Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Barbarella) and I had started to read a lot of sci-fi too, John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos, Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud.
I had just finished a book called Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon (of Star Trek fame).
At Mein Street, circa; May, 1980
Photo credit: Randal McAlister
STONED TONE (originally cryptically titled Seeing Things Only Nightmares Ever Do) was more about Randal, Colin and my pure enjoyment of smoking marijuana. In 1980 that was still most certainly an underground past-time and had dangerous consequences with both the law and Straightland morality.
Randal - post the smoking of the joint - would often say things like; "right, there is only what's going on in this room...outside is the void of space" and then the curtains would be drawn and we'd have to write a song from start to finish.
Stoned Tone started out in just such fashion, Colin the first to pick up on the idea this particular night with an idea about a suitable subject called Ophelia. Randal had an Em to D thing going on, a minor riff stoner's delight.
"Can you fly home tonight? Because I feel I'm in flight" is Colin's unadulterated piece and was the pre-chorus/counterpoint sequence of the song.
Another favourite.
