Forever New

Editorial by Jocelyn Richardson
The city has slowed. I’d even say it’s a little hungover.

‘Tis a season for forgetfulness

In this period of reawakening, we have a piece for you that is like remembering the night before. Images start to return, symbolic, frenetic and loaded. Details rise to the fore that surprise you with their ridiculousness and poignancy. For the fifth instalment of Chart Collective's Longer Light Series, Al Monfort with Amy Hill, under the moniker Snake and Friends, have created ‘Forever New’, a song and video in response to the last week of 2014.

You may know Al Monfort from one of his many sick bands (Lower Plenty, Total Control, UV Race, Dick Diver, Russell Street Bombings, East Link) and cult classic performances, or from spotting his iconic mullet on the streets of Melbourne. He’s prolific, poetic, punk, political and a truly lovely guy.

‘Forever New’ is a song in four parts. It starts out in a jolly enough mood. The guitars jangle.

The new season sets in and brings gifts
Gifts of heat, gifts of rest
Gifts of faces of familiar kind

But the mood shifts. The guitars become insistent. We're taken into the commercial heart of Melbourne – Bourke Street – and it’s busy. Boxing Day sales!

And then the new season brings me truth
The truth is waste
Wasted obligation

Look for the details in the video. Some images are quick and subtle: a tanker full of new cars entering the port, giant toy soldiers in a truck bed, a Christmas tree made of thongs. Others recur rhythmically giving a dizzying sense of gluttony, like the pair of pink hands passing a wad of cash, or the mannequins posing behind the glass looking self-congratulatory. There’s also a sense of decline. Things are being packed away. Sparrows are fighting for scraps beneath empty café tables.

It's not on me
It's not on me

I can’t get the final section out of my head. The song ends in an upbeat mood, with a catchy riff and a single statement of generosity:

My shout, it's on me

I think of it as an antidote. Hide

Read more

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Heat/hope/waste

And the new season sets
The new season sets in and brings gifts
Gifts of heat, gifts of rest
Gifts of faces of familiar kind
And in the season hides

And it brings me kind
And it brings me my kind
In the new season hides a change
In the new season hides
And then the new season brings me truth
The truth is waste
Wasted obligation
The old religion keeps giving hate
Denies power
And pats the rich on the back
A trip down Bourke Street
Sees millions ignoring the hopelessness close to them
To instead gain status
The gift that keeps giving
Thanks starvation
Thanks sickness
Thanks suffocation
The gift that keeps giving
Thanks season

Defeat/waste

A trip with the ticketies down Bourke Street
The gift that keeps giving
Thanks starvation
Thanks sickness
Thanks suffocation
The gift that keeps giving
Thanks season
A trip with the pigs into lock up on Chrissy Eve
Thanks heat
Thanks don't know what to do with myself
Thanks season
Thanks Commercial Hotel
Thanks O & H
Thanks The Orient
Thanks season
Thanks heat

Apathy/murder/waste

Born with badness
Born on time
Born with the bomb and born on weight
Born with teeth
Teeth that bite
Born with eyes
Eyes that shut
It don't get me down
It don't get me down
It don't get me down
Festive season for fuckwits
‘Tis the time to forget
‘Tis the time for waste
Festive season for forgetfulness
It don't get me down
It don't get me down
Born with eyes that shut
Born with eyes that shut
Born with eyes that shut
Born with teeth,
Teeth that bite
(Loud guitar solo)

Apathy/hate/power/waste

Telling tales of bachelor boys
Telling of recipes for over ripe noise
It's not a game for the fun loving folk
Can see the sign with everyone broke
It's not on me
It's not on me
It's not on me
Choked, crying with nothing to give
Family friends of the spoilt live
Living with minds with nothing to give
It's too late to wanna give
It's not on me
It's not on me
It's not on me
My shout, it's on me.

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MORE FROM THE LONGER LIGHT SERIES:

The Longer Light Series explores the idea that our personal rituals – from the mundane to the grand – tether us to special places and particular times. It investigates how our rituals are contingent on the places where we perform them, on the rhythm of the seasons, on the weather of any given day, on what we see and smell around us.

The 12 distinct works of the series detail, document or respond to some sort of ritual (as each contributor interprets that word) enacted during a week of summer days and nights. The works will be published in weekly instalments so that, in concert, they plot the arc of an Australian summer.

The Longer Light Series is supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.