Subway Sect
Ambition

First of all, Vic Godard is quite a good-sounding name.

Even though I prefer Truffaut to Godard...

And then, someone who, as the opening line of his first 45, writes a phrase like “we are all whores singing in prison”, well, someone like that should have the Almighty himself come down and tell him “relax son, you've already done enough”.

As far as I'm concerned, the review could end here. Even though maybe I should say something about postmen.

The postmen? Yes, the postmen...

When I was a boy, the postman in my neighborhood was a cool guy,

Cool in a laid-back sort of way, I mean. He zigzagged on his bike smiling, and just seeing him would put you in a good mood.

In happiness and in smile, only Mister Bianco surpassed him, someone who would start his day with brandy or a light wine and continue with wine until evening.

Then there was also Pianula, the one who would catch you off guard... but he was more of a womanizer. And his smile counted for less, as it was easy to smile with all those adoring ladies.

But let's leave Mister Bianco and Pianula aside and go back to the postman. As a child, it seemed like a wonderful job. Slow, slow cycling to deliver words of love, outpourings, gripes, advice to children.

Hermes in miniature...

Now Vic Godard, one of the greatest poets of post-punk, in the mid-eighties, indeed became a postman. But I highly doubt he was as happy as the zigzagging one from my childhood. Vic wasn't one to smile, and in his angular, frowning face, his deep black eyes were always on guard.

Because letters were hardly written anymore even then. Instead, there was one every five minutes in Truffaut's films. In Truffaut's films, not in Godard's...

Another famous postal worker was Charles Bukowski. “Post office” begins with a black girl asking him “Do you want some pussy, poor white?”

Well, he didn't like being a postman either... “No poems with rhyme in Charles Bukowski's house,” he said.

No guitar solos, responded the punks... and if anything, realism, realism with guts...

And (Vic Godard dixit) magnificent opportunities to educate oneself...

Then again, our Vic wasn't exactly punk, or if he was, he was in his own unique way.

Anyway, Bukowski, what a man... who, whatever he was, he was in his own way. He wasn't really connected to punk/post-punk, except that, compared to the poets of the beat generation, he was very down to earth. And he listened to Judy Garland and classical music.

Vic Godard, a super-educated autodidact, would blast Debussy from speakers before concerts...

But anyway, I got to old Buck starting from postmen. There are many paths, millions of millions.

(Too many cultured references and moreover random? Random, certainly, but not too many since we're talking about Vic Godard).

But anyhow, the essence of the discussion is, as I imagine you understood, what kind of world is it where someone like Vic Godard ends up as a postman?

Then again, in a sense, he already was, albeit in a peculiar way... as his songs were letters too, all the best songs are.

Words of love, outpourings, gripes, advice to children...

O.K. maybe there weren't words of love. But advice to children, sure.

Advice that stumbled over a very personal and fresh music, between sixties memories, punk urgency, and, as in the case of “Ambition”, formidable pop instinct.

And stumbled as when things are said quickly and there's fear of not having enough time and energy to bear their weight (Greil Marcus dixit).

Actually, the advice was just one, the only one you can give... Which one? Think about it for a moment... it's that one...

And now “Ambition”

“Ambition” should have topped the charts... Toy keyboard, bouncing irreverent rhythm, fiery words... One of those things that make you jump out of your chair...

And quite colorful for those times of black and white elegance... quite capable of fluttering... Since almost no one fluttered back then...

Even if Vic Godard's fluttering was a stumbling one...

Sure, I could give you the recipe, say, how many grams of rowdiness, how many of danceable quirk, how many of whatever comes to my mind now as I write, like Modern Lovers for light gas and bontempi organ or playful for urban philosophies...

Or another idiocy of choice.

But let's rather say it's a small, unique thing... A small, perfect thing... Listen to it and you'll jump from your seat...

Not to mention the usual magnificent lyrics... What you want is hidden in the tension of the present where dead-end streets extinguish the light of everything precious... and you walk looking for nothing, because nothing seems to happen... (this is very roughly, as my English is what it is)...

Then there's the b-side, which is absolute pop and something else I can't quite describe... here too there's advice for us kids, namely the most insidious conventions are the rock and even punk ones...

Vic Godard, what a man...

And “Ambition” is certainly not his only masterpiece, since the rattling beginnings are extraordinary too... Three-quarters punk, one-quarter sixties, and a dash of Velvet if a recipe is needed at all... You jump out of your seat here too, even if in black and white and much more seventies-seventies-six...

“Nobody's scared” is incendiary, with a thump-thump almost like Maureen Tucker's and a guitar now grating, now bright like the trumpet of doom. And then that line we quoted at the beginning that alone is worth all the punk and post-punk put together...

And “Chain smoking”, whose lyrics I've never managed to get, but judging from the title and the little I can understand, it promises well.

And “Don't split it”, with all that clanging, hardware rustiness, also very Velvetian (at least for me...)...

Oh yes, our man deserved more...

And, I repeat, this review (like punk) was already finished at the start.

So, again:

First of all, Vic Godard is quite a good-sounding name.

Even though I prefer Truffaut to Godard...

And then, someone who, as the opening line of his first 45, writes a phrase like “we are all whores singing in prison”, well, someone like that should have the Almighty himself come down and tell him “relax son, you've already done enough”.

Anyway, “Ambition” is a small, perfect thing.

Stop

P.S. Throughout the review, I never mentioned the Subway Sect... well yes, Vic Godard was the singer of Subway Sect...