By The Landlord
"Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?" – Phyllis Diller
"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." – A.A. Milne
"My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.” – Erma Bombeck
"I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again." – Joan Rivers
There's always just one more, pesky little thin line to sweep. One more load for the drum. One more surface to dust, and of course, what never sleeps, is rust. The layers of my history in this house are so deep. I know I should be working, emailing, writing, but it's a matter of life and death if I don't pair up those socks, or dust the inside of that box. And what discoveries – old photos, CDs, vinyl, forgotten ideas, memories, past resolutions, this process can bring. The radio's on. Oh yes, that song! Connections come. Magic happens. There are always patterns. Finally, things are starting to look ship shape, all's in apple-pie order, and no longer an old load of bobbly wool bobbins. Cor blimey, Mary Poppins!
But while the world is now in lockdown in a creeping, throat-clearing, street self-distancing and personal-space Tetris swerve game of a slow-horror dream, ironically, who here has never been cleaner, been more hygienic, somehow healthier, though, in turn, found the desiccated scrubbed skin on their hands to look older?
And so, as spring cocks and turns its surprised head into strangely clear, quiet skies, traffic reduced to the levels of my childhood when you'd play in the street and only ever so often have to shout "Car!", and birds are wondering why we've gone back to the the pre-industrial early 1800s, it's time, now or never, to tackle this topic in practical and musical terms, with all the chores you can think up in a big spring clean. And with that, let's not forget, in terms of song lyrics, and as well as in reality, that there are all the psychological benefits of chucking out your chintz, the mental cleanup, the mental polish, the inner garage clearance, the stiff brushing out of character-fault cobwebs. Spring clean songs can also be about the self, and society, and getting the shit together. Let's hope it works, and things change. But that doesn't necessarily mean we're taking it to the level of Travis Bickle in the Martin Scorsese's sublime 1976 film Taxi Driver. How different those New York streets are right now.
As usual, unfettered by lockdown, we've got several more guests in the Bar, most of them procrastinating writers, hiding from their own chores just to talk about them instead. They’re not really helping me in the bar either.
"Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day,” bemoans Simone de Beauvoir.
“Yes indeed, darling,” quips Quentin Crisp. “But there is really no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.”
Aren’t there just higher matters to consider? “Probably,” says P.J. O’Rourke. “Everybody wants to save the earth; no one wants to help mom do the dishes.”
“Yes,” says American interior decorator Mario Buatta. “Dust is a protective coating for fine furniture.”
“Well, I make no secret of the fact that I would rather lie on a sofa than sweep beneath it. But you have to be efficient if you're going to be lazy,” says churning fiction writer Shirley Conran.
“Now then, chop chop. Let’s get to it,” snaps a more prim and proper Agatha Christie. “And remember, the best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.”
“Hmm. My idea of superwoman is someone who scrubs her own floors,” reckons Bette Midler.
“But,” says Margaret Atwood, “in the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
Is that from the soil outside, or because you’ve been cleaning?
“Well honey, I’m always happy when I'm cleaning,” says Peggy Lee.
But cleaning is time-consuming. What about clothes? The former Observer columnist and writer Katherine Whitehorn is here to remark on something many of us have done. “Have you ever taken anything out of the clothes basket because it had become, relatively, the cleaner thing?”
So how can we help these people get their chores done. Perhaps with some labour-saving devices, via some wonderful Japanese chindogu:
The crawl ’n’ clean: baby mop clothing, anyone?
Sweep shoes. Every home should have some.
As I get down through the layers, I find that I've cleaned before. Many of us have. But that doesn't mean we can't, or shouldn't again. Like any chore, or creativity, it's process of wetting, then drying, broadening, then narrowing, defining and refining. And there's sheen old polish that I've uncovered which I might as well partly air again but give some extra elbow grease to.
"By the dirt 'neath my nails I guess he knew I wouldn't lie," retorts Bob Dylan in Motorpsycho Nightmare. Cleansing needs dirt, and dirt needs cleansing. And all lives have an ablutionary cycle of daily grime and scrubbing, moving between the soil and the sublime, the solution and the slime. So too can the writing and performing of music be a process of digging or cleansing, on all sorts of levels.
Cleaning, or yearning to clean, clears the vision, sheds old skin, opens the pores, filters and refines. And whether done on tooth or hair, floor or wall, through the mind or body, by hand or by machine, the physical act of washing can bring a sensual soundscape of musicality, an orchestra of ablution. The whoosh of a washing machine, the squeak of a plate, the plop of mop, the bristle of brush. The bubbling bath, the shoeshine shimmer, the fluffing, buffing up, the scrubbing, rubbing down and resultant glimmer. The soaking through, the dabbing on, the squeezing out, the dripping dry. The soapy plunge, the car wash sponge, power blowing, laundry folding.
We’re all at it
We deodorise, cauterise, and sanitise. We absterge, edulcorate, and depurate. We expunge, elutriate and exfoliate. We shampoo, blow and winnow. We purge, polish and purify. And whether obsessively or lazily, sloppily or crazily, we might cleanse with lemon, varnish with vodka, polish with vinegar, dust with white bread in hand, and put all of this into art, or a band. Pablo Picasso described the purpose of art as "washing the dust of daily life from our souls". Erudite or earthy? Say that too fast and it could sit both ways.
But spring clean doesn't just mean cleaning. There's so much else to sort out into this category. Throwing things out and recycling. Making some room. Mending that fence. Painting that spare room. Tiling the bathroom. Odd jobs. Polishing the silver, if you have any, cutlery, brass knobs. Sorting, dividing, focusing, alphabetising.
But one thing to bear in mind – music is a perfect accompaniment to household chores, but we're not looking for a list of songs for clean to, not songs to vacuum to or do the washing up to, or polish or mindlessly massage a mood to. In the same way that we're not about making latest lists like songs run to, songs to make love to, get married to, songs to have a shit to, do shiatsu to, songs to sit on a jury to, songs to give birth to, songs to shop to or die to. Having said that, household chores can be energising, and there's no reason why we can't do them and also dance. So here's a foot-on-floor polishing number to help, previously A-listed:
So, I've done the kitchen, and recently got dishwasher for the first time in my life. What is that all about? Dishwashing is replaced by sorting, placing, arranging. Oh, but it's great. And last year I made the rash decision to my one of those small robot vacuum cleaners, like a fat round disc, that moves around the house looking to eat up stray paper clips that'll jam it, or as a surreal fairground ride for the cats. It's supposed to be a labour-saving device, but we just watch 'Rover' (as we've named him), to see where he'll go next, with those added heart-stopping moments when he gets to the edge of the stairs, his magic eye halting him just in time from toppling over. Remember labour-saving robots (and Daleks) can't do stairs. Anyway, these are someone else's cats, but I've got the same model of ‘Rover’.
How far we've come from my a witch's stick brush and my granny's clothes wringer mangle.
Squeeze dry? The old mangler
And now I'm washing out the Song Bar pumps and pipes, sorting the glasses, wiping the surfaces, mending some chairs, and giving the whole place a mental makeover. And you're helping me with that in all sorts of ways, especially from this week, what with our new coin box sat on the bar. Thank you!
So then, stylishly donning the Song Bar overalls, mask and gloves, and energetically flourishing a musical mop and a broom of brio, I'm delighted to welcome back to clarify and cleanse, to sort and organise all your song suggestions into eventual playlists, this week's glorious guest guru and radio host, DJ Bear aka Pop Off! Deadline is this coming Monday at 11pm UK time, for playlists published on Wednesday. Get's get to it!
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