New Religion, by Duran Duran (lyrics)

I've been now sauntering 
Out and down the path sometime
Come on, it takes me nowhere, which I knew
Faces everywhere pulling grins and signs in things
Telling me not there, man, it's no go
Don't go there boy

I need a reason
(I can't think without one now)
Too much learning got to show
Call it treason
(Maybe catch her, don't know how)
Too many things, too much to know

Bring my timing in, seagulls gather on the wind
Lady screaming, lady leave me out
'Cause sometimes people stare
(Coming down, electric chair)
And steaming crowds they gather and they shout

(Don't know why this evil bothers me)
Take another chance boy, carry the fight, 
You can take him if you're fast
(So why is he trying to follow me?)
Didn't I say if you're holding on 
You'd be laughing at the last
(How many reasons do they need?)
I get along fine with them friends of mine 
But you have to make a choice
(I might just believe this time)
You're singing out of tune but the beat's in time 
And it's us who makes the noise

I'm talking for free, I can't stop myself, 
It's a new religion
I've something to see, I can't help myself, 
It's a new religion

Okay, my reasoning might be clouded by the sun
But someone sees the departmental lie
You know this peacetime (jabbing fist in stabbing knife)
Only get one look before you die

(Don't know why this evil bothers me)
Take another chance boy, carry the fight, 
You can take him if you're fast
(So why is he trying to follow me?)
Didn't I say if you're holding on 
You'd be laughing at the last
(How many reasons do they need?)
I get along fine with them friends of mine 
But you have to make a choice
(I might just believe this time)
You're singing out of tune but the beat's in time
And it's us who makes the noise

I'm talking for free, I can't stop myself, 
It's a new religion
I've something to see, I can't help myself, 
It's a new religion

Gotta take pay the saints 'n sinners 
In regulation hats 'n scarves 'n things
Walking in formation down the lane, 
They carry their cross, make a church bell ring 
Army majors pull a mean cool truth, 
There lying in a swimming pool
Searching for the undeniable truth that 
A man is just a fool

(Don't know why this evil bothers me)
Take another chance boy, carry the fight, 
You can take him if you're fast
(So why is he trying to follow me?)
Didn't I say if you're holding on 
You'd be laughing at the last
(How many reasons do they need?)
I get along fine with them friends of mine 
But you have to make a choice
(I might just believe this time)
You're singing out of tune but the beat's in time 
And it's us who makes the noise

I'm talking for free, I can't stop myself, 
It's a new religion
I've something to see, I can't help myself, 
It's a new religion
[repeat to fade]

(1982)

(copied into 1985 notebook)

John with the Golden Smile (to John Taylor)

John with his sparkling, shimmering eyes

is a little boy lost in a man

John, although grown-up and quite a success

is still in a fairy-tale land

John is a Tigger, if ever there was one,

yet with a deep tone in his voice,

John is a man and will prove it with grace,

and prefers manhood (given the choice)

But John still requires occasional parties

(as rock-n'-roll-types often do),

And at times he'll protest that he's doing what's best,

leaving others to argue what's true;

But when John really has to face up to himself,

he realizes that all the while,

John's always John with the sparkling eyes

and John with the golden smile

John sees himself as the noblest warrior,

base guitar ready in hand

and he sits at a table with 4 other dreamers,

the five of them making a band

And every night is the time of his life

as he does all he can for the crowd

But sometimes it's silence that John really likes

must the little girls be quite so loud?

It is then that he slips on another disguise

and finds him a silent retreat

And calls up the girlfriend or some chic acquaintance

and "how about we go out to eat?"

But when John has returned and is in for the night

he realizes that all the while,

John's always John with the sparkling eyes

and John with the golden smile

John fancies himself with fast cars and fast women,

and lives to be just like James Bond

Aston Martin, in gold - with a stripe if you please -

is John's car, of which he is quite fond

John has a dream to live up to his heroes

hence the fast pace he lives by

But John does have values and will not ignore them

although - once or twice - he may try

John has set out not to conquer the dragon 

but to rescue the princess so fair

And in bringing her back to us, carry the spirit

that will renew hope in the air

For though John is not perfect and sees that as truth,

he realizes that all the while,

John's always John with the sparkling eyes

and John with the golden smile.

- May 28, 1984, A.D.

Letter to Nick Rhodes (unfinished)

Dear Nick,

You are an enviable person!  About a month ago, I bought a copy of "Keyboard" magazine.  Oh, what I could do with a Fairlight CMI!  Some find it odd that I never grow tired of Duran Duran's music - but there's so much there!  For example: it's very late and I'm alone in my room, listening to "Rio".  All of a sudden - I'm not quite sure - but I believe I hear birds chirping.  Once more, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Spring, and "Hold Back the Rain" sounds completely different.  New keyboard lines that I hadn't noticed before; and Simon's lyrics, which always take so long to understand, are beginning to come clear.  This is the magic of Duran Duran.  If I open my mind to the music, something new is sure to be discovered every time.

I have a bootleg album of your which contains "Anyone Out There?", "Planet Earth", "To the Shore", "Late Bar", "Khanada", "Waiting for the Nightboat", "Last Chance on a Stairway", "Faster Than Light", and "My Own Way".  It's from 1982, I believe.  I love it!  I don't even think a Nick Rhodes could ever get it from me.

(unfinished)

- May 28, 1984, A.D.

More '84

the poet as a young Duran Duran fan

Most influential albums

Beatles - Sgt. Pepper, White Album, Let it Be

Bowie - Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust

Blondie - Parallel Lines

Duran Duran - Seven & the Ragged Tiger

Gary Numan - Pleasure Principle

Pink Floyd - The Wall

Peter Gabriel - 3rd Album (Mercury)

Cat Stevens - Tea for the Tillerman

Don McLean - American Pie

John Lennon - Shaved Fish

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bullocks

Byrne-Eno - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Dead Kennedys - In God We Trust, Inc.

Brian Eno - Before and After Science

Duran Duran - Rio

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Sesame Street Album [not kidding!]

Grandview U.S.A.

My life took a surreal turn when I found myself in Teen Beat magazine the following spring (April 1984 edition):

That's me, upper left:

Letter to Simon Le Bon

Dear Simon,

Have you ever had a vision, and then not been sure if it was a memory, or from a dream, or perhaps even if you had ever experienced that vision before in your life?  That's what I call fluid time -- where everything is a memory, yet nothing has ever happened to you before.  All existence has a subconscious connection.

Have you ever waken from a dream, left only with the bare emotion, knowing no source?  Has the feeling plagued you all day?  To know something - to feel it; but not be able to grasp it?  The pain of the memory is how close you come to the answer.

If it is so, then here, we are alike.  I have had fantastic dreams!  Fantastic states of consciousness!  And they seem to relate to your lyrical style, in that they carry the same three-dimensional reality.  You are a master of the sub-conscious mind.  Today, I still feel like a slave.

 

(approx. 1983)