TITLE: "Money is Not Our God"
ARTIST: Killing Joke
ALBUM: Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions
RELEASE DATE: 1991
It's only about 6:30 pm, but both of our kids are already in bed. They're not sleeping, mind you, but I put them down earlier than usual this evening being that everyone in the house seems to have been infected by some seasonal bug (your humble narrator included). As such, we're all a bit sniffly, croaky and cranky -- especially Oliver, who is currently howling in a manner that suggests either a profound sense of mourning or possibly a touch of lycanthropy. In any event, he's not at all pleased to have been put to bed (despite the fact that he defiantly went napless today and must be exhausted). Peggy is out at her "book club" this evening, wherein she and a bunch of girls from her old publishing posse crack open a bottle of wine and gab about literature. So once the kids have fallen asleep (please, God, let that happen), I'll have the run of the apartment for the remainder of the evening.
Normally that would mean ordering in some grub and firing up the DVD player to watch one of my favorite films that Peggy otherwise finds distasteful, offensive or unpleasant (and there's a lot of them). Truth is, though, I'm not really in the mood. While activity has encouragingly picked up in my quest to be reinstated into the work force, I received the final severance check from my former place of employment yesterday, and it really put the hook in me all over again. It's over, it's done, the chord is cut and I'm left stranded on the iceberg while they sail onward. I knew it was coming, but it hit me like a falling anvil yesterday, and I'm still seeing the stars. The sheer number of histrionic metaphors I've crammed into this paragraph ought to provide ample evidence of the malaise I'm feeling these days. If I haven't already mentioned it in the past four months, being jobless against one's will sucks.
As a bittersweet consolation prize of sorts, today my mailman brought me the highly anticipated re-mastered edition of Killing Joke's volcanic comeback album from 1990, Extremities, Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions (in the form of a lovingly packaged box-set rife with extra ephemera). There's no need for me to wax rhapsodic about my love for this album or Killing Joke, as I've already beaten that particular horse into the ground. Suffice to say, this record found the band viscerally recharged and in a fighting form they regrettably haven't reclaimed since. For me, it's like a hypodermic filled with nitroglycerin right into the heart -- nothing short of explosive catharsis writ large.
Of course, the death of Paul Raven last month has cast a pall over what would have been a promising burst of activity from the band. There are further re-releases on the way, but with Raven suddenly excised from the proceedings, it does feel like a bit of a pyrrhic victory.
Under normal circumstances, I'd blather on about what I was doing or how I was feeling or what subway I was taking or what shoes I was wearing when I first heard this song, but really -- does any of that matter? All I know is that "Money Is Not Our God" gives me a bracing punch in the sternum like little else, and has more resonance for me these days than ever before.
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