Though silence continues to reign in the Ziggy Osmington camp - his management team have declined to add further to their earlier terse statement regarding his intention to retire from public life in 2029 - Ziggy watchers are jumping on every opportunity to analyse and interpret several recent utterings from the mouth and pen of the man rightly described as "the world's biggest Boner".
Of particular interest to the more forensically-minded semioticists are the lyrics of the Boners latest double-sided single [Before I Forget c/w On the Shores of Lake Dignitas [Hornimint Records]] in which according to some, the veteran rock star's true state of mind is to be properly discerned.
Rock historian and Boners fan Defas Adourposte has drawn particular attention to the enigmatically moody middle section of Lake Dignitas in which, against a background of softly crunching atonal chords in the prepared harpsichord section, an unusually reflective Ziggy croons:
Moody Mavis
What a fxxxxxg nightmare
Scarecrow dentures wrapped in nightwear
Recycled bollocks somewhere in there
Like a Weston Dual Motor Riser Recliner Chair
Ejector seat to nowhere
Nuclear-dessicated Elsie Tanners
Stuck in time like toxic Stannahs
Just take a mallet to my freaking head
Everything finished, nothing said
Paddle to the edge and forget
On the shores of Lake Dignitas
Could this haunting yet mordantly obtuse passage hold an important clue to the ageing rock star's mental anguish?
Medical authority and RfPL expert Dr Art Terry believes so. "The frequent references to the accoutrements and impedimenta of old age suggest a mind obsessing on the well-understood consequences of RfPL; whilst the overall bleakness of the lyric tropes - rare even in Osmington's late work - seems fixated on an iconography more associated with passing on than standing by. To the untuned ear or uneducated mind this might appear to be just a typically playful Osmington verbal riff on a well-worn theme of suburban dislocation and psycho-sexual anomie, but as one au fait with both medicine and psychology as well as with the singer and his recent philosophical explorations, I would say this was a clear and unambiguous reference to the rising costs of Care in the Community and a fearless public exposé of Ziggy's uncertainty in trying to decide whether or not to take his mother on a relaxing five star all-inclusive family holiday to Switzerland - possibly to Lucerne or more likely at this time of year Val-de-Travers. ZIggy can never be taken at face value. He's usually worth so much less than that."
And what about Before I Forget? Might that song and its title reference the singer's own alleged frailties when performing the Boner's most famous songs? "Absolutely not!" opines Dr Terry, "it's obviously just a casual throw-away reference, almost a rhythmic syncopation, as in 'Oh before I forget, could you descale the kettle'. We most of us say it most of the time. It would be naive to think a man on the verge of retiring from public life would be so deliberately facile. He'd be more likely to call the song 'I'm losing it and so will retire shortly from public life ... probably in 2029'. I mean why wouldn't you? He's a drug-addled rock legend - there's publicity and quite possibly money in a lyric like that". *
Meanwhile, the orinoco store reports a surge in sales of the extended single: "It's as though he's dead already", a spokesperson said. "It was the same last time everyone thought he was dead, sales rocketed until people found out he was alive and then the returns department was on overtime. I hope he really is retiring: think of the savings on landfill".
* NB According to Bonipedia, credit for the lyrics to all Boners songs should go not to Ziggy Osmington but to the group's contra-bass bassoonist and West Chelborough University English graduate Richard "Dick" Polkinghorne. "Ziggy never wrote a lyric in his life", Polkinghorne told Gathering Moss Magazine in 1998, "he's just a glorified frontman who came up with the group's name. He's only a Boner because he stands out like a sore thumb. The guy's a basket case - always has been, always will be. I mean what's with the boxing glove for Christ's sake?" A more recent Bonipedia edit from Berlin's Professor Stefan Zweig-UrinKunstler adds "So that twat doctor's just talking crap".
Buy the Double-sided Single HERE
The cover of Ziggy and the Boners latest double-sided single Before I Forget. Do the two tracks reveal more than at first appears? Quite possibly not.
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