The Telephone Man

from A New Cure For The Old Clap by Toytown Asylum

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about

The original Telephone Man was written at the end of 1985 after the demise of the first lineup of Toytown Asylum after only four rehearsals. The music was recorded by Jim Riley on a Korg MonoPoly synth multitracked onto a four track, to which I added our most extreme effects and ranted the tale of my first and only love triangle which lasted two nights…the sex was crap and it kept an unhappy couple together for years afterwards, but the track had something about it…kind of a cross between Suicide & Cabaret Voltaire… On the plus side it was singled out from our demo tape and gained our first and perhaps only positive review from Gary Yates in Baz Clark’s Slipped Disc fanzine…And the tune was so simple I managed to sketch it out as a demo many years later and persuade Muff to finish it properly.

lyrics

I’m the telephone man
I can’t understand
The things you’re doing to me
Sh-sh-sh shaking my confidence daily

I can’t leave you alone
What might you do when I’m not home?
I’m the telephone man
Which man? How could you?

I’ll defy you and deny you
Can’t believe a word you said
While devils leave their stains
Inside our marital bed

So I weave myself inside you
Surrender myself to you
I’m the telephone man
A fake, forsake, remade make man

Friends aren’t what they’re supposed to be
Can’t be had for love or money
It’s my plan deceived me
I hate you, believe me

Shall we sit and watch TV
While I question you again
Shall we get screwed up on drugs
Where dya put them? - how corrupt

It’s stupid, it’s madness
This weeping in shackles
Its far behind passion
In thought, in action
In jolty re-reeling of yesterday’s worth

And I never forget how
You always let me down
Where nothing’s ever at
Maybe just seems like that

If I terrify you, it’s all because of you
If I ever hurt you
It’s all because of you
If I ever fail you
It’s all because of you

Kneel baby, thats good
That’s real good
Kneel baby, I forgive
Kneel, kneel
Work, crawl
Rub you in it all

I'll never forget how
You always let me down
Where nothing's ever at
or maybe just seems like that?

credits

from A New Cure For The Old Clap, released February 10, 2021
Music - Muff
Words - Diston
Thanks to Jim Riley

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about

Toytown Asylum UK

"middle aged & fucked, stay on the drugs, never grow up...just wanna be...yeah..."

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