Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 30-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
In this week’s column, I continue to compare songs on Calico Kills The Cat with songs on our new album, Empathy For The Evil, from start to finish. See notes from Sept. 6, 2014.
9. In “12 Murders” (Calico Kills The Cat, 1989), Kelly Green is not concerned about the effect of rejection on the erection of a man who is about to sexually assault her. She stabs him. He dies. It would seem that she deals with 11 other instances of harassment the same way.
9. “Odele’s Bath” (Empathy For The Evil, 2014) The lyrics are directly out of my novel The Black Dot Museum Of Political Art in which various characters’ backgrounds are examined in an attempt to explain their adult proclivities including, in this case, the mother of a narcissist named Martin Lewis. Odele grew up on a potato farm, which she fled at 17 years of age. The rituals of bath night allow Odele some privacy in which she brandishes a soot-blackened poker, as she imagines murdering her father with an awl.
“12 Murders” from Calico Kills The Cat (K, 1989; Matador, 1991; Smarten Up!, 2003) (download):
