Evidently Chickentown

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Clarke in 1979 JohnCooperClarke1979profile.jpg
Clarke in 1979

"Evidently Chickentown" is a poem by the English performance poet John Cooper Clarke. The poem uses repeated profanity to convey a sense of futility and exasperation. [1] Featured on Clarke's 1980 album Snap, Crackle & Bop , the realism of its lyrics is married with haunting, edgy arrangements. [2]

The poem bears a resemblance to a 1952 work titled "The Bloody Orkneys", written by Andrew James Fraser Blair, author and journalist, under the pseudonym Captain Hamish Blair. [3] [4] [5] In 2009 Clarke said he "didn't consciously copy it. But I must have heard that poem, years ago. It's terrific." [6] Clarke appears as himself reciting "Evidently Chickentown" in the 2007 British film Control , directed by Anton Corbijn. [7]

"Evidently Chickentown" appears in Danny Boyle's 2001 film Strumpet , [8] in Jacques Audiard's 2012 film Rust and Bone, [9] during the transition between the subject matter of parts 1 and 2 in the 2021 two-part documentary Tiger, and at the beginning of S1 E5 of Danny Boyle's 2022 biopic Pistol entitled "Track 5: Nancy and Sid." It was also used at the end of "Stage 5", a 2007 episode of the American television drama The Sopranos . Sean O'Neal of The A.V. Club wrote that the poem "ranks as one of the show's sharpest and most effective musical moments, somehow capturing the vexation of a New York mafia guy with the words of a British punk who's complaining about flat beer and cold chips." [10]

References

  1. ↑ Bennun, David (2006). British as a Second Language. London: Ebury Press. ISBN   9781409004677.
  2. ↑ Mills, Peter (2003). "John Cooper Clarke". In Buckley, Peter (ed.). The Rough Guide to Rock. London: Rough Guides. p. 202. ISBN   9781843531050.
  3. ↑ Blair, Hamish (1958) [First published 1952]. "The Bloody Orkneys". In Silcock, Arnold (ed.). Verse and Worse (2nd ed.). Faber and Faber Limited. p. 251. ISBN   978-0-5710-5132-8.{{cite encyclopedia}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  4. ↑ Blair, Hamish (2005). "The Bloody Orkneys". In McGovern, Una (ed.). Chambers Dictionary of Quotations. Pseudonym of Andrew James Fraser Blair 1872–1935. Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. p. 132. ISBN   0550-10085-7.
  5. ↑ Blair, Hamish. "The Bloody Orkneys". Snap Dragon: Poetry Corner. Archived from the original on 20 August 2018. Retrieved 12 February 2019.
  6. ↑ Chalmers, Robert (8 November 2009). "A life of rhyme: John Cooper Clarke, the 'punk Poet Laureate', grants Robert Chalmers his first major interview in more than 20 years". The Independent . Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  7. ↑ Murphy, Robert (17 February 2009). The British Cinema Book (3rd ed.). British Film Institute. p. 405.
  8. ↑ Smith, Rupert (2011). "Back from the Beach". In Dunham, Brent (ed.). Danny Boyle: Interviews. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. p. 68. ISBN   9781604738353.
  9. ↑ Mault, DW (31 October 2012). "Rust And Bone – Reviewed". The Double Negative. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
  10. ↑ O'Neal, Sean (6 March 2015). "A British punk captured the feelings of a Sopranos mobster". The A.V. Club . Retrieved 28 August 2017.


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