In Praise of....Peggy Suicide by Julian Cope

I recommend avoiding Cope live, unless you enjoy hearing at least as much "I'm mad, me" wibbling as music.

And Cope live was entirely entertaining both times I saw him.

"JULIAN COPE... YOU'RE INSANE!".

I busted a gut everytime i heard it because the concept of an artist saying that about himself in a song was just a gutbusting proposition in general.

C'mon split my head wide open, scoop out a little of my BRAIN! Need some identification? JULIAN COPE....the very SANE!"

Trust me.

I've seen the man many times live too... On the "St Julian", "Jehovahkill" and "20 Mothers" tours, plus "An evening with..." in '97 and - bizzarely - the opening of the Cardiff Virgin Megastore in 1991, where he played a set of "Peggy Suicide" songs in the main shopping centre auditorium - managing to include the names of the surrounding shops into an improvisation around "Leperskin", then did a record signing, during which he signed my copy of "PS" with "To Rob, Rock on, dude! love Julian". It's a very very cherished item.

I found an Island promo cassette one day on a stall in Carnaby street, "Julian Cope Demos", and bought it.

Basically, most of the Peggy Suicide album, with one or two exceptions/differences..

"was down when it rains" same version except it's Julian singing...
other stuff, different mixes atcet...
Oh yeah, and the 'title track' for "Peggy Suicide". Called "Junk-Kie". Did this ever get released?

(insert own punchline ...)

Hmmmm....doesn't ring any bells for me. How is it?

Still a great, great record, and if you don't own it, you're dead to me.

Still gives me shivers when Cope's voice ascends for that first chorus of Double Vegetation.

Beautifully worded.

Still gives me shivers when Cope's voice ascends for that first chorus of Double Vegetation.

Absolutely. Easily my favorite moment of the album.

The irony of course is that this album is fucking GREAT to drive to.

i remember driving home having just bought the import cd of peggy suicide... i couldn't listen to it because my car only had a tape deck, but just looking at it i knew it was going to be fucking fantastic. the b-sides, while not great, are highly entertaining. except the remixed head called heed: of penetration and the city-dweller which is great.

i think jehovahkill and autogeddon are just as good (if not better than) peggy suicide though. especially jehovahkill. a couple horrible songs, but i'll take "the tower" or "s.t.a.r.c.a.r." over "safesurfer" even though i love them all. 20 mothers and interpreter are much more iffy.

hi keith!

Picked this up last night and, after a couple full listens, I'm wondering where this album has been my whole life. Really strikes me as a parallel album to Sign 'o' the Times, a double album overflowing with ideas, not merely genre exercises but fully realized songs and ideas. In the sound I hear bits of Bowie, Nick Cave, Peter Murphy (all things I'm used to listening to, of course -- I'm sure there are influences I'm not picking up on) and also Bunnymen/McCulloch and of course the Teardrops and '60s psych-pop and on and on it goes. What an album!

super album but 'safesurfer' really is the highlight

think i might marginally prefer 'jehovahkill'

In the sound I hear bits of Bowie, Nick Cave, Peter Murphy (all things I'm used to listening to, of course -- I'm sure there are influences I'm not picking up on)

So there's this guy called Scott Walker...

good album,Fried is better though

Fried is good, but Peggy Suicide is better. I think of it as Cope's first album, with everything before it being removed from history.

Sunspots, The Laughing Boy and Land Of Fear are pretty much the apex of Cope imo (Gimme Back My Flag and Safesurfer notwithstanding)

"Not Raving But Drowning" ftw. Side 4 a bit underwhelming like all proper double albums.

So there's this guy called Scott Walker...

Hey now, I'm a big fan. Obviously Scott's a big influence on Bowie/Murphy/Cave but I didn't pick up on that directly in Cope's work on this album. But if Ned says it is so, then it is obviously so.

Ned, what are your fav. Scott releases?

Cope talks about how he was a total Walker fiend for the early eighties, and he and Bill Drummond compiled an album of his songs for release on the Zoo label. So it's more a continuing influence than anything else.

As for my own favorites, I'm pretty canonical I guess -- the best Walker Brothers stuff, the first four albums, his Nite Flight tracks, the three solo albums from the eighties on, etc. etc.

Ah, interesting stuff. Thanks. I obviously need to check out more of Cope's solo work.

I remember liking Jehovahkill a little better than Peggy, but it's beeen a while

I actually sold off a pile of Julian Cope albums yesterday. I'm still a zealous fan, but let's be honest.... the man hasn't released anything worth listening to since 1995's Twenty Mothers (and even that was patchy).

Peggy Suicide, though, remains unimpeachable.

Actually, I quite liked last year's Black Sheep, an album not so far removed from Jehovakill.

Peggy Suicide should receive the deluxe 2CD treatment later this year, by the way.

I thought it already had!

Apparently not. Still interested how much of my DemoCassette will be on it (see above)..

To make up, here's a story I just nicked off his latest communique off his site:

Ladies’n’gentlemen, I present my new interpretation of that hoary old story ‘The Princess & The Pea’, here re-visioned and re-named:

The Princess & the Sixteenth: One day, a scallywag who lived in Liverpool 8 lost a sixteenth oz. of squidgy black hash but copped off with a beautiful woolyback. The woolly was blond and sexy with a great sense of humour, but she couldn’t sleep on the stack of mattresses that the scally offered her for the night. Nine of them she counted and removed one in the hope that it would make her rest easier. Eight of them now she counted, yet another did she remove, again in the hope that she would rest easier. And over & over she repeated this procedure, but over & over did she fidget as though something below were thrusting into her skin. And finally, in the wee hours of that sleepless night, did she remove the ninth and last mattress, only to discover - to the great delight of the scally - that very sixteenth of squidgy black recently gone missing had rolled under the mattresses. Why, only a princess could have such a sensitive disposition as to notice something so minor, thought the scally; and he skinned up a big one immediately after he’d shagged the ass off her.

I got a note where the Peggy Suicide deluxe version was listed for an early September release but who knows really.

I read both his biographies recently, and was inspired to finally pick up a copy of Peggy Suicide. It didn't really sink in yet, will have to go back. I didn't think I would make it through both books, as there's only so many cliched rock 'n' roll stories one can take. However, Cope injects enough entertaining flights of fancy to balance out the typical romances and debauchery, that I hung in until the end. I got new insights into both his Teardrop Explodes songs and his solo work, although I learned my old high school favorite, Saint Julian is only available as a $50 Japanese import. Dang!

Wha? Is that true about St. Julian? I have a copy of it.

I Think Fried is his only 80's solo album currently still in print.

Here it is:

PEGGY SUICIDE 2CD Deluxe - European release date: September 4th

TRACKLIST:
1 Pristeen
2 Double Vegetation
3 East Easy Rider
4 Promised Land
5 Hanging Out and Hung Up On the Line
6 Safesurfer
7 If You Loved Me At All
8 Drive, She Said
9 Soldier Blue
10 You...
11 Not Raving But Drowning
12 Head
13 Leperskin
14 Beautiful Love
15 Uptight
16 Western Front 1992 C.E.
17 Hung Up and Hanging Out To Dry
18 The American Lite
19 Las Vegas Basement
Unitno: 2
1 Easty Risin [East Easy Rider Remix]
2 Ravebury Stones
3 Love [L.U.V.] [Beautiful Love Remix]
4 Dragonfly
5 Heed: of Penetration and the City-Dweller [Head Remix]
6 Bring Cherhill Down [Vocal Version]
7 Safesurfer [1991 Tour Single]
8 If You Loved Me At All[1991 Tour Single]
9 Butterfly E
10 Straw Dogs
11 Anyway At All

I have a bunch of JCope demos from this time, including a "title Track", and none of that's here.

Basically, cd 2 is just b-sides (while Uptight has been added to the original tracklist, it was previously available only on the lp version).

"Uptight" was on the cassette originally as well. But yeah -- some stuff seems missing.

Is it probable Cope isn't giving Virgin the rights to anything they didn't already release, thus we get promos and b-sides while demos and things Cope fans want stay in Julian's hands? Maybe he'll put out something through his own label covering the birth processes of Peggy Suicide.

Second question - is this thing only going to be a stupidly expensive import, or is it getting released Stateside? I'd love to have "Uptight" on something besides cassette, but c'mon.

I'd imagine that if it was up to Cope, the re-release just wouldn't be happening, being that he is, after all, a self-styled "forward-looking mofo."

Did he have any input or contribute in any way to the Jehovahkill deluxe version a few years back? I haven't seen or heard it (or even looked at a tracklist, come to think of it).

Neither me.

Thanks for the help Alex!

This looks very nice but not sure if I'll shell out for a $25+ import.

Well, he's always announced the re-releases on his site, so..

He's no Morrissey slamming his ex-labels, but it's a shame that the Peggy Suicide remaster is entirely previously released, esp. when people know other stuff is out there.

"Did he have any input or contribute in any way to the Jehovahkill deluxe version a few years back? I haven't seen or heard it (or even looked at a tracklist, come to think of it)"

Yes, he and Mick Houghton wrote the (quite funny) liner notes. The Jehovakill bonus cd (see tracklist below) was again based on b-sides and Ep's, but I never had that material so the deluxe version was pretty good for me (it also included a 20-minutes version of Poet Is Priest that I cant remember if it was previously released):

Titles on disc 2
1.: Nothing
2.: I Have Always Been Here Before (13th Floor Elevators cover)
3.: This Is My Kin
4.: Michael Rother
5.: Gogmagog
6.: Gone
7.: Vivien
8.: You Gotta Show
9.: Sqwubbsy The Olmec
10.: Sizewell B
11.: Paleface
12.: Free
13.: Poet Is Priest (full length)
14.: Starry Eyes

I found that version of "Poet Is Priest" on some blog - it had no attributions, so didn't know it was released on this. Very good song.

That Julian was involved bodes well for Peggy Suicide. But I really don't want to spend $30+ for an album I've already purchased in two configurations. Grr.

I think I paid $1 for Peggy Suicide the last time I bought it.

^ from the titles there's a bunch of previously unreleased stuff on that Jehovahkill 2nd disc (at least, I don't recognise half of them)

As far as a supporting material compilation goes, the Peggy bonus disc is actually pretty good! Most people won't have any of that stuff, let's face it.

The problem with the bonus disc of the Peggy Suicide deluxe edition is that while all that stuff was previously only available on vinyl, most of it kind of sucks. Heed, the Head remix, is pretty good, but the rest of it is meh.

Disagree! All the remixes are decent to ace, the two demos off the tour 7” are interesting, and half the b-sides are totally good*. The worst three tracks are stuck away at the end of the disc, too.

*FSVO “good” based on leftover-Peggy-Suicide-stylee wanky jam noodles

Honestly, I like even weirder stuff like Straw Dogs and Anyway At All, and I'm just disappointed that they didn't find enough space to include a silly little song like Bagged-Out Ken.

ps the Jehovakill bonus disc is excellent and absolutely on par with the album: Neu-like jams, spooky acoustic sketches, off-kilter krautpunk...its very good.

I wasn't that taken with J-Kill, it would seem I'd enjoy the bonus disc more.

What a mad album.

put it on while I did laundry this morning, still a fun rollercoaster ride through all sorts of stuff... Leperskin and Las Vegas Basement sounding especially nice.

I did mention a JC demo cassette upthread, I did eventually sell it to a super fan who sent me a complete analysis of each track, most of which I had thought were the same as eventually released with three or four exceptions. Turns out they were all different except for two or three exceptions.

It did get a write up in Record Collector a few years later. Still unheard by the genpub, not even on bootleg or download.

I still have my copyoff, obviously.

share that shit with the rest of the class

was always annoyed they left "Uptight" off the deluxe CD edition

I loved this when it came out. Still feels to me like the pinnacle of his output

They should have added "Jung kie" to the deluxe, but never mind.

Never got why people praise this album over Jehovahkill and Autogeddon, both of which I greatly prefer, but I ought to give this another listen soon regardless

I prefer Jehovahkill too, but still!

The run from the China Doll EP through Interpreter is all pretty much top tier Julian Cope. I don't like 20 Mothers quite as much as the others but that's just me.

I hadn't notice until yesterday's drive that "Safesurfer" and Roxy's "If There is Something" share DNA.