Papal Visit

(1)

Hosanna (2)
First impressions...
Hosanna
Papal did visit, human trash
Waste
Prostrate, yellow-white umbrellas
Roam around
Universal love..for them...for the....
Papal visit
Human trash roam the town
Woke up by hosanna
Helicopters strip the land
First impressions will be the last
Woke up at 2
The man from iron 
What happened to the man from iron (3)
Mediator one
Human trash
Come for the visit
Eating lay bread
From what they come to call it
Sound like a yokel
For the first time
First impression will be the last...

Peace resounds
Lay bread Is in the nose and mouth
For the first time In the assassin line
Papal visit In the town
For the first time
Understood the assassin line Is all around

1. In the spring of 1982, Pope John Paul II visited Britain. It was the first time a sitting Pope visited the UK, and the trip was almost cancelled due to the war over the Falkland Islands (as a compromise, the Pope also visited Argentina immediately afterward, and he did not meet with Margaret Thatcher while in Britain). Some of MES's patriotic views about the war in the Falklands are recorded under my entry for "Marquis Cha-Cha." As for his views about the Pope, The Story of the Fall reproduces the following quote:

"This Polish boy he really frightens - no - disgusts me. I mean he's reeking of socialist dictatorship, man, he's propogating populist myths. 'The People's Pope' - but he's really quite insidious. The guy stinks."

From Renegade (thanks to vegetables for finding it and typing it up):

 "I was living near Heaton Park. The Pope came to visit the park in 1982; that's where the song 'Papal Visit' on [i]Room to Live[/i] originated from. I was in the top flat for a couple of weeks before I moved on. I could see all these Jesuits in the gardens below, rooting through the trees for bombs and things. But the best part was when this Loyalist from Belfast ran at the Pope with this big butcher's knife. All these bishops and cardinals struggled him to the ground. He'd come flying out of The Ostrich pub, just over the road from the park. He was pissed out of his head, draped in a flag - I think he'd just swiped a rugby flag off the wall - Sedgley Park rugby! It's a big Catholic area, Prestwich. The last thing they wanted to see was this Geoff Capes type with a load of lager in his gut and a kitchen sword in his hand. It was a very sensitive period."

From the Room to Live press statement: "PAPAL VISIT was mostly recorded less than one quarter a mile away from same visit to Manchester during it, and the birds in the trees can be heard embracing their human equals."

Joe McKechnie suggests experimental composer Philip Johnson, whose work is sometimes described as "Industrial," may be an influence. MES mentions Johnson's Radio City in his 1981 contribution to the NME feature "Portait of the Artist as a Consumer." And Dan reports that Johnson's One Forty Three is on The Disparate Cogscienti, the compilation MES put out on Cog Sinister in 1988. See More Information for a reproduction of the NME feature.

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2. Hosanna (sometimes spelled "Hosannah", Hebrew Hosha-nah) literally means "save (us)," but it is most often used in a liturgical setting as a term that connotes something like "praise the Lord." This usage is very old; for instance, in Mark 11:10, we find "Hosanna in the highest" (Hosanna en tois hupsystois), which wouldn't make much sense as the imperative form of "save."

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3. From Russell: "Man of Iron was Andrzej Wajda's anti-Govt film from the Solidarity period (though dealing with a slightly earlier period) and seems a good match for a different (lay, anti-authoritarian) view of Poland and popes.

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Papal Visit: Fall Tracks A-Z