Underground Medecin

(1)

(Your nervous system, your nervous system)
(Underground medicine, underground medicine)
 

A spark inside
Ten percent that I hide
And when it clicks
There's no resist
 

Every time I hear a new baby cry (2)
I thank my spark inside
 

And you get underground medicine
Underground medicine
I'm but a nervous system
Underground medicine
 

I found a reason not to die
A reason for the ride
The spark inside
When it hits the mind you get
Underground medicine
Underground medicine
I'm but a nervous system
Underground medicine
 

I had a psychosomatic voice
At one time it might come back (3)
Now! It's back
 

Underground medicine
Underground medicine
I'm but a nervous system
Underground medicine
 

On my pants I spilled expectorant
And the colonel shot better with 30 pints
They took his cup away
Take it away, take it away
[Used to 'ground] medicine
[Used to 'ground] medicine
[Used to 'ground] medicine

1. This is a song that is often assumed to be about drugs, although it doesn't necessarily have to be. Like much of Live at the Witch Trials, the lyrics are terse and gnomic, and admit of various interpretations.  

Paul Hanley on Twitter says "Underground Medecin" involves "a strange theory about using your body to its full potential" (see also "Fit and Working Again"). 

Dan submits: 

from "The Prestwich Horror and Other Strange Stories", interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds magazine, 31 January 1981:

(Pouncey begins his question following on from a discussion about The N.W.R.A., and MES links Totale to Lovecraft....)

Lovecraft's 'Cthulhu' Mythos you mean, Is the 'Totale' thing an offshoot of that then, what are it's origins?

"Totale started out on 'Dragnet', I mean these things can't be connected but you've heard 'Underground Medicine' on the first album which is very Burroughsesque. William Burroughs had apparently written a lot of stuff on the same theme 'Underground Medicine' going along in circuits of body abuse and body benefit and therefore you can survive forever.

I sort of visioned this thing where there would be a book called 'Underground Medicine' which would be just statements and so Roman Totale comes into that and he's a voice that the band can speak through."

And,

In his column, "Time of the Assasins," in the July 1977 issue of Crawdaddy, Burroughs uses the phrase "underground medicine": 

"In the year 2014 New York, world center for underground medicine..."

From the press release for Totale's Turns, "U.Medecin" [sic] is said to be a work by "R.Totale" [also sic]:

"I have this natural thing in me which hates following the logically obvious and detests current modes regardless of their credibility or quality"  - From U.Medecin by R.Totale XVII

^

2. Plutart points out that this is a probable reference to the devotional song "I Believe," written in by Ervin Drake, Irvin Graham, Jimmy Shirl and Al Stillman, and popularized by Jane Froman, and subsequently a number one hit for Frankie Laine:

Every time I hear a new born baby cry
Or touch a leaf or see the sky
Then I know why I believe

^

3. Martin Brahmah, in a video interview with John Robb, says MES saw a doctor for a psychosomatic voice problem during the recording of Live at the Witch Trials.

^

Underground Medecin: Fall Tracks A-Z