Pheasants

Popular music has its ups and downs, there are more nuances of quality and poor quality than in the best catalog of industrial paints, shameful and glorious moments, but only on extremely rare occasions are there those timeless products that once in a few years will grace the stage with their existence, will step out of the framework of the popular and the banal and will enter the head to stay there forever. One of those songs that time (as well as the Pyramids in Giza) can do nothing to, on the contrary, it seems fresher with each passing decade is the unforgettable song ``When the Pheasants Fly.'' If Oscar Wilde were alive, he would certainly be proud of Branimir ``Johnny'' Štulić who managed to create a musical equivalent of the literary phenomenon of Dorian Gray who remained eternally young due to the reflection of his sins on the canvas with his portrait that ``absorbed'' the effects of aging.

`Pheasants` remain young due to the reflection of social sins on the canvas called `Human Life` on which generations of psychopaths and sociopaths known as `rulers` `paint`, and the effects of suffering absorb the `masses` in all their unconscious stupidity - thus protecting the poem from aging and ensuring its eternal relevance.

The song originates from the Yugoslav `new wave` band Azra, from the time when new waves were splashing the shores of sound producers from Germany to Ireland and from Yugoslavia to Japan. Although it appeared as an unplanned offspring of the Tsunami of Punk Rock, New Wave music left behind fanatical songs, perhaps precisely because it came as a result of musicians who took their first steps in Punk, with somewhat clearer minds than their Punk colleagues - getting their act together - managed to create something like this:

Why are you looking for charisma in yourself you stuffed bird?

possibility of enlightenment

it separates you from the desire for a mission

scent of the dirt

concentric circles of stupidity and ignorance like rings 

I don't understand it anymore

it seems to me that it is dead guards

and it is not necessary

to not be a sinkhole until the end

what is happening when dead pheasants fly above our heads

When dead pheasants fly above our heads

And what happens when?

desperation grabs people

when despair inevitably turns into regret

looking at the contours of the scene from a distance

water colors come to mind

dirty hands wash off quickly...

Even if this was Azra's only song (and of course it isn't), even if they were a typical one hit wonder (and they weren't) and if by any chance they stopped making music right after the release of ``Pheasants'' - that would be enough to beat the time and send the message. And who did they send that message to? One interpretation could be the following...

Why are you looking for charisma in yourself, you stuffed bird?

The possibility of enlightenment?

It separates you endlessly from the desire for a mission?

The smell of the earth?

Concentric circles of stupidity and ignorance like rings?

I don't understand any further. 

It seems to me that it is a dead guard.

Most often, the unsightly, physical and moral freaks at the top of the system are in a panicked search for instant charisma with which to hypnotize the electorate, stuffed birds, stuffed drones of Evil and destruction, self-proclaimed Messiahs and saviors of the 'people', conveyor belts for throwing out empty phrases and platitudes. And behind all that, in all its splendor, concentric circles of stupidity and ignorance blare like rings, the naked and ugly reality, sometimes difficult to understand behind the false shine of cathode rays and liquid crystals and the dead guard of legions of fools ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of other people's interests.

I said to myself ``my God'' 

so much demagoguery systematically arranged in artillery salvos

so many stolen thoughts behind which there is nothing but hatred, vanity, power

and how much corruption needs to be poured out at our feet

and how the essence of deception has been rendered unrecognizable!

The artillery barrage is a lovely phenomenon, it is the so-called ``artillery preparation'' of the terrain that is later to be attacked by infantry. Hundreds and even thousands of cannons, howitzers and mortars continuously fire on a certain territory for hours and days in order to destroy everything that could be a threat to the infantry. And if instead of grenades, demagogy is fired, the result is no less devastating. Of course, expecting originality from the elite is ridiculous, with rare exceptions - it is a rehearsal of millennial tricks, recycled who knows how many times. What is sad is the fact that nothing can dislodge the slave from his obsession with slavery. A politician can rape his child, he can kill him, rob him, destroy him - nothing will move the believer from his faith in the system. And that system, despite everything, should be worshiped as the Golden Calf and Big Brother were never worshiped, because it is based on the propagated moral argument for its own goodness and righteousness as well as the pseudo-historical assessment of inevitability.

and the river was not a river at the beginning

and it is not necessary

to not be a sinkhole until the end

what happens

when dead pheasants fly above our heads

when dead pheasants fly and not a single one falls!

And the ``general public`` has not always been a collection of Zombies and does not have to be like that until the end of the world despite the constant flying of dead, lifeless and meaningless ``greatnesses`` above their heads. ``Greatnesses`` who despite having no pulse and a total absence of content still fly like Eagles and have no intention of falling to the ground, simply float on the clouds of stupidity in paradise. Lucifer, although known as the essence of evil, was still an exceptionally fair entity who at least had the virtue to fall headlong to the ground after his wings were clipped. Or did gravity do its thing?!

And what happens when?

desperation grabs people

when despair inevitably turns into regret

looking at the contours of the scene from a distance

water colors come to mind

dirty hands wash off quickly...

The finger of blame must point to oneself, never to the perpetrator.

Self consume your woes, as the mad country poet John Clare would say. Hands are always washed, a procedure popularized by Pontius Pilate, the pragmatic governor of Judea. Today, hand washing is expressed through the fatuous myth of the `Social Contract` and the no less idiotic one of the `will of the voters`.

And perhaps all this was in vain and no one will hear the message? A completely possible and realistic assumption. And completely wrong because the messages that emanate from the depths of history are rarely created for an existing audience. Or for an audience at all. They just were.

In fact i cannot shake off the feeling that people creating all them amazing stuff did not give a fuck if anybody was nodding their heads understandingly...or not. For if everyone was born out of the same stock, people would perish from sheer boredom in the midst of whatever class they belong to.

Meaning in life never comes cheap.

(Roger Mortis, 086)