Happy Mondays "Tart Tart"
Happy Mondays "Tart Tart", originally from the "Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)" album (1987), produced by John Cale. My personal favorite, and quite possibly one of the best songs the Mondays ever recorded. Video taken from the Pills n Thrills special edition CD/DVD.
Many sources describe how the first verse is about Martin Hannett leaving factory records (Tony Wilson describes it on the "24 Hour Party People" DVD commentary). As for the second, this is taken from Bez' "Freaky Dancing": " 'Tart Tart' was the single that was goin to make us massive. It was a personal favourite of mine an I was counfounded as to why it didn't do better than it did. It was met with pretty decent reviews, but maybe the public needed a little longer to acquire the taste for X's growlin, cryptic lyrics an the rawness of the musical accompaniment. I had a special affinity for the tune because of the references to one of the very first people we had met in the early Haçienda days. Her name was Tart Tart.
She was a strange type of woman, an old groupie from the 60s, somethin she wasn't adverse to admittin. The drug culture of the hippie era hadn't treated her too well an she was lookin pretty rough an haggard by the time she met me an X, but we liked her friendly disposition an slightly kooky ways. She looked upon herself as an abstract artist but I think her main way of carvin a livin was by wheelin an dealin on the darker side of life. The first time we came across each other, me an X were sportin freshly barbered skinheads an were bobbin an weavin about the club in our usual fashion, up to no good. She told us a spooky little tale of how a few months earlier she'd painted a picture of two young skinheads in The Haçienda, an hadn't known why the image had taken over her canvas at the time. It transpired that our meetin crystallized the meanin of the paintin for her: she took it as fate that she was destined to take us an the rest of the band into her life. She did so willinly an often laid drugs on the lads in times when money was short.
One weekend we'd called by as usual to pick up a bag of goodies, promisin to pay up on the followin Monday. She was happy with the set-up an we went away thinkin no more of it, but the chillin reality of the situation was that we were never goin to get to pay her the debt.
On returnin with the dough a few days later, there was no reply at the door. We went back a few times over the next couple of days but again there was no response. Eventually, another friend of ours went round an forced the door. Everyone was startin to get a little anxious by now as she hadn't contacted anyone for some time. He found her dead at the bottom of the stairs. She'd died of a brain tumour an was black an blue from throwin herself around, smashin her head on the walls an ultimately down the stair in a desperate attempt to stop the pain an agony. The police assumed they had a murder case on their hands because of the extent of her bodily injuried an even dragged the lad who'd found her off for an interview as prime suspect. Obviously, the post mortem put the record straight.
Her sudden an lonely death was a shock for the band as we'd all come to look upon her as a special an unusual friend. Her death gave rise to the immortal lines in the song:
Now T T, she laid it on,
An a few days later she's gone,
So it's back to the womb,
To get drowned, drowned, drowned, drowned, drowned...
The poignant reality of the words touched me, they meant so much, like I found most of the lyrics in those days did. They were all taken from our collective life experiences, with X effortlessly shapin the form of the language to fit the tunes. To me they were classic words that spoke volumes about the times we were livin in."
