Plekhanov

Mayo Thompson and Christine Kozlov performing "Plekhanov" in And Now for Something Completely Different (1976)

Lyrics

Who's learned the language Of the Internationale?

The granma had a personnel Crazy enough to eschew Historic investments — Of which there were few Locally

Who's learned the language Of the Internationale?

Nobody's crazy enough Locally — Nor can they be In a way that Obviates pathology The crazy are consigned, then To third-world iconography

Who? What? When? How? What for? Act, agency, scene And actor Is hating something communally (It’s clear To volunteers.)

Our 'conversation' Has volunteered For seventeen years Plekhanov A priori

Neither anticipation Nor fulfilment Is realistic In dialectic

Who was ever disowned By his Granma?

Chronology

• Corrected Slogans
  • Christine Kozlov - vocals
  • Mayo Thompson - piano
  • Too Dark to Read

• And Now for Something Completely Different
  • Christine Kozlov - vocals
  • Mayo Thompson - vocals, organ

• Kangaroo?
  • Mayo Thompson - vocals, piano
  • Lora Logic - saxophone
  • Allen Ravenstine - synthesizer
• Shotgun Wedding
  • Mayo Thompson - vocals

Retrospectives

Art & Language, 1981

We’ve learned the words of The Internationale – they are inflated and overwrought. The discourse of the cultured (and that includes the musical) left has volunteered. For what? A loquaciously theorised exile from the substantive tasks of the class struggle.

Interpretations

Georgi Plekhanov

Live recordings

Show
August 2, 1995	vocal: Jim O'Rourke
September 23, 1995	video, vocal: Jim O'Rourke (as Gastr del Sol)