I thought that you were joking when you said: "I want to see you to discuss your contribution to the future of our nation's heart and soul. Six o'clock, my place, Whitehall."
Well, I arrived just after seven, but you said: "It doesn't matter, I understand your situation and your image" and I'm flattered.
"Oh, I'd just like to tell you that I love all of your albums. Could you sign this for my daughter? She's in hospital, her name is Miriam. Now I'll get down to the gist: Do you want a line of this? Are you a (sniff) socialist?"
"Now I'm doing fine
Buzzzzin' all the time
Ah, just one hit and I feel great
And I support the Welfare State
Ah, you must be a socialist
'cos you're always off out on the piss
in your private members' bar
Oh yes you are, you superstar!"
"Well you sing about common people
and the mis-shapes and the mis-fits
So can you bring them to my party
and get them all to sniff this
And all I'm really saying
is come on and rock the vote for me
All I'm really saying
is come on, roll up that note for me
Your choice in all of this is:
Do you want hits, or do you want misses?
Are you a socialist - yeah?
Socialist, yeah
Socialist, yeah
Oh yeah..."
"Oh, you can be just what you want to be
Oh, just as long as you don't try to compete with me
And we've waited such a long time
for the chance to help our own kind
So now, please come on and tow the party line
Oh, you owe it to yourself
Don't think of anybody else
and we promise we won't tell
We won't tell
We won't sell"
No we won't
No we won't
No we won't
I know you won't tell
Before Tony Blair got elected they kept ringing me up and asking me if I could count on their support, which I didn't like. This song Cocaine Socialism came to me one night around that time, in the Groucho Club, when everyone was off their heads from snorting loads of coke. They were probably going to vote Labour, myself included. But it wasn't even champagne socialism any more, it was cocaine socialism and where do socialist principles fit into the most egotistical drug that makes you not give a shit about anyone else? You don't even want to listen to anyone else talk. But I bottled it in the end and rewrote it as Glory Days, which was about nothing really.