The Mercy Beat

I've still got my copy of The The's stunning Infected: The Movie on VHS tape, but it's been many many years since I've actually been able to play the thing. Legal and licensing entanglements mean that a DVD or digital release is unlikely in the near future, but a lucky few (sadly not including me) did get to see it on the big screen back in 2016 with a 30th anniversary screening at London’s ICA. A short but fascinating documentary about the film was unexpectedly released on The The's official website on Valentine's Day.

I remember seeing the Infected: The Movie's TV premiere on Channel 4 in December 1986. I'd bought Infected (on vinyl, with limited edition 'torture' sleeve) the month before and I became obsessed with the album. Experiencing the videos took the songs - and Infected as a whole - to another level.

 

The album and the film closes with The Mercy Beat, filmed in Iquitos, Peru and La Paz in Bolivia. Directed by Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson, it's an incredible visual imagining of Matt Johnson's lyrics and music, including some tense on-the-fly scenes filmed during a political rally. Johnson later recalled the filming of scenes in the midst of the crowd:

 

"Someone produced a snake which I was grappling with, and I hate snakes. A monkey bit me, and then me and this guy, who I'd only just met, cut each other and we became blood brothers, rubbing blood over each other's face, stuff like that."

 

Whilst filming in the Amazon jungle, Johnson's drug experience was further expanded by an introduction to hallucinogenic concoctions used by the indigenous tribes. This dislocated, out of body experience permeates the entire video album and The Mercy Beat brilliantly captures this. 

In lieu of a re-release, you can currently piece together Infected: The Movie via various sources on YouTube and I'll possibly revisit the entire album in a future post. In the meantime, I'm pulling out the old vinyl - now crackly and in a cat-scratched sleeve - for an airing this weekend. There's a high wind blowing...

 

The Mercy Beat: The The (1986)

 

There's a high wind blowing and the stars are shining bright
Oh what a night, this is gonna be
I think I'll let the world sleep without me
I got one eye open, one eye closed

And my thin body's trembling beneath the bedclothes
My hearts beating against the roof of my mouth

It's almost time to get out of this house

 
I got one hand on the radio, one hand on the wheel
I got my right foot on the floorboard

I'm preparing to kill or be killed

 
There's a high wind blowing and the stars are shining bright

And the rain upon the tarmac

Helps me sail through the traffic lights
I'm heading down to the dock of the bay

To feel the power of the waves
I'm gonna move up close to that wind

And wrestle with the thoughts solitude always brings

You see, I'm stuck between hell and the deep blue sea

And I know that water's sucked under better men than me
I was just another western guy

With desires that couldn't be satisfied 

One day, I asked the angels for inspiration

But the devil bought me a drink

And he's been buying them ever since

 
He's had the liquor on my tongue

Feel like the sea upon the sand
He's had me signing confessions

Feom this shaking hand,
He's had me struggling to hang onto hope

Like a drunken sailor in a tugboat
With a bottle of vodka in my overcoat

And my dog eared bible lost--overboard

 
You see he tricked me into temptation

So I've tricked him into this confrontation
I never said I was the man I appeared to be
Not the flesh wrapped around the bones of necessity
Or the soul on fire, scribbling thoughts for posterity
I'm gonna have little Lucifer, running off to Purgatory

With his tail between his legs
I'm gonna teach him a lesson 

He ain't ever gonna forget

All the vultures & crows are fixing up some tombstones
But they won't be chewing the meat off my bones

 
There's a high wind blowing and the stars are shining bright
Me and him are gonna have a little knife fight

In the bowels of the big city skyline
Oh, this feeling inside runs dark and deep 

Tonight my hearts not thumping 

...A Mercy Beat

 
I was just another western guy
With desires that couldn't be satisfied

 

What a night this is gonna be

The world can sleep without me 

What a night this is gonna be

The world can sleep without me 

What a night this is gonna be

The world can sleep without me