TV Smith's Explorers: Tomahawk Cruise (1980)

Clive Product: Do you see yourself following in that "folk" tradition of early Dylan or Billy Bragg?”

TV Smith: “I suppose. That tradition and spirit of using songs to protest has been around a lot longer than Dylan or Bragg though - I think we're all following a tradition that's been around in music forever.”

Following the Adverts (more HERE) dissolution in 1979, TV Smith (more HERE), remained unbowed. He continue the slower, more electronic feel of the Advert's second album, Cast of Thousands but his burning anger remained undiminished. Some songs from this more experimental era, such as "Tomahawk Cruise", positively explode with righteous indignation.





"Tomahawk Cruise" still oozes all the piss, vinegar and bile of punk just with less speed and distortion. I mean, how many many songs are written from the perspective of a long-range, all-weather, subsonic cruise missile (even back in the eighties when such nuclear angst was ubiquitous)? The song's lyrics, like most of TV's narratives, force you lean in to catch each word and savour their devastation:

Tomahawk Cruise

I woke up this morning, felt completely at ease
Put on my clothes and had something to eat
No desire to act, no desire to move
Unless I get a reason from you

My name is Tomahawk Cruise

We wear our problems, we wear our fate
But we have to eat what we put on the plate
Some people wallow in hate, some wallow in fear
Neither two are recommended around here

If you so wish I could get nasty
Create all kinds of disasters
I know things run away with you
But at the cusp, you have to choose
Between living and Tomahawk Cruise

Now in my heart something starts
Down in my heart something starts…

I get your message, I understand
Break down the barriers as fast as you can
I dream unnatural power, unnatural grace
Bricks and wreckage all over the place

I change my clothes for a uniform
Throw caution to the wind and walk into the storm
At the cusp, you choose
Between living and Tomahawk Cruise

I look at myself - what is this body?
A few limbs, stock responses
A heart turned to steel
I just love the attention
I’m in the news!

You choose,
Between living and Tomahawk Cruise

TV Smith

This is no paint-by-numbers protest song musically either, listen how Colin Stoner's bass carries the song, while Mel Wesson's keyboards add a mechanical menace. It's a gross injustice that the failure of the Explorer's would send Smith to The Wilderness for years to come. Fortunately, between Ojit Records expanded re-issue earlier in the decade and Easy Action Records' new even-more expanded (2 CD's!) version, we may may now finally see the wrong of TV's banishment righted.





MRML Readers give us your take on TV's Explorers and tell us if you want to hear more!


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