Money Matters
Four verses spelling out ways in which money destroys whatever it encounters, using real stories. Some of the scenes are bleak, but verse 3 concerns the Italian artist Piero Manzoni, and one of his pieces consisting of cans containing his own excrement. Intended as a joke to highlight how the modern art world is simply an arena for consumerism, these cans are now considered serious works, changing hands for vast sums. In the end, does anyone care about anything except their monetary value?
"'Money Matters' takes the direct approach to its subject matter - perhaps too direct. The small stories prefacing the frontal assaults work better. And they're true." - (Turning Silence Into Song (songbook), p45)
“How was I to turn this weighty subject into a song? It might have been easier if I’d have been offered a hefty commission as an incentive. Fat chance. I assembled fragments, lines, images that suggested the harm money does but that approach by itself was going to be too relentless, too generalised. I needed to find particular stories, real-life stories, to temper the frontal assaults. I’m not sure the two parts fit together very well but there it is.” - LR (sleevenotes to The World Turned Upside Down (CD box set), p57)
“How was I to turn this weighty subject into a song? It might have been easier if I’d have been offered a hefty commission as an incentive. Fat chance. I assembled fragments, lines, images that suggested the harm money does but that approach by itself was going to be too relentless, too generalised. I needed to find particular stories, real-life stories, to temper the frontal assaults. I’m not sure the two parts fit together very well but there it is.” - LR (sleevenotes to The World Turned Upside Down (CD box set), p57)
Recordings
Version 1 (1999)
- Harry's Gone Fishing
- The World Turned Upside Down
- Folk the Banks Various artists compilation, containing the 1999 recording