Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliche (2021) Movie Script

1
My mother was a punk rock icon.
People often ask me
if she was a good mum.
It'shardtoknowwhattosay.
Sometimes I think of an answer
she might have come up with.
"A good mum?" she'd ask.
Howbanal.
Howmundane.
Thefuneralwassurreal.
Mymemoryofitisablur.
AllthesepeopleI'dnevermet,
people who came to say goodbye
to Poly Styrene.
Thisfamousperson.
Someone so far removed
from the mother I knew.
Ifeltsicktomystomach.
I wasn't ready to be
the care-taker
ofPolyStyrene'slegacy.
I'djustlostmymum.
Therewasonlymenow.
Theonlychildshehad.
And now she'd gone and left me
todealwithitalone.
Thanks,Mum!
Iknowyourantiseptic
Yourdeodorantsmellsnice
I'dliketogettoknowyou
You're deep frozen Like the ice
She'sagerm-freeadolescent
Cleanlinessisherobsession
Cleans her teeth Ten times a day
Scrub away
Scrub away, scrub away
TheS.R.Way
My mother
taught me to love the sea,
for water is the beginning
and end of life on this Earth.
I find a kind of solace
in retracting her footsteps,
barely visible as they are
in the sands of time.
"July 3, 1976."
HastingsPier.
It's my birthday
and I'll party if I want to.
Nineteen today.
What a birthday surprise.
Tacky Day-Glo sign, Sex Pistols,
market traders,
all my Freudian peers,
cockles,winklesandmussels.
"Neverdidlikeshellfish."
"I stand centrepoint
in an almost empty ballroom.
Three Swedish babes
stared at Johnny."
It took me a long
time to go through her things.
Itwasalltoopainful.
And there was so much
to sort through...
Photos,lyrics,albums.
Things of value
and cultural importance.
ButIcouldn'tfaceit.
So,Ididn't.
Ihadherashesinabox,too.
Ikeptitinawardrobe.
She wanted me
to take them to India.
But I couldn't face
that, either.
It was about five years
after she died
that I decided to
go through everything.
I was blown away
by her artistry.
She did all the artwork
for the band herself.
I enjoyed piecing together
all the parts of her puzzle.
Building a picture
of who she'd been before me.
X-Ray Spex are
one of the best exponents
of the so-called punk
or New Wave music.
Vocalist Poly Styrene
is the punkiest.
Poly Styrene chose
her name from the yellow pages.
Otherwise Marianne Elliott,
aged 19 from Brixton,
she's thought of
by the music press
as one of the most
interesting songwriters
tosurfacefromtheNewWave.
IknowI'martificial
But don't put The blame on me
Iwasrearedwithappliances
Inaconsumersociety
One lady that's been causing
a lot of controversy
right around London,
is a lady I've got
in front of me now,
a Miss Poly Styrene.
Welcome to the program.
ThenamePolyStyrene,
was it given to you
by a publicist, or what?
No, I thought I'd use the name
of something around today,
you know, something plastic
and synthetic.
And I just looked
in the yellow pages
andthenIsawit.
- Really?
- Yeah.
So that's how the
name Poly Styrene finally was born,
- from the yellow pages phone book.
- Yeah.
Oh, wow.
It sounded alright,
'cos I thought it was
a send up of being a pop star.
It was like a little figure,
not me, being Poly Styrene.
Justplastic,disposable.
That's what pop stars
sort of meant to me,
so therefore I thought
I might as well send it up.
Long before Poly Styrene,
there was Marianne Elliott.
Likeallgoodheroines,
my mother cut her teeth
on a tough childhood.
A so-called "baby boomer"
born in '57,
and times, they were a-changing
in post-war Britain.
"Who am I? What the hell,"
I'mjustanordinarytoughkid
"fromanordinarytoughstreet."
We grew up in this
estate which was called Gosling Way.
It was one of those
old building estates,
where,inourflat,
we had a bath
in the kitchen with a lid on.
So there was not
a separate bathroom.
Therewascoalfires
in the main sitting room
and one of the bedrooms,
and in the other bedroom
there wasn't any fire at all.
Weknewwewerepoor,
but the benefit system
wasn't as such as it is today,
and my mum
had to work full time.
Shewasalegalsecretary.
Andsoinaway,
we were kind of like
the first latch-key kids.
My nanny, Joan,
was a second mother to me.
She looked after me
when Mum couldn't.
Shelookedaftereveryone,
atruematriarch.
Shewaswellspoken,upright,
but at the same time,
something of a free spirit.
She met my grandfather
at a dance.
She was surprised
when he approached her.
She wasn't
used to male attention.
When he asked her to dance,
her heart skipped a beat.
Shethoughthehadthedarkest
and saddest eyes
she'd ever seen.
Arealdapperchap,too.
Suited and booted
with impeccable style.
"Black is beautiful.
White is all right."
You're half-caste girl,
Do you wanna fight?
Black girl
carries her flick knife.
Will she cut me up
for being half white?
Thenationalfrontareafterme.
"I'm infiltrating,
can't you see?"
My mum was half-caste,
I'mquarter-caste,
mycousin'sthree-quartercaste.
Even when
I was growing up in the '90s,
these were the kinds of terms
people would use to describe you
ifyouweremixedrace.
Itannoyedthehelloutofme,
andIknowitupsetmymum,too.
It's like saying
you're not quite whole,
you're just
a part-person, a fraction.
My mum never
had no friends as such,
because they just saw her
as a black man's whore.
It was bad enough
being a single mother.
Being a single mother
with half-black children
was absolutely "Hey, hey!"
You know, the white
community shunned Nanny, really.
Join the National Front!
The National Front!
The National Front!
JointheNationalFront!
The National Front!
The National Front!
When a white person
looks at a mixed-race child,
theythink,"MyGod,
a white person
went with a black person,"
andviceversa.
It's their genes, really,
trying to preserve themselves,
because they see us as a threat
to their genetic existence.
There were
some nasty remarks sometimes.
I remember her coming home
with bruises on her legs
wheretheboyshadkickedher.
Shewasafighter,
if you said something to her,
she won't keep her mouth shut.
She's gonna
answer you back and say.
That whole mixed-race thing
would have been a fairly new
phenomena in this country.
Therewasnosocialexperiment
for black-and-white couples
having kids.
And consequently,
their kids were very confused.
Atschool,you'dbelike,
"Whatsideshouldyouplayon?"
The attitude was that
you weren't ever
really black enough
and you weren't
light-skinned enough.
You know,
you were obviously not white
andyouweren'tblackenough
to be part
of the black community.
The black kids
there, they could all say,
"We're black,
we can all stick together."
"Wedon'tlikewhitepeople."
"I could never go out
with a pork head."
But if you're half-caste
and you're with them,
youdon'treallyfeelthat,
'cos, like,
your mum might be white.
And they're
slagging off white people.
And if you
go with the white kids,
youhavetorejectyourfather.
My Grandad, Osman Mohammad Said,
wasn't around much
when she was a kid.
You could say
they were estranged.
Hespenthischildhoodyears
as a nomad
in the Somali hinterland.
Then he made his way to Yemen
to seek his fortune,
ending up as a stowaway
on a British merchant navy ship.
He worked his passage
around the world,
finally ending up
in the docklands
ofLondon'sEastEnd.
Mymumcametoresent
always having
to answer the question,
"Whereareyoufrom?"
She was a Londoner,
born and bred.
Butshewasalsobrown,
so her Britishness
was always questioned.
In the end, she started to
question it herself.
She had
this yearning for Africa.
Sheusedtodreamabout
running away
from dreary, soggy England,
wheresheneverfeltathome.
"I wanna go back to Africa"
andfindmyheritage.
Iwannalearnaboutthewarrior
andhowmyancestorlived.
'Cos all I've seen
is 'Jungle Book',
and I know
that ain't the way it looks.
Igrewupon'Tarzan',too.
Whatcanhedo?
Whatcanyoudo?
I'mgonnacrossEthiopia
andseethatancientland.
AndthenI'llgotoSomalia,
"barefootacrossthesand."
Hardly anyone
knew my mum was Somali.
Imean,mostpeopleinthe'60s
knew next to nothing
about Somalia or Somali people.
Even when I was growing up,
they didn't.
When I found
out that Poly existed,
that was, like,
such a validation for me.
I have a Somali punk icon
to look up to?
I was interested in
her story because of the difficulties
when you're growing up
between cultures.
Whenyoucometoacommunity,
you always want to learn
about the people
who'vebeenherebeforeyou.
Who've pioneered
and kicked doors down
and flattened walls
for us to come through.
Identity,that'soneofthe
current problems
at the moment, is identity.
People try to
identify with something.
Everybody'slookingdesperately
to try and identify
with one thing
instead of themselves,
and that's what that's about.
Identity!One,two,three,four!
Identity is the crisis
Can't you see?
Identity
Identity
When you look in the mirror
Do you see yourself?
Do you see yourself
On the TV screen?
Do you see yourself
In the magazine?
When you see yourself
Does it make you scream?
Obviously,
identity meant something to her,
becauseofthesong.
It was not only,
I feel, talking about
womenwithinrockmusic,
itwasalsotalkingabout
howmanyblackwomendidyousee
on the front covers
of fashion magazines?
Itwas,inawayIguess,
up to us to carve
our own identities.
She was a woman of
colour, working within an industry
full of white middle-class men
that had it all their own way.
It's really important
that people get that.
When you're mixed-race,
it's hard not to feel like
an outsider looking in
half the time.
You often feel like
you don't belong anywhere.
Butthatcanbeliberating,too.
I think my mum
got to the point where she said,
"I'mgonnacarveout
a place in
the world for myself."
And you know what?
She did.
The daily papers and the media
refer to you
as a bit of a rebel.
Um, do you think you're a rebel
in today's society?
I mean, yeah,
I suppose I am a bit really.
Yeah?
I am a poseur And I don't care
Iliketomakepeoplestare
I am a poseur And I don't care
Iliketomakepeoplestare
Back then,
itwasfairlyunusual
tobebi-racial.
In a way,
we were embraced by punk
and we were part of punk
because it was full of people
whonobodyelsewanted.
We were welcome because
we were already outsiders.
I first saw Poly at World's End.
Shehadalittlestallthere.
This was just
on the very, very edge
ofpunkbeginning,actually.
And she was sitting there
wearing...
I think it was lime-green
and orange plastic clothes,
andjustlookingreallynaughty.
It was to do
withtheteenager
andhowbrilliantwewere.
You know, just putting on
your dad's sweater
and, you know, some black tights
and running out
down the street and stuff.
Youknow,itwassomethingelse.
Even though
shewascertainlypart
ofthepunkexplosionandscene,
shehadaverydistinctlook
thatwasveryindividualtoher.
Herhome-madeclothes,
making your own records,
having your own shop,
doingityourself,
I think that
social-political thing of DIY
did inform a lot of punk
and post-punk.
But the way Poly did it
was kind of unique.
My mum was
obsessed with fashion.
She wrote songs
critiquing consumerism,
but she was
the ultimate shopaholic.
I pretty much hated
everything she wore
and felt embarrassed
to walk down the street with her
mostofthetime.
Especiallywhensheforcedme
intoridiculousoutfitstoo,
like the matching
mother and daughter
LauraAshleyphaseshegotinto.
Shelikednothingmore
than traipsing around
the West End.
"Let'sgowindowshopping,"
she'dsay,
andIwouldgroan.
I couldn't think
of anything more boring
than walking around
department stores.
It was almost as boring
as sitting in a recording studio
or sitting in a restaurant
while she was being interviewed.
WhatanungratefulbratIwas!
Clothes are never really you.
That'swhypeoplewearthem.
'Cos you can just create
an image with clothes,
they'rejustpartofafaade.
Which is good fun
to play with sometimes.
By the time I was born,
Mum had left her punk phase
far behind her.
Shealwayssaid
she never even
considered herself a punk,
that it was just a label,
coined by journalists.
Atthesametime,sherecognised
that the scene
was the perfect vehicle
for her own
creative transformation.
She placed an ad
in the "Melody Maker" in 1976.
It said, "Young Punks
Who Want to Stick it Together."
Sheauditionedthebandmembers,
andX-RaySpexwasborn.
When she opened the door,
itwasincredible.
She had this lovely,
beautiful smile on her face.
AndwhenIsawher,
I just felt like
I'd always known her.
There's definitely some
previous life connection there,
somesoulconnection.
I sat down
with them and there was Jak
playingguitarandPolysinging,
and they sang some songs
and said, "Join in."
They gave me a cassette,
I took it home,
they rang me up and said,
"Would you like to join?
We've got a gig
Saturday at the Roxy."
Yeah, I just came in
and the outcome
was for anyone to hear me play.
I didn't play very much.
He just was very quick.
Twogirlstogether,
it's gonna be lucrative.
Falcon Stuart
was my mum's manager.
Hewasalsoherfirstlove.
She used to speak about him
all the time when I was a kid.
Sometimes she'd say
he was the love of her life,
other times,
that he'd ruined it.
It wasn't exactly a secret
but actually,
I wasn't quite sure
what the relationship was
with Falcon.
But it became
increasingly apparent
that they were
in a relationship,
and obviously
he was a lot older than her,
andwasmanagingtheband.
Hewasabitlikeherpatron,
in a Renaissance sense,
more than a manager.
Do you live in a
basement flat in his house?
- Yeah, why?
- I was just asking.
I'm not trying to imply you're
having an affair or anything.
No,I'mnotsayingthatyouare.
Ijustwonderedif,whatthe...
Whatthesignificanceofitwas?
Ithink,well...lt'slike...
well, there he can
look after you,
soit'slikeapatriarchdeal.
DoyouknowwhatImean?
Oh,well,no,notreally.
Shall we go inside?
He seemed
to be mesmerised by her.
Shewasdifferent.
She wasn't the norm,
she was different.
Definitely
I think he saw potential.
He saw it
from the very beginning.
I kind of had
a soft spot for Falcon.
I think he genuinely
cared for Marianne.
Butitwasn'tarelationship
which could sustain
itself in a healthy way,
because it wasn't built
on a healthy way.
Every romance
she had ended in tears.
She longed
to be loved so very much,
but she could never
sustain a relationship
longerthanafewyears.
"The infamous Roxy Club"
in Neal Street,
Covent Garden, London WC1.
X-Ray Spex manager
Falcon Stuart and I
dropintocheckoutthetalent.
Namesthatscreamout.
BillyldolandGenerationX,
The Buzzcocks,
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
CaptainSensibleandTheDamned,
JohnnyMopedandChrissieHynde.
PolyStyreneandX-RaySpex
"are booked
for the following week."
I'd never even
been to a gig, and by chance
and by great
good fortune and luck,
the first gig I ever went to
was X-Ray Spex.
Ithinkitwas60ptogetin,
went downstairs, waited,
expecting a tiny, dirty hall,
nothingmuchgoingon.
AndthenPolyStyrenecameout
and it was... everything
changed for me right then.
I fell in love with her,
I fell in love with the band,
I fell in love with the music,
I fell in love with the idea.
To see my sister on that stage,
andtheenergyandthepower
andtheexpression...
She just
was incredible to watch.
But her words are important
as well, aren't they?
Ifonlyforthetitles,
even if you don't
hear all the words.
Thetitlesareallvery...
Trashreally.
Her day
consisted of writing, largely,
andshe'dwritewithabiro
on bits of paper
or in little books.
Andsometimesshe'dsay,
"What do you think of this?
What do you think of this idea?"
I mean, nobody else
was really singing so much about
whatPolywassingingabout.
Itwaseitheraboutbeingfunny
orbeingkindofpseudoangry,
ormakingsomekindof
artful points about
the banality of daily life,
which had its own
weird excitement to it.
Some of my
earliest memories of Mum
are of her sitting
at her little typewriter,
totally absorbed
in whatever she was writing.
Therewasrarelyamoment
when she wasn't
working on a new song.
Sometimes
I felt jealous of her music.
Her songwriting robbed me
of the attention I craved.
My grandmother
would tell Mum off
for leaving me
to my own devices.
She'd come over
and find me half-dressed
with unbrushed hair,
causing chaos,
drawing on
the walls with crayons,
while Mum was lost
in her own world.
Creative people don't always
make the best parents,
and she certainly
neglected my needs at times.
Little girls
should be seen and not heard.
Oh bondage, up yours!
One, two, three, four!
"I read a
book by William Wright,"
and discovered
a newfound sense of freedom.
Images of the Suffragettes chained
to the railings of Buckingham Palace
shot across
my photographic memory.
A faded dream
of Bowie's 'Suffragette City',
'Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am'
ringing in my ears.
Pictures of ball and chained
African slaves
were stored in my psyche,
in sepia of course.
I replayed
the biblical epic 'Moses'
onthescreeninmyhead.
The story of the bondage
of the Israelites in Egypt.
I had an innate desire
to be free.
Tobefreefromunwanteddesires
"seemeddesirable."
Bind me, tie me
Chain me to the wall
I wanna be A slave to you all
Ohbondage,upyours!
Ohbondage,nomore!
Chain-store chain-smoke
I consume you all
Chain-gang chain-mail
I don't think at all
Ohbondage,upyours!
Ohbondage,nomore!
Now recording-wise,
you've got a single out
called "Oh Bondage Up Yours!".
Now that has struck a bit of trouble
as far as airplay is concerned.
- True?
- Yeah, well...
Iexpectedthat,really.
A lot of men in the media
didn't want women
to step into that place,
tobegivenmorepower
and more say
and more visibility.
Everybody always
talks about "Oh Bondage Up Yours!"
because in a way,
just that sound
cuts through
a sort of glass ceiling
of what women singers
could do with their voice.
It was like a clarion call,
anditwasthewayshesang,
itwassourgent,
anditwaslikeacalltoarms.
It was like,
"I am so fed up!"
"The journalist
Lucy Toothpaste asked,"
'Areyouliberated?'
'Areyoureferring
to "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" ',
I asked.
Lucy replied, 'Well, yes.
Is it about women's liberation?'
"'Yesandno, 'Ireplied."
I was just talking about
all forms of bondage.
You know,
repression, everything else.
Sexual bondage stems from that, so
it's all part of the same thing.
It all depends
which way you interpret it.
So it's much
to do with sexual bondage?
Yeah, it's to do
with all bondage.
And it's bondage
because it hasn't been played,
that proves it as well,
hat is bondage in itself.
I think a lot of people assume
mymumwasastaunchfeminist,
because of "Oh Bondage",
becauseofthewayshesubverted
conventional
ideas of femininity.
But I don't think
she felt any allegiance
to a particular
political position or stance.
Shewasn'tideological.
She was an observer
rather than a critic.
There was even a part of her
that longed to be a wife,
astay-at-homemum.
Sheoftencomplainedaboutthat,
thatshehadtowork,
to be a breadwinner
and a mother.
She secretly wished
she could be a lady of leisure.
We didn't use the word
feminist very much at the beginning.
Iwasneverafraidoftheword.
But people
had their preconceptions,
and when somebody asks you,
"Are you this,"
and you know that you are
your version of that,
but you're not the version
of the person who's asking.
It's always very difficult,
andparticularlyforwomen
tomakemusic
that has any
social commentary to it,
withoutitappearing,
particularlyifyou'reblack,
that you're the archetypal
young, angry, black female.
Poly had her
own ideas about everything.
Shedidn'tfollowfashion,
shedidn'tfollowtrends.
Andso,Ithinktheideaof
anybody telling women what to do
when it came to their rights
was something
that she would oppose.
She talked
about people treating each other
liketheywerecommodities,
not just women
being objectified,
but all different kinds
of people being objectified.
And also not just,
"I'm the victim
and everybody's
taking advantage of me,"
butwritinginthiswayoflike,
"I live off you
and you live off of me."
"Andwe'relike,bothdoingit."
That'ssomethingthat
as a feminist artist
is incredibly important.
And I think these ideas
were so far ahead of their time.
Good evening,
it's "Top of the Pops".
And we're gonna make you
feel like dancing.
Here'sthechartrundown.
- Okay, you're going.
- Alright, what are you gonna do
whenwegetrich,Jak?
Well,Iwannabuyabubblecar
andalittlehouse...
And,uh...haveaharem.
Aharem,woah!
DoyouthinkX-RaySpex
is gonna be bigger
than The Beatles?
- Um, yeah.
- Yeah. Oh, good.
- Positive.
- Good, good.
We tried to be different.
We had saxophones.
Wehadafemalesinger.
And Poly's voice, she could
blow them out of the water.
I mean, did you ever think
that you would be able to walk out
on stage and send an entire club
offtheirbrains?
No,Idon'tthinklikethat.
All going all around the place?
Richard
Branson of Virgin Records
wantedtosignX-RaySpex.
Andhewasreally,reallykeen.
ButwewenttoEMI.
The first time I can remember
thatIwasawareofher
was seeing her
on "Top of the Pops".
It wouldn't really
even have occurred to me,
atthetime,
that she was part
of the punk movement.
Buttherewerethingsabouther
that I thought
was the very best of punk.
I can definitely remember
whathappenedtome
the first time
I heard Poly's voice.
Itwaslikeanawakeningforme.
Therewerealotofmenaround,
but obviously being a woman,
and being a young woman,
and I think Poly
being a woman of color
onthatscene,
was another reason
why she became
ahugerolemodelforme.
And I actually started singing
because of her,
tobeperfectlyhonest.
I was Tinkerbell
AndyouwerePeterPan
In the '80s, when I was little,
PolyStyrenewasstill
a pretty fresh memory
in the pop world.
And people would sometimes
stop my mum in the street
to tell her how much
they loved her.
It didn't really faze me,
to be honest.
It'sallIknew.
Herreactionswouldvary
according to whatever
mood she was in.
She used to joke
that being famous but broke
wastheworstofbothworlds.
She had all the attention
that comes with fame,
but lacked the means
to protect herself from it.
Seeing Poly on "Top of the Pops"
withbracesonherteeth,
justkindoflaughing
andbeinganormalhumanbeing,
itwasareally,really
powerfulstatement.
You could see
she'd made an effort,
but she hadn't made that sort of
Twiggy and Clodagh Rodgers,
soft,floaty...
Shejustwasn'tfloaty
and that was
just such a bloody relief!
For the regular pop charts,
we were supposed to all
look like Joni Mitchell.
Poly was funny looking,
with her braces and...
herunsmoothhair
andherveryfuturisticstyle.
I remember
when the album came out,
shewasreallyannoyed
because the record company
had slimmed her image down
onthefrontofthealbumcover,
and BP's as well.
And she was really angry
that somebody
had manipulated her image.
"Why couldn't they
just put me on as I was?"
Do you
dress to make people laugh,
ortomakethemthink?
I mean, when you
put something on,
doyouthinktheideais
to make people
laugh with you, or...
Somebodysaidtomethatyour...
youknow,yourteethbraces,
somebody said it was
just a device, you know?
- No.
- A stage prop.
- It can't come off.
- Can't it?
No,notyet,anyway.
- Is it screwed in?
- No, it's cemented on.
Then again,
with those braces on her teeth,
Poly Styrene
is hardly Linda Ronstadt.
When Mum was young,
she was pretty confident
about the way she looked.
She'd never
been short of admirers.
But the experience
of being famous
madeherinsecure.
The public scrutiny
over the way she looked
startedtograteonher.
She felt like journalists
were celebrating her
by insinuating that she was
unattractive and overweight,
totallynotgetting
what she
was trying to achieve by
choosing not to over-expose
her voluptuous form on stage.
I don't want to
become totally self-indulgent,
because I write things
that other people can relate to.
If I get totally into myself,
I won't be able to do that.
What I write will just become
a reflection of me,
instead of a reflection
of everything else.
For some people that works,
but it's not what I'm about.
I don't personally want to
indulge in my own fantasy,
myownself-image.
People make difficulties
within the entertainment
industry.
Certainly,
they make difficulties
foryoungwomenofcolour,
there's absolutely
no doubt about that.
Youngwomenofanyethnicity,
I think,
find it quite difficult.
I think she needed time off.
Sheneeded,
she definitely
needed respite periods,
and as everybody knows in the music
business and when you're setting up,
it'sgo,go,go,go,
and I think that
was totally destructive for her,
itreallywas.
"My God, our name and fame"
is spread all over
the three worlds.
'We will be famous
just for one day.'
DavidBowie.
'Everybody will be famous
for 15 minutes.'
AndyWarhol.
'Iamaclich.'
"PolyStyrene."
This one is called
"Let's Submerge".
It's dark and eerie
And it's really late
Come on, kids Don't hesitate
We'regoingdown
Totheunderground
We'regoingdown
We'regoingdown
Totheunderground
X-Ray Spex
were one of the first wave
ofpunkbandsfromLondon
tocometoNewYork.
In New York, punk rock
was a new sort of
youth culture division
that was happening,
like investigating this more
sort of nihilist attitude,
with the fallout of hippie
and the fallout of Vietnam,
and this kind of
failed Utopian ideal.
We went for
a residency in New York
atavenuecalledCBGB's.
CBGB's was
like a stinky toilet of a place.
It was grungy
and ghastly and stinky.
It's dark and
eerie And it's really late
Come on, kids Don't hesitate
We'regoingdown
Totheunderground
We'regoingdown
We'regoingdown
Totheunderground
Everybody
below 14th Street, New York
wasatthatgig.
'Cos everybody
would talk about it
throughoutthesummer.
I can see now
Paul Weller, The Jam,
and Debbie Harry,
sittinginthefrontrow,
cheeringuson.
Who the fuck are you?
Who the fuck is this?
Ohbondage,upyours!
What was so
exciting about it was that
when they did
"Oh Bondage Up Yours!",
Poly would hand me
the microphone
to sing "Up yours".
It was somewhat
as if I was being knighted.
Thatwaswonderful.
When we were in New York
wedidtwogigsanight.
In between times,
we went drinking,
wenttoparties,
ormetwomen.
All kinds of things happened.
It was totally
different to London.
Everything was open
the whole time.
Now it seems, "Well, so what?"
Butatthetime,thatwasnew.
Put on the TV,
had tons of channels.
Weonlyhadthreeathome.
In New York,
this is like the future.
Oh, is this "Tomorrow's World",
you think?
Idon'tknowwhatprogramitis.
Unlike our grandparents,
weliveinaworldthatwemade.
We are crammed
like battery hens with stimuli.
Capitalism,pluselectronics,
gaveusanewhabitat.
Ourforestofmedia.
For the first time ever, save $5
on our original, realistic
pocket weather radio.
Now on sale
at Radio Shack stores,
only$10.95.
Rainorshine,
the exclusive, realistic
pocket weather radio.
And there's only one place
you can find it.
It wasn't a
conscious attempt to be clever.
Ijustthoughtthat
I'd write about
all these plastic things
because they seemed to be
creeping in more and more,
which is why New York
totally blew me apart.
You'll look so
pretty and have such fun.
I saw everything
that I'd been writing about
inextreme,butforreal.
For them it wasn't a joke,
it was the way they lived.
Forme,itwasallajoke.
Play with it,
indulge it, have fun with it,
because there's not really
that much of it over here.
But when you go there,
it's so bad that you think,
"God, if that's
what it's gonna be like,
Idon'twantit."
The weird thing
about all the plastic
is that people
don't actually like it.
Butinordertocopewithit,
they develop a perverse
kind of fondness for it,
whichiswhatIdid.
Isaid,
"Oh, aren't they beautiful
because they're so horrible."
It's very perverse
and I realise that, and...
thatwaswhatwassofrightening
aboutNewYork.
New York was
the start of something,
a new feeling
she couldn't quite shake.
She started to question
everything around her.
Wasanyofitreal?
I think the
consumerism side of New York
and the advertising
and the bright lights
anddazzlinglightseverywhere,
thatdiddestabilizePoly
and affect the way
she was writing songs.
- Are you gonna change, do you think?
- I dunno really.
I mean, we're just changing
already a bit, you know.
Just in the sort of...
You know, just the songs.
It's just the way
everything else
reflects everything else,
and you're just part of it.
So the music
reflects what you feel,
and also it reflects
what's happening around you.
The further she went
down the rabbit hole of fame
and all the excess
that goes with that lifestyle,
themoreabsorbedshebecame
in the dystopian futurism
of the world
she was creating
through her lyrics.
I think the artifice
and insincerity
she was surrounded by
in the music industry
influencedher.
It influenced
her imagining of a plastic,
syntheticuniverse,
where the natural world
has retreated,
the final triumph
of everything that's fake.
"I muse over the future"
andallitmaybring.
IopenPandora'sboxofhope.
I envision a time
in the distant future
whensyntheticsrule.
Thedownside:
Humankind destroy
the natural environment.
Theupside:
"Burgers will be cruelty-free,
veggie rubber buns."
I clambered over
Mounds and mounds
Ofpolystyrenefoam
Then fell into A swimming pool
Filledwithfairysnow
Andwatchedtheworld
Turn Day-Glo You know, you know
The world turned Day-Glo
You know
I wrenched
The nylon curtains back
Asfarastheywouldgo
Then peered through
Perspex window panes
Attheacrylicroad
And watched the world
Turn Day-Glo
Youknow,youknow
The world turned Day-Glo
You know
Uh-oh
I think she was aware
ofhowsocietywaschanging
intoaveryconsumeristsociety,
and probably
coming a lot from America.
Shesawintothefuture.
She felt the
world was a monolithic,
cruelplace,
and why can't it be
a nice place?
All those songs, "Art-I-Ficial",
"Highly Inflammable",
"Genetic Engineering",
all these songs were progression
from the early stuff,
which was about relationships
and about herself.
The consumer society
was there in front of her eyes.
The whole CBGB's experience
changedmymumasaperson.
She was exposed
to the city's seedy underbelly.
And she lost whatever
innocence she still had left.
She told me that she
was given something to smoke
atapartythereonenight,
andittippedherovertheedge.
Nowshe'dalsolosthermind.
There was
what you might call a darkness
totheNewYorkscene
that was very different
from the British scene.
Itwasmuchmoreaccepting
ofheavydruguse.
Discocandywaseverywhere.
HippeopletookcokeinAmerica.
It just turned people
into demons.
AndPolywasthatsensitive,
thatnodoubt
she picked up
on that negative energy.
I went to New York.
Itreallyturnedmyhead.
Allthatattention,
they treat you
like you're really different.
It got to me.
I was worn out and doing drugs
andIwassmokingalot.
People were all around
telling me how wonderful I was.
I didn't start to
exactly believe it,
but I started to get
very insecure.
- Goodnight.
- Give us a kiss.
She didn't
like that environment,
she didn't like
"Top of the Pops".
She didn't like mixing around
all those kind of people.
She felt they were
very superficial
andverynotgenuine.
I remember her coming off stage
andtotallycollapsing
andcryinghereyesout,
asifshetotallyforcedherself
to go on stage
in the first place.
AndIcouldseeshewasn'twell,
shewasn'tokay.
I mean, it
isn't normal for people
to be surrounded with people...
telling them that they're great.
That isn't a normal situation,
most people do not get that.
Itisn'tnormaltobe...
up on stage and people jumping all
over you and ripping your clothes off,
that isn't a normal thing
for anybody to take.
And then you get people
coming backstage as well,
you get people
coming to your house,
and then you get people
trying to break in,
and then you just get people
surrounding you all the time.
And you just
are never on your own,
andthat'sjustnotnormal.
So therefore, you just say, "Go
away, I don't want to see anybody."
The thing with Poly
isthatshewas
atthesametimeveryresilient
andyetveryvulnerable.
Especially being so much
in the vanguard,
her immediate support system
of people who really got her
wasnotthatlarge.
We read every
week in the music trade papers
theexploitsof,say,
The Sex Pistols
and Johnny Rotten.
Are you a follower
of The Sex Pistols yourself?
Imean,IlikeTheSexPistols.
Yeah,Ilikethem.
'Cos they're sort of
part of our generation, really.
John Lydon,
who she really liked a lot,
and obviously got a lot
of her inspiration from,
wasliving'roundthecorner
atGunterGroveatthispoint.
We used to see him,
sometimes, riding along,
we'dstopandsayhello.
She was kind of infatuated,
or at least had a crush
of some sort on John Lydon.
But she felt
not taken seriously by him
andtherestofthem.
Apparently, Sid Vicious
had locked her in a cupboard
underthestairs.
Sheaskedwheretheloowas
and he tricked her
into going into this cupboard,
slammed the door and locked
her in for about an hour.
Yeah, she was really,
really upset by that.
They were
lads, they were laddiest,
unthinking,meanthings.
Undercuttingthings,
things designed
to make you feel like nothing.
Like,worsethannothing.
As if they
had no regard for you.
That was the sort of milieu
that Poly encountered,
thatencouragedher
to go into the toilet
at John's house.
I was 'round
at Johnny Rotten's place
andPolyturnedupatthedoor.
Which was a brave thing, 'cos
you go around to John's place,
it'slikebaptismbyfire.
I remember she was sitting there
andnotreallysayingmuch.
And we were shooting the breeze
and being typical lads
andsortofignoringher.
And at some point
during the conversation,
duringthenight,
she'd got up
and went into the bathroom.
And no one
thought anything of it.
And then I guess we
were talking for a while
andnotrealizedshe'dbeengone
forlike,halfanhour.
And then we heard
the bathroom door open
andwelookedup,
and she started to
walk down the stairs...
Andshe'dcutallherhairoff.
I'll be honest with you, we were
totally insensitive to the moment.
The thing is, she
had a gig coming up.
What do you do?
She'd got a gig coming up,
atVictoriaPark,massivegig.
The National
Front is a Nazi front!
We played
at Rock Against Racism,
alongwithTomRobinsonBand,
TheClash,Sham69.
Therewere80,000peoplethere.
Thatwasareallyhugegig.
If you were
ever at one of those events,
like the big events
in Victoria Park,
itmadeonefeelthat
onewaspartofapositivearmy
of like-minded people.
You felt so empowered.
You really felt
that this generation
had made racism and
fascism laughable and pass.
When we were
driving to the venue,
and Poly was wearing
a woollen scarf
wrapped around her head,
and she said,
"Oh, I shaved
my head last night."
AndFalconsaid,
"Well, you bloody well
do not take that scarf off
whileyou'reperforming."
And she winked
and said, "Oh no, I won't."
Halfway through
the song "Identity",
she was going "Identity..."
and she started to unravel it.
She did it in a kind of
seductive,teasingmanner.
She started hovering her hand
around the top of her head
and taking
bits of it off like that.
By the time she got to the end
there was gasps at the front
of the audience,
going "Oh my God..."
"Skinhead!"
Falcon was going mad about it.
Wealllaughedourheadsoff.
She said she didn't
want to be a sex symbol.
And she'd said if she ever
thought she was turning into one,
she'dshaveherhairoff.
Andthat'swhatshedid.
She wasn't the first woman
to shave her head
in an act of defiance,
and she certainly
wouldn't be the last.
Itwasapowerfulstatement,
butitwasalsoacryforhelp.
Shereallyneededabreak.
There was so much
pressure on her
tokeepdoingit.
Somethinghadtogive.
The moment
that changed me forever
wasseeingaDay-GloUFO
in Doncaster one night
after a concert.
It was a bright ball
of luminous pink,
madeofenergy,likeafireball.
Everyone else thought
I'd lost the plot.
It was the
last leg of their tour.
She'd gone up
to her hotel room after the gig.
Andshesaidallofasudden,
she saw this bright light
in the sky,
inthenightsky,that...
didn'tappeartobeastar.
Itseemedtobemoving,
gettingbiggerandbigger,
and what's more,
it was coming towards her.
And it zoomed
right up to the window
and seemed to be
probing the room,
hovering there,
taking it all in,
and she's sat there,
like, frozen.
She'd said at
breakfast time the next day,
"Oh, I saw
a flying saucer outside."
It'stoldmetogiveup
"the electric
and plastic way of life."
"Goforasimplelife."
We said,
"What are you on about?"
Took no notice, got in the car.
And in the car, she started
taking her clothes off,
saying, "I want to go back",
I want to be Marianne,
I want to go back."
She was a
very, very sensitive person.
And she
was almost like a sponge.
Shewouldabsorb
lots of things
which were going around her,
forbetterorforworse.
When you put somebody
which is so hyper-sensitive
andsoopenandsointelligent,
and then you put them
in this environment
where there's
all this different mix of people
wantingdifferentthings,
'cos, you know,
she was a commodity as well...
it wasn't a conducive place
for her to be
forwhoshewas.
I mean, she was telling
me when she was even younger,
when she was
like three years old,
she thought that, you know, she'd
met some people from outer space.
Shewassuchahighbeing.
Averyhigh,spiritualbeing,
even when she
went off the rockers.
I mean, I remember
when we were walking through
Kensington Gardens
one afternoon.
Shesawthesecrows.
You know,
she says that they're...
LiketheVikingsusedtosay
theyweretheeyesofOdin,
andallthat.
She said, "Watch them,
they're watching us."
People started
saying she'd lost the plot,
thatshe'dgonemad.
Butshedidn'tseeitthatway.
She felt that
she was going through
some kind
of spiritual awakening.
Thatshecouldseethings
that others
were too blind to see.
My mother
thought I was hallucinating,
andIwasputintheMaudsley.
'Cos if you see things
and hear voices,
you are considered
to have schizophrenia.
The first time she saw
herself singing on the telly,
shewasonapsychiatricward.
Men in white coats
carted her away
afteranepisode.
Therewerelotsofepisodes.
Oneworsethantheother.
She was misdiagnosed
with schizophrenia
when in fact she was suffering
from acute bipolar disorder.
It felt like a bad omen.
Like I was
doing something wrong.
Misguidingpeople.
Iwasdealingwithalot,
and then to be given
a label like that,
only to find out later
that I wasn't,
and that they had got it wrong,
was really difficult.
Theysaidtome,
"You're a young girl
who has got out of her depth
and you will never
be able to work again."
That is a very hard thing
to be told at 21.
I'm sorry I
didn't treat her very good.
I wasn't really
sympathetic at the time.
I was worried,
but mainly for my own self.
Selfish.
The only
thing that really worked
were the drugs they gave her
when she was sectioned.
They would pin her down
and inject her
withtranquillisers
strong enough
to knock a horse out.
I saw my mum
being sedated many times.
I must have been
about four years old
when I realised
something wasn't right.
Suddenly I was able to detect
the changes in her mood,
the constant cycle
of elation and despair.
I'llneverforgetthosenights
when the sensation
that someone was watching me
was so strong
that I'd wake up in a panic,
only to see her shadow
at the foot of my bed.
She'd stand
in the corner of my room
watchingmeasIslept...
hereyeswidewithfear.
Iwasscaredtoo,
scaredofher.
Iknowyourantiseptic
Yourdeodorantsmellsnice
The show must go on, they said.
So, she tried to
keep it together.
Keepsinging,keepperforming.
The medication
helped for a period,
but she was starting
to push back
againstthepressure.
To keep up the faade
of Poly Styrene.
I'm like an
actress that's something else.
OnstageI'monething
and off stage
I'm something else.
Butmostpeoplearenot.
I just consider myself
as a person first,
andanythingelse,
what anybody else
might call you, well,
they're just names,
really, aren't they?
Justgiventotrendsandpeople
andthingslikethat.
I think a lot of people thought,
"Oh,PolyStyrene'sgonemad."
Shehadabrilliantband,
shehadallthesuccess,
and suddenly
just walked away from it.
It took an
incredible amount of strength
for my mum to walk away
from X-Ray Spex,
the band she herself
had put together,
thebandthatwasdoingsowell.
They were at the height
of their success.
Ithinksheunderstoodthat
the only way she could
continue to exist
asanauthenticperson,
as someone
who was true to herself,
was to kill the persona
she'd created.
PolyStyrenehadtodie
so Marianne Elliott
could survive.
"Read Time magazine"
over continental breakfast
in the south of France.
Genetic possibilities
filled glossy pages.
On a golden stretch
of sand in Cannes,
Iworshippedthesungod,
"in a sunshine yellow
towelling bikini."
When I'd met her,
she'd been
in a convalescence place
togetoverthetraumas.
I was staying in a flat,
just off the King's Road,
and one night, we walked past
this quite flashy designer shop.
And she was outside,
looking in the window.
She was dressed in
a sort of '50s-type flared skirt
and hair sort of
straightened and long
andwhitestilettos.
Anyway, I thought,
"I can't let this go."
So as we were
walking past, I said,
"Ah,you'rePoly,"
and invited her to come
and have a drink with us.
All alone In a tropical garden
Parakeet trills Slowly harden
It was all rather whirlwind.
They were
inseparable for a time.
They didn't even tell anyone
when they got married
at the Chelsea Registry Office
on the King's Road.
Oh, yeah, we got married.
WegotmarriedintheSeptember,
weonlymetinJune.
After, I dunno,
three months of meeting Poly
shewaspregnant.
Mum was 24
years old when I was born.
She told me that having me
was the best thing she ever did.
Butmotherhoodwasachallenge.
Her mental
health was still fragile
and there were times
when she couldn't look after me.
It was hard for my father,
he was so young.
Theywerebothkids,really.
I knew that
Poly had been admitted,
you know,
sectioned and all that.
Istilllovedher,though.
I'm obviously gonna
stick it out no matter what.
JustasImether,
her album was coming out,
Translucence.
Thesoloalbum.
If you listen to the lyrics,
it's totally different.
How you make such a jump
from that power pop
to something almost akin
to Joan Armatrading?
It seemed like she'd been
throughsomekindoftrauma.
And music was her way
of dealing with that.
For people that have had
bad times in life in some way,
music can be a way of,
like, healing themselves.
She was after that
in her own music.
So, I was
there for all the interviews,
and, you know,
journalists coming 'round.
But their reviews
were really damning.
Like totally. Like,
"What is this bollocks?" almost.
EMI,dismayed
at the negative
response from the press,
said "That's it."
They obviously had the option
on their side.
Now it just went
from bad to worse,
tobehonestwithyou.
Iwasonthedole.
There was mass unemployment
back then, really.
Weendedupatmymum's
andthenhermum's,
and then,
she'd had enough of it.
Shewentofftolndia.
And Celeste and I,
we stayed at my mum's.
Ithinkshereallydecidedthen
she was gonna go head-first
into the Indian scene.
She started dressing
like proper saris
andwithadotontheforehead.
AndsoshewentbacktoLondon
and threw her lot in
with the Hare Krishna.
And I mean everything,
all her furniture, everything.
Movedinwiththem.
This is Bhaktivedanta
Manor in Hertfordshire,
European Headquarters
of the Hare Krishna movement.
George Harrison
bought it for them last year.
Most of their day
is spent worshipping Krishna
and learning his philosophy
of perfect consciousness.
I think it was The
Beatles and George Harrison,
that'showwegotintoit.
Shewasahippie,really.
Toosensitivefortheworld.
She needed something to give her
some stability in her life.
I was a small child
when we went
to live in the manor.
I understand
why she wanted us to live there,
surroundedbynature,
and full of little
Hare Krishna children
Icouldplaywith.
Shechangedhernameyetagain.
Thistimeitwasaname
given to her
by her guru, Bhagavan.
NowshewentbyMaharani.
He gave me a name too,
Radha Shakti.
X-Ray Spex saxophone player
Lora Logic
joinedtheHareKrishnamovement
at around the same time
as my mum.
They'd fallen out after Mum
cruelly sacked her from the band
duringtheRoxyera,
but they found a common purpose
in Krishna consciousness,
which brought them
back together.
I don't
think it was coincidence,
Ithinkitwashighlyplanned
by the universal laws,
'cos nothing's an accident.
ButIwasabitsurprised.
We had to relate
on the platform of the fact
thatwewereequalspiritsouls,
and a platform where
there's no false ego or pride.
Yeah, she changed,
she changed a lot.
I went to
the Hare Krishna temple
with her a few times,
actually into the temple.
And she was very different
in the temple.
Shewasveryhypnotisedbyit.
The Hare Krishna kind of
saved her in a sense,
it gave her
another world to exist in.
She'sfragile,youknow,
and I think they provided
a family for her,
andacomfort.
More than punk, than music,
more than being creative,
the Hare Krishna was
a central pillar of her life,
and it was
really important to her.
As hard as she tried,
my mother couldn't completely
escape her past life.
Those past traumas
continued to haunt her,
and she would suffer
a series of nervous breakdowns
duringourtimeinthetemple.
She was very
mentally unstable then,
andshelookedsodisturbed.
It was probably triggered
by so many things: hormones,
givingbirth,
and then
the whole new experience
oflivinginatemple.
She used to do some
wacky things in the temple.
Imean,she'dbe,like,
in the temple room
with no clothes on.
She'd be chasing
celibate monks around,
whowereintheirpyjamas.
Shewenttolndia,
and she'd have to be
put on a plane and flown home
becauseshecompletelylostit.
I think a lot of it
was just due to lack of sleep.
Shedidn'tsleep.
She didn't know how to
look after herself very well.
It's like she was
never quite in her body,
shewasalwayssomewhereelse.
It was probably
all too much for her.
Our heaven had become a hell,
and it was
about to get much worse.
We moved into a house
near the temple,
andmymothereventually
took me out
of the children's ashram,
which was a kind of
Hare Krishna boarding school.
Iwastrulyisolatednow.
She hadn't been able
to leave the house for weeks,
andmylittlestomach
was as empty
as the kitchen cupboards.
One day I climbed out of
my bedroom window
and left home
with the social workers.
The nosy neighbours
were concerned for my welfare.
Ihadtoleave,
for the sake
of my own mental health.
Iknowitbrokeherheart.
Iabandonedmymother
and the world
she had created for me.
And it had been
a beautiful world, Mataji.
I was eight years old
when I went to live
with my grandmother,
who was eventually
granted custody of me
after a long
and bitter court case.
It was clear
Mum had neglected me.
Iwasthreeandahalfstone
when I was removed
from her care.
Ineededyearsoftherapy.
TosaythatIwasanangrykid
wouldbeanunderstatement.
I told the court
I wanted to live with my nan,
theultimatebetrayal
as far as my mother
was concerned.
Our relationship
was pretty rough for a while,
lots of shouting,
slammed doors and angry tears.
She pushed me
down the stairs once,
andIneverletherforgetit.
She wasn't in her right
mind of course,
but I blamed her for ever
bringing me into this world.
But time is the greatest
healer, they say.
Andweeventually
found it in our hearts
to forgive one another.
She moved to Hastings
in the early 2000s
andImovedtoMadrid,
butdespite,
or maybe thanks to being
thousands of miles apart,
wewerecloserthanever.
Theslowpaceofthetown
and the calming effect
of the sea
restored a kind
of mental balance
my mother had lost
all those years ago.
Shewasrefreshedandenergised,
ready to start
creating once more.
She was even ready
to get on stage,
something she had sworn
she would never do again.
Howdoyoufeelnow?
Iwanttoknow
Clearasacrystal
Icanseeyourface
I think it was Poly's last gig,
whichnoneofusweretoknow.
But I remember
she was on fine form,
and you gotta understand, I hadn't
seen her since the Roxy days.
And she'd
been through a whole load
oftrialsandtribulations.
And to see her
come through all of that,
it looked like
the sky was the limit,
andthattherewas
a whole new lease
of life in front of her.
Up until a few hours before,
I never really was sure
if she was gonna do it.
It was very, very difficult
for her to get the confidence.
Mum had been
taking medication on and off
forherbipolardisorder
sinceherfirstbreakdown.
I'dalwaysfeltthat
she didn't take her meds
as often as she should have,
and it was a real source
of contention between us.
Shefeltthemedication
had a dampening effect
on her creative expression.
Butsherealised
she wouldn't be able to get
through the gig without it.
She was terrified that
the anxiety of performing live
would lead to
yet another breakdown.
Butdespiteallthat,
she gathered
the courage she needed
to get on stage
in front of thousands of people.
And even if she was
pretty heavily medicated,
shekickedarseoutthere,
gaveitallshehad.
Iwassoproudofher.
One, two, three, four!
I joined her on stage
for an encore
of "Oh Bondage Up Yours!".
Itwasbeyondamazing.
Bind me,
tie me Chain me to the wall
I wanna be A slave to you all
Ohbondage,upyours!
Ohbondage,nomore!
Ohbondage,upyours!
Ohbondage,nomore!
Now the moment
had come, I felt strange.
Halfscared,halfexcited.
It was weird
looking at the things
I'dalwaystakenforgranted.
Neverbotheredtothinkabout.
Thingslikepets,
friends,
placesIwentto.
But I knew I had to go then,
or I never would.
She had just finished recording
a new album, Generation Indigo,
whenwefoundout
shehadbreastcancer.
Thoselastmonths,
whenwewereblissfullyunaware
of the disease that had
already spread to her bones,
weresomeofthehappiesttimes
Ieverspentwithmymother.
Weworkedtogetheronthealbum,
writing and recording
new tracks.
Shewasinherelement,really,
doingwhatsheknewbest.
And I was so lucky
to be able to do it with her.
I hit the button called send
You'remyvirtualboyfriend
You're like a MySpace friend
That's all
Justatextoramissedcall
I just thought it was funny, 'cos everybody
were having these relationships online.
And it's great,
but you never see each other.
Well,youprobablydosometimes.
ButIjustthought,
why not write
a love song about that?
You're not meeting,
but you're actually...
And then at the end,
just press delete to end.
I found working with her
verylife-affirming.
Even when she was
at death's door, ironically.
She had a great
spiritual perception
that was wrought
from hard experience.
I finally took
my mum's ashes to India,
toVrindavan,
the holy city on the banks
of the Yamuna River,
the place
where Krishna was born.
Thiswasherlastrequest.
Being there was almost
metamorphic for me.
Isawwithmyowneyes
everything she had told me
about the place.
Everywhere I went,
I felt her presence,
and I was able to understand her
a little better.
She'd wanted to take me there
for many years.
But a spiritual pilgrimage
to India
didn't have much appeal
when I was a teenager.
Iwentthroughaperiod
where I rejected everything
that my mum cared about,
includingherreligiousbeliefs.
Iwasangryforalongtime.
I felt my mum
hadn't lived up to my idea
ofwhatagoodmothershouldbe.
I just wished
I had normal parents
andanormalchildhood,
where my mother
didn't have a mental illness,
wasn'taHareKrishna,
hadaregularjob,
didn't have
so many crazy friends.
But by the time I started
to really appreciate
how lucky I was
to have such a remarkable woman
asamotherandarolemodel,
itwastoolate.
Shewasleavingherbody.
Everything
about her was inspirational.
She was born an inspiration.
Shewas,shewasjust...
That'swhoshewas.
That'swhoshewas.
The legacy of someone like Poly
cannotbeoverstated.
Whatshedid
stands as a great example
for women,
not only in the 21st century,
I think it'll stand forever.
Becauseshewasbrave,man.
There is something
in Poly's sound
and in her voice,
in her expression, in her lyrics
andinwhoshewas.
You could say
it's anti-establishment,
or it's anti-this and anti-...
But for me it was like,
I could see
that it was possible.
Thatitwasimportant
to fight against
the predictable holes
that we are all surrounded by
as human beings,
butparticularlywomen.
For me, her
legacy was to open up the box,
giveeveryonenewtools,
and new ideas
and new possibilities.
The world is playing catch-up
withPolyStyrene,
nottheotherwayaround.
When I saw her,
like, three days before she passed,
shesaidtome,
"You see the lights
on the trees?"
"Every one of those lights
is like a soul who's passed."
Therewassomethingoutthere
and in the
not-too-distant future
shewasgoingtobepartof.
I remember
the last time I saw her
likeitwasyesterday.
Apieceofmediedthatday.
Icriedeventhough
my Mum always told me
not to cry for the dead.
She said
it's just the beginning,
evenifitfeelsliketheend.
I am a clich.
I'm a clich I'm a clich
I'm a clich I'm a clich
I'm a clich You've seen before
I'm a clich Live next door
I'm a clich
You know what I mean
I'm a clich Pink is obscene
Huri yama yama Huri yama yama
Boredom,boredom
Huri yama yama Huri yama yama
Boredom,boredom