So even rags like the LA Weekly are posting soundtracks for the remnants of ragnarok, but I think in these rather goofy, pop culture apocalyptic-fixated times, one song encapsulates the zeitgeist between Mayan Calendar predictions (how come they didn’t predict their own demise) and post-millennialist apocalytigenarians. It was recorded and released in 1990, by Toy Matinee. Fronted by the late Kevin Gilbert, their only album is possibly one of the greatest (un-noticed) art-pop gems of the last half century. The lead of track, Last Plane Out has some oddly upbeat, ambitious music married to comically cynical and bizarre lyrcis (as was the rest of the album, which included tributes to Vaclev Pavel, Salvador Dali, a song about losing your girlfriend to an Elvis impersonator, Rosanna Arquette, and other topical matters).
The video (which given the time period and the budget, isn’t too bad, in a warped take on Mad-Max meets a John Cleese fever dream):
Toy Matinee – Last Plane Out
Everyday I Write the Book | MySpace Video
The lyrics:
Greetings from Sodom
How we wish you were here
The weather’s getting warmer
Now that the trees are all cleared
There’s no time for a conscience
And we recognize no crime
Yeah we got dogs and Valvoline
It’s a pretty damn good time
Men of reason, not of rhyme
Keep the spoils and share your crime
Goodman, Badman, lost without
A hope for passage on the last plane out
There was one repressed do-gooder
And a few who still believed
Yes I think there were five good men here yesterday
But they were asked to leave
So we’ve kept the good old vices
And labored to invent a few
With cake in vulgar surplus
We can have it and eat it, too
(Chorus)
Men of reason, hide your face
Walking backwards, plays his ace
Goodman, Badman, lost without
A hope for passage on the last plane out
Here’s a concept you can’t dance to
An idea you cannot hum
There may not be an empty seat
When all is said and done
I’m not the guy who sings the hymns
No bleeding heart to mend
But I like the part where Icarus
Hijacks the little red hen
Someone said the Big Man
May be joining us soon
But I never was the type to hang
With the harbingers of doom
And this party is addictive
Self-destructive, no doubt
So I hope that someone saves a seat for me
On the last plane out
(Chorus)