Greedhead Detector by Julian Cope

Greedhead Detector by Julian Cope

[johnreeves]

'Greedhead Detector' was written around the (early/mid-nineties) height, of Julian's being-there-in-person anti-authoritarian activism; a few years after he appeared at the poll tax riot, in the costume of his seven-foot-tall alter-ego, Sqwubbsy - and around the same time, of the eco-protest battle, against the building of the Newbury bypass and other such horrors (as also informed the content of the 'Autogeddon' album).
The phrase: 'Greedhead Detector', is in the same vein as: 'bullshit detector' - which I assume needs no further - or, indeed, any - explanation.
Back in 1996, activists from the GMB Union (the energy industry workers' union), famously brought a live pig, nicknamed ''Cedric', along to a British Gas shareholders meeting, in public protest at boardroom excess - in their own specific case, that of the then CEO of British Gas, Cedric Brown, aka 'Cedric The Pig'.
Brown is the named 'greedhead', in the song. 'Greedhead' is the counterculture term, for what the papers at the time called the 'fat cats', within British industry - the piggish people with their 'snouts in the trough' - hence the bringing of Cedric, the actual live pig, to the shareholders meeting - and who, for the benefit of (and to the delight of) the gathered media photographers, was fed treacle-covered £5 notes, for the cameras. At the time (when gas workers were being made redundant), Brown's salary was being increased, by 75%, to £475, 000 - the equivalent, in 2020, of more or less a million a year - and he battled, and would not throw in the towel, as regards accepting any less.
History repeated itself, in 2019, when at Centrica's AGM, shareholders in the company (which now owns British Gas), were to vote on the then-current CEO, Iain Conn’s pay - which was set to increase to £2.4 million - via a 44% pay rise.
The line: ''it's a gas, it's a gas', as well as its meaning from the Sixties, is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the industry in which Brown had his snout. The song goes on to joke (in the nature of a double-entendre), that Brown provides the nation's gas, in return for his salary; but that - in the face of so much cash - Brown's trembling excitement is such that it causes him to actually ejaculate ('he shivers - and delivers'); the same joke around 'delivering', that Julian has also used elsewhere.The song rightly goes on to say, that once these fucks have umpteen million pounds, the thrill from any still further millions palls - and what their egos really crave then is (to everyone else, the even *more* meaningless) being made 'a Knight of the Realm' by The Queen and thereby entitled to be called 'Sir' - and their taking it as a personal insult, if that call never comes and it never happens for them.
I think there is also a nod, to the famous quote by Marcus Aurelius, about the soul becoming degraded:

"Yes, keep on degrading yourself, soul. But soon your chance at dignity will be gone. Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others.”
Anyway, here are the lyrics. This is my transcription of the album track, rather than the slight freestyling of live versions, but one size almost fits all:

"Cedric Brown says it hurts when he smiles, so he scowls (he ain't throwin' in the towel),
It's a gas, it's a gas,
But his Cyclops eye sees the cash, so he shivers - and delivers -
but he's something of a clown, Cedric Brown.
Then he cracks, and he stutters - concedes what he *really* wants:
These 'captains of industry' feel slighted....if they're not 'knighted',
but it means nothing...it means nothing...it means...*nothing*.
Greedhead Detector.
Fuck
The soul becomes degraded, with control.
The invader, the invader is the (inaudible, possibly 'psycho'), who creeps inside you,
you are hypnotised to see nothing; no, nothing (nothing that means anything at all).
Conditioned to feel nothing, about nothing. A big zero. A big circle.
But that circle is full of light and love and She dances at the base of your soul...
- means EVERYTHING!
It may be a conceit of my own, but I choose to believe, that the 'female', to whom Julian refers, is the Earth, the Mother, who - in the face of all our materialist and contra-ecological bollocks - is still there, at the base of each of our own respective souls - and who does indeed mean *EVERYTHING*.
After the 'main' lyrics, Julian is quietly intoning a mantra, under the music, something like:
"No tv on, no radio, no computer game, no video".
I may return to this, if I feel I've anything to add - but I think this will satisfy most.
Greetings to all, from Hertfordshire - and to Woden, Allfather.