The Civil Surface

[Dave Stewart's comments]

Personnel:

Dave Stewart (organ, piano; bass on Nearch)

Mont Campbell (bass, voice, french horn, piano)

Clive Brooks (drums)

with

Jeremy Baines (germophone and bonk[?])

Lindsay Cooper (oboe & bassoon on Nearch and Germ Patrol)

Tim Hodgkinson (clarinet on Nearch and Germ Patrol)

Amanda Parsons, Ann Rosenthal & Barbara Gaskin (singing on Prelude)

Also:

Steve 'speshul guest star' Hillage (guitar on Wring out the ground)

Wind Quartets performed by:

Mont Campbell (french horn)

Maurice Cambridge (clarinet)

Stephen Solloway (flute)

Chris Palmer (bassoon)

Special thanks to:

Heathershaws of Worthing: Metronome & Triangle

Pete Wade: Driving & much more

Steve Borrill: Rehearsals

Paul, Cheryl & Mark: Places to stay, things to eat

& finally . . . .

WORTAX & Mr Hunt for their interesting and unwitting electronic interference

Sleeve notes

Tracklist

Side One

1. Germ Patrol (Egg)
2. Wind Quartet 1 (Egg)*
3. Enneagram (Egg)

Side Two

1. Prelude (Egg)
2. Wring out the ground loosely now (Egg)
3. Nearch (Egg)
4. Windquartet 2 (Egg)*

* credited to 'Egg', but presumably the work of Mont Campbell

Lyrics

Wring out the ground loosely now

Wring out
Wring it out
Wring, wring it out
Wring it further out,
Ground,
Wring out the ground loosely now

Wring out
Wring it out
Wring, wring it out
Wring it gently out

Everything I saw was a terrible bore
Because I'd seen it all before,
And the one thing it told me was
That what I had to do
Was to fight my way through
And try to think of something new
And I couldn't help feeling it was true,
It was true.

Wring out
Wring it out
Wring, wring it out
Wring it gently out

Last out
Last it out
Last, last it out
Last one out's a fool
Least, last out the least, listlessly

Last out
Last it out
Last, last it out
Last one out's a shame

Maybe I was wrong
But it won't take me long
Because the power is too strong
To forsake me and leave me
Standing, savouring what might
Oh the knowledge of right
For men to answer to the sight
Of the universe and the realm of light,
Of light,
Realm of light
Realm of light
Realm of light

[Tracklist]

"Future events were to partly compensate for the lack of interest that led to the band's demise, as in 1974 we got the opportunity to reform the band for the album The Civil Surface. This effectively mopped up the unrecorded material from the post-Polite Force era, though we had to pad it out a little with some wind quartets Mont had written - not really Egg Material! Although the mix on Civil Service is a bit naff (we couldn't persuade Clive that the drums were loud enough) I'm really glad we recorded 'Enneagram', one of my favourite Egg pieces. We used to steam through that at gigs - our opening number - and peoples' faces would drop."

Dave Stewart
(from an article originally published in Ptolemaic Terrascope, 1990).

Transcription and HTML by Andy Murkin

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