you are in: Poetry > I Was Abducted by the Eighties

dressed for all the world like a new romantic,
feeling quite rubbish and starting to look it,
with some pointy shiny shoes
and a Mel Gibson-type mullet,
 
landing from moment to moment,
like the bloke from Quantam Leap,
cocking every one of them up
and changing our history to the one you now know.

You might not believe me,
but I was the suspicious looking stain
on the hair of Dickie Davis.
I wrote a song for Europe to help you make your mind up
that Bucks Fizz were shit.

I was always on the side of Inspector Chism.
I shot JR and got mullered with Sue Ellen.
I fouled Linekar from behind
and offered him his first Walkers crisp.

99 red balloons - I was the hair in Nina’s armpits.
 
I’m responsible for all the things that went wrong
in the decade that bought you Neighbours
and The Birdie Song,

and what an atmosphere.
I love a party with a happy Ayatollah
surfing on a satanic verse with Salman Rushdie.
I drove around in a Nissan Sunny,
had a drink at the Vic with Den and Angie.
The eighties was dross and it was all my fault.
I was Jive Bunny.
 
I sold you that Betamax video recorder
and rigged all the elections for Margaret Thatcher,
to get revenge on the decade that wrecked my adolescence.

I sprayed “Free George Jackson”
in the Blue Peter garden,
put their tortoise into hibernation,
told a dirty joke and offended Ben Elton.
I sold arms to Iran and Iraq.
I discovered Bros, and Kylie and Jason,

not to mention Five Star and Roland Rat
and everything else that left a nasty taste in the trap
throughout the decade
of Just Say No, Feed the World, ET and Live Aid;
I was Rocky, Rambo, Top Gun and The Terminator,
I shot the Pope and bedded Boris Becker.
Vorch Sprung Dorch Technic he said as he was doing it,
which made McCenroe lose his temper
and I’ll always regret it.
 
Living on a Prayer with Bon Jovi’s hair,
It was me who made off with Shergar
and poisoned all the air around Chernobyl,
in the nineteen eighties - decade of the disaster,
I worked for NASA.

I introduced Charles to Diana and Fergie to Andrew,
but it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to
join the SDP/Liberal Allience, get done for tax evasion,
dance all night to acid house,
drop a tab and go on Wogan,
with Huey Lewis and the News, Oliver Reed and Ian Botham.
 
I was yuppies, wads and Loadsamoney
and, although it might sound twisted,
I was Kevin Keegan’s barber,
if such a man existed.
 
I lost my faith at Bhopal and rained on Greenham Common,
had a spoil over oil with General Gaultiari,
fell out with Ghaddaffi and blew up his children,
and then screamed for retribution for the children of Lockerbie.

I introduced Michael Ryan to his AK47
and watched him go berserk,
pulled the sheet from under Fleet Street
and starved the miners back to work
- albeit temporarily.
 
I was Reagan’s latex brain
slowly decomposing, like the spuds of Percy Thrower.
I was the hands of Kenny Everett
and Diego Maradonna.
 
Somewhere in a distant green and pleasant universe
exists a Nineteen Eighties
where everything was hunky dory,
before I got bounced through time like a tennis ball
and cocked it all up and put it in your memory,

so listen very carefully. I shall say this only once:
I’m responsible for Murder She Wrote,
Heart to Heart and Back to the Future,
thrash metal and the arms race,
Cagney and Lacey and video nasties,

Samantha Fox, Ultravox,
Beverly Hills Cop and Fraggle Rock,
Afghanistan, the Star Wars programme,
Bananaman and Bananarama,
Donkey Kong and Pac Man,
Morrissey and Michael Jackson,
Dire Straits and Robert Palmer;

Scrappy Doo and The Proclaimers,
footless tights and legwarmers,
René and Renata,
The Pet Shop Boys and Spycatcher;

and in public I apologise
for Miami Vice and Cats Eyes
and causing people far and wide
to cry out “Cowabunga”.
 
It was all my fault,
so smack me in the face with Mallet’s Mallet,
feed me Golden Wonder snacks and sew my arse together,
‘cause Frankie says Relax
and honestly, believe me, I deserve no better.
 
I was abducted by the Eighties.
I never saw them coming.
And whether we die of AIDS or Salmonella,
or simply hit the deck just like that Tommy Cooper;
fall in love, get nuked from above,
or slowly choke to death on the grease from the hair of Brian Ferry,
I have to explain that I’m the one to blame.
It’s all my fault.