Television '74 - Horizontal Ascension, rare (unreleased) song +lyrics

An early song from a 1974 rehearsal when Richard Hell was in the band. It appears on a bootleg entitled "Poor Circulation".

Richard Hell Quote: "I was in the band for a year...But the peak of my participation in it probably came at about three or four months...It sounds more like what the Neon Boys sounded like than like Marquee Moon-era Television. As great as the guitar playing is on Marquee Moon, the original band was more to the point. It's more like...it came at a time when music was really...boring, you know? It was a return to the values of the Kingsmen and the Sonics and Them and the Velvet Underground. It still had this really beautiful guitar talent — ecstatic, explosive guitar — going on as well as this lyrical quality, but it was more driving and crazed."

-Hell sang & co-wrote quite a few early Television songs. He said Tom wrote the music & Hell wrote words to songs Hell sang. On Horizontal Ascension it's Tom singing.
Unfortunately, Hell's known to spike YT uploads of early Television recordings he sings on, by lodging copyright infringement claims. "Blank Generation" & "Excitement" are two examples of songs I uploaded that got spiked. As the Brits like to say, Bloody Hell!

As this song demonstrates, in '74 Television were NYC pioneering punk noise-meisters! Sex Pistols impresario, Malcolm McLaren, has been open about the fact he was fascinated with Hell & the CBGB bands & wanted to transplant the NYC scene to the UK via the Sex Pistols, who adopted much of the CBGB music style (e.g. The Ramones, & Television's more punk-like songs), plus the look Richard Hell had first begun. Hell already had a punk-like stage name, & was spiking his hair & wearing ripped & "customized" tee shirts a year and half+ before the Pistols existed. And McLaren played Rotten a tape of Hell's "Blank Generation" , telling Johnny to write his own version. Result: "Pretty Vacant"!

-I've also uploaded recordings of other unreleased Television songs from '74, '75 & '78. Check my YT Channel.
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Thanks go to a helpful You Tuber Television fan who took the time to transcribe these hard-to-catch lyrics, & send them my way. Here they are:

HORIZONTAL ASCENCION (lyrics transcription)
I got this great lighter for my Birthday
....................................miles away
a shiny little silver lighter
I went down to the magazine store
and nobody was watchin'
I take a look at all those nice covers
nobody was watchin'
I strike up my nice new lighter
I take a look around and
nobody was watchin'
I took my lighter and look out...
there goes Time
there goes Life
there goes Downbeat
there goes Look
there goes Rolling Stone
I make it out across the woods
I make it...across the fields
And I bring that bucket up the well
I bring that bucket up the well
Sun's comin' down
and I put my little lighter in the bucket
and I drop the bucket down the well
I drop the bucket down the well
I drop the bucket down the well
I get this funny feelin'
I get this funny feelin'
I get.......?
Tell me boy, where was it?
The darkest night of summer
I went for a walk over the hill
and then I came upon it
an ancient black windmill
I step into the windmill
and the thing starts swingin'
the thing starts swingin'
the thing starts swingin'
the thing starts swingin'
it starts really swingin'
It's okay nobody waits
It's don't take up any space
It's okay (so many times)?
don't take anything at all
Tell me boy.....?.....watching

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Television
• band
• Tom
• Verlaine
• Richard
• Hell
• CBGB
• Horizontal
• Ascension
• Poor
• Circulation
• bootleg

[veranka3]

This stuff is really interesting, but the idea that it is better then Marquee Moon-era Television (as Richard Hell would like us to think) strikes me as kind of ridiculous. To me, this is a bunch of talented young guys sounding almost exactly like a band that they-- and many others-- love: The Velvet Underground. It's fun to listen to and, despite being derivative of great stuff, is still derivative. Marquee Moon is not.

[RebelSpiritof77]

Couldn't hit it (vein) sideways, Sister Ray sez...

[avastyer]

Wow! I never heard this before. The VU influence is clear - but what an amazing song.

[pigeon67]

Holy Sister Ray!

[rollagasper]

"Killers. Sharp as tacks... they made me cry" - hilarious quote.

[SeagreenSerenade]

Just a fantastic post, memories of raging energy, thx a million for this !!!