The Civil Surface

[Dave Stewart's comments]

Personnel:

Dave Stewart (organ, piano; bass on Nearch)

MontCampbell (bass, voice, french horn, piano)

Clive Brooks (drums)

with

Jeremy Baines (germophone and bonk[?])

Lindsay Cooper (oboe & bassoon on Nearch and GermPatrol)

Tim Hodgkinson (clarinet on Nearch andGerm Patrol)

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

Also:

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

Wind Quartets performed by:

Mont Campbell (french horn)

Maurice Cambridge (clarinet)

StephenSolloway (flute)

Chris Palmer (bassoon)

Specialthanks 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 unwittingelectronic 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 outthe ground loosely now (Egg)
3. Nearch (Egg)
4. Windquartet 2 (Egg)*

* credited to 'Egg', but presumably the work of MontCampbell

Lyrics

Wring out the ground loosely now

Wring out
Wring it out
Wring, wring it out
Wring it furtherout,
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 fightmy way through
And try to think of something new
And I couldn't helpfeeling 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 toostrong
To forsake me and leave me
Standing, savouring what might
Ohthe knowledge of right
For men to answer to the sight
Of the universeand 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 interestthat led to the band's demise, as in 1974 we got the opportunity to reform theband for the album The Civil Surface. This effectively mopped upthe unrecorded material from the post-Polite Force era, though wehad to pad it out a little with some wind quartets Mont had written - notreally Egg Material! Although the mix on Civil Service is a bitnaff (we couldn't persuade Clive that the drums were loud enough) I'm reallyglad we recorded 'Enneagram', one of my favourite Egg pieces. We used to steamthrough that at gigs - our opening number - and peoples' faces would drop."

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

Transcription and HTML by Andy Murkin

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