The relationship wasn’t working. I tired to tell her as much. It wasn’t clear from her reaction whether of not the things I’d said had sunk in. it was pretty clear she was quite crazy anyway: that’s why I had decided to call it a day. Sure, she was attractive enough, at least from the neck down. I had spent some time deliberating over my decision, and while I had pondered, had listened to a few apposite records, including my 7” copy of the song by The Monks, “Nice Legs, Shame About Her Face.”

Despite the turn in the tale in the final verse, the chorus seemed fitting. The Fall had, on their first album, Live at the Witch Trials, recorded a number called “Rebellious Jukebox,” the title of which had been variously lifted by magazines for columns about compilations and tracks selected by celebrities and recording artists. In my own personal twist on this theme – seemingly incongruous tracks selected by individuals to demonstrate their influences, but, subtextually, their knowledge of cult music, and, ultimately, their hipness – my selection of tracks was not so much intended to show my alternative and cult leanings, but my ability to pick songs which best suited the current situation, either mine of that of someone close to me, or that of a current cultural or political situation – or not so much to “pick” them, but for my mind to throw these tracks out at random and at the most inopportune yet curiously apposite moments.

It was like the dilemma of perfect comedy: does one go for the line which displays that flash of inspired genius but which is likely to cause offence, or does one suppress it and say the “right” thing? And so it came to pass that as I considered my predicament, a plethora of songs entered my head and became the soundtrack churned out on random play my mental jukebox, whether I willed it or not.

I cursed my encyclopaedic musical knowledge as The Monks’ chanted chorus entered my consciousness, and although Fudge Tunnel’s “Don”t Have Time for You’ from the 1995 Creep Diets album seeped into my mind from time to time, I knew the situation had a deeper gravity than random songs entering my head. And yet, for all my efforts, I could not stop them.

“What do you think is the problem?” she asked.

“What isn’t?” I replied, tortuously vaguely and meanly rhetorically. To my mind, everything was wrong, and that much was obvious. As I had said, the relationship wasn’t working. It required little qualification: the flaws were clearly apparent and required little or no explanation, I was buggered if I was going to give one.