For more than twenty years he has been releasing, to only marginal commercial and critical success, playful and transgressive albums on labels in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan. In his lyrics and his other writing he makes seemingly random use of decontextualized pieces of continental (mostly French) philosophy, and has built up a personal world he says is "dominated by values like diversity, orientalism, and a respect for otherness." He is also known in certain circles outside the U.S. as a producer. He is fascinated by identity, Japan, the avant-garde, time travel and sex. Live Momus shows are rare but when he does perform he often sings the crowd favourite 'maf' from the Stars Forever LP.
He wears a patch over his right eye because he lost the use of it after contracting acanthamoeba keratitis from a contact lens case washed with Greek tap water.
Nick Currie currently resides in Osaka, Japan.
2PM
Momus Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I promised the ghost of Meleager
I would marry Deianira
So I went to Calydon where Oeneus was king
Stopping to fight the river god Achelous on the way
I won when I broke his horn
In the pyramid at Giza
I am blind like Homer yet strangely I still see
Screenprinted cows and silver foil
Gigantic ants scuttling on a motherboard
While I sew with Ariadne, the white rabbit
Scurries away down next door's burrow
Two in the afternoon
In an ephemeral hospital
The radio therapy ward is filled with tiny lights
A pile of dim barely perceptible earth in a heap
And spiritual distant music
At two in the afternoon
I wander in Venice with Von Aschenbach
Seeking a lost child in a red cape
Coughing blood
And the swine of Circe come running to their deaths
Maddened by the singing of the sirens
Winter fog rolling in off the lido
Sometimes a god crosses your path here unannounced
In the pyramid the mummy grows mouldy at the last
At two in the afternoon
Haile Selassi orders a stamp collection to be brought
Lifts the stamps with tweezers and places them back
I leave him to his pastime
For time will probably pass regardless
I strike out from Alexandria to the Athenian apartment
Of my ninth year
Lycabetus blasted in monastic rock
The hot mountains snow capped with marble
Dust storms over Psychico
Lime Cordial on Eucalyptus Square
Where is it now?
And where also my Parisian child bride?
Into the sea they flow
With Villon's medieval snow
Four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon
Three at evening,
Flat on our backs by dawn
Two in the afternoon
Gracchus the hunter joins me now
He offers me the oars and I row
From one Greek island to the next
While Gracchus writes, if it be possible so deep in death to write
The secrets of the world
In the margins of a little girl's spidery pencilled Spice Girls scrapbook
Picked up from the ground in Hackney
The crows of Tokyo are sombre umbrellas
Flapping atop telegraph poles in the rainy season
A writer hurries by dressed in a restrained check pattern
Composing in his head the 31st syllable of a tanka
Leigh Bowery is sitting at his sewing machine
Corpulent, pale eyed
Flash forward: he is stammering "a few more days"
As they threaten to turn off his life support machine
And the ECG bleep goes spastic
Slavic women decorate their anguish with ullulations
The mongolian terror is fresh in their memories
Grim dawn comes from the east bringing carrion
Over the grass of the highlands
Gulls girn, denouncing all culprits
The skull prickles, the hairs rise
Poe indulges in voluptuous melancholia, polysyllabic
Like the grass the horsemen know
We perish
For me it's 2PM
For the moment life goes on
And the Minotaur plays Nintendo
Basho squats before the emperor
The former thirteen and a half year old genius
Exposes himself in a subway passage
To a halfwit girl he scares half out of her wits
As Brahms completes his Requiem
Shakespeare and the Bishop Of Winchester
Are teasing the fraus in the stews of Southwark
They are baiting bears in the nearby pit
The arena has been flooded
Shakespeare and the Bishop take their seats for the re-enactment of
The sea battle between the Genji and Haike
The imperial boat is already on fire
The battle was lost centuries before
Deianira agrees to be my wife
We purchase an ivy green Lexus, flagship of the range
And live, discreetly luxurious, in a premier shell loft conversion in the Hollywood hills
The converted observatory at Palo Alto
Three at evening,
Flat on our backs by dawn
For me it's 2PM
For the moment life goes on
Four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon
Three at evening
Flat on our backs by dawn .....
The song "2PM" by Momus is a surrealistic reverie that explores different times and places, mingling mythological, historical and personal references. The lyrics are fragmented and non-linear, creating a collage of images and impressions that suggest a dream-like state of mind. The first stanza refers to a Greek mythological story about Meleager, Deianira, and Achelous, where the hero Meleager promises the ghost of Achelous that he will marry Deianira. This section sets the tone for the rest of the song, where various characters, places, and events are juxtaposed in a free association manner, emphasizing the fleeting nature of time and the transience of human life.
The second stanza takes the listener to the pyramid of Giza, where the singer becomes lost in a series of chambers, but still manages to see strange things like screenprinted cows and gigantic ants scuttling on a motherboard. The mention of Homer and Ariadne adds a mythological layer to this section, while the white rabbit that scurries away suggests a playful, fantastical element in the narrative.
The third stanza shifts to a hospital where the radiotherapy ward is filled with tiny lights and spiritual, distant music. The pile of dim earth may refer to the ashes of a loved one or the aftermath of a medical treatment. The sense of disorientation and dissociation is further emphasized in this section.
Line by Line Meaning
Post morning, pre-mortem
Before I die, but after I wake up
I promised the ghost of Meleager
I made a promise to a dead person
I would marry Deianira
I promised to marry a woman named Deianira
So I went to Calydon where Oeneus was king
I traveled to Calydon where King Oeneus was
Stopping to fight the river god Achelous on the way
I fought a river god named Achelous
I won when I broke his horn
I won the battle by breaking his horn
In the pyramid at Giza
I was inside the pyramid in Giza
I become lost in a succession of chambers
I got lost in a series of rooms
I am blind like Homer yet strangely I still see
I am blind, like the poet Homer, but I can still see things
Screenprinted cows and silver foil
There were cows printed on a screen and silver foil present
Gigantic ants scuttling on a motherboard
There were big ants crawling on a motherboard
While I sew with Ariadne, the white rabbit
I was sewing with someone named Ariadne and a white rabbit ran away
Scurries away down next door's burrow
The rabbit fled down a nearby burrow
Two in the afternoon
It was 2 PM
In an ephemeral hospital
I was inside a temporary hospital
The radio therapy ward is filled with tiny lights
The room had many small lights in the radio therapy ward
A pile of dim barely perceptible earth in a heap
There was a pile of barely visible earth
And spiritual distant music
There was ethereal music playing somewhere
I wander in Venice with Von Aschenbach
I walked around in Venice with someone named Von Aschenbach
Seeking a lost child in a red cape
We were searching for a lost child wearing a red cape
Coughing blood
I was coughing up blood
And the swine of Circe come running to their deaths
Circe's pigs were running to their deaths
Maddened by the singing of the sirens
They were being driven crazy by the sound of the sirens singing
Winter fog rolling in off the lido
Fog from the lido was rolling in during winter
Sometimes a god crosses your path here unannounced
Gods can show up unexpectedly
In the pyramid the mummy grows mouldy at the last
The mummy in the pyramid was growing moldy
Haile Selassi orders a stamp collection to be brought
Haile Selassi requested a stamp collection
Lifts the stamps with tweezers and places them back
He picked up the stamps with tweezers and put them back down
I leave him to his pastime
I left him to his hobby
For time will probably pass regardless
Time will continue moving forward
I strike out from Alexandria to the Athenian apartment
I left Alexandria and traveled to my former apartment in Athens
Of my ninth year
When I was nine years old
Lycabetus blasted in monastic rock
The Lycabetus was covered in rock from a monastery
The hot mountains snow capped with marble
The mountains were hot and had snow and marble on top
Dust storms over Psychico
There were dust storms happening over Psychico
Lime Cordial on Eucalyptus Square
There was lime cordial available on Eucalyptus Square
Where is it now?
I don't know where it is currently
And where also my Parisian child bride?
I don't know where my Parisian child bride is either
Into the sea they flow
They ended up flowing into the sea
With Villon's medieval snow
The snow was reminiscent of Medieval poet Villon
Four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon
I had four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon (a reference to the riddle of the Sphinx)
Three at evening,
Then I had three legs in the evening (continuation of the Sphinx riddle)
Flat on our backs by dawn
By dawn, we were all lying flat on our backs
Gracchus the hunter joins me now
A hunter named Gracchus joined me
He offers me the oars and I row
Gracchus offered me the oars and I rowed
From one Greek island to the next
We traveled from one Greek island to the next
While Gracchus writes, if it be possible so deep in death to write
Gracchus was writing, even though he was dead
The secrets of the world
He was writing about the secrets of the world
In the margins of a little girl's spidery pencilled Spice Girls scrapbook
He was writing in the margins of a little girl's Spice Girls scrapbook
Picked up from the ground in Hackney
We found the scrapbook lying on the ground in Hackney
The crows of Tokyo are sombre umbrellas
The crows in Tokyo look like sad umbrellas
Flapping atop telegraph poles in the rainy season
They were flapping their wings on top of telegraph poles during the rainy season
A writer hurries by dressed in a restrained check pattern
A writer dressed in a modest check pattern walked by quickly
Composing in his head the 31st syllable of a tanka
He was coming up with the 31st syllable of a tanka poem in his head as he walked by
Leigh Bowery is sitting at his sewing machine
Leigh Bowery was sitting at his sewing machine
Corpulent, pale eyed
He was extremely overweight with light-colored eyes
Flash forward: he is stammering "a few more days"
In the future, he will be stammering "a few more days"
As they threaten to turn off his life support machine
He will be on life support
And the ECG bleep goes spastic
And the ECG monitoring device starts going crazy
Slavic women decorate their anguish with ullulations
Slavic women express their pain through wailing
The mongolian terror is fresh in their memories
They were still scared from the Mongolian attack
Grim dawn comes from the east bringing carrion
A gloomy dawn arrived from the east with lots of dead animals
Over the grass of the highlands
It went over the grass in the highlands
Gulls girn, denouncing all culprits
Gulls were making noise, blaming everyone for something
The skull prickles, the hairs rise
The sensation of fear made my skull tingle and hair stand up
Poe indulges in voluptuous melancholia, polysyllabic
Poe is feeling romantic, with complex emotions
Like the grass the horsemen know
Similar to how horse riders know things about grass
We perish
We will die eventually
For me it's 2PM
Currently, it is 2PM for me
For the moment life goes on
For now, life continues
And the Minotaur plays Nintendo
The Minotaur is playing Nintendo
Basho squats before the emperor
Basho crouches/sits before the emperor
The former thirteen and a half year old genius
When he was younger, he was a genius at 13 and a half years old
Exposes himself in a subway passage
He exposes himself in a subway passage
To a halfwit girl he scares half out of her wits
He scares a girl who is not very smart
As Brahms completes his Requiem
Brahms finishes his Requiem
Shakespeare and the Bishop Of Winchester
Shakespeare and the Bishop of Winchester
Are teasing the fraus in the stews of Southwark
They are tormenting women in the brothels of Southwark
They are baiting bears in the nearby pit
They are provoking bears in a nearby pit
The arena has been flooded
The arena is now flooded
Shakespeare and the Bishop take their seats for the re-enactment of
Shakespeare and the Bishop take their seats to watch a reenactment
The sea battle between the Genji and Haike
The reenactment is the sea battle between the Genji and Haike
The imperial boat is already on fire
The emperor's boat is already on fire
The battle was lost centuries before
The battle had been lost long before this reenactment
Deianira agrees to be my wife
Deianira agrees to marry me
We purchase an ivy green Lexus, flagship of the range
We bought an ivy green Lexus, which is a top-of-the-line car
And live, discreetly luxurious, in a premier shell loft conversion in the Hollywood hills
We lived in a luxurious shell loft conversion in the Hollywood Hills in a subtle manner
The converted observatory at Palo Alto
We lived in a converted observatory in Palo Alto
Three at evening
It is now 3 in the evening
Flat on our backs by dawn
We were all lying flat on our backs by dawn
Contributed by Hudson W. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Aldo Charles
on Morality Is Vanity
I’ve been listening to this song last two weeks.