You know you’re getting older when people who were sent down for committing front page news crimes when you were a child have been released on parole.
In 1981, I’d just celebrated my 5th birthday when John Hinckley Jr. wounded President Ronald Reagan in an assassination attempt. I don’t remember being aware of it at the time, it wasn’t until the following year when The Falklands Conflict broke out that I starting taking the time to sit down and watch news coverage. Once I did learn about the attempt on Reagan’s life, the more odd it all sounded. Someone attempted to kill the President of the United States because they were in love with someone who starred in Bugsy Malone? The daft twat…
Toiling Midgets began their sporadic career in 1979 as a collective of musicians from various post-punk groups such as The Sleepers and Negative Trend. After recording 2 albums in the 1980s, the band returned in 1992 with an album, Son, which was trailed by Faux Pony. At the time that I first heard it, my notes describe it simply as Nick Cave infused rock. Initially, I had this down to the croon with which Mark Eitzel performs the song, but closer listening shows further similarities such as apocalyptic sentiments: America needs a hero/To put an end to its dying dream and especially, dark humour:
Me and Jodie Foster/We would have made a fine pair.
If my aim had been straighter/Maybe I could have got somewhere.
The song puts itself into the mind of Hinckley by reflecting on what he thinks might have happened had his fantasies been borne out.. It’s a catchily, chilling listen with its allusions to the recognition of perceived signals from Jodie Foster which Hinckley may have taken as a means by which to impress her (I understood) and the swirls of feedback denoting an unstable mind.
Faux Pony is, I feel, the best of the Hinckley focussed songs which crept out over the years after the shooting. Others who covered the topic ahead of Toiling Midgets include such artiste-provocateurs as Devo - whose song, I Desire attracted controversy as it used lines from one of Hinckley’s poems to Foster - J.F.A. (Jodie Foster’s Army), Wall of Voodoo whose song Far Side of Crazy was a Top 30 hit in Australia - The Crucifucks, Carmaig de Forest, whose song, Hey Judas, believed that Hinckley would go to Hell for failing to kill Reagan, and er… Stephen Sondheim who included a duet featuring Hinckley in his 1990 musical, Assassins.
Hinckley never went to prison for the shooting. He was found not guilty of attempted murder by reason of insanity and instead spent 35 years in a psychiatric institution. In 2016, he was released, with a string of conditions attached. He always had aspirations to be a musician and having had so many songs written about him over the years, has started to get in on the action himself by releasing a single on streaming services and running his own YouTube channel showcasing his songs.
Video courtesy of Thomas Mallon-McCorgray (who produced many of the Toiling Midgets recordings)
All lyrics are copyright of their authors.
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