Fear of Science

 

Drugs won't change you
Religion won't change you
...

Science won't change you
Looks like I can't change you
I try to talk to you, to make things clear
but you're not even listening to me...
Mind (Talking Heads)

This is a supplement to my 'Clinical Psychology is Anti- or Ante- Science?' post and addresses comments made by Dr Lucy Johnstone regarding the British Psychological Society (BPS) Division of Clinical Psychologists (DCP) 'Paradigm Shift' document. Johnstone was the chief architect of the document and the main spokesperson on that document in the media.

 

There's no 'f' in paradigm shift

1) Is the plan to replace diagnosis (with formulation)?
Re the position of the DCP in the 'Paradigm Shift' document and whether it represents is a call for replacing diagnosis or not?

It would seem crucial to determine what the British Psychological Society DCP are saying on this issue - both formally through the document itself and informally through their representative i.e. Lucy Johnstone. The document received much fanfare publicity, with its apparent ramifications for service users and providers of every persuasion - any confusion or lack of clarity on such an issue would seem not only unacceptable, but potentially harmful

Memories cant wait (Talking Heads)

In trying to clarify the idea of whether formulation is designed as a 'replacement for diagnosis, what follows is part of a Twitter conversation between LJ and myself on this issue:
 

6.31 June 7th - LJ says the DCP position document is not advocating replacement of diagnosis with formulation

7.05 June 7th - I post two Twitter statements from LJ, where she clearly advocates replacement (or abandonment) of diagnosis with formulation - actual links below

2.27 Hune 7th - @nuAmbiguous asks a reasonable question - seems odd not to want to replace it if you see it as dehumanising

2.49 June 7th - Then LJ says she 'definitely does" want to replace it

2.53 June 7th - Finally, @nuAmbiguous asks a question that remained unanswered

The Twitter discussion starts at the bottom and works upwards

Here are Tweets from Lucy Johnstone saying "Read my blog on how formulation can replace diagnosis" and here saying "UK Clinical Psychologists Call for the Abandonment of Psychiatric Diagnosis..." And finally, Lucy Johnstone's blog clearly headed with abandonment in which she says

"In a bold and unprecedented move for any professional body, the UK Division of Clinical Psychology, a sub-division of the British Psychological Society, issued a Position Statement today calling for the end of the unevidenced biomedical model implied by psychiatric diagnosis."

So, we have replacement or no replacement? Does it depend upon the time and audience being addressed? This is an unacceptable way to operate and should make the BPS and DCP feel rightly embarrassed.

Service users and all providers need to know precisely what is being proposed by the professional body representing UK (clinical) psychologists and its representatives.

2) LJ says "The DCP statement calls for a joint effort to develop a multifactorial and contextual approach...as an alternative to diagnosis (Rec 3)"

First, you again clearly state 'alternative to diagnosis'. Second, you call for joint effort but with whom? The implication may be ...with psychiatrists and other service providers - but actually Recommendation 3 (shown below) refers only to working with service users - part of the Recommendation you edited from your response on my post

 

You go onto say Recommendation 5 (below) refers to formulation being promoted as 'ONE' response. This is fine, but what others are you also promoting? and how does this sit with your clear statements above calling to replace diagnosis with formulation? or the DCP webpage saying "...the DCP continues to advocate the use of psychological formulation"

 

3) You refer to scientist-practitioner models - As you (oddly) refer to yourself as being "glad not to be a scientist", that you see yourself essentially as a practitioner only. This would seem to resonate with the title of my post - 'Clinical Psychology - anti- or ante- science?'

 

 



 

 

4) You go onto say that

"It is primarily about working with HUMAN EMOTIONAL DISTRESS and HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS. This is why the charge of lack of reliability and validity (in the sense applied to medical diagnoses) is not fatal or even relevant to formulation. (your caps...you seem to like caps)
 

And that those researchers who have examined reliability and validity in formulation - and found it sadly lacking - are 'deeply misguided'. Might these individuals be the science end of science-practitioner who are deeply misguided?

I also note that these are quite bizarre claims ...Are you denying that psychiatrists a) also work with human emotional distress and human relationships? If, so why is your chief criticism of diagnosis based on issues of reliability and validity? and b) no connection exists at all between your first and second sentence - why is the lack of reliability and validity not relevant to formulation? Just saying they are not does not make it so...as your 'deeply misguided' colleagues would argue

 Modern anti-psychiatry is more nots than knots

 

5) I asked "...couldn't different clinical psychologists give different formulations of the same client" - this is obviously the case from what you and others say. Nonetheless, it is notable that you avoid answering the question and instead divert to reliability in diagnosis

In response I would say a) service users in particular need to know if the formulation you are offering is an unreliable assessment? Would it vary from one psychologists to another?  and b) your non-answer referring me to diagnosis is a simply an attempt to avoid answering, but diagnosis clearly has a lot better evidence than formulation in terms of reliability and validity and the all-important relationship to outcomes (while formulation meets none of these even adequately as noted in my previous post


6) I am glad to see that you have taken such an interest in my academic and personal life - feeling it necessary to refer to my wife (whom you don't even know)

You also refer to my never using 'formulation' ....as if it is based in some expertise
How does this fit with your saying:

"A formulation is not an expert pronouncement, like a medical diagnosis, but a ‘plausible account’ (Butler, 1998, p.1), and as such best assessed in terms of usefulness than ‘truth’ (Johnstone, 2006)"

or as you say here in in your typical self-contradictory fashion

"Formulation is both simple and complex, common sense and controversial, depending on how it is defined and used"

I am sure we could all make plausible accounts that have no reference to truth, which are simple or complex, common sense or controversial....depending on how we choose to define and use it!
...it just leaves us in Knots with lots of nots

 

Clinical Psychology- Anti or Ante-Science?

Watch out, you might get what you're after
Cool babies, strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house
Hold tight, wait 'till the party's over
Hold tight, we're in for nasty weather

Burning Down the House (Talking Heads)

Have some clinical psychologists developed a bad case of ...anti-science?

Burning down the House, Pull up the Roots and I Get Wild

Although scientists thought this disabling disorder had been eradicated in the previous century, we are seeing increasing numbers of clinical psychologists presenting with a variety of anti-science symptoms. I start here with the symptom of formulation (recently also accompanied by paradigma shiftitis ) - other symptoms will follow in later posts

I understand the reservations that psychologists have routinely and historically expressed about psychiatric diagnoses. Indeed, questions can be always be raised about the reliability and validity of any diagnosis -psychiatric or otherwise. Often these questions about diagnosis are framed in a low evidence, high hyperbole manner - for example saying they are "...hardly more meaningful than star signs". One thing is sure, much research has attempted to assess the reliability and validity of diagnoses like schizophrenia - whether people decide the evidence is sufficiently impressive is then at least a matter of empirical - rather than simply ideological - debate.

Making Flippy Floppy and Slippery People

Given the recent 'position statement' by the British Psychological Society's (BPS) Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP) - Time for a Paradigm Shift in Psychiatric Diagnosis (link to full document at foot of that page) - it is worth taking a closer look at the alternative to diagnosis proposed by the DCP -so-called Formulation

Pere Ubu (Non-Alignment Pact: 1977)

In their Good Practice Guidelines on the use of Psychological Formulation, the DCP states "there is no universally agreed definition of formulation", but do rather nebulously state that:

"Psychological formulation is the summation and integration of the knowledge that is acquired by this assessment process that may involve psychological, biological and systemic factors and procedures"

In the same document, they reference Clinical psychologist Gillian Butler (1998) who says

"A formulation is the tool used by clinicians to relate theory to practice… It is the lynchpin that holds theory and practice together… Formulations can best be understood as hypotheses to be tested.”
 

and later Kuyken (2006) is quoted as saying

'...formulation is ‘a balanced synthesis of the intuitive and rational cognitive systems’

So, Formulation is a hypothesis that links (any specific?)theory and (any specific?) practice that balances intuitive and rational cognitive systems?


and then later still, what formulation is not?

"A formulation is not an expert pronouncement, like a medical diagnosis, but a ‘plausible account’ (Butler, 1998, p.1), and as such best assessed in terms of usefulness than ‘truth’  (Johnstone, 2006)"

Plausible to whom? How do we assess usefulness as opposed to truth? It seems from the way that some clinical psychologists speak that formulation is viewed as orthogonal to veracity - indeed, it is implicit that multiple formulations of the same case are not only possible but possibly desirable(?)

This Heat: 24 Track loop (1978)

Girlfriend is Better

In this context, it is worth unpacking this very recent post - So... What happens next? by the clinical psychologist Peter Kinderman in the light of the DCP paradigm shift document:

Of course, traditional psychiatrists, and many members of the public, say that they find a diagnosis helpful and even comforting. But the truth is that this comfort comes from knowing that your problems are recognised (in both senses of the word), understood, validated, explained (and explicable) and that the person you’re speaking to has a decent plan to help you. A problems list and a formulation can do that. Paradoxically, better than a diagnosis – since, for example, two people with a diagnosis of ‘schizophrenia’ or ‘personality disorder’ might have absolutely nothing in common, not even the same ‘symptoms’, any comfort from a diagnosis is likely to be illusory.

Doesn't Peter Kinderman seem to speak about diagnosis as meeting just those criteria set out by Lucy Johnstone for assessing formulation? As Kinderman says, psychiatrists and patients often view diagnosis as a ‘plausible account’ and presumably diagnosis may also be assessed in terms of usefulness rather than ‘truth’?  It does sometimes seem as though clinical psychologists want to use different criteria for assessing diagnoses and formulations (Science and anti-science).  Further, don't these claims sound somewhat modest and mundane for a paradigm shift? On the basis of saying that no two people with a schizophrenia diagnosis have anything in common, he leaps to the conclusion that "any comfort from a diagnosis is likely to be illusory" - presumably we do return to 'truth' as opposed to ill-usion. Indeed, it would be interesting to hear how Professor Kinderman delineates illusory comfort from real comfort in his patients - that would take some expertise!

Moon Rocks

What about the evidence on formulation?
Bieling & Kuyken (2003) state in their paper Is Cognitive Case Formulation Science or Science Fiction?

In terms of the scientific status of the cognitive case formulation process, current evidence for the reliability of the cognitive case formulation method is modest, at best. There is a striking paucity of research examining the validity of cognitive case formulations or the impact of cognitive case formulation on therapy outcome.
 

One problem, of course, is that all humans are prone to biases and influence of short-cut heuristics that include halo effects, illusory correlations, framing biases, recency effects, confirmatory biases, and failure to consider normative standards. Bieling states that

"Clinicians may make these errors so habitually that in cognitive case formulations of identical cases using identical formulation methods it is not possible to accurately establish consensus."

Of course, some clinical psychologist essentially argue for a science of the individual. In their review of case formulation in mental health, Rainforth & Laurenson 2013 state

… there are difficulties in promoting commonality due to the individual nature of the formulation, based on the service user presentation, traits, personality experiences and needs, and issues relating to practitioner skills and experience...The complex nature of formulation-based approaches to treatment planning contains vulnerability due to judgemental and inferential bias. Benefits for standardizing treatments were noted; however, this also highlights a dilemma in whether to use standardized or individualized approaches to CF.

In other words, it sounds awfully like no two formulations would be the same

Who benefits from formulation?
As noted by Kinderman above, those who use formulation do, of course value it believing it benefits their patients ….but this remains unsubstantiated by any acceptable notions of empirical scientific evidence.

Some evidence suggests that formulation benefits staff rather than the patients or the outcomes for patients

"care planning, staff-patient relationships, staff satisfaction and teamworking, through increasing understanding of patients, bringing together staff with different views and encouraging more creative thinking" Summers 2006.

 

Kuyken et al (2005) in their paper 'The reliability and quality of cognitive case formulation' say:

Our review suggests that, contrary to the claimed benefits of cognitive case formulation, it is not a panacea, and its evidence base is weak at best. Our review suggests instead that it is a promising but currently limited approach to describing and understanding patients’ presenting problems

They suggest "the quality of formulations ranged from very poor to good, with only 44% rated as being at least good enough." and among mental health practitioners in training this fell to 24.1%. Formulations were distributed across the range from very poor to good (‘‘very poor’’ 22.1%; ‘‘poor’’ 33.6%; ‘‘good enough’’ 34.5%; ‘‘good’’ 9.7%). In other words, only a minority of formulations are rated as "good enough"

Swamp

Perhaps reliability and validity are irrelevant to the anti-science of formulation?

"Formulations may be reliable and valid but have no impact on treatment outcome. In contrast, they may be unreliable and invalid but lead through some alternative mechanism (e.g., increasing therapist self-confidence or enhanced alliance) to improved outcome." Bieling & Kuyken (2003) - see also p34 Good Practice Document Johnstone et al 2011

What this highlights most is the view that, while evidence for reliability and validity for formulation is lacking, it just doesn’t matter! The implication is that the lack of evidence for formulation is irrelevant, as it may still improve outcome. - Actually, no empirical scientific evidence exists to show that formulation improves outcome. Moreover no evidence at all exists to support the bold claim that formulation is in fact orthogonal to reliability and validity.


Finally, clinical psychologists may see formulation as an art rather than a science. Indeed, the BPS Good Practice Guidelines on Psychological Formulation states

"the subject matter of our discipline [clinical psychology], human beings and human distress, is not best served by the narrow ‘technical-rational’ application of research to practice. Rather, it requires a kind of artistry that also involves intuition, flexibility and critical evaluation of one’s experience. In other words, formulation is ‘a balanced synthesis of the intuitive and rational cognitive systems’ (Kuyken, 2006, p.30)."

Again, it seems little interest in the science rather than the artistry of formulation

Formulation is a treatment in itself?
Interestingly the BPS document on psychological formulation states "It should also be noted that developing a formulation can be a powerful intervention in itself" - this is an interesting notion insofar as it has no typical 'science' oriented evidence-base whatsoever - and if it is an intervention in itself then it ought to be evidence-based

This Must be the Place (naive melody)

So, formulation cannot be defined, it is a hypothesis, a theory-practice link. It has no basis in truth, it is based in usefulness (though possibly not usefulness to the patient it seems) . It may be an intervention in itself, and also not imply an intervention. It is unreliable and lacks validity. It has no evidential link to outcome. It is artistry linked to intuition...in short, it is anti-science....

An ironic conclusion, that the touted Kuhnian paradigm shift appears to be one going backwards into pre-science or perhaps....formulation its better described as ante-science

Psychology - Seductive, but is it Science?

 

Harvey: Tell me. We're alone here. No witnesses.
Art: Tell you?
Harvey: A sort of confirmation.
Art: Tell you what?
 Harvey: About ravishment

I am an unintentional psychologist. As teenager, I was persuaded to add Psychology as my final 'A'-level  "...probably useful to have a science" I mused. Within days, psychology had consumed me with its easy charm - taking me to places that were simultaneously familiar and exotic - and we duly began a relationship that has persisted for 30 years.

Psychology is the perfect partner - being whatever we want it to be. As a psychology undergraduate, one day I was dissecting brains or measuring social behaviour in cockroaches, the next I was mesmerised by William James' poetic words on emotion or a lecturer telling me that I wanted to have sex with my mother.

Can we really refer to this capacious church of psychology as science?

'La Ritournelle' by Sébastien Tellier

("its awesome" according to my 5 yr old son Vivek)

For most of my academic life as a psychologist, I have endured a dissonance - never doubting that psychology was a science, but believing it is impossible to define a science. Thirty years on, defining science still seems like counting angels on the head of a pin, though now...I believe it's a mistake to refer to psychology as if it were a unitary discipline - rather we have psychologies. And more recently, reservations about the scientific status of some psychologies have begun to feed my obsessive dissonance. Indeed, I would venture that some of these psychologies are...frankly...anti-science (something I will return to in a later post).

Possibly because of a (righteous) historical fear of introspection, psychologists tend to look outwards rather than inwards...which brings me to my point about how psychology currently operates. Psychologists engage in a version of science that is systemically corrupted and blinkered. The evidence on this issue seems unquestionable to me - as indicated by the lack of published replications and null findings, questionable research practices such as selective reporting, hyperbole, evidence denial and even outright fraud, all combined with the shallow pursuit of the curious.

"...you cannot intellectualise your genes, which make aspects of your life inevitable. You cannot intellectualise yourself out of obsession. You cannot cure yourself of it." Nicolas Roeg

In this context, I am posting a collection of recent pieces where I have discussed problems in the practice of psychology - and the extent to which these issues undermine the scientific status of psychology as it currently practices

It's time for psychologists to put their house in order - My original article in the Guardian where I outline some of the systemic problems inherent in the way that psychology currently operates - especially with regard to publishing and my section editorship at the new journal BMC Psychology, which is addressing some of the issues regarding null findings and replications

 

Negativland - a home for all findings in psychology - The Open Access paper that I published in BMC Psychology (which I'm delighted to see has over 10,000 downloads in 2 months). This paper reviews many problems and distortions that beset psychology and how these are longstanding - raising questions about the resistance to change amongst psychologists. One upshot of this unwillingness is how it plays out in the minds of the public - whether we believe psychology is a science or not in any technical intellectual sense becomes redundant if the wider perception of psychology is that it has little credibility and masquerades as a perverse charade of science (see Rupert Read's points below).

 

BBC Radio3 NightWaves audio recording of debate - Is Psychology a Science? - between myself and the philosopher Rupert Read on BBC Radio 3 Night Waves programme (it was linked to my Guardian article). One point argued by Read, is that it is in fact  impossible to replicate experiments in psychology - because of the historical nature of human beings. I am pretty sure no psychologist would agree with this philosophical point - and I explain that we use naive participants. Indeed, Read's argument strikes me as essentially incoherent - at what point does the historical nature of humans kick-in? Presumably, even after one individual has been tested in any experiment - in which case, no experimentation is possible in psychology (nevermind replication)


Why Psychology ain't Science - piece written by Rupert Read following our debate, where he expands on why he thinks psychology is not (and cannot be) a science. This largely seems to consist in his straw-man positioning me as a simplistic Popperian as opposed to his seemingly Kuhnian view of science. "...real science is: roughly, Kuhnian puzzle-solving within a research tradition, in a field that is not one that we construct and inhabit just by virtue (following here Schutz and Garfinkel and Wittgenstein) of being competent social actors"

"Established Psychology is one of those juggernauts that Wittgenstein didn’t like, and rightly so." Rupert Read

Keith Jarrett - The Koln Concert

Storify - this is a collation of the many Tweet discussions that followed our debate on whether Psychology is a Science (compiled by @neurowhoa) - they have been nicely ordered along the line of themes as they emerged in random timeless Twitter space

E=MC² by Big Audio Dynamite

a paean to Nic Roeg

 

 

Even if we psychologists do eventually show the determination to get our house in order - many will still view psychology as a pseudoscience - what is important....is how we psychologists view what we do and how we practice what we do

The Dream Machine - Cut ups, cut ins, cut outs

Our new soap that's peachy keen saves your soul and keeps you clean
It's recommended, used by the Queen
Gonna improve your IQ, help in everything you do
It's economic, don't cost too much.

Know Your Product (The Saints)

 

 

Hutton P and Taylor PJ. Cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis prevention: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Medicine (2013): 1-20

In January I blogged on a meta-analysis by Stafford, Jackson, Mayo-Wilson , Morrison & Kendall published in the BMJ - My post - Its Just a Story: Transition to Psychosis & CBT  - concerns whether CBT may prevent transition to psychosis.

Cut ups

Three months on and we have another meta-analysis on the same topic from one author (Hutton) who coincidentally works in the lab of one author (Morrison) on the earlier paper

It's a mash-up (Pistols meet Madonna)

As noted, I have already covered some problems with the original BMJ paper and much of what I said there applies here. Nonetheless, the current meta-analysis makes greater claims for CBT preventing transition to psychosis e.g. over longer periods of time.

At every time point, the relative risk of transition was reduced by more than 50% for those receiving CBT. (Hutton & Taylor 2013)

The Saints (1978, Know your Product)

A fine Australian export

"Where's the Professor...we need him now"

 

Why do Hutton & Taylor come to somewhat grander conclusions in favour of CBT? One reason is because they included a study not included by Stafford et al. The study is by Bechdolf et al. (2012) "Preventing progression to first-episode psychosis in early initial prodromal states." As Figure 2 (below) from Hutton & Taylor shows, this Bechdolf paper is the most favourable towards CBT preventing transition (with largest risk ratio here at 6 months, but also in their 12 month (0 and 9 transitions for Experimental and controls respectively) and 18-24 month analyses (1 and 10 transitions) - so is worth looking at in more detail

 

 

Its not that Stafford et al were unaware of the Bechdolf paper, so why did they not include it...?

 

Crucially, Bechdolf et al used Integrated Psychological Intervention (IPI), which does include individual CBT, but also group skills training, cognitive remediation and multifamily psychoeducation. So, even if changes in transition rates emerge - they are no more attributable to CBT than any other component of the IPI intervention. Unsurprisingly then, in their meta analysis, Stafford et al examined IPI studies including the Bechdolf study separately from their CBT analyses.

Jim Morrison (& the Doors) duets with Amy Whinehouse

Some mash-ups are made in heaven

Its also worth noting that Bechdolf et al also differs from the all other studies as their participants were prodromal, i.e. had self-reported symptoms which they describe as preceding the subthreshold psychotic symptoms typically used as entry conditions in the other studies. Finally, Stafford et al rated study quality using the GRADE system (for risk of bias, inconsistency, indirectness, imprecision, and publication bias) and classed the Bechdolf et al study as 'very low' quality evidence - indeed, the lowest possible in that framework.

You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal

William Burroughs

 

A second difference concerns the inclusion of McGorry et al (2012) by Hutton & Taylor. Again its worth examining this study in more detail

 

First, what is the design of the McGorry et al study? Well...participants were randomly assigned to the following groups:

     Cognitive Therapy + Risperidone

     Cognitive Therapy + Placebo

     or Supportive Therapy + Placebo.

 Plus

a 'Monitoring' group - or those people who refused random assignment - so are not  -in fact - part of a randomised trial (but self-selecting controls!)

 

McGorry et al then have no CBT group (as such) and no randomised control group (as such)...

 

So, its difficult to see how the studies by Bechdolf  et al and McGorry et al could be described as assessing the impact of CBT per se

and when they are removed them from the equation ...the effect is non-existent

 

As mentioned, I have covered the Stafford et al meta analysis and some of the studies and issues in my other post. Nevertheless, I would conclude by reiterating:

a) the extremely low transition rates (<10%) of Ultra High Risk individuals

b) CBT shows no evidence of preventing transition - indeed, no single study shows a significant and reliable effect; and finally,

c) even if CBT did prevent transition to psychosis ...How would it actually be preventing psychosis?  The whole approach is bereft of any theoretical ideas on this notion - one thing is sure - it is NOT via the reduction of symptoms - as both meta analyses definitely show that symptoms do not change from before to after CBT

 

~

When Brion Gysin spoke about his 'Dream Machine', he said it was "The worlds only artwork that you look at with eyes tightly closed" - I wonder if the same might be said of CBT for psychosis.

 

 

 

 



Burning Blue Soul - History Repeats Itself

...then supposin' your legs just withered away
& you had to somehow slide around on your
backside - for the rest of your days.
"Imagine"... that you're happy now.
"It's easy if you try" - because we're all caught
up in a mortifying loop - LIFE
Song Without An Ending

A brief Twitter conversation (@keith_wilson) led me recently to reminisce about Burning Blue Soul. Although attributed to The the, it was in fact the first album released on September 7th 1981 under Matt Johnson's own name on the then fledgling 4AD label.

Why mention it some 32 years later? Well... I know a little about the making of this album...'back in the day' Matt Johnson and I were close friends. I thought I would share a few increasingly fragmentary memories of the making of - what I believe is a - seminal album - not to everyone's taste, but then it wouldn't be seminal if it were to everyone's taste. This unique record has been over-shadowed by the later - more accessible work that reached an international audience.

Music is an experience and so, I usually flounder when asked to describe it and this is no exception. My inclination is always to say - listen to it - that's the reason it was made...and to this end, I have put a few pieces from Burning Blue Soul in this post! Despite my reservations, I know that the roots of Burning Blue Soul, its wonderful mélange of... English pastoral psychedelia and Krautrock invention (Krautedelia?) filtered through the hypochondria and religious and cultural allusions of someone whose 19th birthday passed in the summer 1981. Matt was a Magpie.

I'm wasting away with worry
& my heart just skipped a beat
But then again...
I felt much calmer
I opened up a can of 'Instant Karma'
a yoga posture for self awareness
& the devil rides out of
YOUR LIFE!!!
(Like a) Sun Rising Through My Garden

Nobody could doubt the invention and courage of Burning Blue Soul - of an 18/19 year old opening his psyche not indulgently to an established adoring audience, but to any other person experiencing life as ununderstandable.

The album is a trip from the meandering quasi-orchestral Can and Faust-like tribal rhythmic loops of 'Red Cinders in the Sand', to the chirping grasshopper percussion and sound of the Pungi (as played by snake charmers [*correction my Indian wife assures me it is Shennai - music played at Indian weddings - & may be for the groom leaving!]) in '(Like a) Sun Rising through my Garden', the layered forward and backward guitars of 'Icing up' and several visits from the ghost of John Lennon - especially on 'Bugle Boy' (and various lyrical nods to 'Imagine', 'Instant Karma' and "Ive got a million Beatles under my skin" on other songs), add the lyrical whimsy of Syd Barrett, and occasional vocal nods to Tim Buckley ....until the closing echoic oriental lament of 'Another Boy Drowning' ...."we all know we edging our way toward the end" - so odd for someone so young (unless you knew Matt)
..with the final words of Burning Blue Soul being:

Movin' on, opening new doors...Life just doesn't seem that simple anymore. 

In case I don't see you again...I hope you'll feel glad that you know me while I was here

Summer Nights 1981

 

Its worth thinking about what was happening in the summer of '81? We had entered the first of Margaret Thatcher's terms of office, unemployment had risen to nearly 3 million, the warm nights were lit up by the so-called 'Race riots' in Brixton, Toxteth, Chapeltown and Hansworth. I recall many smaller disturbances happening all around me in London at the time. Charles and Diana married, MTV launched, the Maze 'hunger strikes' came to their inevitable conclusion. The first recognized cases of AIDS appeared and Pope John Paul II was shot. Most of these events were chronicled in the snapshot of 1981 that is Burning Blue Soul.

 

Almost every lyric can be traced to specific autobiographical events - for example

 

I like you... I think that you're pretty good
But I think that you think, that I...
Well... that I'm a bit undercooked...

...100,000 people today were burned.

I felt a pang of concern,

- what are we waitin' for - a message of hope.

- from the... POPE!

I think he got shot... as well!

Song Without An Ending

 

The "I like you...I think you're pretty good" was I believe derived from a voice recording that Matt had made of his youngest brother Gerard (probably no more than 3 at the time). Gerard has grown from cute small boy to the writer and director of the acclaimed movie Tony. As always, being a magpie, Matt incorporated news events into his lyrical content - Pope John Paul II had indeed been shot while the album was being recorded

It was a paean to the past - albeit one that had become part of our past in the future - nothing is new, nothing is old. The influences are psychedelic, although psychedelia had long gone to be replaced by the creative darkness of the late 70s and early 80. - all added to a high degree of existential anxiety, hypochondria and the fearless experimentation of someone with nothing much to lose (no job, no major record contract) - it is a proverbial musical DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), but carries within each song... the cure for a disorder

 

 

I have no future, for I've had no past
I'm just sittin' here
Pullin' arrows
Out of my heart
History repeats itself
Within the realms of my inexperience

Icing Up

Now I have had a past, memories do come to mind - Matt had not long passed his driving test and we spent long summer days in 1981 listening to early and final version of the songs on a cassette player in his car (I vaguely recall it wasn't even built into the dashboard, but a portable - so the quality was impeccable). We would drive around the sunny Essex countryside, in the days when seatbelts were unrequired, smoking cigarettes (almost always mine...as recorded in a later lyric for Waiting for the Upturn).

The album was recorded in fits and starts in different studios, with different producers and engineers over the best part of that year - and some of this explains the eclectic feel and broad sweep ...of the album and how it coalesces or not into a single coherent piece. As an aside 10 years later, I remember similar journeys in the early 90s listening to early drafts of songs from Dusk in Matt's car (e.g. without the vocals), travelling out to his parents lovely countryside home. I think the car was a place for Matt to reflect on and hone his songs.

Red Cinders in the Sand

The album opens with Red Cinders in the Sand - if this isn't an English version of Faust's Krautrock, then what is? The piece starts quietly with Matt whispering 'an hallucination' . It is a set of rhythms, the like of which would later become de rigeur for many tribal bands - all mostly through the use of tape loops (Matt worked at De Wolfe studios in Wardour Street - so was constantly putting tapes together), overlaid with sitars, 'broken' guitar sounds and what can only be described as the kinds of brass sounds you hear in epic Roman movies plus the simple sound of stuff crashing (for want of a better description)

Bugle Boy

The country is riddled with social ills & aches,
But my heart is calmed by her embrace,
I'm trying to tell something to the world,
- But my words are slurred & slow,
Have you ever been caught up in a dream,
where your legs were froze.
I was left alone, with my thoughts and my guitar.
But it felt hopeless,
Like the desire of the moth - for a star.
Sometimes... nothing seems unreal,
this strange little boy said
"Mister, play us your guitar" & I said -
"No... I can't"
& put my guitar in the car-
Listening to the music of heaven & earth,
Have you ever thought you were the
- Most important thing in the universe.
I didn't know whether to strengthen my
Weaknesses - or play to my strengths.
Yeah...
I was trapped in the triviality of- everydayness.
I said.
"There's magic in my head, girl.
but I only use it when I'm depressed"
I don't suppose she heard me.
She was too busy admiring her dress.

She said I was pretentious
I said - just young - & - well intentioned,
Who can save us now
- the world rots...
I did know the secret of the universe
... only I forgot!!

The album is often described as a refrain from bedsit land - only partly true as Matt still lived in his parents' pub in Loughton (The Crown). Aside form the car, the cellar of the Crown was a prominent site for listening to, playing music and just trying out stuff - bear in mind that the music that populates BBS is not the product of someone going into the studio with an album if songs in mind and simply recording them Rather it was the evolution of many months (or years of teenage gestation) - indeed, parts of songs frequently migrated from one track to another.

The Crown (Loughton, Essex) -
Below ground level, amongst the beer barrels, Burning Blue Soul was conceived and born

Its important to bear in mind that Matt was not a 'musician' in the traditional sense - he was reasonably comfortable on keyboards having had some lessons, but most of the time he stuck to the guitar ....in an open-E tuning. He was not confident about the songs on BBS, and I recall conversations with him about various pieces - which all sounded great to me and over three decades later....you know what....they still sound fresh and relevant to me - from the prescient musical styles through to the remarkable personal, social and political lyrical voice for someone so young.

 

Whispering sadness, like a mild form of madness,
or a line from a meaningful song,
Turn your eyes to the lord,
but the churches are empty,
they're is now no escape from your longing.
Things are gonna start getting good,
...you hear them call,
You captured the unspoken feelings of my heart,
... which gave me a start.
I know I'm nowhere near perfection
...I'm pointing in the wrong direction

Delirious

 

Where did the Burning Blue Soul cover idea come from? I might claim some influence: the name 'Burning Blue Soul' and the cover design came from me and was heavily and obviously influenced by The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. I also believe I suggested the half laminate cover to give a 60s feel and finally, the original cover photography for the sleeve and insert was done by my brother.

The internal sleeve notes indicate the various influences around at the time. A major one was Wire - present physically in the guise of Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis - and spiritually through the massive affection for their album 154 released at that time. Credits also appear for other close friends- Tom Johnston,renowned cartoonist for the Sun newspaper; Peter Ashworth, whose name you may not recognise, but almost certainly your record collection contains covers that he photographed (check out his link); Stevo (Steve Pearce) the creator of Some Bizzare records and manager of Soft Cell amongst others; Andrew Johnson, Matt's brother and responsible for the later distinctive artwork for The the as well as a painting of Matt on the reverse cover; and finally Pete Maben, who was a recording engineer who dealt with some of the sessions (and ran a little recording studio in Forest Gate East London)
 

Another Boy Drowning

There are no voices - as the time approaches,
I wanted to be like Bob Dylan
Until I discovered Moses
Saturday night & I was lying in my bed
The window was open & raindrops
Were bouncing off my head
When it HIT me like a Thunderbolt!!!
"I don't know nothing- & I'm scared
that I never will"

While writing this blog, I found this image on the web - it dates from 1980/81 and shows the youthful Matt Johnson on the left, peeking over someones shoulder; Charlie Blackburn holding the first the The single on 4AD (CB and MJ were in a band called the Marble Index prior to the The). Sadly I cant recollect the other two people.... but my good self is on far right wearing my distinctive pyjamas and leather jacket combo -

I have no recollection of where it was taken or what we were doing - I'm innocent!

Burning Blue Soul

"Red Cinders in the Sand"

"Song Without an Ending"

"Time (Again) for the Golden Sunset"

"Icing Up"

"(Like a) Sun Rising Through My Garden"

"Out of Control"

"Bugle Boy"

"Delirious"

"The River Flows East in Spring"

"Another Boy Drowning"