The Surrender of Barcelona (1934-1937) (20/12/20) – Improv In Em

I was working on a painting when the war, the war broke out
In it I set my novel and I called it “The Revenge for Love“
But the book was not connected to the artwork that I'd made
If I could travel to the 1500s this is what I'd see

Not “The Surrender of Barcelona” but “The Surrender of Breda”
Not “The Surrender of Barcelona" but “The Surrender of Breda”
And I founded the Vorticist Movement; I edited their "Blast" magazine
And I wrote many novels and essays until the year of fifty seven

I was born in Nova Scotia upon my father's yacht
He was a rich, rich American, while my mother hailed from England
They split in '93 and my mother returned to England
She brought her son back with her and there I studied art

Before the war I travelled Europe before settling down in Paris
In '08 I returned to London and there I wrote and painted
I fell out with the Bloomsbury Set and I entered into Cubism
At “The Cave of the Golden Calf”, the Avant Garde and the night club

And that was back in Heddon Street before the rise of Bowie's “Stardust”
And I moved into Abstraction while influenced by Nietzsche
Fell out with the Omega Workshops about work for the Ideal Homes
Became the “Enemy of the Stars”, a precursor to Samuel Beckett

The World War broke the movement and took me to the front
Calling down the batteries and their fiery mass destruction
Was war artist for the Brits, war artist for the Canucks
From this came “A Battery Shelled” and from this too came “Guns”

Then I was at “The Penguin Club” in nineteen seventeen
And my first book “Tarr” was published in nineteen and eighteen
“Blasting, Bombardiering” took me up to 26.
And then “Tyros and Writing” took me up to 29

My career was as a painter, satirising the new Epoch
Plastic art in our time, then became a theme
In the 30's I was writing, separated from the Garde
Was loathe to be a vehicle for pernicious idealogues

“The Art of Being Ruled” and “Time and Western Man”
Critiquing Joyce and Pound and moving into fiction
And coined “The Apes of God”, attacking then the Sitwells
And then “The Revenge for Love” and the Spanish Civil War

“The Surrender of Barcelona”, thirty four to thirty seven
“The Surrender of Barcelona”, thirty four to thirty seven
“The Surrender of Barcelona”, thirty four to thirty seven
“The Surrender of Barcelona”, thirty four to thirty seven