''Royal Swan''

(Split with Katie Stelmanis)

To bid death farewell the journey ends with a swan at the top of the earth...

Sleeve - FU Side:
Some swans at the top of the earth
Sleeve - Katie Stelmanis Side:
Stelmanis duets (spars) with Damian on ''Royal Swan''
Appears here colour coordinated and with symbolic upside-down FU logo.
Vinyl: Black labels; the other two ChemCom singles repeat the sleeve artwork on the label

Insert - Front:
Sempervivum image by Albert Renger-Patzsch
The name Sempervivum has its origin in the Latin semper ("always") and vivus ("living"), which may or may not be relevant; likewise the fact that it has hermaphrodite flowers (more on that later) 
Insert - Back:
Lyrics / credits




Stats:

General:
Tracks: Royal Swan B/W I'm Sick (Katie Stelmanis)
Released: 2008
Label: Matador Records OLE 848-7
Matrix A: OLE 848-7-A         GOLDEN
Matrix B: OLE 848-7-B          GOLDEN
Pressing Info: One Time Pressing of 1000 (September 3, 2008)
Inserts: Regular insert as pictured above
Variants: No variants




Notes:
Originally intended for distribution only at the 12 hour "Chemistry of Common Life" release show, subsequent lack of availability lead to ebay madness remaining copies were made available some time later via the FU online store.

LFG Post (Dec 12 2008)
So in case you were wondering why this song is called Royal Swan in the first place - the term comes to us (me) by way of the Russian Esotericist Boris Mouravieff (by way of the ancient "Orient"), who explains that once existed a royal race of birds that when presented with a mixture of milk and water, could separate the liquid to drink the milk and leave the water behind. The appeal of this myth to Fucked Up should be plain to even the most casual observer.

LFG Post (Dec 27 2010)
All the artwork associated with the ChemCom album shared the sunlight theme. All of the 7"'s (No Epiphany, Royal Swan, Crooked Head) had the sun very prominently displayed on the covers, as did obviously the album itself. This picture was therefore a no brainer - a bunch of swans, the sun. I just found it in the library's image bank in the "Swans" folder when I was looking for LP artwork. This 7" only really exists
 because this picture is so perfect - if we'd have found a picture that perfectly represented the lyrics to "Days of Last" or whatever, that would have been the 7" instead of this, but I couldn't find this picture and not make
 it the cover of a record. The song title refers to a G I Gurdjieff anecdote about these ancient swans used by royalty who had the ability to separate milk from a mixture with water. This goes back to the alchemy theme, wanting the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, in the parlance of our times.

G I Gurdjieff


From Wikipedia:
Gurdjieff was an influential spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century who taught that most humans live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential.

Royal Swans:
''In Search of The Miraculous'' By PD Ouspensky
''Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Fragments'' By Boris Mouravieff























Commodity Fetishism:


Test Pressing:
Generic white sleeve with handwriting, generic labels