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Bad Credit No Credit: "Shit Hits The Fan"

(2008)

By Peter Holslin | 29 September 2008

John Le Carré recently wrote an article in The New Yorker about the A Scanner Darkly-esque working conditions of British intelligence agents during the Cold War. These days, Carré writes, the job is just as shrouded in blind faith and paranoia, with Islamic terrorism the only invisible threat. “Shit Hits The Fan,” full of intrigue and suspense, is an able theme song: the drums and bass work in a tight groove as rain-stick and screams accent the seductive sax and tense croon of Carrie-Ann Murphy, who affirms, “All signs point to apocalypse.”

Imagine a disillusioned old CIA hand sitting in the Irish pub at the Dubai International Airport, finishing off his fourth Maker’s Mark and Sparks. The lyrics are practically ringing in his head: “All signs point to apocalypse / And you’re braggin’ [to] me about your bingey trips / Oh baby when it comes I’m not sure you will live.” His teeth clenched down on a Parliament Full Flavor and his eyes darting this way and that, he wonders about the suited Bangladeshi to his left, whose prolonged gazing at the TV suggests secret intentions. He’s freaked out by the four young ladies tucked away in the dark wood booth at the far corner—probably from the States but who knows. He figures that the Four Horsemen will inevitably come not turbaned and bearded, but in Western clothes and wearing smiles, so as to fool the “infidels.” The ladies make eyes at the inveterate spy. Overwhelmed by his cheerless paranoia, all he can think of the confluence of love and chaos—heeding Murphy’s thoughtful closing refrain: “All signs point to apocalypse, lypse, lypse, lypse.”

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