The Shit of God: The Texts of Diamanda Galas Book

If you need escapist, cheery songs to simplistically lift your spirits and distract your mind from the tribulations of life - if you want a soothing voice (in terms of words AND sound) - LEAVE NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN! YOU HAVE JUST ENTERED DIAMANDA GALAS TERRITORY!

Diamanda Galas is a singer/musician/AIDS activist and (this I was unaware of until I read the book) former immunologist. Her work can rarely be described as sunny or cheerful, because it delves in dark areas, but there is an element of hope and righteous anger and a desire to overcome in her material that is heartening in an entirely more complex way.

I had heard of the woman for many years before I laid ears on her voice (which is powerful and frightening and majestic and loving all at once, both lyrically and sonically), but the first description I heard, 'demonic diva', suits her (bearing in midn that 'demon' used to mean any spirit, good or evil). In this respect, it is entirely appropriate that Clive Barker, the horror novelist and gay man who has doubtless lost friends to the 'plague' Ms. Galas rails against, wrote the foreword for this collection of her best lyrics from 1981 to 1996.

Some of these pieces, I do not know the music, but they stand very strongly on their own as mere words on paper - a high tribute to the average pop song lyric.

Diamanda has, ironically, been adopted by many Goths as some kind of vampire goddess - a situation she has said she finds funny at best and pathetic at worst. If anything, she is more of a Valkyrie, carrying tired warriors off to the halls of eternal cheer and battle and watching over those left behind to goad them on to a victory we must win.