We completed all the lyrics on the site today. But much more importantly, 7 October 2010 marks the 25th Anniversary of the release of “Back in the DHSS”. I guess many of you will have something to say…
We completed all the lyrics on the site today. But much more importantly, 7 October 2010 marks the 25th Anniversary of the release of “Back in the DHSS”. I guess many of you will have something to say…
Carol Ann Duffy (no relation)
Did someone say Silver Jubilee? How swiftly a quarter of a century has flown! To celebrate such jubilation for not one but two of our national treasures (HMHB and the Lyrics Project) is surely what poetry is for, and so let me turn to previous laureates for inspiration.
A bit of Betjeman perhaps?
Come friendly songs, and drop on Slough,
They need a band like the Biscuits now,
HMHB should gig there, at The Plough,
That’d sort the place out.
No, perhaps not. Surely then John Masefield can help?
To those Four Lads, a quarter century like our kin,
Like friends in need, like comrades in despair,
Their songs our allies when no others were…
…But how can Britain praise them? How begin?…
Sorry – I’d forgotten how shit Masefield was. What about a bit of Larkin?
The Biscuits’ career of course began
In nineteen eighty-five
When Reagan was arming the Taliban
And Rod Hull was alive.
It’s not happening is it? Perhaps Tennyson can inspire us?
Bullshit to the left of them, bullshit to the right,
Bullshit to the front, “let’s pack this in, it’s shite”
So back into the DHSS, the five Biscuits blundered,
Back in the DHSS, the supervisor thundered
“How much did you get paid?”
“What, for them records we made?
They charged us loads, but we only sold six hundred.”
Bugger it, can’t find the rhythm. I’ll get me coat.
7 October 2010
Thom Yorke
Readers might like to know that the first HMHB album shares its birthday today, 7th October, with Desmond Tutu (79), Clive James (71), Oliver North (67), Vladimir Putin (58), Simon Cowell (51), myself out of Radiohead (42), Tranmere’s loan keeper Gunnar Nielsen (24), and a nippy ginger winger called Mark Duffy who Morecambe signed from Southport last year.
Like “Back in the DHSS”, Mark turns 25 today. Many happy returns.
7 October 2010
Björn, Benny and Tim Rice
Happy anniversary wishes from here in London’s glamorous West End, everyone!
During initial work on our updated musical “Yahoo Chess”, and very much inspired by our friend Dean Friedman, we’ve been experimenting with medleys of HMHB lyrics to tell a heart-wrenching rags-to-riches narrative set against a background of vicious online warfare between rival gangs of internet pedants.
Here’s our first draft of the show’s opening number, which we humbly submit as part of your site’s Silver Jubilee Street party celebrations, with congratulations to The “Complete Works of” HMHB Lyrics Project and with all due apologies.
1985 and All That
I was working in a job with no future,
Where workmates all tuned into Radio Dada.
“Would you mind, colleagues, if I ask a question?
If music be the food of love, are you the indigestion?”
So I tuned in to John Peel for a genuine friend;
Only his show stopped me going round the bend.
But oh god, how I longed for a dangerous new wave,
So I could surf myself towards an early grave.
Sharing a flat with Mary above our local discount store,
I’d crank the bass up, landlord banging at the door
When his shelf-stackers’ works of art all crashed to the floor.
I blamed my other flatmate, who looked like Brian Moore.
His girlfriend looked like Peggy Mount, what was he to do?
He’d given her the flat key, and I never knew.
So as Peel played that very first HMHB chord
I ran out the bathroom naked, fixing to press “record”.
I only needed a cassette, what was I to do?
Never mind a C90, I didn’t have a clue.
I saw a light in Brian’s room and I banged on the door,
She opened, but it wasn’t in ecstasy that she fell to the floor.
“Never mind a tape”, she said “what the frick is that?
I’ve heard better caterwaulin’ from me flippin’ cat.”
I tried to play it cool, I said her tastes were insular,
“It’s Peel, and baby, this band’s from the Wirral peninsula”
She said “honey can you keep it down, keep right out of sight
Or there’s gonna be a riot here in Brixton tonight.”
On and on she barked, but I didn’t seem to care
‘Cos someone else burst in, that made me stop and stare –
It was the landlord and his boys, one big erstwhile crew,
Whereupon we were made homeless by their military coup.
No more accommodation – Mary and I were dancing In the street.
No more mashed potato – it was time for the shuffling of the feet.
I guessed we’d be fine, embraced the streets of SW9
And found it emotionally impossible to hate.
But Mary turned around slickly, and she left me quickly
After we saw HMHB at the Bull and Gate.
Mary’s review was a little lame,
But the critics were astounded.
Everywhere the Biscuits went
Musicologists surrounded.
“No fears, they’ll be around for years
Our statistics prove it,” said some P.R. bugger.
“100,000 units of their first EP?
That’s the way to move it. Who’s their plugger?”
As flies to wanton gods are we,
They kill us for their sport,
When Mary left it might have killed me
But I wasn’t left with nought.
I ‘d seen the wheels of nihilism rolling my way
When I lived life in the bus lane,
But after I saw Half Man half Biscuit play
My life would never be the same.
Other bands from that time, I remember them well
Gob full of tapioca, I’d sit and watch them excel.
But all that touring and promotional whoring wears thin,
I always wondered what they did when they packed it in.
What are they doing today?
What did they do with the money?
How much did agents and lawyers take?
Do they think they were misunderstood?
Other bands sold their souls to rock’n’ roll
And went to hell on a red skidoo…
HMHB took a long vac, to put the freshness back,
And to read books that were well overdue.
(And so that they could play with their mates in their street
With a new transformer they bought from the shop that week)
Time flies by (when there’s so long between each album),
And since nineteen eighty-five we’ve loved you,
On every stereo we’ve shoved you,
And I go “la la la la la la la,
La la la la la la laaa,
Oh la la la la la la la”,
Just like everyone else does when they can’t make out the words.
But what did Chris give us, Neil G?
Chris gave us Lyrics, at long last, Nigel (no, not that one, or the other one who says ‘not that one’ either)
Sure did.
And now a hundred pedants every day
Pick over a can of worms and say:
“What an annoying example of mistaken transcription”
7 October 2010
Mac
Can it really be 25 years? We’re getting older (and wiser). Congrats to HMHB.
7 October 2010
Floreat Ultonia
In the year 8485, the Biscuits come alive
To pen those classics that I’ve
Come to love
In the year 8687, Indie football heaven
Dukla and Honved set to leaven
This leaden pall
In the year 9091, second coming has begun
Rovers in the play-offs, with Bolton
Everything is AOR
In the year 9293, Why no Mars Ultras on LP?
That powerdrill solo works for me
Floreat Inertia
In the year 9596, a tale of long-gone teenage kicks
Kleptomaniac Stevie Nicks
Friday night, gates still low
In the year 9798, urban riots, ennervate
No watching football when you’re late
Wolverhampton: dogs are off
In the year 9899, sometimes best to feign you’re blind
What’s worse- Thatcher’s or Welsby’s crime
Whose moody chops then- Thommy Yorke’s?
A whole generation of gigs
Both-ended barriers for prigs
But one prediction had no taker
Deano’s now working as a baker
And so on to endless Feltz
While out beyond the asteroid belts
So many fans that haven’t seen us
Please bring your 80s flares to Venus?
(With apologies)
7 October 2010
The Mayor of Cirencester
The Cirencester Civic Society has asked me to pass on congratulations from the busiest little market town in Gloucestershire. Has this site got a twin town yet ? You could do a lot worse.
http://www.cirencester.co.uk/civic/page1.htm
Here’s to 25 more glorious years of whatever it is you’re celebrating.
7 October 2010
Toffo 78 Huyton
1985…..5th year at school, none of this Year 11 american terminology, A BBC4 documentary in the new year? Nah, i’m dreaming again……
7 October 2010
Germ
Maybe a retrospective on The Culture Show or Later with Jools?
7 October 2010
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
On this day in History (07/10/1985)
That Petrol Emotion played the Rock City Notts.
Stryper played the Concord Pavilion, Concord, CA.
It would have been perfection if Stryper had played Rock City Notts. but you can’t have everything.
Meanwhile elsewhere;
Episode 307 of Brookside: (“Not Like School”) written by Kathleen Potter was broadcast. Billy Corkhill had forgotten about a little electricity job, but it was someone else who was caught red-handed. During Karen’s first day at university, her worries turned into outright fear when she met other students.
On a personal level, I can’t be a 100% sure but I was probably skint and slightly hungover.
7 October 2010
Una Stubbs
Gideon on 6music tonight played “Venus in Flares” to mark the anniversary, segue-d v. observantly into a 1981 session version of The Darlingsugarhoneymen’s “Show of Strength” (good, but lacking the immense power of the album track)
Then a mention of “the Project’s” completion in the context of National Poetry Day tomorrow.
Chapeaux.
7 October 2010
Charles xfor
Same old incestuous self-congratulatory round of luvvies celebrating spurious landmarks, even in the so-called alternative music business. Oh yes, you know who you are, pretending to like the altertive cult bands for a bit of populist street cred. Cafe bars, idiots, and pigeons.
Charles Exford,
Hughes Lane,
Oxton,
Wirral.
PS – an umbrellas.
7 October 2010
Terry Nutkins
I for one have enjoyed this thread. Charles Exford comes across as a bitter, jealous, luvvie-bashing failure, whose constant typoes mean he himself has no hope of ever penning anything of significance or worth.
Address witheld,
West Wirral.
7 October 2010
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
25 years, eh? Congratulations. And what exactly is it that you do? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you for this bloody awful racket.
8 October 2010
Neil G
Wow! I think some of you chaps (I think I’m fairly safe in assuming it’s all chaps) must have been preparing for this occasion for quite a long time. I can’t imagine that you made up all those poems and songs on the spot. There’s more than one budding William McGonagall out there, obviously. A fitting tribute (or several fitting tributes) to a wonderful band. I think they should do a local gig to celebrate, somewhere not more than ten miles away from Tranmere. Then I might be able to see them.
8 October 2010
Ricardo
Spotify have marked the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the release of Back In The DHSS by, er, removing it.
8 October 2010
Andrew T
25th Anniversary lyric re-write project…. Enjoy!!!
Phew, Phew, Barmy army anew
Cut the Drivel, scrud
Let it happen (again) bass player…
Time flies by – is it 25 years down the drain
Speeding out of Merseyside with discography of disdain
I get low when I’m reminded in my brain
Touching down in Camber Sands I’m ridiculed again
Dundalk bridges, Bledlow Ridge is not our destination
Careful with that lyric Neil, it causes altercations
Every Sat’day I get the family stand
And they always walk home happy though their home side never ever wins
Yeah, time flies by – is it 25 years down the drain
Gonna get me diabetes syringes out and crank up once again
Scottish midges Ironbridge is not our destination
Careful with the next album lest it upsets radio stations
8 October 2010
Niall Davies
After hearing it was the 25th Anniversary of Half Man Half Biscuit, I listened to letters sent with my parents, and they just looked suprised like the front of an Anglia. After speaking with Doreen on the phone, I went on Yahoo Chess and asked my father if I could borrow his golf clubs.
I then joined the amazing synchronisation club and did what I always do on a saturday night, and wrote on the sole of my slipper with a biro.
17 October 2010
Dukla Prague’s Kit Man
Díky vítězství v národním poháru 1985 se Dukla kvalifikovala do Poháru vítězů sezóny 1985-86 a dosáhla znovu svého evropského vrcholu. Vyřazením AEL Limassol, AIK Stockholm a Benfiky Lisabon prošla až do semifinále, kde ji vyřadilo Dynamo Kyjev Olega Blochina, který později vyhrál finále.
18 October 2010
Pop-Tart Mark
This Friday 22nd October it’s the 25th anniversary of Peel first playing an HMHB track, God Gave us Life, starting at the wrong speed I am informed.
The same bloke who told me this also gave me two PBR winners at Yarmouth today (namely Hallelujah and Downhill Skier), but I didn’t post them on here since Yarmouth isn’t mentioned in any HMHB song, despite being the final destination of the A47.
Anyway appropriately enough they do go this Friday at a HMHB-referenced track, namely Fakenham, and my source says Classic Swain should be the best horse in the 3.45 at Fakenham, but if it’s a strictly Ecclesiastical Perk you’re looking for then try Catholic Hill in the 2.00.
At this stage both entries are TBC of course.
19 October 2010
The Duke of Westminster
Devastated that neither of Mark’s recommendations are in fact running in the races in question on this auspicious day today, the Good Lady Wife and I have organised a further festival of equine delights to mark yet another important HMHB anniversary, the silver jubilee of the recording of the first Peel session on 10th Novemeber 1985.
Thus it is that on 10th November 2010 we will be attempting to break the world record for pulled-ups at Bangor-on-Dee at a meeting featuring the 5th running of the Anne Duchess of Westminster Memorial Steeplechase. Bangor was a favourite local track of the late Duchess, and The Anne Duchess of Westminster Charity have continued the connection with the sponsorship of this race.
Join a host of racing celebrities in a Silent Auction to make a bid for one of the many unique gifts on offer, including: a morning on the gallops with Jonjo O’Neill; Chester Races May Festival tickets, and lunch for 4 on Chester Cup Day; a day out with Mike Cattermole behind the scenes at Channel 4 Racing; a morning on the gallops with Donald McCain Jnr; Dinner for two at the Grosvenor Hotel, Chester; a day’s fishing for two rods at Llangedwyn; a week in a seaside holiday home in Abersoch (sleeps 6); a day’s hunting with the Wynnstay (cap only); a morning on the gallops with Tom Dascombe at Manor House Stables; a set of 10 limited edition framed photographs of Newmarket, signed by 10 Newmarket legends, including Sir Michael Stoute, Henry Cecil and Lester Pigott; signed photo of AP McCoy and Don’t Push It celebrating their 2010 Grand National win; a Leggets ostrich leather cartridge bag; a day with the Clerk of the Course at Bangor or Chester Racecourse.
All proceeds will go to Racing Welfare, a registered charity established to help anyone in need who works in, or is retired from, the thoroughbred breeding and racing industry. The day will be in the presence of HRH The Princess Royal, President of Racing Welfare.
As you were.
22 October 2010
Bobby String
25 years of penning the greatest songs ever written surely deserves more recognition than Nigel is ever likely to get. With this in mind, I’ve written two lines which I humbly request Nigel to use in one of his next songs. It goes thus (a bit like Eno’s phone):
“I’m the greatest Scouse songwriter that you’ll ever see
yet still they haven’t named an airport after me.”
Ô¿Ô
24 October 2010
Charles Exford
Nice one and I hate to be pedantic but since that’s what we do here …NB’s not Scouse, he’s from Birkenhead.
(I wanted to include a clip of the Tranmere song on that theme, but couldn’t find one on Youtube. Anyone ? )
Don’t be mistaken,
Don’t be misled,
We’re not Scousers we’re from Birkehead,
You can f*** yer cathedrals
and f*** yer pierhead,
We’re not Scousers we’re from Birkenhead….
24 October 2010
Bobby String
@ EXXO
Well, what would I know, I’m a Geordie! I don’t suppose Birkenhead has an airport either.
OK, so it’s:
“I’m the greatest Mersey songwriter that you’ll ever see
yet still they haven’t named an airport after me.”
Any better suggestions for anything other than Scouse gratefully accpeted!
Ô¿Ô
24 October 2010
Bobby String
@ myself:
Come to think of it, since Nigel’s songs generally portray life in the good old US of K, perhaps ‘British’ would be better, thus:
“I’m the greatest British songwriter that you’ll ever see
yet still they haven’t named an airport after me.”
Ô¿Ô
24 October 2010
Bobby String
Since desires have been expressed for the release of a 25th anniversary album, how about some suggestions for things Nigel could sing about on such an album? Not having heard every album, please forgive me if I mention people / things that have already suffered the Biro of Blackwell.
1. Teenagers who say “And I was like…” when they mean “And then I said…”
2. People who drive a Land Rover Defender and refer to it as ‘The Landy, or a Land Rover Discovery that they call ‘The Disco”.
3. Scottish Second Division Football.
4. Countries (like the one in which I now live) that insist on calling football ‘soccer’ just to please the yanks.
5. People who go to garden centres on Sundays.
6. Telemarketers / call centres
7. The proliferation of McDonalds ‘restaurants’, perhaps containing the lines (sung to the Liver Birds theme, as in Uffington Wassail):
In the town and in the country
you can’t get away from them.
In a clearing, in the forest
dirty great big yellow ‘M’
And perhaps a few updates on some old favourites such as:
Eamonn Holmes, Anchorman???
D’Ye Ken Ted Moult Shot Himself?
Rod Hull: How The Mighty Have Fallen
Over to you, Nigel…
Ô¿Ô
28 October 2010
Bobby String
Ah, I couldn’t resist penning a few lines of historical verse to add to this discussion to celebrate the anniversary!
The Biro of Blackwell.
At the counter with his biro
Nigel Blackwell signed his Giro
and with the week’s allotted pounds
he bought the NME and Sounds.
He placed this ad: “Songwriter needs
bass and drums and keyboards please”
and so they met and chose to risk it,
called their band Half Man Half Biscuit.
Thanks, I’m here all week… 🙂
Ô¿Ô
29 October 2010
John Anderson
I’ve long since adopted the T-Shirt slogan “avoiding proper work since 1985” as a personal motto.
30 October 2010
Bobby String
Haven’t seen that, what a great slogan! It’s even better than “I don’t deserve self-esteem”.
Ô¿Ô
1 November 2010
Third Rate Les
Bobby String – on the teenage speech thing, I’ve asked Mrs Les (who teaches English to foreigners) if she teaches the verb “to be like” as a synonym for “to say”. I’ve also suggested that she should teach them that when two women are greeting one another, the standard greeting is “helloooo” said in a high pitch said while tilting the head to one side.
The other one is saying “how good is that?” instead of “that is good”. I took my kids to Chessington World of Adventures recently and asked a teenage attendant how long the queue was, and his response was “yeah, I know”.
2 November 2010
Bobby String
Yes, Les, it is a sad fact of life that emphasis on learning your native language has slipped since my days in the British secondary education system between 1974 and 1979. I think Nigel has similar opinions, not just about incorrect usage of English by native speakers but also the “catch phrases” that are now glibly thrown into every conversation. In “Tonight Matthew, I’m Going To Be With Jesus” he sings “For sure, like I say, at the end of the day…” – all expressions which are over-used in everyday language now. It reminds me of the time they analysed an interview with David Beckham. During the course of just over three minutes he said “you know” something like 19 times.
At the end of the day, it’s the beginning of the night!
Ô¿Ô
4 November 2010
Charles Exford
I can’t see much evidence for NB57 being prone to the sort of clichéd “declining standards” views that the last two posters avouch. It seems to me that for 25 years the lyrics have always delighted in the richness of the English language across the whole spectrum from ancient and formal to the most modern and colloquial, even the ribald and occasionally the local.
The traits Blackwell often satirises are pretentiousness, meaningless clichés and over-used phrases, of public figures like presenters, commentators, and in the case you cite Bobby Graeme (“for sure, like I say, at the end of the day”) football managers and other post-match football interviewees. On the few occasions when he is pedantic about, let’s say, unnecessary pluralisation, it is because some annoying no-mark art school bagheads have got it hopelessly wrong on their second album.
I can’t think of a single instance of “declining linguistic standards” amongst the “growing tendencies nowadays” from which the piss is taken in the Blackwellian opus. Not even in the letters of those old “declining standards” fuddyduddies Charles or Maud Exford on the “Achtung Bono” cover. HMHB lyrics are not “Little Britain” and I don’t think there are any Vicky Pollards to make us feel superior. He doesn’t claim the person in the street should know better, just that the person who thrusts themselves forward to say “hey look at me, I’m a presenter/rock star/ manager / commentator / journalist /etc” is often full of linguistic twaddle.
Yes, there are maybe the odd references to social standards in terms of littering and spitting, but none to the old fuddyduddy stuff you mention. Could this be because either: (i) Blackwell is largely self-educated and thus not prone to the “education was better in my day” type malarkey, (ii) because he has no particular view on whether or not linguistic standards are declining, or (iii) possibly both of the above? I don’t know myself, but I don’t see any evidence for your standpoint either.
Why is inevitable ongoing linguistic change always seen as some sort of decline ? Perhaps because it’s a generational thing, and that’s human nature I guess. It used to take four syllables to say “said something like”, now it takes two, “was like”, which sounds like progress to me. Meanwhile with every generation the dictionary gets fatter and fatter and fatter, and the descriptive grammars get more complete. Which all seems like enrichment.
In modern language teaching, utterances like “he was like, errm, you know” are termed as “Vague Language”. A feature of spoken language in every age no doubt, but only now starting to be acknowledged, given a name in capital letters, studied, and (yes, Les) sometimes even taught, though usually we are teaching the overseas students to recognize it rather than use it of course. You could say that “to be like” can actually be a more honest expression of the degree of accuracy in reporting speech, enabling vivid, direct speech to be used without the spurious claim that the speaker can actually remember the exact words spoken.
A worthy tangent, I hope, for a thread marking 25 years of the most exquisite use of language.
5 November 2010
Peter Gandy
But still people who can’t spell weird right are driving round with thousands in the bank.
5 November 2010
Charles Exford
There always were and there always will be. Personally I still spell “Owyheean” the way Captain Cook did and boycott any pizzeria that thinks pineapple is an acceptable ingredient.
5 November 2010
Germ
Always thought it odd that they named a pizza “Hawaiian” ,surely if anything is going to be Hawaiian it should be a sandwich?
7 November 2010
Jacques Plante’s Death Masque
On this day in history, 25 years ago today, 27 Feb 1986.
Half Man Half Biscuit played at Dingwalls Camden Town, supported by the first ever live outing for Jegsy Dodd & the Sons of Harry Cross, the latter featuring future HMHB members Ken Hancock & Ian Jackson.
This occurred four days after the second Peel session was recorded.
27 February 2011
EXXO
On John Peel’s 80th birthday I’ve just heard Teenage Kicks in a BT Wi-Fi ad.
30 August 2019
Sean
“Operators manual”
9 July 2022
EXXO
The fab five’s first fantastic 33⅓ was released 33 years ago today.
7 October 2022
EXXO
Oops sorry. It’s 37 years isn’t it? Anyway, happy Back in the DHSS day.
7 October 2022