RSVP doesn’t leave much room for arguing over lyrics, although it does give us another name to ponder. And there is one small word about which I disagree with almost everyone who sent this in. Another macabre tale for those who think it’s all about the jokes. Thanks to Toerag, Another Alterego, Jim on the Timor Sea, Allan, Niall, Marc, Barry, James, Simon, Arthur and Third-Rate Les.
See lyrics to RSVP
Markos
Who is the John (Jon) Byrne mentioned? Is it Jon Byrne, the singer/songwriter/social commentator from Barrow-in-Furness, John Byrne the comic book illustrator, John Byrne the Scottish painter, John Byrne the footballer or some other geezer who happens to be called John (Jon) Byrne? Whoever it is it’s a great song.
22 August 2010
Norbert D
Maybe it’s the late Johnny Byrne who co-wrote “Groupie” with Jenny Fabian, or Johnny Byrne who wrote a couple of Doctor Who stories in the early 80s? Nah, I don’t think so either. Considering the short-story nature of the song, my guess is that it’s just a generic character name rather than a reference to anyone in particular.
22 August 2010
Charlie Davidson
It could be John Byrne, singer of early ’80s Liverpool band The Cherry Boys, famed for their “Kardomah Cafe” single. Their drummer Howie later became the second “Stez Stix” in The Macc Lads, with a parallel career as “Eddie Shit”.
Then again, it probably isn’t.
22 August 2010
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
I’m hoping that it’s Jon Byrne, the singer/songwriter/social commentator from Barrow-in-Furness. Saw him supporting The Smiths Indeed a few years ago. He has a future in tortured artist circles, stamping out the rhythm with his foot whilst howling songs along similar themes to nursing injured buzzards back to health inside dead children’s wardrobes. Didn’t strike me as particularly fit however, in any sense of the word.
22 August 2010
Ben
My first thought would be for the journeyman footballer John Byrne, I’d be amazed if Nigel hadn’t seen him in the flesh at Prenton Park playing for pretty much any of his clubs, bar Le Havre.
22 August 2010
Markos
Jon Byrne, the singer/songwriter/social commentator from Barrow-in-Furness. Is he particularly fit? Make your own mind up!
22 August 2010
azza
http://www.myspace.com/jonbyrnemusic
23 August 2010
Markos
Anyone got anymore on the John (Jon) Byrne connection?
31 August 2010
Chief Exec
I guess we’re not going to figure it out for certain but I reckon the footballer fits the song best.
Wife runs off with a footballer… ex-husband is reduced to this sort of vengeance as he clearly couldn’t take him in a fight.
1 September 2010
Dave F.
Being the type of person to run a mile from anything resembling a fight, I was unaware of what a ‘straightener’ was until I saw a TV program about the recorded messages of that tw*t Raoul Moat.
Supposedly it’s a type of modern day duel when there’s a disagreement (about what, I’m not sure). The protagonists are meant to meet up and have fisticuffs, after which the problem has been ‘straightened’ out.
1 September 2010
Charles Exford
I’m with Norbert on this one. I think John Byrne is a generic figure like what you get in folksongs whose protagonists are either generic or so long-forgotten that they have become generic. I bet that a fair few of us here have followed the only tangible clue of “Wick” and have been furiously googling for Orcadian folk songs, or Kirkwall wedding poisoning news stories, featuring a character called John Byrne, and inevitably drawing a blank, just like we did with Phyllis Triggs, Duff Leg Bryn or Stringy Bob before …..[No ? Just me then ? Fair enough. ]
Just as Lord Hereford’s Knob aims at the hundreds of generic “As I walked out one morning/evening etc” songs that have been written over the last 500 years, and succeeds in being the funniest and best one of them we’ve ever seen or heard, so this one sets its sights on the hundreds of “The False Bride”/ “My Auld Sheen” songs which have been sung over a similar period, and has no trouble of course being the funniest ever one of those as well. Incidentally, many variations this trad arr. theme mention the jilted lover pouring wine for the bride at her wedding to another bloke ( though none I have read go as far as a poisoning).
If you try to think of a single-syllable first name & surname to rhyme with “return”, John Byrne is as good and as generic as anything you come up with…. but at the same time there are a fair few interesting John Byrnes out there and that may have made a generic name into an intriguing and irresistible choice for the writer.
In the improbable eventuality that one particular John Byrne _did_ run off with NB57’s sweetheart in a dream or something, then my money’s on the interesting Scottish writer/director/painter, him with the interesting beard and the interesting relationship history. I can find links in his biography with Findhorn (see Eno Collaboration thread), near where he lives in Nairn (see Multitude), but not with Wick or any of the islands further North though.
As for “landing in Wick”, of course this being a trad arr. type theme I at first had visions of our fugitive mass-poisoner on a storm-tossed ferry across the Pentland Firth. But then I realised Wick doesn’t have a ferry port. Too shallow it seems. Either he had his own speedboat standing by, or his landing in Wick must be by air, which then of course means it doesn’t have to be a flight from the Orkneys, but the song could be set on another island group, Orkney of course still being the most likely.
None of the John Byrne footballers seem remotely likely to be involved in a wedding in those parts, even a fantasy one laced with lashings of ethylene glycol.
You can tell I’ve got other stuff I really ought to be doing, can’t you ?
1 September 2010
Chief Exec
Ultimately it doesn’t matter who John Byrne(s) is… until such time as it is confirmed by Nigel himself.
For me, a large part of a HMHB song is the setting Nigel creates and the visualisation that you can get from his words. RSVP, to me, is John Budgie Byrne the former England international. He’s short(ish) and squat and has simply taken the narrator’s good lady because of his modest fame. Of course it can be something else to others.
‘Landing’ in Wick… doesn’t necessarily have to mean by air or sea. You can land anywhere once you are there. We know he got there by just after 10.30 pm and the catering would have been provided a few hours before so the options for the location of the reception remain pretty open for me.
2 September 2010
Jason
FWIW, my take on RSVP is here including chords (again, my take). Apologies for the crappy guitar sound, this is a rough cut before I get round to doing a full band cover.
21 May 2011
2 Chevrons
I’m particularly taken by RSVP and have been thinking about the line “by which time I’d landed in Wick”. It could be that the wedding in the tale was held in Crimond and the caterer made his escape to Wick via Aberdeen Airport. £105 a ticket mind, but quicker than by road which is about a 5 hour slog.
20 October 2011
Neil G
Isn’t ” ’cause (or ‘cos’) John Byrne is much fitter”? It certainly sounds like it to me.
19 November 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrum’s Conscience
I’ve always found ‘He valiantly toasted my capers’ a rather weak line. ‘He valiantly toasted my Vol au vents’, I could understand. ‘He valiantly toasted my petits fours’; fair enough. I’ve suffered enough wedding breakfasts (wtf) to valiantly toast any number of culinary abortions, but what the hell can you do to personalise a caper? Don’t get me wrong, I’m as fond of a caper as the next wedding guest who’d rather be feasting on vinegar soaked chips, but how can they be singled out by the father of the bride, commending the wedding feast, as worthy of mention above and beyond any other item contained within said spread. Capers? All I’ve ever done is take ’em out of a jar and hoy ’em into a recipe as required. My favourite caper including recipe? (Seen as you’re asking). Delia’s Roasted vegetable couscous salad with harissa-style dressing.
Mmmm Capers.
19 November 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Whoops, that recipe suggestion was not a figment of my moral faculty but was, indeed, from I alone. It is indeed an amoral suggestion.
19 November 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
Having wasted little time in substituting it with the far superior session version on my jog-proof, I’ll be forever rooted in the earlier version of the lyrics – I never heard it as anything other than ‘cos, and certainly didn’t notice it as one of the amendments when I first heard the presumably-definitive version.
How ironic (well it probably isn’t, any more than Alanis Morissette’s litany of minor tribulations was) that, along with L’Enfer, the aspects I liked most about the session versions were jettisoned in the final recordings.
19 November 2011
Simon Smith
Their games, their shapes, their capers, their japes
Destroyed by a thoughtless shitehawk.
19 November 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Yes…………………….that makes more sense. Thanks Simon, you’ve moved me a little closer to enlightenment.
19 November 2011
Paul D.
Two things: I agree with those who said think it’s “cos.” The c is definitely quiet, but it’s there. Also, I think it’s “a straightener.”
I really like this one – it’s one of my favorites on the album, along with L’Enfer C’Est Les Autres and Joy in Leeuwarden. Which, coincidentally, covers the big three HMHB categories – tragedies, civic gripes, and randomness.
20 November 2011
chris from future doom
Is it just me, or does the pronunciation of ‘reception’ on both the album and the session version sound like ‘receptchun’? Also, any thoughts on the choice of title? I don’t quite get how “RSVP” fits into this.
20 November 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
It’s the standard bit at the bottom of a wedding invite.
20 November 2011
No Legs Best
Could it be that the slaughter is his ‘RSVP’ to having been asked to cater for his erstwhile lover’s nuptials?
21 November 2011
Paul F
“It’s not like I’m losing a daughter”
As violently starting to choke
Could this actually be:
“It’s not like I’m losing a daughter
As violently starting to choke”?
21 November 2011
Charles Exford
Another unobservant case for me of having seen what I expected to see, so I didn’t notice that Chris hadn’t put (i) “‘cos” (unaccountably); (ii) “a” (possibly influenced by the session version? Was it “the” then? I seem to have mislaid that file temporarily); (iii) those speech marks – Paul’s right, ‘cos the wedding speech cliché from which the piss is being ripped is “it’s not like I’m losing a daughter (so much) as gaining a son”.
21 November 2011
Chris The Siteowner
OK, I still hear “was”, not “cos”, and “was” makes just as much make sense, BUT I’m clearly outvoted.
As to your other points, Charles, is the “a” as in “a straightener”? Not sure, happy to hear other views on that one. And as for Paul’s speech marks …really? He said “as violently starting to choke”? Surely not?
21 November 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
I’m beginning to think that like Sisyphus we could be rolling the HMHB lyric boulder uphill for all eternity. Still reeling from my capers capers, I’m now plunged into doubt by Paul’s speech mark conundrum. I was in the speech / action camp, indeed I never considered otherwise, but I actually think all speech makes more sense for the piss ripping reason Exxo suggests. Bloody boulder’s rolled down the hill again. Off I go to get it.
21 November 2011
Murray Meikle
I’m coming to this thread late but I’ve always pictured John Byrne the Scottish artist (and beau of the actress Tilda Swinton) since I first heard the Radio 6 session. And as a result, given his Crystal Tips like appearance, I had also assumed the straightener reference was in deference to his mighty locks. There’s a self portrait here if anyone is remotely interested.
21 November 2011
Charles Exford
I’m always willing to compromise. Well, quite often. Well sometimes anyway. But it’s not one you’ll go for I’m sure.
How about “It’s not like I’m losing a daughter, as …[violently starting to choke] …”
It makes the joke less funny, but it satisfies those who think the bride’s father would not have made such a joke out of the choke (though personally I think he did).
The brackets would have to be square, as they are for stage directions, and the speech marks would have to be around the whole thing.
21 November 2011
Paul F
Nice to see I’ve stimulated a bit of debate. I think it was probably around the 20th hearing that the idea of the bride’s father actually saying that occurred to me. Works well either way I think.
22 November 2011
Jeff Dreadnought
Would it be heretical to suggest it’s just not a very well written line – hence the punctuational contortions (of which Ali Bongo himself would have been proud)?
23 November 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
I think the bride’s father’s contortions are quite impressive if he subsequently managed to gesture that he needs an ambulance at the same time as commending the catering with a glass of what he thought was wine. Gah, damn those original lyrics.
23 November 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
No hang on, they were the new ones. I think.
23 November 2011
Charles Exford
Yes, heretical, in the sense of wrong & offensive towards the things we all hold dear.
I wasn’t suggesting any contortions of punctuation except in a daft compromise. To me it seems perfectly clear that the 2 lines should all be in speech marks, otherwise it would be something like “It’s not like I’m losing a daughter” as HE violently STARTED to choke, which could have been written if that was what was meant ,cos it scans identically.
If ‘as violently starting to choke’ is outside the speech marks it’s a subordinate time clause to some mystery subsequent main clause… which never appears.
Now that would be bad writing. But it isn’t.
24 November 2011
Third Rate Les
I’ve always heard it as cleverly jumping mid-line from what sounded like reported speech to what is actually a stage direction. Sort of like what linguistics bods might term a “garden path sentence” (where a word near the end changes the meaning earlier).
Hard to say what the punctuation should be though.
25 November 2011
Duchess of Westminster
Convention would put a stage direction in brackets.
Father of The Bride: It’s not like I’m losing a daughter (as violently starting to choke)
25 November 2011
Tom Fallon
Hi folks, I’ve nothing to add to the speculation but in the spirit of pedantry and needless correction, I would politely like to advise Norbert D that the Johnny Byrne of “Groupie” and the Johnny Byrne of early-80s Doctor Who are, in fact, one and the same.
9 December 2011
Mr Larrington
He was also the script editor on “All Creatures Great And Small”.
It worries me that I possess this information.
9 December 2011
John Byrne
I may sound like a bit of a bore asking this, but does anything hear static/crackling in the left speaker at the start of the second verse? Or is it just moi?
20 December 2011
Tom Fallon
I didn’t know that, Mr Larrington! That’d explain his Doctor Who gig then, as the producer during that period had previously worked on All Creatures.
21 December 2011
Nathan Richardson
This sounds vageuly similar to, “The Night You Can’t Remember” by The Magnetic Fields. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence; they both echo the forms of trad. arr. tunes.
19 March 2012
Tangerine Wizard.
I always took the John Byrne mentioned to be the ex Sunderland striker.
11 June 2012
MIKE IN COV
I’m picking up two allusions here:
(1) The marriage-feast at Cana, John 2:1-11.
(2) The Austrian wine scandal. Antifreeze isn’t particularly toxic, but that’s not the impression the media gave out at the time.
Thoughts?
As for Wick, it’s about the furthest you can go north without swimming, and it could well be the most northerly mainland airport. I’d guess it was chosen to convey the idea of getting very far away very quickly. But what a good choice – the brusque monosyllable is splendidly bathetic. Try substituting other placenames, it’s hard to think of any which make the line remotely as funny.
13 July 2012
Pinkhalf drainpipe
Don’t the first two (brilliantly evocative) lines echo:
“On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time”?
21 September 2012
Rob
It must be John Byrne, the muscular Scottish artist and playwright (Tutti Frutti, your cheatin heart) who was married to beautiful actress Tilda Swinton.
22 January 2013
Jersey City foam party
There’s no way Wick could be short for Gatwick, is there?
11 June 2013
CHARLES EXFORD
I call Gatwick “Wick”.
I’d like to go there one day,
When Al Quaeda have put up gun towers
To keep those scary planes away.
But in fact no. Nobody lands in Gatwick anyway – you’d land AT Gatwick.
11 June 2013
Jersey City foam party
I’ve never had a theory of mine shot down quite so beautifully. Thanks for the welcome, Exxo!
12 June 2013
ultimate pyjamas
Thank you to Dave F (point 10). Until now, I though the business with the straighteners was a reference to the fact that our John had hair, whilst our narrator has none. In me Joy Division orthopedic shoes.
1 September 2013
John Byrne
It’s me. And, yes, I am much fitter!
30 September 2015
Mr Ed
Mike in Cov (#44): Diethylene glycol may not be as toxic as the media made out when traces were found in Austrian wine. However, anti-freeze (which contains ethylene glycol) is properly toxic. Working from Wikipedia, one glass of two-thirds anti-freeze would kill most people. This public-service announcement also gives me a chance to bang on relentlessly about punctuation. “Two-thirds” should be hyphenated in the opinion of authorities that can be bothered to have an opinion. “Half past ten” is fine, though, supposedly. The apostrophe before “cos” is currently pointing the wrong way, and arguably can or should be deleted. I would argue for quote marks round the words from the (exceptionally eloquent) gesture.
12 October 2015
Chris The Siteowner
Great grammatical pedantry, Mr Ed. I’m on the case. I think the inverted apostrophe is automatically inserted that way around by WordPress, I’ll look for a bodge.
12 October 2015
Mr Ed
One of the lyrics sites (I could link to it, but they don’t link to you, so I won’t) has ‘He said “It’s not like I’m losing a daughter as…”‘ then newline and ‘(Violently starting to choke)’. This is a reasonable thing for the father to say, but not what is sung. The idea that the father says “violently” etc makes no sense to me. I’m happy enough with the current punctuation there, even if the resulting sense is a bit obscure.
12 October 2015
Mr Ed
Blimey, Chris, you’re quick to respond! (Fantastic site, by the way — thanks for all your efforts!) Back to “cos”: the OED lists it as “cos | ‘cos”, indicating (by the order of presentation) that it favours the version without apostrophe.
12 October 2015
Chris The Siteowner
Not sure I like ‘cos’ without any apostrophe. Reminds me of lettuce. As for the brackets and stuff, see many comments above. If another lyrics site has something different, we should at least be grateful that (for once) it hasn’t been lifted wholesale from here.
12 October 2015
KEnnyp
I’m coming belatedly to this I know, but could the John in question in fact be John Beirne, a hairdresser from St Helens who appeared on TV about a decade ago? I’m reading a book about crap British towns by Tim Moore and John Beirne gets a mention. And I think straighteners are something to do with hairdressing.
28 October 2015
paul f
Thanks for that Kenny – your last sentence has massively brightened another depressing morning in the office.
28 October 2015