About this Site
“At HMHB gigs, they wear their hearts on their sleeves. And their oven gloves on their hands. But this loyalty isn’t only articulated through the redesign of kitchen-based protective wear, as a glimpse at the internet will reveal. One fansite consists of full transcriptions and in-depth analysis of every Blackwell lyric ever recorded. The site goes by the attractive strapline of ‘179 Pop Songs Picked Over By Pedants’. My kind of people.”
– Nige Tassell, “Mr Gig” (2013)
Chris Rand (AKA here as “Chris The Siteowner” or “CtSO”) writes:
The only thing growing faster than the number of blogs on the internet is the number of blogs quoting Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics. At this rate, we’ll have a Half Man Half Biscuit lyrical event horizon about 2032 where nothing else is ever published.
Trouble is, like darts in soap operas, most of them are so wrong. So with too much time on my hands, obviously, I’ve been trying to rectify the situation, and not only build a complete set of lyrics, but actually get them right (with a lot of help from the comments and corrections of many people, for which I thank you). It originally took just over three years, then we had a new album, and… well, let’s hope the job is never finished.
Of course, these lyrics are the copyright of the songwriters, and if they have any objections to this non-profit-making site, please contact me and I’ll remove the offending material immediately.
But where should you begin? Right here:
A Beginner’s Guide to Half Man Half Biscuit
Half Man Half Biscuit have been steadily making music since the mid-eighties. Whether you’re new to the band, or catching up with them after many years, a cracking place to start is this 2011 article by Taylor Parkes on The Quietus. Go and have a read. We’ll still be here when you get back in a few minutes.
That should have given you a decent flavour of what the band is all about. But if you want more, watch this seven-minute video made as part of the “John Peel’s Record Collection” series, introduced by the great man’s wife Sheila:
On to the music!
With so many good songs to choose from, there’s no definitive place to start catching up with thirty years of Half Man Half Biscuit. Perhaps the best place to start would be the fans’ favourite songs. The latest poll was in 2019, under the guise of the Lux Familiar Cup. Here’s the result of the main poll, which had nearly 400,000 votes from 1,700 listeners; ‘Boychild’ made a playlist on Spotify of the top 32 which is a perfect place to begin:
More Reading
For lots of complementary stuff to this site, I’ll direct you to Gez’s long-running ‘HMHB Home Page’, where you can also spend hours. And if you found the Taylor Parkes article above interesting, you might also like to read this piece by Andy von Pip.
And what about this site?
As the name implies, The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project is focused on the lyrics to the songs, but in the process it’s also become the most active discussion site on the band. Work your way through our home page if you want to see everything we’ve got to offer. In particular, it’s worth investigating:
Your PBRs (Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics in the real world)
HMHB in the Media
The A to Z of Half Man Half Biscuit
Gig News and Reviews
The famous Half Man Half Biscuit Random Lyrics Generator™
Website Activity Records
| Milestones | |
|---|---|
| First lyrics published | 23/10/2007 |
| Lyrics from first 11 albums completed | 07/10/2010 |
| “90 Bisodol (Crimond)” lyrics added | 10/09/2011 to 10/12/2011 |
| “Urge For Offal” lyrics added | 11/10/2014 to 22/11/2014 |
| “…Creative Hub…” lyrics added | 19/05/2018 to 10/06/2018 |
| Comment Number | Date Reached |
| 1 | 23/10/2007 |
| 5000 | 16/05/2011 |
| 10000 | 24/02/2013 |
| 15000 | 26/09/2014 |
| 20000 | 05/06/2015 |
| 25000 | 03/05/2016 |
| 30000 | 23/02/2017 |
| 35000 | 12/06/2018 |
| 40000 | 09/11/2019 |
| Website Visitor Totals | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Visitors | Visits | Top Referring Sites |
| 2007 | 340 | 488 | |
| 2008 | 17075 | 33081 | Google, Wikipedia, Stumbleupon |
| 2009 | 27961 | 56182 | Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Guardian |
| 2010 | 40152 | 85277 | Google, HMHB.co.uk, Wikipedia, Bing |
| 2011 | 50931 | 130506 | Google, HMHB.co.uk, Bing, Wikipedia |
| 2012 | 48755 | 106295 | Google, HMHB.co.uk, Wikipedia, Bing |
| 2013 | 47477 | 113826 | Google, HMHB.co.uk, Bing, Twitter |
| 2014 | 64259 | 164732 | Google, HMHB.co.uk, Twitter, Bing |
| 2015 | 67814 | 167452 | Google, Facebook, HMHB.co.uk, Twitter |
| 2016 | 79093 | 171883 | Google, Twitter, HMHB.co.uk, Bing |
| 2017 | 73900 | 170924 | Google, Bing, Twitter, HMHB.co.uk |
| 2018 | 90471 | 232404 | Google, Twitter, Bing, Facebook |
| Days with over 1000 visitors | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Visitors | Visits | Reason | Main Source | |
| Wed 23 March | 1003 | 1131 | Fred Titmus dies; people searching for his name | ||
| 2014 | |||||
| Mon 20 October | 1319 | 1858 | “Urge For Offal” release | ||
| Tue 21 October | 1014 | 1474 | “Urge For Offal” release, day 2 | ||
| 2015 | |||||
| Sun 27 December | 1134 | 1321 | Lux Familiar Cup Final results | ||
| 2016 | |||||
| Mon 16 May | 1357 | 1575 | Mention in this Guardian story | The Guardian | |
| 2018 | |||||
| Thu 1 March | 1971 | 2400 | “Creative Hub” announced | ||
| Fri 2 March | 1760 | 2135 | “Creative Hub” announced, day 2 | ||
| Fri 18 May | 1791 | 2473 | “Creative Hub” release | ||
| Sat 19 May | 1148 | 1615 | “Creative Hub” release, day 2 | ||
| Sun 20 May | 1048 | 1510 | “Creative Hub” release, day 3 | ||
| Mon 21 May | 1205 | 1724 | “Creative Hub” release, day 4 | ||
| Tue 22 May | 1322 | 1806 | “Creative Hub” release, day 5 | ||
| Wed 23 May | 1173 | 1694 | “Creative Hub” release, day 6 | ||
| Fri 25 May | 1112 | 1617 | “Creative Hub” release, day 8 | ||
| Mon 4 Jun | 1109 | 1508 | More “Creative Hub” discussion | ||
| Fri 8 Jun | 1388 | 1958 | More “Creative Hub” discussion, and London gig | ||
| Sat 9 Jun | 1079 | 1683 | More “Creative Hub” discussion, and London gig | ||
Finally… buy the music!
Straight from the source, you can buy Half Man Half Biscuit CDs and other stuff at the online store of their record label Probe Plus. The music is also available at all the normal download sources too, such as iTunes and Amazon UK
. You won’t go far wrong with Creative Hub or any of the preceding five albums, Urge For Offal, 90 Bisodol (Crimond), CSI: Ambleside, Achtung Bono and Cammell Laird Social Club.
Welcome to the world of the band of which John Peel said:
“In a decently ordered society members of Half Man Half Biscuit would be routinely carried shoulder high through the streets of every city they visited.”
– John Peel (1997)
Chris Rand (“Chris The Siteowner”)
Originally written in September 2007
Email me
(Disclaimer: I’m not some sort of uber-fan: you can find the real ones at any of the band’s gigs. They’re all charming people. All I have is a love for the band and limited ability in website design. Oh, and I have a friend with a son called Archie, and another with a son called Fred. I have been caught wearing a footy shirt over a jumper. I’ve bought soup in cartons. And I know who PFM are. But I do live quite near Chatteris. Which is nice. You can judge me on my musical taste by seeing what I listen to, right here.)
Feel free to link here from your own websites. Thank you to the likes of The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Quietus and the late Word Magazine for doing so. And all the social media mentions you can manage will help spread the word.
You can follow additions to this site on Twitter at @hmhb_lyrics and follow Chris The Siteowner at @ChrisRandWrites
Contacting the Band
This is an unofficial website – please don’t contact me asking for introductions, etc. For that, contact the manager Geoff Davies at:
ProbePlus, 11 Sydenham Avenue, Liverpool, L17 3AU
Telephone 0151 733 1810
Email geoff@probeplus.co.uk.
Gigs are now handled by Pod at The Gig Cartel: More details here.