Ooh, HMHB play Quo. 27 Yards Of Dental Floss is a work of genius on so many levels, not least of which is the line above. And the second verse is the most Steely Dan thing to come out of England ever. Thanks to Max and Neil G
See lyrics to 27 Yards Of Dental Floss
Matt Lee
I think it’s “I’ve been yesterday”
31 December 2008
Ben
…one of my very few ‘meh’ HMHB tunes in my opinion.
– always skip it, never done owt for me.
31 December 2008
Chris The Siteowner
@Matt: I can’t hear an “I’ve” on either the album or Kershaw session versions, and it wouldn’t scan if there was one.
@Ben: Each to his own, I think it’s top notch.!
31 December 2008
Charles Exford
No, there certainly isn’t an ‘I’ve’ – it could have scanned if NB wanted to put it in, you’d just change the pauses & stresses around said & been, but it’s not there.
However, there isn’t a “to” in “go the zoo” either.
It’s a Merseyside thing. I’m goin’ the match in Preston on Saturday meself. I’ve been goin’ the match since 1972. Anyone else goin’ the game ?
Exford.
1 January 2009
Neil G
There is a kind of glottal stop t in goin’ t’ the game. The t’ is ‘swallowed’ (for want of a better description). It is there, though. I live just up the road from Birkenhead, so I’ve got lots of experience of hearing it. There are lots of people who don’t pronounce the t at all but I hear it here.
1 January 2009
Charles Exford
I wouldn’t call it a glottal stop! It’s not Yorkshire you know.
cf “What say we go the Isle of Man, Man, Man ?”
1 January 2009
Charles Exford
Having hastily posted the above reaction, I do now agree there is an alternative variant which yes, you hear commonly on Merseyside – something like “Goat the match,” “Goat the zoo,” etc. I wouldn’t call it a glottal stop (as Lord forbid that does seem to condemn us to some kind of linguistic grouping wi’t’Yorkies), and I can’t hear NB using it in any songs – the very clear “Go the Isle of Man” precedent springs to mind.
Exxo
1 January 2009
moo
I reckon you’re spot on there, Exxo.
For further evidence of Nige’s aversion to prepositions, there’s:
‘Let’s go the Met Bar and cause an altercation/Let’s go the Groucho and snap at rakish heels’.
13 January 2009
Paul F
I’d agree with removing the “to” completely – I always used to “go the match” or “go the Halfway” or “go the State” when I was growing up in Liverpool.
14 January 2009
dj
regards the turpentine consumption, i always heard it as “been”, rather than “still”
25 May 2009
Sera_6969
Hmm… Always sung the “Would you like to go the zoo?” line as “Would you like to go visit?” she said “Yeah, but not with you.” which seems more in keeping with the general gist of the song. Zoo, appearing out of nowhere, seems obtuse even for NB.
17 July 2009
Si
Minor pedantry, but surely its ‘baling wire’? Wire for making bales, not bails
5 August 2009
Dave F.
Hardly minor! Si. Well spotted.
Whilst I agree with baling it surprising how many manufacturers list it as Bailing Wire.
5 August 2009
Tony H.
‘Can’t I see his dead eye glow, / Bright as ’twere a Barbary corsair’s?’ (Robert Browning, *Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister*; stanza iv).
28 January 2010
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Not sure that NB57 isn’t in danger of falling foul of Measures and Weights here. Dental floss is commonly available in plastic dispensers that contain between 10 to 50 metres of floss. 27 yards is 24.68 metres which, when rounded up, is a standard medium sized 25m dispenser.
Twenty-five metres of dental floss, and she still won’t give me a Euro acceptable smile.
3 March 2011
Rubber Faced Irritant
At the Oxford gig someone behind me shouted for this after about 6 successive songs. Eventually NB confessed he couldn’t remember the chords as Neil had written the tune. He did say he could sing it acapella and then promised they’d do it next time.
All this is a contrived intro to saying I painted 3 bedrooms last weekend and my wife still accused me of fecklessness. My riposte of “27 yards of Dulux gloss and you still won’t give me a smile” met with stony silence.
2 July 2012
Jim (Still in the Timor Sea)
Mr Irritant – Did it make the room look bigger?
1 January 2013
Mick Exclusion Zone
@Vendor has already alluded to it, but I woke up this morning with an inexorable urge to investigate whether dental floss really did used to come in 27 Yard lengths before those bumbling Brussels bureaucrats came along and made everything much simpler…
The results of my research? Inconclusive. But it probably did. Indeed in some more backwards countries, it still does. Well, almost…
http://www.amazon.com/27-3-yards-waxed-dental-floss/dp/B00BILQ49Q/ref=sr_1_5?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1421773597&sr=1-5&keywords=27
27 January 2015
dr desperate
This one claims to be a bit closer (though 27-and-a-bit yards is the equivalent of 25m, which is what they probably are).
http://www.amazon.com/Colgate-Total-Dental-Floss-27yd/dp/B00A1BGKSY
27 January 2015
Mick Exclusion Zone
Good find, Doc. However, I think what we’re really looking for here is photographic evidence of the yardage specified on the packaging itself, if anyone has it? Thanks in advance, etc.
28 January 2015
dickhead in quicksand
Is rounding to the nearest yard acceptable? 27.3 yards of waxed banana-flavored Monkey Floss.
I have a problem with the chimp being called a monkey.
28 January 2015
Mick Exclusion Zone
@Dickhead, it depends…can anyone do any better?
3 February 2015
dickhead in quicksand
Another nod to Blind Willie, surely – “Let your light shine on me”, the same song as in “27 yards of dental floss”.
Who can be the first to name (without cheating) the secular song with the same tune?
17 February 2015
dr desperate
‘Midnight Special’, recorded by Lead Belly in 1929 (but in print as a trad arr some 30 years previously – I cheated).
The phrase “let your light shine” comes from Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (King James under the bed).
17 February 2015
dickhead in quicksand
I wonder which were the original lyrics? I’d go for “Midnight Special”, but it’s no more than a guess.
Top KJV spottage there, soon to be added to the WP article.
17 February 2015
dirk hofman
The gospel song LYLSOM would be closer to the ‘spiritual’ that it evolved from,MS being a secularised prison version further from the original.Lead Belly was first recorded in 1933/34 by John Lomax,MS being one of the songs recorded,although other versions were recorded earlier.Johnson recorded LYLSOM in 1929.Johnson and Ledbetter played together in the 1910s before the latter was sent down for seven years in 1918.
19 February 2015
dirk hofman
Robinson Crusoe was captured by Barbary corsairs and was held as a slave for two years before escaping and subsequently being shipwrecked.Daniel Defoe thought they were a menace and petitioned for military action against them.
19 February 2015
dickhead in quicksand
@@Dirk have you got evidence that BWJ and LB knew each other? I’m trying to improve/create Wikipedia articles relating to BWJ, and every piece of information helps.
Another “spot that tune” challenge. I’ve so far baffled three knowledgeable musos with “If it had not been for Jesus”. Name the secular version?
19 February 2015
EXXO
A song performed by Our Lads on a Peel session perhaps?
19 February 2015
dickhead in quicksand
@@Exxo subtle – and nailed. Let’s leave the others to scratch their heads, shall we?
20 February 2015
dirk hofman
No evidence dhiqs,Johnson not mentioned by Williams or Wald and then looking at Wikipedia a Blind Lemon Jefferson is cited as playing with Lead Belly in Dallas..
20 February 2015
Dr Desperate
Nice R. Crumb portrait of BWJ on that YouTube clip (he also did BWMcT and BLJ).
20 February 2015
dirk hofman
..also Blind Blake and Blind Boy Fuller,Crumb’s Mr Natural had a couple of catchphrases,one of them: ’twas ever thus,don’t know if he was waiting for a kidney or a bus.
20 February 2015
dr desperate
Oh, no A to Z on dental floss? Thought we had an A to Z.
Anyway, it doesn’t work.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/08/02/flossing-teeth-does-little-good-and-us-removes-it-from-health-ad/
3 August 2016
Dirk the tourist
More pedantry – ‘fez’ is shown as a proper noun in the lyrics. Not sure it should be, but I will accept the findings of better minds.
17 July 2017
dr desperate
Good point, @Dirk. Fez the city should obviously be capitalised, but not fez the hat.
17 July 2017
FEATURELESS TV PRODUCER STEVE
Had an old mate from university out for a visit over the weekend. As I always do when he comes to visit, I spent part of the time trying to introduce him to the joys of HMHB (or as he puts it, “shoving that odd English band down his throat”).
Anyway, I played this song, and he said he might like it if he could hear the studio version, but he didn’t care for this live version they put on the album.
He waited politely for my laughter to finally subside, then asked what was so funny. I explained to him that even though I’ve never been to a show, I could assure him that is definitely NOT what a Half Man Half Biscuit audience sounds like.
18 February 2019