A live favourite, the short “She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain” singalong Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes manages to fit in some classics: Garth Crooks, the swan which will have your arm off, and “That’s when you got into the Manics”. As ever: Genius.
See lyrics of Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes
michael
Hi,
I’ve heard HMHB play Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes several times live, but have never found it on any CD – do you know if it’s available to buy?
Best,
Michael
7 July 2008
chris
Yep, it’s on the Look Dad No Tunes EP, but I suspect you’ll have fun trying to find it…
11 July 2008
Petrovic
@Michael:
There’s a live version in the Merseyside radio gig MP3 that was posted here (look down the poster’s comments for links):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vaO5oTDwY4
In the Kentish Town Forum gig last night the variation was (last verse)
…and that’s when Ken told me,
that’s when Ken told me
that my bread-maker would
only get used the once.
17 October 2008
Paul F
@petrovic – the breadmaker line is also on the (excellent) bootleg linked in “latest News” above.
The bootleg is also good fun for picking up on the strange conversations of the people near the recorder.
“You’re the youngest here”
“No I’m not!
“Yes you are!
“I AM NOT THE FUCKING YOUNGEST HERE!”
And:
“I stared at a woman before”
8 December 2008
Charles Exford
I think at Edinburgh ’08 the last line was ‘that’s when I first said, that’s when I first said (etc.), that a remake of The Wicker Man would never work’ …. or was it ‘never be as good as the original ?’
There have been quite a few variations at gigs, and that’s the only one I can remember right now, so I wondered if people with better memories could post them here before they are lost to posterity ?
20 January 2009
rjgg
Interested 2 hear the comments re adaptation 2 lyrics of “lock up yr mountain bikes.” The band played the rockhouse in Derby a few years ago, and changed the last verse 2:
before the gods that made the gods were born etc…
…That`s when Alan Hinton,
that`s when Alan Hinton,
that`s when Alan Hinton wore white boots.
Cultural reference being that Alan Hinton was a left winger for the Rams during their 1st title-winning season of 1971-2, and was famous for wearing a pair of(what i believe were) white Stylo Matchmakers
7 June 2009
Petrovic
Latest version (Roadwater Vllage Hall) was, more or less,
“… that’s when I first realised
That Eddie Stobart was just so high street.”
9 August 2009
Mr Larrington
If, as Charles Exford points out, “a remake of The Wicker Man would never work”, is that an instance of The Curse landing on Edward Woodward (the Late Equalizer)?
17 November 2009
a_p
Nigel in Roadwater was spotted sporting a cycling jersey with ‘Summerisle’ printed on the back. Always one step ahead…
17 November 2009
IdrisdachisEller
If I were carrying tea and toast simultaneously, I’d be more worried about how to open the kitchen door than how to turn off the light.
2 December 2016
Uniquely aP
You use your elbows to turn the doorknob to start with.
16 October 2017
wobbly Jelly
We saw a folk band doing Ding Dong Dollar – Glasgow anti-nuclear song (same tune)
“Aw ye cannae spend a dollar when ye’re deid
Naw ye cannae spend a dollar when ye’re deid
Singing ding dong dollar
Everybody holler
Ye cannae spend a dollar when ye’re deid”
Findlay Napier was saying the previous night while singing that he’d slipped and gone into the more childish
“Oh ye cannae shove yer grannie aff the bus,
Oh ye cannae shove yer grannie aff the bus,
Ye cannae shove yer grannie
For she’s yer mammie’s mammie,
Ye canna shove yer grannie aff the bus.”
Not sure which version makes me laugh more.
10 February 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
‘You Cannae Shove Your Granny off a Bus’ is a delight but the most delightful thing is the way they modified the “Aye-aye-yippy-yippy-aye” bit to “I will if you will (so will I)”.
Wobbly Jelly’s comment reminds me that I’ve sung that anti-nuclear version at anti-nuclear protests in the eighties, possibly even with a few verses of ‘You Cannae Shove Your Granny’ thrown in to irk some po-faced purists, and it makes me wonder if I have sung this tune in more contexts than any other. OK I’ve never been a slave on a plantation, yet, but there was a primary school teacher who made us sing spirituals including the original of this one, ‘Jesus’ Chariot’, presumably because we already knew ‘She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain’ and she considered it less worthy.
And OK, I’ve never been working on the railroad or marching to war, yet, but I remember we had an album at home of all those American folk standards that had somehow become kids’ songs, and that you might be expected to join in with them everywhere from the cub scouts to the Sunday school outing. I remember too that my grandad seemed to find more meaning and amusement in the wearing of the ‘pink pyjamas’ and even the simple repetition of ‘when she comes’ than we did.
I’ve sung the tune at protests, I’ve sung it at cup matches (“we’ll be running round Wembley with the cup”), I’ve sung it at HMHB gigs, but soon learned to shut up in case I annoy fellow gig-goers and miss some unique new lines.
When in 2012 Neil Young released his Americana album, with versions of ‘She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain’, ‘Clementine’. etc., I thought ‘What’s the point in that?’ but the glorious messy energy of the Crazy Horse band and of the official videos on Youtube, appropriating plenty of ‘archive footage’ of jarring and thought-provoking scenes and stills from US history, have gradually won me round and have hopefully helped keep some classics alive.
16 February 2018
dr desperate
You can sample Dylan’s version on this page…
https://www.amazon.com/Shell-be-Coming-Round-Mountain/dp/B00O5ACF4K
16 February 2018
TRANSIT FULL OF KEITH
Intriguing to find this on the wikipedia page for “She’ll be coming round the mountain”:
“The Danish song “Du må få min sofacykel” [“You have to get my sofa bike”] has the same melody, but the lyrics of the song are about someone giving away their “sofa bike”, a bike with a back rest. The original of this song was a drinking song written by the Danish poet, songwriter and artist Mogens Lorentzen around the beginning of the 20th century.”
Too tenuous to explain the title “Lock up your mountain bikes”, though, surely?
16 February 2018
Brumbiscuit
Danish isn’t my main Nordic language, but the full line is: ‘Du må få min sofacykel når jeg dør’, which, I think, translates to something more akin to ‘Make sure you get my sofa bike when I die’ or ‘Be sure to get my sofa bike when I die’. Which reminds me – although off on a tangent – of Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport, where the bloke ends up being flayed upon his death.
16 February 2018
Brumbiscuit
It could also be translated as ‘You can have my sofa bike when I expire’ to fit the tune.
16 February 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
Flirting with brass at Skejby hospital:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UtCKU__V68
Meanwhile the pedantic reader may wish to remark upon the fact that Mogens Lorentzen was seven years old at the beginning of the 20th century.
16 February 2018
dr desperate
“Tan me hide when I’m dead, Fred
Tan me hide when I’m dead
So we tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, and that’s it hanging on the shed.”
Children’s Favourites were somewhat grimmer in those days, and more racist:
“Let me Abos go loose, Lou
Let me Abos go loose
They’re of no further use, Lou, so let me Abos go loose.”
17 February 2018
Brumbiscuit
I suspect this version isn’t the popular children’s one: http://www.morsomme-sange.dk/text/sofacykel.htm
Everyone’s a socialist, needs no pants nor trousers, and even a bra. I like it.
17 February 2018
transit full of keith
Hmm, there’s a choir of nudists singing the Internationale in heaven, a ‘slippery cat’, and something about ogling naked nuns, according to Google translate. That Mogens Lorentzen was quite precocious for a lad of seven.
17 February 2018
TRANSIT FULL OF KEITH
Can’t resist the challenge implied in post 17, so here is my attempt at a singable version (assisted by Google translate and rhyming dictionary). Yes, I expect this isn’t the children’s version. Translation is a bit loose …
Lock Up Your Sofa Bikes
Music: Trad.Arr.Tune (“She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”)
Lyrics: from the Danish, poss. Mogens Lorentzen (age 7¾)
You can have my sofa bike when I expire,
You can have my sofa bike when I expire,
For that final kilometre
I’m riding tandem with Saint Peter*
You can have my sofa bike when I expire.
I’ll be dicing with St Peter when I die,
I’ll be dicing with St Peter when I die,
If I’m dicing, like I do,
I’m sure to win a beer or two
Playing dice with old St Peter when I die.
We’ll all be socialists when we expire,
We’ll all be socialists when we expire,
In heavens halls they all
Sing the International
We’ll all be socialists when we expire.
You can have my grotty vest when I expire,
You can have my grotty vest when I expire,
In paradise’s bowers
Bellies bared amongst the flowers,
You can have my favourite vest when I expire.
You can have my underpants when I expire,
You can have my underpants when I expire,
For in heaven all the lads
Go around with naked ‘nads,
You can have my underpants when I expire …
Feel free to have my bra when I expire … (etc.)
[Thoroughly defeated, I retire. The final two verses are quite tricky, and also probably filthy. Perhaps Brumbiscuit would like to have a go …?]
* the inevitable asterisk
18 February 2018
Brumbiscuit
Definitely NOT the children’s version:
You can have my brassiere when I expire/
When your tits are all a’flap
They won’t interest any chap
You can have my brassiere when I expire
If you want to see a naked nun before you die/
Take yourself down to the Mission
Where hair’s subject to prohibition
If you want to see a naked nun before you die.
A very loose translation, but it captures the spirit, I think.
19 February 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
I realised, listening to the Norwegian version about all the old things you can have when I die, that without even trying I had already acquired the Norwegian word for “old” (=”gamle”) from the Strømsgodset (qv) club song Gamle Grass. Woohoo top acqusition I’m nearly fluent! Cracking Norwegian comedy gangster movie on telly last night too, I understood every word without the subtitles, whenever something was ‘old’!
Loving your recent work Andy BTW.
19 February 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
And yours too Keith of course.
Right I’m off to the British library to speed-read the NME all day.
19 February 2018
TRANSIT FULL OF KEITH
Excellent @BB – “all a’flap / any chap” is elegantly done. I’d thrown in the towel after twenty minutes trying combinations of “flaccid” and “placid” to no avail.
19 February 2018
Brumbiscuit
‘gammel’ = old (singular)
‘gamle’ = plural and definite singular
I’ll revert to Swedish, which has similar forms:
‘En gammal man’ = an old man
‘tre gamla man*’ = three old men
‘den gamla man’ = the old man
* should have an umlaut-like set of dots over the ‘a’
19 February 2018
EXXO
Just remembered, while playing a quick game of ‘what kind of animal is most likely to be mentioned on the next HMHB album?’, that at a gig about 6 years ago it was “that’s when I first said, that’s when I first said, that dog rescue centres will be full of Siberian huskies and malamutes.”
With apologies if mentioned elsewhere, but I don’t remember seeing it.
26 February 2018
Bobby svarc
I’ll have a dart at 3 dogs.
26 February 2018
gipton teenager
@Charles Exford. If your second language is now Norwegian and you like violent comedic films then ‘Hodejegerne’ (Headhunters) should be just the grubby ticket stub for you. I saw it at my local International Film Festival last year. Appalling and hilarious in equal measure.
27 February 2018
EXXO
Takk for det, gammel venn.
(sorry about the ‘gammel’ but I needed to practice the last lesson from Brumbiscuit)
27 February 2018
Brumbiscuit
I’m not sure if it was intended to be amusing, but ‘Eins, Zwei, Die!’ was an apocalyptic zombie gore-fest I saw a while ago. WW2 Nazi themed, natch.
27 February 2018
EXXO
To practise, even.
After all these years of maybe correcting that one more than any other spelling.
27 February 2018
gipton teenager
Del og nyt, ungdon, as we say in Yorkshire
27 February 2018
gipton teenager
“EIN! ZWEI! DIE!” (sic) is a ‘making of” extra on the DVD of “Dod Sno”, a particularly egregious example of the Nazi/Zombie genre from Norway. I’m sure Nigel could translate the title. (is it obvious that I’m snowed off work?)
27 February 2018
Brumbiscuit
@Exxo: ‘Takk for det, gammel venn.’
It’s the possessive, so that should be ‘…for det, gamle venn’.
At least if the Norwegian follows the Swedish convention…
27 February 2018
EXXO
I didn’t say he was my old friend.
27 February 2018
Brumbiscuit
It’s implied…
27 February 2018
EXXO
Well I’m un-implying it.
27 February 2018
Jeff Dreadnought
Thanks for the insights into the Nordic languages Brumbiscuit. Fascinating stuff. The prefix gammel meaning old has survived in German too, but only in the context of food that is old and past its sell-by date, as in “Gammelfleisch”.
28 February 2018
GIpton teenager
I don’t think I like the idea of being possessed. Anyway, I may be old but
28 February 2018
Brumbiscuit
The implications are already drawn, I’m afraid…
28 February 2018
GIpton teenager
Sorry, just dropped off a bit there.
Andrew Neil
Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter watch.
28 February 2018
Squid yes octopus no
A nice touch: The brief acoustic riff at the end of this track is lifted from the early Manics’ track ‘R.P. McMurphy’, itself an homage to Jack Nicholson’s lead role in ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’. It’s one of the b-sides of ‘Stay Beautiful’.
2 April 2018
CHARLES EXFORD
A nice touch indeed, and an even better spot to identify the riff from that half a second! We’re surely in Gold Biscuit nomination territory.
2 April 2018
The bastard in the hat
G.K.Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse:
Before the gods that made the gods
Had seen their sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was cut out of the grass.
Before the gods that made the gods
Had drunk at dawn their fill,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
Was hoary on the hill.
(Those are the first lines, not counting the Dedication. For the remaining 2500+ lines, see http://www.archive.org/stream/theballadofthewh01719gut/botwh10.txt, or http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/white-horse2.html etc.)
2 July 2019
Gok WAN Acolyte
Much as I love Mr B’s lyrics, I’d like to point out that the lyrics contain a serious error. I can categorically state that the following are worse than washing sieves
1. Unblocking a toilet
2. Clearing gutters
3. Digging out bindweed
4. Assembling a flat pack product from the diagrams
I’m sure others can think of further examples
13 November 2019
Alice van der meer
I’m with you on the bindweed. Hateful evil stuff!
13 November 2019
lord leominster
Here’s a simple 9 step guide to removing bindweed.
https://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Bindweed
13 November 2019
Alice van der meer
Napalm is more fun. The neighbours soon learn to run when the helicopters appear…
13 November 2019
LUX INFERIOR
Drying sieves. That’s worse.
13 November 2019
EXXO
This would be my recommendation to Mr. B (& Mr. Interior), so that the sieve never even features in the regular washing up/drying process: immediately after use before even putting it down, slap the sieve against inside edge of a lined pedal bin to remove most/all gunky solids, then immediately soak in hot soapy water (before eating the meal). All it will then need is a hot rinse and some flicking dry over the basin before hanging it back on its hook, in such a part of the kitchen that a few tiny drips don’t matter.
13 November 2019
lord leominster
A simple 5 step process.
13 November 2019
LUX INFERIOR
Most useful advice, Exxo, though that could possibly have formed the basis for a new quiz.
It’s actually Mr. Inferior, by the way (sorry to be picky), which accurately describes how I’m feeling at my failure to unearth the definitive answer to Q.12 of the footy pennant-based quiz, despite countless hours of research. Kinda taking the shine off solving questions 9, 10 & 11.
13 November 2019
EXXO
The goal in the home leg was scored by a man who sounds like he should know about opening (and closing) defences of iron. In the away leg, “Why mark anyone now?” the natives must have thought after they’d kicked Ipswich’s best player off the pitch, and the home side pressed forward looking for the goals they needed. The local crowd barked their displeasure as Town’s ancient seadog made them pay with his second of the night and after that the English vistors could relax and enjoy the mild, temperate local climate with more rainfall than you might expect in that part of the world.
13 November 2019
FEATURELESS TV PRODUCER STEVE
Confessions of an inebriated American Half Man Half Biscuit fan:
When I’m singing this song in the shower, or in the car, or even when singing along whilst playing it on the stereophonic hi-fi, I sing: “With the possible exception of being Garth Brooks.”
And since I’m already confessing, I might as well add that I also sing Costco instead of Tesco, sidewalk instead of pavement, billboards instead of hoardings, podiatrist instead of chiropodist, and 911 instead of 999 (and then I have to change the drink to rum, so it still, sort of, rhymes).
There are probably others I’m not thinking of right now. After all, Half Man Half Cookie is my favorite band.
1 April 2020
FEATURELESS TV PRODUCER STEVE
Favourite, damn it, I meant favourite! FavoUrite. Fave-yewer-right.
1 April 2020
Lord leominster
I resisted the temptation to comment on your mention that ‘meter’ was an acceptable spelling. Whilst I feel compelled to comment I find myself speechless, other than to say you have my sympathies.
1 April 2020
TRANSIT FULL OF keith
“I’ve come to read your gas metre”.
1 April 2020
lord leominster
Guilty as charged.
1 April 2020
Featureless tv producer steve
Hoo boy. Sometimes not being able to edit/delete your posts round here is a real drag.
1 April 2020
dr desperate
Jake Thackray’s chanson ‘Leopold Alcocks’ describes a protracted visit by an accident-prone distant relation:
“One blow from his thighs, which are fearsomely strong,
Would easily fracture the wing of a swan”.
(Irrelevantly, though wonderfully, it continues:
“A pox on you, Alcocks! You’ve been here since Feb’ry
Go home and leave me alone with my débris”.)
7 April 2020
dr Desperate
“She’s a powerful woman, Lady Beryl. She can break a swan’s wing with a single blow of her nose.”
(Peter Cook as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling)
22 February 2021
professor Abelazar Woozle
Careful now…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-northamptonshire-56462299
Looks like the RSPB think it may be engaging in agressive begging, though I can’t help but wonder if it runs away sniggering and hides if someone comes to open the door?
19 March 2021
EXXO
Last day of the river season the other day, terrible weather but I’d been pre-baiting five swims for a fortnight. Last chance for proper fishing for 3 months. Came to the first swim and the swans came out of nowhere. Someone’s been feeding them there and then they just never give up, followed me from spot to spot down the river. Had too many incidents of of swans getting the line around fee (or worse) so when they’re around I simply won’t be there.
See the link on the right of that article to the bell they ring at Wells cathedral when they want food. If you feed them they think every human is there too feed them. Ditto foxes.
Anyway, while I’m here, lately I’ve been carrying a 35-kilo dog down two flights of stairs most mornings, often singing “do you switch the landing light on with your dog?”
20 March 2021
EXXO
Feet. Not fee. they haven’t started demanding money. Yet.
(on R4’s ‘Today’ the other day, they sent a reporter to *gasp* actually get on a bus, with the plebs, and the presenter told the reporter – who had paid over £5 for the journey – that she could claim the ‘fee’ back on expenses).
20 March 2021
Alice van der meer
We’ve seen that as well – if you feed swans, they start demanding bread with menaces, and they are big enough to be quite intimidating. What’s interesting is if they’ve got a brood, one parent will march up and demand, with the cygnets between the two, but the other parent will hiss furiously if you try to approach it, and won’t let you near. I don’t know whether it’s a generic swan thing, or just this pair.
20 March 2021
Canadian Alice
Did a dig on the tune and found out that Canadian folk song Red River Valley is likely the earliest recorded tune for this song, having been written in the 1890s:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_Valley_(song)
She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain, the American folk bearing a very similar tune, first appeared as “When the Chariot Comes” around the same time (1890s) and is related to the Underground Railroad, a process in which black slaves escaped to Canada/British North America where slavery was outlawed. The song Coming Round the Mountain was written down for the first time in 1927.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/She%27ll_Be_Coming_%27Round_the_Mountain
And interestingly, alongside its Scandinavian variations, this tune, named Molodejnaya, was also a theme song to a 1938 Russian film Volga-Volga. A well known nursery rhyme, If You’re Happy And You Know It, is said to be adapted from it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You%27re_Happy_and_You_Know_It
Now it’s bothers me that they’re saying Red River Valley is an original tune. From what I know most folk tunes in the West side of the Pond has some sort of origin from the East side of the Pond. Many of such tunes have a Celtic origin (and I do believe RRV has a Celtic origin). Yet somehow I am having trouble finding any connections to the Old World
10 February 2022
EXXO
This is great stuff, Alice, and very much concurs with some research I did many moons ago. I have loved the tune since I was a kid and even more so when it became the tune of a Liverpool football song in the seventies. It was a song that was the subject of controversy and disagreement on football forums about 20 years ago so I did the same research as you, and like you I drew a blank before Canada even though like you it’s obvious it will have antecedents further east. My favourite adaptation of course is the ‘Jarama Valley’ of the Abraham Lincoln Brigadistas.
10 February 2022
dr Desperate
I’ve always liked Johnny & The Hurricanes’ version, especially since I once saw two members of the Albertos playing it simultaneously on the same guitar.
(I suspect it’s Lammo’s favourite too).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3yuh3agNYQ
10 February 2022
EXXO
Alice, I vaguely remembered looking at this thread about RRV on the premium folkie infobase many years ago:
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=63785#1539728
… but I reckon I looked before the Kerrigan post from 2009 near the end of the thread. The thread contains some real irrelevance and IMHO any surviving Irish language lyrics to this song, if they refer to a red river, are likely to be a modern translation into Irish from this immensely popular N.American song. However the Kerrigan post, just saying that he was of Irish descent, is very interesting.
Getting back to Mr. B’s appropriation of ‘Coming Round the Mountain,’ though. It’s quite a different tune.
10 February 2022
Canadian Alice
Thanks EXXO and Dr Desperate
Red River Valley is a real place in Canada. A Metis leader called Louise Riel led a rebellion there against (the very new) Dominion of Canada in 1860/1870. Personally I like the connection of this song to the Metis and the rebellion. It would, at the very least, explain the Celtic sounds in this tune. The Metis are a people descended from Native Americans and European (often French but sometimes English and Scottish) fur traders. The word literally mean “mixed”. If we follow this line of logic it then makes sense that the Irish lyrics seem translated back from English.
That said, I am not sure if the tune originated from the rebellion. The connection with the Underground Railroad explains more about how this tune is also found in parts of the US. Since the US abolished slavery in 1865, the tune may well emerged from the early 1800’s. Now my hypothesis is that the reason there is no Celtic tune quite like RRV is because of the Black influence on the melody. I’m not sure exactly how this played out, of course. Just a guess. And then there’s the question of how much Christian music is also Celtic (at least in style/melody), which is another area I have absolutely no knowledge about.
11 February 2022
woodnoggin
My daughter (4) has learned the words to this and has been singing it at nursery. She is now getting requests for it from other kids, particularly the swan part. “I said they could just buy the album but they don’t know what an album is…”
18 May 2022
transit full of keith
Careful now. Next week it’ll be ‘Midnight Mass Murder’ and you’ll be hauled in for “a word”.
18 May 2022
dr desperate
Whatever problems you have, DON’T call Billy Swan. He claims to have two strong arms, but you might not after he’s “helped”.
27 March 2023
Transit full of keith
Careful now, this man can break your swan.
Nice picture caption work there.
30 November 2023