Thanks to Dr D, Rich P, Ben C, Steve N, Peter T-M, John A, Dave T and Jim W for their transcription contributions. This page originally published on 21 March 2022.
This album may have given us more to discuss in terms of meaning as any I can think of, but the production choices have certainly given us less to argue about in terms of what the words are. That said, here’s an example of one that almost all our contributors provided something different for: just what is Desperate Dan?
21 March 2022
John Anderson
I went for “you’re absolutely dethroned” suggesting that Desperate Dan is now yesterday’s man because Lockdown Luke has 12 million likes.
21 March 2022
That chiseller, idris
I hear “everybody’s driving for the cause,” and I wouldn’t hyphenate “you know who”, although I can’t articulate why. No idea what’s up with Desperate Dan.
21 March 2022
Gerry GOW
DD is “defunct” maybe?
21 March 2022
woodnoggin
Sounds like Desperate Dan is “absolutely defunct” to me.
21 March 2022
EXXO
It’s “absolutely dethroned.”
Desperate Dan is the previous FB “like” king, but he’s been dethroned by Luke.
At first I assumed Dan was a fictionalised version of someone like Nathan Evans the Wellerman sensation from just before the pandemic …
… but then I saw that a real Dan had 12 million likes garnered during the pandemic.
No, NB would not be targeting a real Dan, no way.
(I suggest we do not post this name or the site will get his fans coming on here, worse than Adele fans did for Skeleton Records on twitter a few months back)
21 March 2022
woodnoggin
Oh, and I had “everybody’s driving for the coast” because of the numbers that flocked to the beaches (and other outdoor recreational locations) during the restriction period.
21 March 2022
woodnoggin
“Was it for this the clay grew tall?” Is this the second Wilfred Owen reference on the album? Are there any more? ‘Futility’ contains this line as well as “Move him into the sun”, similar to the opening of ‘Oblong of Dreams’.
21 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
So we’ve got “everybody’s driving for the cause” vs “everybody’s striving for the cause” vs “everybody’s driving for the coast”, which would all work, and “absolutely defunct” vs “dethroned” vs (from our original contributors) “decorned”, “becalmed” and “deformed”…
21 March 2022
John Anderson
“Dethroned” and “driving” all day long for me, Fletch.
21 March 2022
Gerry GOW
+1 for “everybody’s driving for the cause”.
21 March 2022
transit full of keith
+1 for “striving for the cause”
21 March 2022
EXXO
Yep (soz @Spiltdown) two voiced sounds /zd/ and the two unvoiced sounds /st/ would be quite distinct and it’s the latter here – “everybody’s striving”
21 March 2022
EXXO
Or (more likely) “everybody striving” cos that would sound pretty much identical.
21 March 2022
Jeff Dreadnought
Great song – clever, funny, ironic and a cracking tune. The delivery of the line “some may read a book” is a particular highlight.
Sounds like “driving for the cause” and “dethroned” to me, which means it’s almost definitely neither.
I was also trying to work out what on earth Desperate Dan from The Dandy (part of the inspiration for Dr Desperate from Left Lyrics) had to do with it.
21 March 2022
featureless steve
“Was if for this the clay grew tall”
is from the poem Futility by Oswestry-born WW1 poet Wildred Owen – and it also has shades of the beginning of Oblong of Dreams:
Move him into the sun— Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields half-sown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds— Woke once the clays of a cold star. Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? —O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth’s sleep at all?
21 March 2022
featureless steve
…. not to be confused with Oswestry-born WW1 poet Wilfred Owen
After he turned four, the family moved from the grandfather’s home to a modest house in Birkenhead, where Owen attended Birkenhead Institute from 1900 to 1907.
21 March 2022
featureless steve
and now I realise @Woodnoggin has already mentioned this.
Must be time for my medication
21 March 2022
EXXO
Well, Carrie Anne (and maybe others) mentioned it even before that, and Owen’s Birkenhead years and HMHB influence have been discussed on here at various times including last year in the ‘Frequent Electric Trains’ thread, but Steve I’m not saying that in the typical online dismissive way, but the opposite – in celebration of the fact that you found it out for yourself in Portland bloody Oregon which is amazing given that you probably didn’t get Owen in high school like most UK kids do at some stage. One poet that has to be compulsory, unfortunately, rather than one where it’s a shame they are compulsory.
21 March 2022
I, Problem CHimp
I had ‘striving’ which I think fits in with the ‘earnest’ tone of the first verse – there’s nothing clever or deep about the lyrics here… The Desperate Dan (presumably just a Dan who is desperate for the clicks) bit had me stumped – I went for ‘deformed’ but that doesn’t really make sense – ‘dethroned’ is far better, but I wonder if ‘defunct’ might also provide a nice bit of word play, if Dan is yesterday’s news thanks to Luke’s torrent of likes and has, therefore, been ‘de-funked’…
21 March 2022
awkward sean
I heard it as “driving for the coast” as in everybody clogging the beaches summer 2020. But listening to it again after reading the above I’m pretty certain I’m wrong.
Musically probably my favourite of the album, and looking forward to seeing what Karl does with it if they play it live.
21 March 2022
A Factory completist
I had “striving” and “defunct”
21 March 2022
Cody jarrett
1-Definitely sounds like “Driving” , though striving fits better. 2- it’s “dethroned” all day long
21 March 2022
chris from future doom
Before I listened to it more carefully, I thought it was ‘There’s no throwing a punch on Lockdown Luke’ as in the trouble with online gigs is that you can’t tiptoe to the front row with a submachine gun, as you might want to do at Korn shows.
Which I actually think is a better line.
22 March 2022
chris from future doom
at the end of the first chorus, I meant to add.
22 March 2022
EXXo
@F.Steve – just realised you’re probably not the same as FTVP Steve from Portland and therefore my comments make zero sense. And also gives me no get-out for being arsey. Sorry on both counts.
22 March 2022
Spiltdown MAN
“Everybody striving” and “…absolutely deformed” here.
Not sure why DD would be deformed but my ears aren’t being overridden by the logic of it being “dethroned”.
22 March 2022
Murderous Giraffe
“Defunct”. I hear a “ct” at the end. Delayed but there.
22 March 2022
Spiltdown MAN
Your delayed “ct” at the end is a very clear “d” on my system. Mmmm.
22 March 2022
Murderous Giraffe
Must be my ears, then. 🙁
22 March 2022
dr desperate
According to Eric Partridge’s ‘Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English’, the expression (there’s) “No show without Punch” has been around since the late 19th Century, and (sure as) “Eggs are eggs” first appeared in the ‘New Dictionary of Terms, Ancient and Modern, of the Canting Crew’ in 1699. Both idioms speak to the awful inevitability of Luke fetching his guitar.
22 March 2022
Halfram
Is Lockdown Luke a reference to the annoying keep fit bloke that made a fortune out of lockdown?
22 March 2022
Spiltdown man
People of his ilk certainly. Gary Barlow always in my mind whilst listening. Him and his frigging lockdown sessions with celeb mates.
22 March 2022
featureless steve
@EXXO No worries. I thought my VPN must be on the blink. (It does give Portland as an option but I was sure I was connected via Singapore.) No, I grew up in Chester but we still didn’t do any Wilfred Owen at school. It was John Clare and, I think, Wordsworth.
22 March 2022
Janet from accounts
I hear defunct.
In other news, the delivery of “some may read a book” is absolutely brilliant, like the sarcastic amazement at someone picking up a book during lockdown.
23 March 2022
Markw
I presume that everyone knows that Walmington-on-Sea is the fictional setting for Dad’s Army?
23 March 2022
I, problem chimp
Just been listening to the album on headphones and I definitely can’t hear ‘dethroned’ – it’s not quite ‘defunct’ either – thoughts on ‘dethumbed’, i.e. people now taking their likes elsewhere, or even ‘unliking’ Dan now Luke’s on the scene?
23 March 2022
woodnoggin
I had previously heard “defunct” but I agree it’s not quite that (the ending’s off). I like your “dethumbed” suggestion, Problem Chimp. Works well in the context.
23 March 2022
EXXO
I always heard “dethroned” – not something I’d needed to check or think about until Chris posted that folks were struggling, but I’ve gone back and I can see now why it’s unclear to many. But, re-listening with an open mind, and only to the sounds without preconceptions about meaning, to my Merseyside ears it’s definitely the /əʊ/ (“oh”) of “throne” and not the Merseyside /ʊ/ of “funct” or of “thumb,” nor the /ɔ:/ of “form.” I would quite like it to be “dethumbed” in a way, @IPC but it doesn’t seem to be.
23 March 2022
TC, IDRIS
To me, it sounds like ‘defunct’ but in an Ian Brown Warrington-by-way-of-Timperley accent. Given Brown, like Lockdown Luke, made himself a Covid-era irritant, this is surely not coincidental, although it probably is, in which case ‘dethroned’ makes more sense.
23 March 2022
Rob R
I hear “becalmed” in an odd pronunciation sounding like “becomed” I go for “driving” as in Dominic Cummings And I think it’s “a-wondering” re the front gates.
23 March 2022
EXXO
I hadn’t noticed we haven’t got the “Are” before “wondering.” It’s just an /ə/ sound, exactly as it would be if it was indeed “a-wondering,” but it’s “are.”
23 March 2022
Littlegrafter
Anyone from the East Midlands remember some young chap on the regionals news in Lockdown 1 doing gigs on his drive to his neighbours. I’ve tried to find him online to see if he was actually called Luke, but to no avail. I guess there’ll be something on social media though.
24 March 2022
LITTLEGRAFTER
….Actually he might be a special guest at Rock City Notts tomorrow night
24 March 2022
BATWALKER
I doubt Lockdown Luke was based on Joe Wicks or Gary Barlow. Those people were already well-known before Covid, and it sounds like LL became famous off the back of his lockdown songs.
24 March 2022
Woodnoggin
It sounded like “everybody striving for the cause” and “dethroned” at yesterday’s Nottingham performance. I expect footage will be available on YouTube to check.
26 March 2022
ianled
Re: the Desperate Dan debate, I’m hearing ‘deformed’, which given his enormous chin and belly kind of makes sense to me.
1 April 2022
Dull Head Del
I’m hearing more De-thumbed. That’s my two pence worth anyway 😃
3 April 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
I think “de-thumbed” too, in the sense of having lost his followers to Luke.
4 April 2022
Paul f
I can’t see Nigel using “thumbs” twice in one song. Definitely dethroned for me.
Also I note the song contains a riff similar to the one Olivia Rodrigo was accused of stealing from Elvis Costello, before Costello gallantly pointed out he’d kind of nicked it from Bob Dylan, and Dylan had kind of nicked it from Chuck Berry. In Costello’s book he tells the story of Dylan (after U2 had also nicked the riff) saying to him “How could they do that to your song?”
5 April 2022
Janet from accounts
@Paul F – On a related note, here’s a little story about being careful when you’re copying/borrowing/stealing bits of music…
Liam Howlett of The Prodigy used a sample from “Air drums from outer bongolia” by The Jedi Knights on the track Climbatize. The Jedi Knights attempted to sue The Prodigy for using the sample without permission. However, they themselves had sampled – without permission – the track Bongolia by The Incredible Bongo Band when they put together the drum loop in question. The Prodigy’s label bought the rights to Bongolia and then threatened to sue The Jedi Knights for having previously sampled it without permission, at which point they backed down. At this point George Lucas also threatened to sue The Jedi Knights for the use of the term “Jedi knight” and they all but disappeared as a result.
23 April 2022
Paul f
Good story. I think the other lesson is, if you’re going to steal make it worthwhile as at the very least you could end up having to share your royalties with somebody less deserving. Putting some snippets from Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction on Scooby Snacks cost the Fun Lovin’ Criminals 37% of the royalties.
I’m thinking BBC North West Tonight, just before the weather comes on. Such and such gets his fucking guitar down from the loft, does a bit on You Tube, his street comes out and dance to him playing. The next thing is he starts to believe his own hype and thinks “I could take this further”. It’s about people who want to appear eccentric and they want to get on television – they want attention. They were on national news programmes as well. You think “Fucking hell, just get on with your lockdown”.
Someone asked if “Was it for this the clay grew tall?” is taken from the Wilfred Owen poem Futility.
“Yes, that’s right.”
And someone asked if it’s everybody “striving” or “driving” for the cause.
“It’s striving.”
Also: “Desperate Dan, you’re absolutely dethroned/defunct.”
Chris The Siteowner
This album may have given us more to discuss in terms of meaning as any I can think of, but the production choices have certainly given us less to argue about in terms of what the words are. That said, here’s an example of one that almost all our contributors provided something different for: just what is Desperate Dan?
21 March 2022
John Anderson
I went for “you’re absolutely dethroned” suggesting that Desperate Dan is now yesterday’s man because Lockdown Luke has 12 million likes.
21 March 2022
That chiseller, idris
I hear “everybody’s driving for the cause,” and I wouldn’t hyphenate “you know who”, although I can’t articulate why. No idea what’s up with Desperate Dan.
21 March 2022
Gerry GOW
DD is “defunct” maybe?
21 March 2022
woodnoggin
Sounds like Desperate Dan is “absolutely defunct” to me.
21 March 2022
EXXO
It’s “absolutely dethroned.”
Desperate Dan is the previous FB “like” king, but he’s been dethroned by Luke.
At first I assumed Dan was a fictionalised version of someone like Nathan Evans the Wellerman sensation from just before the pandemic …
… but then I saw that a real Dan had 12 million likes garnered during the pandemic.
No, NB would not be targeting a real Dan, no way.
(I suggest we do not post this name or the site will get his fans coming on here, worse than Adele fans did for Skeleton Records on twitter a few months back)
21 March 2022
woodnoggin
Oh, and I had “everybody’s driving for the coast” because of the numbers that flocked to the beaches (and other outdoor recreational locations) during the restriction period.
21 March 2022
woodnoggin
“Was it for this the clay grew tall?” Is this the second Wilfred Owen reference on the album? Are there any more? ‘Futility’ contains this line as well as “Move him into the sun”, similar to the opening of ‘Oblong of Dreams’.
21 March 2022
Chris The Siteowner
So we’ve got “everybody’s driving for the cause” vs “everybody’s striving for the cause” vs “everybody’s driving for the coast”, which would all work, and “absolutely defunct” vs “dethroned” vs (from our original contributors) “decorned”, “becalmed” and “deformed”…
21 March 2022
John Anderson
“Dethroned” and “driving” all day long for me, Fletch.
21 March 2022
Gerry GOW
+1 for “everybody’s driving for the cause”.
21 March 2022
transit full of keith
+1 for “striving for the cause”
21 March 2022
EXXO
Yep (soz @Spiltdown) two voiced sounds /zd/ and the two unvoiced sounds /st/ would be quite distinct and it’s the latter here – “everybody’s striving”
21 March 2022
EXXO
Or (more likely) “everybody striving” cos that would sound pretty much identical.
21 March 2022
Jeff Dreadnought
Great song – clever, funny, ironic and a cracking tune. The delivery of the line “some may read a book” is a particular highlight.
Sounds like “driving for the cause” and “dethroned” to me, which means it’s almost definitely neither.
I was also trying to work out what on earth Desperate Dan from The Dandy (part of the inspiration for Dr Desperate from Left Lyrics) had to do with it.
21 March 2022
featureless steve
“Was if for this the clay grew tall”
is from the poem Futility by Oswestry-born WW1 poet Wildred Owen – and it also has shades of the beginning of Oblong of Dreams:
Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth’s sleep at all?
21 March 2022
featureless steve
…. not to be confused with Oswestry-born WW1 poet Wilfred Owen
21 March 2022
featureless steve
from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wilfred-owen :
After he turned four, the family moved from the grandfather’s home to a modest house in Birkenhead, where Owen attended Birkenhead Institute from 1900 to 1907.
21 March 2022
featureless steve
and now I realise @Woodnoggin has already mentioned this.
Must be time for my medication
21 March 2022
EXXO
Well, Carrie Anne (and maybe others) mentioned it even before that, and Owen’s Birkenhead years and HMHB influence have been discussed on here at various times including last year in the ‘Frequent Electric Trains’ thread, but Steve I’m not saying that in the typical online dismissive way, but the opposite – in celebration of the fact that you found it out for yourself in Portland bloody Oregon which is amazing given that you probably didn’t get Owen in high school like most UK kids do at some stage. One poet that has to be compulsory, unfortunately, rather than one where it’s a shame they are compulsory.
21 March 2022
I, Problem CHimp
I had ‘striving’ which I think fits in with the ‘earnest’ tone of the first verse – there’s nothing clever or deep about the lyrics here… The Desperate Dan (presumably just a Dan who is desperate for the clicks) bit had me stumped – I went for ‘deformed’ but that doesn’t really make sense – ‘dethroned’ is far better, but I wonder if ‘defunct’ might also provide a nice bit of word play, if Dan is yesterday’s news thanks to Luke’s torrent of likes and has, therefore, been ‘de-funked’…
21 March 2022
awkward sean
I heard it as “driving for the coast” as in everybody clogging the beaches summer 2020. But listening to it again after reading the above I’m pretty certain I’m wrong.
Musically probably my favourite of the album, and looking forward to seeing what Karl does with it if they play it live.
21 March 2022
A Factory completist
I had “striving” and “defunct”
21 March 2022
Cody jarrett
1-Definitely sounds like “Driving” , though striving fits better.
2- it’s “dethroned” all day long
21 March 2022
chris from future doom
Before I listened to it more carefully, I thought it was ‘There’s no throwing a punch on Lockdown Luke’ as in the trouble with online gigs is that you can’t tiptoe to the front row with a submachine gun, as you might want to do at Korn shows.
Which I actually think is a better line.
22 March 2022
chris from future doom
at the end of the first chorus, I meant to add.
22 March 2022
EXXo
@F.Steve – just realised you’re probably not the same as FTVP Steve from Portland and therefore my comments make zero sense. And also gives me no get-out for being arsey. Sorry on both counts.
22 March 2022
Spiltdown MAN
“Everybody striving” and “…absolutely deformed” here.
Not sure why DD would be deformed but my ears aren’t being overridden by the logic of it being “dethroned”.
22 March 2022
Murderous Giraffe
“Defunct”. I hear a “ct” at the end. Delayed but there.
22 March 2022
Spiltdown MAN
Your delayed “ct” at the end is a very clear “d” on my system. Mmmm.
22 March 2022
Murderous Giraffe
Must be my ears, then. 🙁
22 March 2022
dr desperate
According to Eric Partridge’s ‘Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English’, the expression (there’s) “No show without Punch” has been around since the late 19th Century, and (sure as) “Eggs are eggs” first appeared in the ‘New Dictionary of Terms, Ancient and Modern, of the Canting Crew’ in 1699.
Both idioms speak to the awful inevitability of Luke fetching his guitar.
22 March 2022
Halfram
Is Lockdown Luke a reference to the annoying keep fit bloke that made a fortune out of lockdown?
22 March 2022
Spiltdown man
People of his ilk certainly. Gary Barlow always in my mind whilst listening. Him and his frigging lockdown sessions with celeb mates.
22 March 2022
featureless steve
@EXXO No worries. I thought my VPN must be on the blink.
(It does give Portland as an option but I was sure I was connected via Singapore.)
No, I grew up in Chester but we still didn’t do any Wilfred Owen at school.
It was John Clare and, I think, Wordsworth.
22 March 2022
Janet from accounts
I hear defunct.
In other news, the delivery of “some may read a book” is absolutely brilliant, like the sarcastic amazement at someone picking up a book during lockdown.
23 March 2022
Markw
I presume that everyone knows that Walmington-on-Sea is the fictional setting for Dad’s Army?
23 March 2022
I, problem chimp
Just been listening to the album on headphones and I definitely can’t hear ‘dethroned’ – it’s not quite ‘defunct’ either – thoughts on ‘dethumbed’, i.e. people now taking their likes elsewhere, or even ‘unliking’ Dan now Luke’s on the scene?
23 March 2022
woodnoggin
I had previously heard “defunct” but I agree it’s not quite that (the ending’s off). I like your “dethumbed” suggestion, Problem Chimp. Works well in the context.
23 March 2022
EXXO
I always heard “dethroned” – not something I’d needed to check or think about until Chris posted that folks were struggling, but I’ve gone back and I can see now why it’s unclear to many. But, re-listening with an open mind, and only to the sounds without preconceptions about meaning, to my Merseyside ears it’s definitely the /əʊ/ (“oh”) of “throne” and not the Merseyside /ʊ/ of “funct” or of “thumb,” nor the /ɔ:/ of “form.” I would quite like it to be “dethumbed” in a way, @IPC but it doesn’t seem to be.
23 March 2022
TC, IDRIS
To me, it sounds like ‘defunct’ but in an Ian Brown Warrington-by-way-of-Timperley accent. Given Brown, like Lockdown Luke, made himself a Covid-era irritant, this is surely not coincidental, although it probably is, in which case ‘dethroned’ makes more sense.
23 March 2022
Rob R
I hear “becalmed” in an odd pronunciation sounding like “becomed”
I go for “driving” as in Dominic Cummings
And I think it’s “a-wondering” re the front gates.
23 March 2022
EXXO
I hadn’t noticed we haven’t got the “Are” before “wondering.” It’s just an /ə/ sound, exactly as it would be if it was indeed “a-wondering,” but it’s “are.”
23 March 2022
Littlegrafter
Anyone from the East Midlands remember some young chap on the regionals news in Lockdown 1 doing gigs on his drive to his neighbours. I’ve tried to find him online to see if he was actually called Luke, but to no avail. I guess there’ll be something on social media though.
24 March 2022
LITTLEGRAFTER
….Actually he might be a special guest at Rock City Notts tomorrow night
24 March 2022
BATWALKER
I doubt Lockdown Luke was based on Joe Wicks or Gary Barlow. Those people were already well-known before Covid, and it sounds like LL became famous off the back of his lockdown songs.
24 March 2022
Woodnoggin
It sounded like “everybody striving for the cause” and “dethroned” at yesterday’s Nottingham performance. I expect footage will be available on YouTube to check.
26 March 2022
ianled
Re: the Desperate Dan debate, I’m hearing ‘deformed’, which given his enormous chin and belly kind of makes sense to me.
1 April 2022
Dull Head Del
I’m hearing more De-thumbed.
That’s my two pence worth anyway 😃
3 April 2022
professor Abelazar woozle
I think “de-thumbed” too, in the sense of having lost his followers to Luke.
4 April 2022
Paul f
I can’t see Nigel using “thumbs” twice in one song. Definitely dethroned for me.
Also I note the song contains a riff similar to the one Olivia Rodrigo was accused of stealing from Elvis Costello, before Costello gallantly pointed out he’d kind of nicked it from Bob Dylan, and Dylan had kind of nicked it from Chuck Berry. In Costello’s book he tells the story of Dylan (after U2 had also nicked the riff) saying to him “How could they do that to your song?”
5 April 2022
Janet from accounts
@Paul F – On a related note, here’s a little story about being careful when you’re copying/borrowing/stealing bits of music…
Liam Howlett of The Prodigy used a sample from “Air drums from outer bongolia” by The Jedi Knights on the track Climbatize. The Jedi Knights attempted to sue The Prodigy for using the sample without permission. However, they themselves had sampled – without permission – the track Bongolia by The Incredible Bongo Band when they put together the drum loop in question. The Prodigy’s label bought the rights to Bongolia and then threatened to sue The Jedi Knights for having previously sampled it without permission, at which point they backed down. At this point George Lucas also threatened to sue The Jedi Knights for the use of the term “Jedi knight” and they all but disappeared as a result.
23 April 2022
Paul f
Good story. I think the other lesson is, if you’re going to steal make it worthwhile as at the very least you could end up having to share your royalties with somebody less deserving. Putting some snippets from Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction on Scooby Snacks cost the Fun Lovin’ Criminals 37% of the royalties.
23 April 2022
Moretonlad
woohoo! Lock Down Luke wins: https://www.sportinglife.com/racing/results/2022-05-04/kelso/681435/aitken-turnbull-architects-handicap-hurdle
4 May 2022
Chris The Siteowner
Notes from Paddy Shennan’s interview with NB10:
I’m thinking BBC North West Tonight, just before the weather comes on. Such and such gets his fucking guitar down from the loft, does a bit on You Tube, his street comes out and dance to him playing. The next thing is he starts to believe his own hype and thinks “I could take this further”. It’s about people who want to appear eccentric and they want to get on television – they want attention. They were on national news programmes as well. You think “Fucking hell, just get on with your lockdown”.
Someone asked if “Was it for this the clay grew tall?” is taken from the Wilfred Owen poem Futility.
“Yes, that’s right.”
And someone asked if it’s everybody “striving” or “driving” for the cause.
“It’s striving.”
Also: “Desperate Dan, you’re absolutely dethroned/defunct.”
“Dethroned”.
4 May 2022