We’re down to the last two songs. Choose carefully. Need some inspiration before voting? Read the comments first…
| THE FINAL | ||
|---|---|---|
| The Light at the End of the Tunnel | ||
| National Shite Day | ||
VOTING CLOSED
Previous: The Four Songs That Shook The Wirral Round – Results
Next: “The Terminus” – Results
Chris The Siteowner
I took an executive decision on the name of this round, which I thought was the best of the suggestions (thanks for all of the others though). And I tossed a coin for changing rooms. It doesn’t look like there’s been any obvious home advantage throughout the tournament. Hope that’s OK.
So… we could do an amazing, in-depth preview. Or we could just point everyone to the chat surrounding 2015’s final. Worth a read. Same songs, just four years older.
You could also read post-2015-final chat, which is also good. (Spoiler: you’ll find out who won).
Get your latest assessments and recommendations in below. I think that a lot of people read what’s said here before voting, so who knows what impact one killer observation might make?
20 August 2019
Gok wan acolyte
As in 2015, I’m on the Light not in the Shite. Light is HMHB encapsulated in 2 minutes – catchy tune, sardonic middle class put downs, lyrics that have great depth the more you study them (the Eyam line is one of NB57s most subtle jokes and the Plath reference in connection with the title one of the cleverest)
I don’t dislike NSD, just as a ‘state of the nation’ rant it’s just not as good as say ACP or TDSN.
20 August 2019
TwO fat feet
NSD to win with 50.8% of the vote.
It’s a storming album opener against an epic album closer. My vote goes to Light although I’m not entirely sure why, possibly just to support the underdog. I make no apology for repeating my description of NSD from last time round as being a track that picks you up by the lapels from the first chord and bashes you against the wall repeatedly for six minutes, but in a good way. Light is just a cracking ride that feels like a prelude to great things, which it is as the start of their best album. Happy for either to win really.
20 August 2019
paul f
Much as I love NSD, it has to Light for me. The lyric that got me published in the Guardian letters page, and the song that opened my first live Biscuit gig.
20 August 2019
Cream cheese and chives
My first LFC and unlike certain other recent votes (in real life) I can see both sides.
The quality of NSD with its mullet line, Stringy Bob’s despairing attempts to join a band, the chorus and the hopeless personalising of it all ,’my birthday!’ is obvious. It is funny, and angry but with Bob’s involvement desperately sad too.
TLATEOTT is funnier, a better tune and has brilliant lines but lacks the pathos. Having been raised near New Mills, the chance to shout that couplet is a pleasure almost unmatched and the Plath and Matlock Bath pairing is right up with the gherkins/ Perkins rhyme in Geraldine.
There is much to consider but I feel I may be about to surprise myself.
One other thing. Of the contributors to previous LFC debate , many seem to have disappeared. What happens to them? Are they playing in the Middle East or China? Have they opened sports shops or do they earn a crust as pub landlords? I hope they aren’t all washed up and having to sell their memorabilia to feed their (now adult) kids. And newcomers like me? I came across HMHB in the 80s in Liverpool and followed them from a distance and then came across this forum a few years back. What an opportunity at this stage of my career!
20 August 2019
Lord leominster
I’m with you Cream Cheese, getting stuck into my first LFC. I too appreciated HMHB in the early days tuning in to John Peel. Sadly I let the relationship fail but recently found HMHB again, even better than before. LFC has given me a good opportunity to listen to everything they’ve released and I’ve really enjoyed contributing to the competition. Many of my favourites didn’t even make it into the 32 so that has made me listen to the 32 that did with renewed interest. Thanks to Chris for all your hard work with the website and the competition.
20 August 2019
The harbinger of nothing
There was definitely more intrigue in the pool games.
21 August 2019
lord leominster
Well I’ve got a dead leg from kicking myself
For letting our friendship fade away
21 August 2019
nige
whoever wins, I hope its not by 52 to 48 and the ones in the 48% spend the next 3 years whinging about it being the wrong result 🙂
21 August 2019
Cream cheese and chives
Me too. I especially hope a bunch of Eton f***wits don’t disband HMHB. I still think a super over of peglegs might be required.
21 August 2019
Pirx the purist
Yes, yes, ‘Light’ is a nice two-minute knockabout, but I’ll go for substance every time, otherwise the know-nothing outsider view of HMHB as a comedy outfit will be confirmed.
21 August 2019
Gipton Teenager
Who have you got lined up to present the cup Chris?
21 August 2019
Chris The Siteowner
I guess we need to find someone happy to wait around wondering how to present a trophy to an inanimate object.
21 August 2019
The harbinger of nothing
Is a song even an object?
21 August 2019
The harbinger of nothing
If there really is a trophy, the winning song should get its lyrics engraved on it. Or maybe just one line, since it’s unlikely to be that big.
21 August 2019
dickhead in quicksand
I saved myself the inner torment and the neatly-balanced indecisive arguments either way by voting when drunk. Recommended.
21 August 2019
EXXO
Most of the Junction audience will be sorely disappointed if there isn’t one of those cardboard cut-outs of the FA cup, covered in foil, going from side to side through the moshpit during the performance of the winning song in Cambers. Dozens of them will hope that it’s done in tandem with a cardboard cut-out of an open top bus with the Colchester squad of 1973 aboard. Balloons should be considered. Make it happen, people.
22 August 2019
Gipton Teenager
I’ve seen plenty of inanimate objects being presented with trophies.
22 August 2019
featureless tv producer steve
I’m a mostly-inanimate object. I volunteer to be the presentee.
@DIQ – Hang on, you’re saying people have been voting sober?
22 August 2019
dr desperate
Shifting references for a moment, it would be nice if the trophy-winning songs had a star embroidered above their shirt badge for every time they’ve won.
Or in this case, an inevitable asterisk on their page name.
22 August 2019
Bobby Svarc
I was delighted that we scrapped the very idea of sticking a star above our badge.
22 August 2019
Gipton Teenager
It was raining here a while ago (if course it was, it’s the first day of the Ashes test at Headingley), so I postponed work and accepted CtSO’s invitation to compare the finalists head to head as it were.
The lyric in TLATEOTL about Eva Cassidy and aphids in Picardy has always puzzled me, so I thought I’d investigate. Nothing on Eva but, on the edge of the internet rabbit hole I found that there is a variety of Clematis (often attacked by aphids) called ‘Picardy’.
Anyway I’ve voted and I’m sure my lads and lasses will win.
22 August 2019
transit full of keith
Both fine songs. For me it’s got to be “Shite” again for the brooding, collar-turned-up, clouds-lowering, grim-faced stoicism of the whole thing – with the whole bit about Stringy Bob and “brushed by the wings of something dark” recalling early-80s Fall, when Mark E.Smith was still into telling weird stories. Also, at the last gig I went to (London), it seemed that Karl had given it a new lease of life live – the riff seemed to have a sort of funky Krautrock rhythm to it, sounded a bit like Can. “Light” is a delirious stomping tune with great, sharp and cathartic lyrics – the fact that it can both top or tail a gig with ease speaks of its quality. It maybe falls short on one tiny particular for me, and that’s the idea of the light being an oncoming train, while brilliant, isn’t an original one.
Wouldn’t mind if either win. And “Umberstone Covert” will have its day in the sun one day…
22 August 2019
EXXO
You should come round and give me gardening advice on the way to The Chemic Tony, while I extrapolate about HMHB references.
Eva Cassidy – schmaltzy singer that “she,” his ex-beloved, is now listening to (along with half the world, posthumously, in the few years before this HMHB album came out), because of her new romance. Eva Cassidy sang many covers, including a couple about roses, though not as far as I know the WW1 hit “Roses in Picardy.” that was a schmaltzy song about roses that bloom and die in Picardy, and of roses that will never die for they bloom in the heart forever. But aphids kill roses, which have died in the protagonist’s heart and in his Picardy. Just like Rod Stewart with ‘Sailing,’ the authors of the song benefited from the battle of the Somme taking place in Picardy just after release, and it was number one for months, the lyrics taking on new meaning in the hearts of millions of bereaved Brits.
They say plenty more fish, I say Amoco Cadiz – a rainbow in black and white – your optimism strikes me like junk mail addressed to the dead – it’s one of those.
There are other musical links that make the Cassidy-Picardy rhyme all the more fascinating: Cassidy did not cover Roses in Picardy, but she did cover another famous song by the same lyricist – Danny Boy. And one famous version of Roses in Picardy was sung by Sinatra … who also hat a hit about love on the Isle of Capri …
22 August 2019
MarkY d
i love this site and I love this cup! Both songs are genius. As much as I love NSD I have gone for light as it probs gets stuck in my head as an ear worm more although not as much as Westminster bridge!
22 August 2019
Cuz
Based solely on how much effort is required to dance to NSD for what seems like 15 minutes at a gig, I’m going to have to vote Light at the end of the Tunnel. My calf muscles ache for about a week after bouncing up and down to Shite Day
22 August 2019
Choose light
53%
22 August 2019
Gipton Teenager
Blimey! thanks for the megapolation Nigel.
(Green side up, by the way).
23 August 2019
Huddersfield’s very own Steve malkmus
As much as I get twitchy whenever any team/entity wins something twice in a row, it just has to be Shite.
23 August 2019
irk the purists
For me too it is NSD – if only (and it’s not) for the line – There’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets. Priceless.
24 August 2019
Tim Down
Tricky one, this. NSD was my introduction to HMHB, and it contains so much to enjoy. On the other hand, last week was almost spent on an HMHB pilgrimage. We went to Matlock, but didn’t quite reach Matlock Bath, we saw a signpost for Eyam, a bookshop in Buxton didn’t have anything by or about Sylvia Plath, we were nowhere near New Mills, but we did wander some footpaths within the Peak District. All done to the sound of TLATEOTT. Unfortunately I forgot to pack the CD so I had to sing it. I think my family enjoyed it, so with so many happy memories fresh in my mind this is the one to get my vote. This time.
25 August 2019
Alan the phrophet
TTATEOTT for me chaps, top hole. Although I believe ‘We built this village on a traditionally arranged tune’ should be their next single. A spiffing row with overtones of ‘It’s a Battlefield’ by Mr. Greene.
25 August 2019
Flintlock
Much as I love NSD and generally identify with Stringy Bob, I’ve never liked the Phil Cool bit. It seems to have been left over from the days of Back In The DHSS, when the rubber faced irritant was actually on the telly and being irritating.
25 August 2019
crazy world of arthur Brownlow
I’m on holiday and feeling positive (despite nursing wounds from being attacked by a beguiling Croatian dog this afternoon) so for me it’s Tunnel.
25 August 2019
parsfan
I wish I could remember which way I voted last time, or even if I did. Much as I like Light, it always won The Fife Derby in the pool stage, after listening to them both back-to-back a few times the other day, I’ve gone for Shite. That said, I really don’t care if I’ve backed a winner or not.
25 August 2019
Flintlock
I don’t remember how I voted the last time either. I also don’t remember leaving pretty much the same comment as I did this time.
26 August 2019
dr desperate
I know how I voted last time. I’m voting the other way this time.
26 August 2019
RUBBer faced irritant
“One other thing. Of the contributors to previous LFC debate , many seem to have disappeared. What happens to them? Are they playing in the Middle East or China? Have they opened sports shops or do they earn a crust as pub landlords? I hope they aren’t all washed up and having to sell their memorabilia to feed their (now adult) kids. “
I’m afraid that years of pedantry and two LFCs took their inevitable toll. Most of us are now living Gwatkinesque existences in confined institutions. On the rare occasions we receive a visitor our discourse is limited to the anguished lament “A Country Practice. What the fuck were we thinking?”
27 August 2019
brumbiscuit
NSD for me. Much as I like the Stringy Bob interlude and the Millets ejaculation, it’s the lines about the Mugabe government’s depravity and the monochrome rainbow that highlight the hopelessness of the protagonist’s existence and how shite life truly can be at times – or all the time for some. How Soon is Now is the only song I know of that almost matches this utter despair. Belting it out in Leicester in April 2011 the day before the 2nd-parasite-in-line’s wedding, and Poly Styrene’s and Fred Titmus’s then recent demise all added to the depth of emotion I put into that particular rendition.
Light is a good song and great live, but lacks the depth needed to knock NSD off its perch for me.
27 August 2019
Lord leominster
For me it’s the single line ‘Fat kids with sausage rolls’. Masterful observation, wit, social comment and delivery.
27 August 2019
The harbinger of nothing
There are many comments on this site about how NSD is a song of utter despair. I do not agree.
Hearing some dodgy radio in a cheap clothing shop really isn’t comparable with the human suffering under the Mugabe government. It does not actually make life shite!
The point is to highlight the way that we all get overly annoyed by life’s little irritations and how we so easily blow them out of all proportion. Most people are far more likely to have a lengthy heartfelt rant about a song they don’t like than they are about government-sponsored murder in faraway countries…
It’s about the contrast of the imagery; the self-centredness of people; the pointlessness of getting hung up on life’s minor annoyances. How most people’s shite is not really shite at all, in the grand scheme of things.
27 August 2019
IRK THE PURISTS
Oh joy! I thought Light was going to run away with it based on the number and tone of the comments in support.
However there has been a late run of articulate and intelligent comments for NSD – come-on the Shite.
28 August 2019
brumbiscuit
All open to interpretation, of course, and everyone’s reaction is valid. For me though, the relentless negativity of what’s happening to the protagonist means s/he can see nothing positive in any aspect of life. Even the trivial manages to irk or add to the misery. Most of us would shrug off someone appearing from a shop door into our path without looking – we’ve probably done it ourselves, or had it done to us. I’d shrug it off in a second; the protagonist allows it to add to the misery, as if the whole world is against him/her. It’s as if s/he is on the brink of a breakdown, or worse.
Or then again, I could be totally over-analysing things, but I still love belting out the chorus.
28 August 2019
PooPleby
Why is it most NSD supporters seem to regard NSD as an anthem to misery, whether ironic or not, but TLATEOTL as a joyous paean of some sort? At its best it’s a song of rejection delivered in an upbeat sardonic style much loved of HMHB but more literally it could allude to suicidal tendencies a la Coroner’s Footnote. Let’s face it, we’re not choosing between light or shite but two miserable odes, just presented differently.
28 August 2019
PooPleby
Why is it most NSD supporters seem to regard NSD as an anthem to misery, whether ironic or not, but TLATEOTL as a joyous paean of some sort? At its best it’s a song of rejection delivered in an upbeat sardonic style much loved of HMHB but more literally it could allude to suicidal tendencies a la Coroner’s Footnote. Let’s face it, we’re not choosing between light or shite but two miserable odes, just presented differently.
28 August 2019
Yet another nigel
A last minute change of mind to vote. My fondness for Light and inclination to root for the underdog inclined me to abstain (I could never actually vote AGAINST Shite) but hell, life’s all about hard choices and the die was cast. Well, the vote was. Incidentally, on the day Millets in Crewe closed I pointed out to the (admittedly post-adolescent) sales assistant that I would no longer be able to say that there’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets. I was met by a disappointingly blank expression.
28 August 2019