Welcome to Qualifying Group 9 of The Lux Familiar Cup – in which readers of The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project choose their favourite songs of all time. Voting on this album closed on Sat 9 April 2011, and the results from this qualifying group are below. An almost record-breaking 882 votes were cast; we had two fairly clear qualifiers, and one of the best-performing third-place songs, which can feel fairly confident about progressing further to the last 32.
Qualified for last 32
1. The Light at the End of the Tunnel (15.5%)
2. Them’s The Vagaries (12.1%)
In the race for the fastest losers:
3. When The Evening Sun Goes Down (11.0%)
4. Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not (8.6%)
Jon
Tougher than I expected this one. Paradise Lost and Referee’s Alphabet were straight in. Strong showings from Breaking News, Pancake Day, Vagaries and Damnation. Tough choices!
26 March 2011
Poolio
I really meant to only vote for 3… but once again accidentally ticked 5… serves em right for penning such catchy ditties.
26 March 2011
steve nicholls
I voted for seven. It’s getting tougher now, cos the tunes get better.
Criteria for this one was the ones that get me singing along in the car, namely 27 Yards, Light At The End of the Tunnel, When the Evening Sun Goes Down, Them’s The Vagaries, San Antonio, Damnation and Broadstairs.
I used to live in Derbyshire so Light At The End Of The Tunnel is a particular favourite.
26 March 2011
Toffo
Dark horse and personal fave…..She’s in Broadstairs. She gets my vote.
26 March 2011
mickythehoss
A Truly great album, I’ve voted for 7. I had to do a “youtube job” on 27 Yards today whilst watching that god awful cricket
26 March 2011
Chris The Siteowner
Listening through has reminded me how brilliant “Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not” is. Tune!
26 March 2011
mickythehoss
“The Farm Foods Phone Call” makes me laugh everytime I hear it
26 March 2011
Neil G
I voted for eight, yes 8, and I felt guilty about the ones I left out, including the current favourite, The Light At The End Of The Tunnel. I agree with Toffo, She’s In Broadstairs is a grower, despite not being on the town hall band CD. The chorus is really exhilarating. I love the Referee’s Alphabet and Breaking News. I think this must be my favourite album.
27 March 2011
Toffo
Will the 2 EPs be included ? 2 automatics and a play-off maybe?
27 March 2011
TWO FAT FEET
Okay, voted for a highest-ever six given that this is my favourite album. But – eeek – early showing suggests that Damnation might miss the cut. Matron, pass me my revolver, I’m going for a walk in the woods.
27 March 2011
Chris The Siteowner
I’m getting that Soft Verges feeling.
27 March 2011
BrumBiscuit
Should be in the PBR section, but I had to stop and photograph a Soft Verges sign the other day whilst out on me bike. If I can get a chevrons one, I might knock up a t-shirt for the Leicester gig.
27 March 2011
2 Chevrons
Love this album. Voted for 7 in total. Out of them all, I hope Vageries and Damnation make it through.
Feeling quite emotional – off to play some Pat Boone on the county bassoon …
27 March 2011
Daryl
I’ll add my vote for She’s in Broadstairs. A brilliant and underated tune.
27 March 2011
Martin
Astonished that San Antonio Foam Party is lagging so far behind. It’s definitely in my top 5 HMHB tunes even though the final order changes every hour or so.
28 March 2011
Ben Woodcock
Like everyone else, I struggled here. Ended up voting for 7 but could easily have voted for 10. Would have voted for the album name as well if I could have.
As a side issue, this damned cup is having a serious effect on me. I have been back listening to s much HMHB stuff repeatedly that weird things keep happening to me. I was at the hospital for an appointment to look at my jaw earlier so I was unavoidably 30 minutes late for work. When my Project Manager asked me where I had been, I just couldn’t help myself in exploding into a ‘Used to be in Evil Gazebo’-style tirade ….
“I’ve been to the dental hospital
I’ve been to the dental hospital
But I don’t like to talk about it – all the same”
Needless to say, he looked at me like I was a complete lunatic and now won’t talk to me. Ah – sweet blessings.
28 March 2011
Third Rate Les
I’m with Martin. San Antonio is maybe my favourite song of theirs. Nonsensical ideas turned into something strangely powerful (similar to Surging Out Of Convalescence). Mind you, if I could recommend only one of their songs to a mate I might choose “the light at the end of the tunnel”, while you wouldn’t want to leave Them’s The Vagaries out of any list of your one all-time fave either.
The only distinction I’d make in this album is between the joke ones and the ones that are more (pause) “song-based”. So while I like Breaking News, The Referee’s Alphabet and even Stavanger Toestub, there are really only ten bona-fide classics.
29 March 2011
Jon
It bothers me how bothered I’m getting by the Lux Familiar Cup. Looks like none of my five will be qualifying – why does this matter to me?!
29 March 2011
Ronnie B
I wonder if the poor showing from SAFP is partly due to the lack of live outings over the years – thankfully corrected in the last 18 months. With so many classics, this one always felt like a group of death so a suicide pact with Goole would be the last thing anyone needed!
31 March 2011
Matt
Soft Verges. True ‘folk’ music. Poignant.
2 April 2011
MATLOCK BATH
Well, its “Light At The End Of The Tunnel” for me, from whence I nicked my moniker for this site (“For when you’re in Matlock Bath you don’t need Sylvia Plath”). It’s got everything. The only thing more boring than the Buena Vista Social Club CD when it was everywhere was me telling everyone how much I hated it. Trust HMHB to hit the nail on the head. And this is my favourite HMHB album, at the time of writing.
I may be the only person to also vote for “Tyrolean Knockabout”, which surprises me as it has one of the great lines (“Let’s face it, it beats skulking round the 7″ import section with him”) and great verses (the one about depositing disused white goods outside Paul Ross’s house). Mind you, I used to have an obsessive dislike of Paul Ross too, so maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much.
4 April 2011
Kingsbeef
Probably my favourite album so every one’s a winner, but even then I can only vote for Thy Damnation because it is so perfect from beginning to end, and I can’t believe it’s going to miss the cut. It has to be their Mark E Smith track. I’m off to find some Polydor girls.
8 April 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
So once again the long, hard slog of a Lux Familiar Cup qualifying group draws to a close. Votes cast long ago in the midst of a British Winter, determining sorrow or joy on a beautiful Spring day. Most of these songs will sit out the summer in solitary silence whilst the chosen few glimpse at first, then maybe enter, the Promised Land.
Looking at the League table for CLSC is a little like looking at the final Championship table for the past few seasons. The promoted teams were never really in doubt, the odd blip along the way admittedly, but be it Wolves, Blues, Baggies, Mags, Vagaries or Oncoming Trains, you knew – you just knew. (You might not like it but you just knew.)
Breaking up the ennui of Premiership inevitability is always those who attain greatness by the back-door. Even as Hull or Blackpool joined the big time Charlies in order to shout all their obscenities from steeples (or in Phil Brown’s case, in Man City’s penalty area), so it looks like the Evening Sun will be sending on its rhyme deep in injury time once the knock-out stage gets going. Let neutrals across this land cheer for this song. Every line is poetry. Every single line. The Book of Ecclesiastes contains no better meditation on the impermanence of our Lot than “Are these my ultimate pyjamas?/Is this my final dressing gown?”
Staring into the abyss, there is always one in the Championship that should never really have been there in the first place. Posh, Iron and Testub (shome mishtake shurely) are forever cast away into the fiery pit to take their chances with the eternal sleeping policemen. Hopefully the first two can spend the time ensuring that should eternity end and they once again reach dizzy heights beyond their station, they are better prepared for survival. Testub can just F**k Off though. Teach. It. To. Go Barefoot.
As for the rest? Be it Championship or Lux Familiar, it’s too close to call. You couldn’t put a fag paper between any of them. Much of a muchness. Six and two threes. Mid table mediocrity. For Championship teams that occupy the limbo between play-off place and relegation fears there is always the sunny days of next August to look forward to. For the six to nine percenters of CLSC only the hope of another Lux Familiar cup, by then legally forced to introduce an Alternative Voting System.
9 April 2011
Chris The Siteowner
“For Championship teams that occupy the limbo between play-off place and relegation fears there is always the sunny days of next August to look forward to.”
Having just come home from the mid-table mediocrity I’ve been forced to watch for the ninth season running, that’s as poignant a comment as I’ve ever read here.
9 April 2011
Charles Exford
Poignant maybe, but grammatically questionable. Of course I’m only joking, I’ve missed Vendor’s quality punditry during the international break.
Anyway Chris, nobody forces you. You’ll be telling interviewers that you don’t even like football next. That’s why I’ll probably never get a season ticket anywhere meself. Dead men don’t need them and nor do I. Like marriage, they can be such a passion killer.
As I speak the Football League Show has just made your lads’ triumph look quite watchable. Well two moments from your latest 17-year-old sensation looked good anyway. Also enjoyed the slip-of-a-sub brilliance of one of NB57’s favourite former Tranmere players, Jason Koumas, now of Cardiff City, and I’m now impatient to watch today’s dramatic feat of trapdoor defiance deep in injury time from Rovers’ latest slip-of-a-sub. In fact I’m thoroughly in the love with the grim old game today so I’ll try not to post anything too curmudgeonly on here during the pointless interlude where she reads out the bloody texts.
I must add that in typically contrary fashion, I myself tend to use the phrase “there’s always next season” more often in August and early September than at any other time of year.
10 April 2011
worrichy
I was just thinking about the voting in the latter rounds when I realised something has went terribly wrong… If I Had Possession Over Pancake Day 6% … WHAT! what were you thinking people, it is a fantastic album but that is it’s gem, it is perfect song, just wonderful.
26 May 2011