Qualifying Group 11 in 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 23 April 2011, and the results from this qualifying group are below. A total of 741 votes were cast, and as with most groups, there was a clear winner, although this time a clear second place too, with its automatic qualification to the Round of 32. The third- and fourth-placed songs look well-positioned to proceed.
Qualified for last 32
1. National Shite Day (15.8%)
2. Evening Of Swing (Has Been Cancelled) (13.2%)
In the race for the fastest losers:
3. Bad Losers On Yahoo Chess (12.2%)
4. Took Problem Chimp To Ideal Home Show (10.5%)
5. Lord Hereford’s Knob (10.0%)
A strong performance from this album, by the looks of things.
Chris The Siteowner
I’ve always considered myself to be quite fond of this album, but I will admit it was easier to choose a few favourites than the previous two. The field may be wide open here, at least for second and third place!
9 April 2011
Dave Cooper
I find myself singing Lord Hereford’s Knob all the time so that was a shoo-in, I also have a soft spot for Totnes but it looks like nobody else does!
9 April 2011
Neil G
One song stands head, shoulders and more above all the others on here and that is National Shite Day. Back off in the distance, neck and neck, and only slightly ahead of the pack are Little In The Way Of Sunshine and Lord Hereford’s Knob.
9 April 2011
John Burscough
I know this puts me inescapably into the Johnny Come Lately category, but CSI:Ambleside was the album that brought me back into the HMHB fold. I saw them play the Cornbury festival in 2008, and realised that I’d been wasting the previous 18 years.
I spent the weekend singing “I ring up Dial-A-Pizza” to myself, and drove home with “Bad Losers on Yahoo Chess” and “Give Us Bubblewrap” on rotation in the car. I’ve been in the process of catching up ever since. Have mercy on me.
9 April 2011
grim
My winner by about a million miles is Problem Chimp. I’m a sucker for bass riffs.
9 April 2011
TWO FAT FEET
Disappointing album overall but bookended by two absolute zingers, so they get my votes and no others.
9 April 2011
nickinko
Really? I absolutely love this album! Went for Little In The Way Of Sunshine and On The Roids, with Bad Losers as my 3rd, but it’s a very consistent record all the way through.
9 April 2011
steve nicholls
I’m back to a restrained 5 for this one, chosen mainly for the tunes.
Yahoo Chess and Evening of Swing are singalongafavourites, even though I’m not entirely sure I understand Evening of Swing fully.
Shite Day is great for the particularly bitter cynicism.
The guitar in King Of High Vis is brilliant – like a proper song n that – and Petty Sessions is short and sweet and has a great couple of lines about the Barmy Army.
9 April 2011
Jon
I like this album a lot but agree that it may not have quite the overall quality of Achtung Bono. Having said that I still felt compelled to vote for 5 – National Shite Day, Evening of Swing, Totnes, Bad Losers & Lord Hereford
9 April 2011
Mr Spokesman
Agreed LP was a bit disappointing- Problem Chimp, Bad Loser and (it appears oddly) Blue Badge Abuser- in my minor-crypto-fascist moments I ponder if they could set all those NPR camers on the disabled bays and, Judge Dredd style, see what else they had to hide.
9 April 2011
Poolio
It was either one or four…so I went for four… seems I’m almost on my own with three of them – and that my number one’s gonna nick in in second…
9 April 2011
2 Chevrons
Could have voted for 6 or 7. Kept it to 4. National Shite Day is the most played track on my jog-proof iPod, so here’s hoping …
10 April 2011
Edward McCrae
Staggered that King of High Vis isn’t more popular.
10 April 2011
Ben Woodcock
I just do not get Evening of Swing at all. So this one was fairly simple for me. National Shite Day is a no brainer in my opinion – got half the office singing that one with no problem at all. Lord Hereford’s Knob makes me laugh like a giggling schoolgirl even after all this time. Bad Losers has to be in because of my Father In Law being one of them. And Totnes gets in too cos it’s funny.
11 April 2011
Charles Exford
I’ve voted on every album but have found it well nigh impossible to express my preferences in public. I’ve also been surprised at myself for finding it increasingly difficult, especially on the last two albums, to read other people’s polarised opinions about the records I love. I’d be interested to know if any others feel the same ?
I’ll just say that I know what I’ll be voting for if we ever do it with the new album, because it’s been one of my favourite quotes since I was a kid, and it sums up my feelings about the threads on The LF Cup for this album and the last one.
Go to 1:30:35 on this.
11 April 2011
Chris The Siteowner
Don’t let it get you down, Churles. Everyone else is wrong.
11 April 2011
Norbert D
Weird album this – three all-time HMHB blockbusters, a couple of very funny throwaways and a load of minor songs which don’t do that much for me (partly because of that thick, “modern rock” production which I don’t really like). So an easy vote here.
“Evening Of Swing” is clearly meant to be The Book Of Revelation, As Revealed To St Nigel The Divine. Not sure why it’s confusing. It’s a brilliant bit of writing.
But even this can’t top “National Shite Day” and “Problem Chimp”, which are surely NB’s two finest lyrics ever. Can’t think of a single modern lyricist who could even dream of writing words this sharp and smart and sophisticated. Anyone who still considers HMHB a “novelty punk band” should be forced to listen to both on rotation until it sinks in – this lanky bald bloke is one of Britain’s greatest poets. Hilarious but true.
11 April 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
I feel your existential crisis Churles. I too tend not to comment directly on my LFC choices ‘cos I get all too emotional when I comment and say things like “I tell you what mate, that song changed me life.” As befits my essence I tend to aim for self-realisation whilst ploughing through the contingencies of human existence, and therefore find it hard to explain to other beings why these bloody songs are so important to me. Occasionally I do it with grammatical accuracy.
11 April 2011
Kingsbeef
Although I voted for 5, I feel duty bound to fight for the outrageously overlooked Bubblewrap. Maybe I should I try to put everything into perspective. Shite Day bound to get through. It’s too great not to.
11 April 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Oh the shame!
That should read;
“Occasionally I do it (with grammatical accuracy).”
or even;
“Occasionally I do it – with grammatical accuracy.”
This may be an appropriate time to thank Chris for the regular sub-editing he does on our comments (mine in particular).
Slopes off to corner to hang head in shame.
11 April 2011
Charles Exford
Vendor – crisis? What crisis? I never was much of an Istentialist in the first place. Everything I know most surely about morality and the duty of man I learned from Philosophy Football t-shirts.
But Chris, your cartoonist’s drôle misuse of the Sartre line puts me on the defensive, so lest I be misunderstood, it seems to me that in the Sartre play the line is a multi-layered conclusion about aspects of the human condition in which the speaker clearly includes himself, and it isn’t about anyone being more anything than anybody else.
So must I stress that I don’t think anyone’s right or wrong in matters of taste being discussed here and I’m happy for everyone who is enjoying the thrills of your creation. You have been slandered by those who previously drew comparisons with Sepp Blatter. You are surely more akin to Jules Rimet himself, and your cup is no less weighty, no less gleaming, for its small stature.
If I reckoned there was any point in thinking I was more ‘right’ in such matters, then I would name particular songs and argue their relative merits. But like the bloke’s epiphany in Sartre’s play, the last two threads in the ‘Lux’ have brought me to the realisation that it isn’t just the likes of pavement-hoggers, road users, in-store radio DJs, 24-hour garage inmates, teenagers playing music on public transport or even my current Satan-incarnate, Richard Bacon himself, who can be our own private purgatories, but even those who share quite similar tastes can be each others’ hell (cf families, bandmates, workmates, etc, etc).
No doubt we’ll all have a great time choosing our favourite HMHB tracks for our funerals. Some contributors will clearly have more difficulty making up their minds than others and will need a bit more time. That’s probably why not many of them got round to having HMHB songs at their weddings. And I suppose that once we’ve been to enough fellow Biscuiteers’ funerals, we’ll doubtless be very relieved that we have such varying tastes.
Now, where did I put my anthropy? I miss it.
13 April 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
I’m writing this from memory (What memory? What memory’s that? as John Cooper Clarke once said, probably on Où est la maison de fromage?. But then I’m remembering that from memory too, so we may be way off track by now). Anyway, from memory, the flighty woman from Huis Clos, uses the eyes of another character (probably the bloke who she fancies) in order to see her reflection – she needs to fix her make up – as there are no mirrors in Hell. This (if I remember my Modern European Philosophy 101 correctly) symbolises the fact that Sartre believes it to be impossible to create ones own essence without our interaction with others. We have existence but no essence, until we ‘furnish’ it through the choices we make, but we cannot do this without reference to others. We are inextricably linked to others, in so far as they act as a mirror for our choices, but we forever remain responsible for those choices. Our freedom being something we are condemned to, rather than being a positive thing.
Anyway, to get to the point, Hell is indeed other people, especially those who seem to share our tastes, as they act as a mirror to our values, often showing us that our own ideals are ultimately our own disappointments. We are condemned to freedom in a world that we cannot control.
What to do then in a universe ruled by chance and indifference, when you’re shrouded by inexorable darkness?
I’ve always fancied I’ll open a stationer’s, in order to stock quaint notepads for weekend Pagans.
13 April 2011
TWO FAT FEET
I like bunny rabbits.
13 April 2011
Ricardo
The quotation discussed above was, as P.J. O’Rourke pointed out, especially true for someone with Simone de Beauvoir around the house.
13 April 2011
John Burscough
The “What memory’s that?” line is indeed from ‘Où est la maison de fromage?’ by JCC. Whose life, lest we forget, Tony Wilson once said “would one day be turned into legend, in the way that happened to Baudelaire” (who was psycho-analysed by Sartre).
I like bunny rabbits too.
14 April 2011
Charles Exford
Just in case anyone was dreaming of bunnies and not visualising my conversation with Vendor in something like these terms:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccYh8iZC5-E
14 April 2011
TWO FAT FEET
anyway, before we stray too far off topic [cue mental image of a horse disappearing over the horizon, viewed from behind a tardily-closed stable door], given that this whole conversation is based a round a song which isn’t even on the album and may not even feature in the competition, if it’s not already too late then dare I suggest that the new songs unveiled last year could still be included in the final qualifying group?
In the absence of an advance track listing, it’s not even guaranteed they will ever attain any greater status at present than such titans as Epiphany or Ordinary To Enschede. And if there’s any doubt about such new songs deserving to be included, then if any of them make it to the final stages, we’ll see how they fare if they have to go toe-to-toe with the likes of, say, 24 Hour Garage People.
14 April 2011
Chris The Siteowner
Appealingly put, my Chinese friend, and if any of the three new songs don’t appear on the new album, I’m probably going to regret this, but I’m still inclined to stick with the original plan. I’m convinced that some part of the appeal of all three songs at the moment is that they’re new, and as I’ve written before, I hate polls where current stuff tramples all before it mainly because it’s, er, new. Or maybe I’m just some old stick-in-the-mud.
14 April 2011
Simon Smith
Ah, Exxo. How put in mind I am of the host of ‘Skirmish’, a military based gameshow, screaming “Stop getting Bond wrong”.
To love a song for its title (especially when the joke is almost certainly on the kind of person who worships such pretension) is almost as alarming as pinning such significance on the title of Surging… actually having any relevance to the song.
18 April 2011
Chris The Siteowner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPIsTKpAoE4
18 April 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Coming out of ancient Westmorland, there appeared a collection which declared, “I offer unto you Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.”
“Take them,” saith the Investigation, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the scene upon which the collection was built. I give unto you an Evening of Swing and a National Shite Day and those shall be your lot, upon which you will move forward unto a different stage; to be joined by 30 more, some by fair means, some by less so, as the terrors reigned upon the selection of the few, of which to join the many.”
“Take regardless,” saith the Investigation, “For I am also your brother, and companion in tribulation”.
But behind arose a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying “Yes thou offer Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: but what of the others in the Collection?”
And the Investigation turned to see the voice that spake unto him. And being turned, it saw eleven golden candlesticks; each glimmering with a promise unfulfilled. And so the door closed firmly unto them and much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued.
And presently the voice spoke again, and when the voice spoke it was as if it spoke the words of all. And the voice saith “For it is too late Dennis Bell of Torquay, too late, thou wast never given so much as a lament. Even though your eyes glaze and your companion and his companion get jittery so be it. The inhumanity, oppression and greed of others have decreed that although thou used to favour Justice and Truth, and are therefore henceforth authorised and holy with an affectation that conceals extraordinary fires this holds no sway. One day I know you’ll have to face his wrath.”
But the Investigation replied with a quiet word, “Prepare that fatted calf, we send forward the Evening and the Day, unto the round of 32 and there we will see the same kill, kill, kill, stab, murder and despatch. Not for the one or for the two, but for all the thirteen.”
And the Investigation looked and saw that it was good.
23 April 2011