8 Dec 2009 by Chris     No Comments    Posted under: Entertainment

Albums of the Decade: No.13

CSI:Ambleside by Half Man Half Biscuit

“But then I encounter Primark FM”

My love affair with Half Man Half Biscuit started in the late eighties and has never gone away for a moment, but I’ve started to appreciate the genius of Nigel Blackwell’s lyrics far more in the past few years. I’ve no idea what possessed me to start a Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics website, but it’s proved more popular than I’d ever imagined. This band has quietly built a devoted fanbase out there which is far larger than you might imagine. The website’s big breakthrough came with the release of CSI:Ambleside in 2008 – with the help of many regulars, we quickly put up the lyrics to the whole album (well, as many as we could agree on) and seemed to become a point of reference which has subsequently been mentioned in hundreds of music forums and blogs, including The Guardian.

CSI:Ambleside (another fantastic album title) has more than its fair share of odd subject matter but fans of Nigel Blackwell’s ability to seamlessly combine timeless literary observation with bang-on pop-cultural references weren’t disappointed with this one. Nor were those who love the references to obscure places in the UK never touched by any other band’s lyrics, or those who just love brilliant wordplay. Virtually all of these feature in the six-minute masterpiece National Shite Day, which time may judge to be the finest thing Half Man Half Biscuit ever recorded. Bitter, twisted, and utterly hilarious.

I try to put everything into perspective
Set it against the scale of human suffering
And I thought of the Mugabe government
And the children of the Calcutta railways
This works for a while
But then I encounter Primark FM

Overhead a rainbow appears
In black and white

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