Tommy Walsh’s Eco House featured on the BBC 6Music session in the summer of 2010, over a year before the album finally appeared, and immediately suggested that 90 Bisodol (Crimond) wasn’t going to disappoint. We’d have to wait a while to discover that “Wankeling the zeitgeist” was just NB57 getting tongue-tied. As I wrote at the time, “Tommy Walsh’s Eco House was a TV show made 2-3 years back. I guess it’s just a representative show for the whole property and building genre. Interestingly, Tommy Walsh will have what’s been a surprisingly rare honour since the first couple of albums of being namechecked in full in an HMHB song title, joining the likes of Bob Wilson, Brian May, Eno and Vitas Gerulaitis.” Much of the early discussion about this song can be read here, in the original radio session comments. Thanks to Desmon, Hagerty F, Barry, Steve, Shirley Dimensions and Peter Gandy.
See lyrics to Tommy Walsh’s Eco House
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
(In response to the comment elsewhere, saying “So should we maximise the quibbling over the 6 Music session versions while we can? It is ‘she hangs about the laurel walk’, by the way.”)
OK Charles, I’ll bite….
She hangs about the long walk
or
She hangs about the lawn walk
18 August 2011
Charles Exford
Oh good, a bit of conroversy. I was hoping in vain to find you a photo of the particularly fine Laurel Walk at Ness Gardens on the Wirral, but here’s a random googled example of the genre anyway. All shady and definitely a fine spot for some serious hanging around.
18 August 2011
stevie lucas
I enjoyed the fact that Eric Pollard the other day had to be be air lifted from the peninsula of Knoydart.
28 September 2011
Rich
As per the new t-shirt, the last line should end “they’re widening the motorway”.
(That’s the reverse of this shirt – Ed)
22 October 2011
chris from future doom
Ooh i’ve been looking forward to this one – so many questions when i listen to this!
Like, whose is the head he should have had dissolved in acid? His life coach’s mother’s? And if so, why on earth did he kill her? cos he can’t bear all those mundane conversations about Tommy Walsh’s Eco House? Bit extreme, surely, why doesn’t he just go for a walk somewhere else?
And what has Pop Tart Mark got to do with this anyway? Is he anyone other than the one that posts on the HMHB yahoo groups site?
With this coming straight after RSVP on the album, I also can’t help but think his suicide is in some way to do with the massive guilt he must feel from killing all those wedding guests earlier…
This is probably the most confusing song on the album for me – although i like the fact that the album mixes these more obscure songs with some more straightforward ones (Fun Day In The Park, L’Enfer C’est Les Autres) that you can ‘get’ straight away – so any help is appreciated! I’m guessing i’m not the only one flummoxed by this.
22 October 2011
chris from future doom
one more thing: anyone else think the last line is also from the suicide note so in fact the speech marks should end after ‘motorway’ and not ‘y’all’?
22 October 2011
John Anderson
I’ve always heard it as “lower walk” and imagine a sort of “you take the high road, I’ll take the low road” type scenario.
Also, I feel the last line should perhaps contain a semi colon to read “Think on; while you’re capturing the zeitgeist they’re widening the motorway.”
22 October 2011
dagenham Dave
Chris, an interesting post as up until now I saw each verse as a separate entity. I think the “y’all” is there as an amusing rhyme and not as the beginning of the last couplet which I don’t see as part of the suicide note.
However it’s made me listen to the song with a different ear so I may well change my mind.
22 October 2011
Norbert D
I’d format the last lines thus:
And leave a note saying, “Here lies the bloke, the only bloke in Harpurhey
Who wasn’t at the Lesser Free Trade Hall”
Y’all – think on
While you’re capturing the zeitgeist, they’re widening the motorway
But that’s just me.
22 October 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
One hundred and seventy four.
22 October 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
The crystal clear quality of the greatest of all possible production values clearly render it as ‘laurel’. No need for any high tech slowing down equipment for this one. Sorted.
22 October 2011
Sheridan
Yep, definitely ‘laurel’.
As for the last lines, I hear it as ‘…Lesser Free Trade Hall, Y’all’,
and then the rest as two lines, separately.
22 October 2011
incrediblestringbiscuitman
Pashley….Harry Quinn- the list is endless
22 October 2011
Charles Exford
Who’d be a siteowner eh, when you get requests like this one? I wonder if we could have some of the relevant comments from the 6Music session thread (but not the ones that refer to bits of songs that have changed, obviously).
When I first mentioned out of the blue in September last year that it was laurel, you may notice this was a couple of days after a Tranmere home game. In other words, it’s confirmed (with the word _source_ underlined).
And Chris (from Future Doom, not Siteowner), I think I can help with at least one of your questions. The answer lies in Pop Tart Mark’s first ever post on that list last November, in which he wrote: “the traditional heads-up whenever a Biscuit-referenced horse runs at a Biscuit-referenced track will from now on be posted under the name ‘Pop-Tart Mark’, so that maybe, just maybe, occasionally I can say “you should’ve listened to Pop-Tart Mark”. Anyway, today even the race name has a Biscuit reference, so it’s a triple whammy for Major Malarkey in the 14.10 Bangor-on-Dee, The Duchess of Westminster Memorial Chase.”
22 October 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
“See lyircs to Tommy Walsh’s Eco House”? This isn’t the Half Man Half Biscuit Lyircs Project, you know. (Sorry – Ed)
22 October 2011
John Anderson
Yup, it’s laurel. I’m off to Bunner’s for a packet of Johnson’s Cotton Buds.
22 October 2011
Neil G
I’m just sad that it’s not ‘wankeling the zeitgeist’.
23 October 2011
leigh
Love this song now. Wasn’t sure when I heard it in session. And thankfully I only misheard a few words/lines.
23 October 2011
2 Chevrons
I didn’t get ‘local scold’ so thanks for pointing that out.
The bothy in the Knoydart will be the Old Forge, described in a couple of references as the most remote pub in Britain.
23 October 2011
Chris The Siteowner
2CHEVRONS: I’m no wilderness explorer, but I don’t think a bothy is a pub, is it?
And EXXO: I can move over any relevant comments from the 6Music or 90 Bisodol (Crimond) discussions, and if anyone sees any remaining there which they feel should be moved, just let me know. I’ve moved the ones I can see. Note that what I can’t do is make an additional copy here, or break them up (where a comment refers to more than one song). It’s easy to link to individual comments, however; click on the date on that comment to find the direct link to it.
23 October 2011
stephen
Being Scottish I know a bothy is where workers can sit and have their lunch etc. Probably can be used to describe any kind of remote hut tho.
23 October 2011
stephen
Actually just looked it up and found out what I had always thought of as a
Scottish term (bothy) is in fact used all over. Tsk.
23 October 2011
celery
NORBERT D – it ain’t just you. Your suggestion for the last two lines is almost absolutely spot on.
This is how I see it. The word ‘y’all’ has no earthly business being included as part of the suicide note. It simply doesn’t make sense to put it there. Take it out of the quotes, move it to the last line, thus -
Y’all think on, while you’re capturing… etc.
Now it makes perfect sense. Think on y’all…
24 October 2011
2 Chevrons
CHRIS THE SITEOWNER – Probably me making a mess of the language (yet again).
You and Stephen are right, a bothy in its truest sense is most likely a basic shelter. However I have heard it used in terms of a place where people can go and get a drink, so I made the leap and connected it to a pub. I’m sure I’ve read that some illicit drinking dens were referred to as bothys. An old Northumbrian bloke I worked with years ago used to say he was going to the bothy when he meant the pub.
24 October 2011
John Burscough
In point of fact, a bothy can also mean a semi-legal drinking den on the Isle of Lewis (only 50 miles from Knoydart).
24 October 2011
William Rutherglen
I was once at a “beach party” in The Old Forge (it was raining heavily) – it’s the first time I’ve ever seen people arriving for a bevvy by canoe.
26 October 2011
Third Rate Les
Apparently both Cannon & Ball and Little & Large started their careers in Harpurhey. And Anthony Burgess was born there (real horror show). Other than that, is there any specific significance to Harpurhey or is it just the kind of place where lots of people would have claimed to have been at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in ’76?
27 October 2011
John Burscough
Probably just a good place for would-be punks to come from – it gained the “most deprived neighbourhood in Britain” accolade in 2004, and the Electric Circus was only a mile away down Rochdale Road in Collyhurst.
Odd violin-based indie band King of the Slums had a song calld ‘Bombs Away on Harpurhey’, if memory serves.
Les Dawson worked as a butcher, and Freddie Garritty lived there.
27 October 2011
Dagenham Dave
and Morrissey name checked it at his MEN gig captured for posterity on the ‘Who Put The M in Manchester’ DVD.
28 October 2011
Duchess of Westminster
I hear it as “Before the Ground Force, that West Highland terrier”
31 October 2011
Shirley Dimensions
Also Morrissey was at the Lesser Free Trade Hall 04/06/76. I was at the MEN Morrissey performance, but not at the Lesser Free Trade Hall sadly. I’m also slightly confused now too. I was definitely at one of the two performances anyway, and based on the fact I’d have been just over six years old in June ’76 it must have been the MEN. What I can safely say is that neither of us were at the Electric Circus 09/12/76. Nor was NB57 probably. He may have been though, I don’t know really. I hope that clears everything up.
31 October 2011
John Burscough
According to Linder (her off that Ludus) Morrissey was at the Electric Circus 9/12/76, because that’s where she first met him.
(I wasn’t there at the time, though I was on 22/5/77 to see Talking Heads supporting The Ramones – tickets were £1.50.)
31 October 2011
Shirley Dimensions
I’ll bow to Linder on that one as he probably very well was (and more than likely at LFTH 20th July ’76 too). I’ve never been to the Electric Circus…I’m pretty sure of that at least, if nothing else…though it does remind me of the opening scene in the original Saw film. I know Dee Dee Ramone’s ex Eileen…it’s a small world (though not as small as the Electric Circus!)
1 November 2011
Darren
I do like the idea of “Ross Kemp on Watership Down”. A much overlooked and brutal war. I expect Kemp would have ‘identified’ with Bigwig.
3 November 2011
2 Chevrons
“Ross Kemp on Watership Down”, I bet Sky 1 have that on their radar.
15 November 2011
Chesneywold
Well I for one had no idea who Kathleen Ferrier was, and only found this by accident just now. She sounds good.
30 January 2012
ROBISCUIT
Come a bit late to 90B (model of gratification delayment) and have the following question: whilst it’s been subjected to a fair bit of parsing above, what does anyone actually MAKE of the last lines (“Think on; while you’re capturing the zeitgeist they’re widening the motorway”)
7 February 2012
Notso Octopus
ROBISCUIT- You could take it as a comment directed at Tommy Walsh and his acolytes. No amount of fashionable eco-posturing will affect mankind’s determination to tarmac over the entire planet.
8 February 2012
Fresh Biscuit.
As my name suggests, I am a fan of HMHB but only for the past 12 months or so. My friend gave me a 2gig ipod for Xmas which was full of their songs. I later discovered their new album and have never had it off my ipod. Is it just me or what? In the song “Tommy Walsh’s Eco House” there is no way that that line says this…Think on when you’re “CAPTURING” the Zeitgeist. I know it doesn’t make sense but it rather sounds like he’s “Wanking in the Zeitgeist.” Any takers?
16 February 2012
Paul F
I think it’s just you Fresh Biscuit!
16 February 2012
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Lots of discussion on this site about lyrical minutiae FB, but very few of them are immediately solved by the band’s official merchandise.
16 February 2012
Chris The Siteowner
I think what you have there, FB, is the 6Music session version where Nigel gets a bit tongue-tied. See the top of this page and here for the relevant discussion.
16 February 2012
Fresh Biscuit.
Thanks for clearing it up (pun intended.) Relieved to know that it’s not just me and it has been the subject of many-a-discussion. This is a great site, by the way. You should start B.A. meetings…My name is Fresh and I’m a Biscuitholic.
16 February 2012
MIKE IN COV
Kathleen Ferrier was Up There. I’ve heard a modern alto say she would willingly cut off several limbs to be able to sing like her. We had a compilation album when I was growing up, and I’d bet the Blackwell’s did too. She’s all over YouTube, try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68j0aCur3lM. Old-fashioned style, but not too much frying bacon.
She also provided cause for one of the few occasions when I’ve deliberately sworn at the radio rather then just offered a departure suggestion. She went to the doctor with a lump on her breast. He told her to go away and not to worry. Guess what she died of.
@Fresh: please say you don’t want to _cure_ your addiction. You do realise a BA programme would involve total abstinence?
4 July 2012
sandy coloured clown
“As long as you capture the spirit of the times…”
(Ok, a long ‘un, but I think it justifies it…)
Eco House translated from English, to Russian, and back to English. I have too much time on my hands.
Back to back Cadfael
Ross Kemp in Watership Down
Do we live in the past few days?
My life coach killed in car crash
Mother fell into hopeless despair
It hangs on the bay walk
I never know what to say to her
Have you seen Tommy Walsh Eco House?
I’m at the mercy of local abuse
She knows I know what she knows about the shanty on the Knoydart
I would have listened to toast Mark
And if the head is dissolved in acid to clean up the Belgian team
I took 90 Bisodol
I had a bellyful Tommy Walsh Eco House
-Tisket,-Tasket, Pashley to basket
Here’s Hermione, Little Miss Poundbury
Previously, I longed for it, when the days were fun
Prior to the first floor flat West Highland Terrier
Kathleen Ferrier tickets for the post
All they did the Liberal Democrats went to Cropredy
Tori on Cornbury
As for me, I’ll take the TGV to Zurich and jump from the roof of Dignitas
And leave a note that:
“Here lies the man, the only guy in Harpurhey
Who was not in the Small Hall of free trade ”
All of you, I think, on the
As long as you capture the spirit of the times
They expand the highway
24 July 2012
sandy coloured clown
And after a bit more messing about I get
“For me, I am human dignity, as well as a rooftop in Zurich
I have a message.”
Which is sad and a little bit profound… because one day the computers will take over, and this is what they will do to HMHB. But then, maybe our digital overlords won’t spend twenty minutes dicking about on google translate.
24 July 2012
Chigley Skin
The Small Hall of free trade put a smile on my face! Reminds me of this bar in Reading I was in years ago, where they had a TV screen showing the Star Wars Phantom Menace film dubbed into Japanese then re-translated (badly) into English subtitles. The major moments of linguistic hilarity revolved around light sabres (“rods of power”) and the Jedi Council (“the Church of England”).
“Obi-Wan, I am stressful that if you tutor this boy, the Church of England will punish us with their rods of power.”
24 July 2012
MIKE IN COV
@Sandy, poignant. Haven’t we all wanted to live in the past few days?
Urban myth has it that programmers used to test early machine translators using your technique. Allegedly, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” came back as “There is much vodka but little meat” and “Out of sight, out of mind” as “Invisible idiot”.
@Chigley, why then were the census people so sniffy about those who declared their religion as Jedi Knight?
25 July 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
Pop-tarts actually exist although – as yet anyway – I’ve never eaten one. I’m feeling an urge to nip out to an all-night garage. This news story has no relevance to the song but it felt unfair to keep it to myself.
Now for an enjoyable exercise in provocative speculation. I propose, “I should have listened to Pop Tart Marc”. (1) Marc Riley, as he never ceases to tell us, missed the Pistols at the LFTH because he’d nipped out for a bag of chips. (2) “Pop Tart Marc” sounds like the sort of thing Mark E Smith would say. It’s not in The Man Whose Head Expanded or C.R.E.E.P.; but I can’t find Hey Mac Riley online.
Any comments?
22 August 2012
Charles Exford
I do know this one, and can say I was told that it was the nickname of a lad who became known by NB57 and his football mates as ‘Pop-Tart Mark,’ because he once ate the product in question raw from the packet on in the car on the way to a match – NB57 & friends suitably gobsmacked, and the character name stored for future lyrical use. I don’t like reporting here on this type of stuff that Nigel told me 1:1, feels like betraying a confidence and/or posturing as an uberfan, but if you’re barking up the wrong tree why not, eh?
Being a generous giver as well as a taker of PBRs, I post occasional racing tips under that name on the HMHB Yahoo group, just so somebody somewhere might one day say “I should have listened to Pop-Tart Mark”. The horses have to contain an equine Biscuit reference (an EBR) and have to run at a track mentioned in the lyrics (about 15 different racecourses qualify). Incidentally an orse named Muck ‘n’ Brass won at at 14-1 the other night in the rain at Dundalk and I was gutted that I never tipped it up or backed it meself. I don’t usually miss EBRs that good.
22 August 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
@Charles, I respect your stance on information confided in you. I couldn’t care less as to who PTM might be. But, the true story is funnier than my conjecture. Gross. And, we now know that NB should have listened to PTM in person, rather than on the radio, and that the LFTH reference is not connected. Lyrics, explained.
You on Yahoo under more than name? There you go. I would never have guessed. You’ve doubtless sussed me out.
22 August 2012
Rubber Faced Irritant
WIll this hyphen related (or should that be hyphen-related) controversy never end? In the news story posted by Acidic Reg, Pop-Tarts are unhyphenated. As indeed ‘Pop Tart Mark’ is in CtSO’s lyrics.
Over to Mike and Charles…..
22 August 2012
Rubber Faced Irritant
And whilst we’re talking all things hyphen, shouldn’t the next line be ‘Belgian clean-up team’?
Apologies, I didn’t start this you know…..
22 August 2012
Charles Exford
I haven’t sussed you, Mike, cos I’ve not been on the Yahoo thingy for months, I’d guess since just after the Leeds gig. But I try not to work full-time when there’s an ‘r’ in the month, so doubtless I’ll soon be back on there perturbing the punters with me pulled-ups at Bangor-on-Dee..
22 August 2012
Charles Exford
@ RFI – you’re right on both counts, well spotted. Perhaps the Beloved Leader was previously sceptical that Pop-Tart Mark was indeed named after the hyphenated junk food? Let him be no longer in any doubt.
Similarly, when phrasal verb becomes a noun or adjective, The Owner of the Site which has unleashed the Mother of all Pedantries should surely know the drill. Have standards in technical journalism really sunk so low ??
22 August 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
I’d made avizandum on the PTM controversy; but now I’m firmly in the Pop-Tart Mark camp – with a hyphen. The Trade Mark is hyphenated, therefore PTM should be. I’m beginning to wonder if I should believe everything I read in the newspapers.
I’m with both RFI and CE on “clean-up”. Hyphen please.
@Charles, your principles appear to me markedly old-fashioned if not out-and-out reactionary. I refuse on principle to work in any month whose name contains the letters “r”, “a” or “j”. Embrace the margin.
23 August 2012
John Burscough
Clean-up, Pop-Tart (though the official punctuation of the latter is a touch unorthodox). http://bryant3.bryant.edu/~cbutler3/Pop%20Tarts%20logo.jpg
23 August 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
John’s example is a logo; here’s what’s actually registered. All caps is conventional, it covers variations in case and font, and use in logos. Trademarks are adjectives, and should always have an initial capital when used in text.
I make that two hyphens, a confirmed spelling, and a derivation based on a good anecdote. Does it get any better?
23 August 2012
Rubber Faced Irritant
I was going to make a comment about how this hyphen-related malarkey had not been resolved in the lyrics. When I suddenly thought I was in danger of being hoist by my own petard. Sure enough, there’s an argument for hyphenating rubber-faced. I shall be amending my moniker.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_It_(TV_series)
Wrong thread for NSD, but this follows CE’s and AR’s expert exposition of hyphen usage (posts 55 and 58).
2 September 2012
Pop-Tart Mark
There’s more than an argument, R-F, there’s a moral imperative.
I noticed too that another “Pop Tart Mark” (sic) has recently posted on here, perhaps a distant cousin from the Scots branch of the clan where they lost their birthright hyphens in the Hyphenland Clearances?
3 September 2012
Nick Mattlock
Unless I’ve missed something here the subject of “the bothy on the Knoydart” needs further explanation.
Firstly, Knoydart can be referred to either as Knoydart, the Knoydart Peninsula or, in full, The Rough Bounds of Knoydart. I’m quite surprised that Nigel didn’t use the latter, has it does have a marvellously anachronistic feel to it. But you’d never refer to it as “the Knoydart”, it makes it sound as though it were a river. The line ought to read “the bothy in Knoydart” or “the bothy on the Knoydart Peninsula”, but definitely NOT “on the Knoydart”.
As to the bothy itself, bothies are generally a relatively well kept secret, although the Mountain Bothies Association website lists about 100, including Sourlies bothy, and unless Nigel knows of a more remote and obscure bothy, Sourlies is almost certainly the bothy “on the Knoydart”. Located at Grid Ref NM 869 951 at the eastern end of Loch Nevis (not in anyway connected to the mountain Ben Nevis) and under the steep sides of Druim a’ Ghoirtein, the long western ridge of Sgurr na Ciche, one of the most distinctive (and remote) peaks in the Western Highlands. It sleeps about 12 on wooden platforms and a couple of hammocks, has a log burning stove, a table, a couple of wooden chairs and that’s about your lot. Toilet facilities are provided by the provision of a spade.
I can give personal testimony to the fact that it is also home to about 3 million billion rodents, who, on the night I attempted to sleep in the bothy, were having some sort of rodent disco and kept me awake all night long.
18 October 2012
Pop-Tart Mark
Quite right, and those strict rules of usage were no doubt made up by the noble Lord Brocket of Knoydart himself.
However the character in the song _does_ say “on the Knoydart”, so we can assume the persona in question is an outsider…. maybe even someone who grew up on the Wirral. In my opinion far too few inhabitants of that particular peninsula have enough time on their hands to write in to the relevant authorities whenever someone dares to say “in Wirral” or suchlike.
I seem to recall there are more than several bothies on the Knoydart (Peninsula, Estate, etc). The rodents are probably attracted to those where the hikers are more pedantic about language than they are about taking their rubbish undissolved body parts, etc with them.
18 October 2012
Alan
“I noticed too that another “Pop Tart Mark” (sic) has recently posted on here, perhaps a distant cousin from the Scots branch of the clan where they lost their birthright hyphens in the Hyphenland Clearances?”
Guilty as charged, I had not initially noticed the moniker had already been appropriated and abandoned its use as soon as I did!
20 October 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
An alternative to and imo more plausible source than the nursery rhyme suggested on Gez’s site – “A-tisket a-tasket a green and yellow basket”, Past, Present And Future, recorded by The Shangri-Las and Agnetha Fältskog, among others.
22 October 2012
vendor of quack nostrums
More likely to be Ella Fitzgerald I would have thought.
22 October 2012
Charles Exford
The songs mentioned all quote the nursery rhyme, so where Gez’s ‘reference’ must be correct, whether indirectly or directly, which song might or might not have inspired the lyric is pure guesswork. I’ll reluctantly throw in Buddy Guy’s ‘Mary had a little Lamb’ just to make the point that it doesn’t have to be from any particular source.
22 October 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
I’ll certainly accept Ella as a possible.
I don’t know the nursery rhyme, and I was brought up on a fair few, which is why I suggest a recording as immediate source. I don’t think I’d ever heard any of the three tracks I’ve linked to before yesterday.
23 October 2012
TetchyWretch
I too have far too much time on my hands, but this amused…
6 February 2013
vendor of quack nostrums
Wha is dis crazy ass shizzle biatch? Ah yo fo’ realz. Ya nahmeean soundz phat.
6 February 2013
JOHN aNDERSON
http://tinyurl.com/cddttd2
Not sure if there are plans for a laurel walk or a bothy in the garden.
19 April 2013