As for me, I’ll take the TGV to Zurich
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
43 Letters Sent:Jump to latest »
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
Aug 18th, 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.
Aug 18th, 2011
stevie lucas
I enjoyed the fact that Eric Pollard the other day had to be be air lifted from the peninsula of Knoydart.
Sep 28th, 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)
Oct 22nd, 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.
Oct 22nd, 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’?
Oct 22nd, 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.”
Oct 22nd, 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.
Oct 22nd, 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.
Oct 22nd, 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
One hundred and seventy four.
Oct 22nd, 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.
Oct 22nd, 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.
Oct 22nd, 2011
incrediblestringbiscuitman
Pashley….Harry Quinn- the list is endless
Oct 22nd, 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.”
Oct 22nd, 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)
Oct 22nd, 2011
John Anderson
Yup, it’s laurel. I’m off to Bunner’s for a packet of Johnson’s Cotton Buds.
Oct 22nd, 2011
Neil G
I’m just sad that it’s not ‘wankeling the zeitgeist’.
Oct 23rd, 2011
leigh
Love this song now. Wasn’t sure when I heard it in session. And thankfully I only misheard a few words/lines.
Oct 23rd, 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.
Oct 23rd, 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.
Oct 23rd, 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.
Oct 23rd, 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.
Oct 23rd, 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…
Oct 24th, 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.
Oct 24th, 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).
Oct 24th, 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.
Oct 26th, 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?
Oct 27th, 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.
Oct 27th, 2011
Dagenham Dave
and Morrissey name checked it at his MEN gig captured for posterity on the ‘Who Put The M in Manchester’ DVD.
Oct 28th, 2011
Duchess of Westminster
I hear it as “Before the Ground Force, that West Highland terrier”
Oct 31st, 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.
Oct 31st, 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.)
Oct 31st, 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!)
Nov 1st, 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.
Nov 3rd, 2011
2 Chevrons
“Ross Kemp on Watership Down”, I bet Sky 1 have that on their radar.
Nov 15th, 2011
Chesneywold
Well I for one had no idea who Kathleen Ferrier was, and only found this by accident just now. She sounds good.
Jan 30th, 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”)
Feb 7th, 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.
Feb 8th, 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?
Feb 16th, 2012
Paul F
I think it’s just you Fresh Biscuit!
Feb 16th, 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.
Feb 16th, 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.
Feb 16th, 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.
Feb 16th, 2012
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