The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project

Busking this at Embankment Tube tomorrow

179 pop songs picked over by pedants

As pure as unproverbial driven sleet

Probably the most famous example of the so-called curse of HMHB. A little over a decade after Rod Hull Is Alive – Why? was written, Rod Hull was not alive of course, which made the whole question redundant. The Watney Cup was long dead, although some of us are old enough to very much remember watching our team playing in it. Thanks to Nigel, Matt, sgd A Shropshire Lad, Sarah and Dai

See lyrics to Rod Hull Is Alive – Why?

11 Letters Sent:
  1. 1

    Ricardo

    ‘Separate’ is misspelt in line 5, and a superfluous ‘be’ appears in line 14.

  2. Thank you. It was early in the morning, I’d been on the Guinness at the Folk Festival the night before, and I’m just an illiterate fool anyway.

  3. 3

    Third rate Les

    I think the comma after “And with that” is wrong.

    If you really wanted a comma you’d also need one after “and” to parenthesise the “with that”, but it would be pretty odd. Better not to have one.

  4. 4

    Third rate Les

    Not too sure about capitalisation of “a Palace Spokesman” either. Pretty sure “spokesman” should be lower case; “palace” could perhaps be either.

  5. 5

    Dai

    Cool, if the only faults are minor spelling/grammar, then I’m happy!

  6. A couple of minutes reading this stuff and I’m thrown back in time! Are HMHB still on the go and if so do they fancy partaking of a small tour of Ireland? the top half would be fine, anything from Galway up would be fine!

  7. 7

    Vendor of Quack Nostrums

    @ Allan

    Still on the go and undoubtedly improving with age. Can I suggest that you sample some of the more recent stuff immediately. The Perfumed Garden download (which can be reached from this site – see the Complete Peel Sessions download link on the Home page) currently seems to be broken, but the ‘official’ HMHB website (linked from here as Gez’s Half Man Half Biscuit website) has an Audio section which rotates loads of sessions from the past 25 years. It’s the place to start before heading to HMV (or wherever) with your hardearned. I suspect that you have 9 albums to catch upon!

    Also try YouTube. There’s some excellent videos on there.

  8. 8

    Bobby String

    Has nobody else noticed the incorrect spelling of Jacques Lafitte? It should be one f and two t’s.

    Also, am I the only one to notice a musical similarity between this and Squeeze’s ‘Cool For Cats’? Next time you listen to it, when Nigel’s singing “half way up the Wrekin with an empty flask of tea” try singing “The Sweeney’s doing ninety cos they’ve got no place to go”.

    OK, I’m off to write on the sole of my slipper with a biro for a while.

    Ô¿Ô

  9. 9

    Bobby String

    Sorry, my bad, the spelling is correct. I sentence myslef to 10 hours of watching Rod Hull re-runs with my eyes taped open!

    Ô¿Ô

    P.S. It’s Google’s fault because when I typed it in with one f and two t’s it didn’t do its usual “Did you mean Jacques Laffite?” routine.

  10. 10

    John Burscough

    You could also try singing it to the tune of ‘Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream’ (“I was riding on The Mayflower when I thought I spied some land…”)

  11. 11

    TWO FAT FEET

    And Dylan can’t sue.

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