The Coroner’s Footnote has already caused a bit of a stir in the discussion about the album (now moved below). Is it NB57 writing this, in which case it’s possibly a bit insensitive? Or is it the Coroner, in which case …well, what do you expect? Make up your own minds. But don’t bother looking up Happiness Bay and sending it to Stuart Vallantine, I’m sure it doesn’t exist. Thanks to Conrad and Third Rate Les
See lyrics to The Coroner’s Footnote
Nick Walters
Very disappointed with The Coroner’s Footnote. Suicidal people are so disturbed they cannot think properly about ANYTHING, including the poor sod driving the train. How disturbed? Well, throwing yourself in front of a train isn’t a good way to kill yourself. You may very well “just” end up very, very badly maimed. I’ve heard tales of the horrifically mashed-up remains of people on the tracks, still alive, going insane from the pain. Suicidal people need help, not castigation for not thinking of others.
What about all those poor sods at Dignitas, Nigel, who have to scrape up your remains after you’ve jumped off the roof of their building? Did you not spare a thought for them? I thought not. Double standards, and on the same album! Shame.
A great disappointment, especially from the man who wrote the best song about depression EVER, namely – yeah,you guessed it – Depressed Beyond Tablets. THAT song is spot on, speaking from someone who has suffered (thankfully not now) from that debilitating affliction. “Your optimism strikes me like junk mail addressed to the dead” is probably the best line he has ever written.
I’m probably over analysing this, but, no sod it, I feel cheated by The Coroner’s Footnote. It comes across as inconsistent, smug, thoughtless and heartless. I’ll get over it, but I feel let down by someone whose wit, insight, lyricism and humanity I have always respected.
27 September 2011
Third Rate Les
Depends whose perspective, doesn’t it Nick? I suspect train drivers driven to months of sleepless nights from suicides might disagree with you.
Anyway, why is it “the cow has been scraped from the line”? Or have I misheard.
27 September 2011
dagenham dave
Les, I thought initially it was ‘scraped’ but it might be ‘strayed’. Not that makes much more sense.
27 September 2011
Nick Walters
Yes, Les, they would. My point is that suicidal people CANNOT think of others, they are damaged. They cannot conceive of the effect their actions would have on their family and friends, cos if they would, they would not do it!
Someone has, however, pointed out that Nigel is taking the mick out of people who say “ooh think of the poor driver” which seems more in character, so I may have misheard. Hope so. Hard to tell sometimes isn’t it, through all the layers. That’s what makes him a brilliant lyricist.
Oh and BTW I am loving the album.
27 September 2011
Moody Chops
Hey, Nick, I understand your gloom but it’s a fictional coroner’s footnote. Nigel isn’t a coroner, so it’s not Nigel talking about suicide, any more than Shakespeare is trying to encourage suicidal thoughts with ‘to be or not to be.’
The narrator of this song, or this verse of this song (because many of Nigel’s songs do seem to jump around between multiple perspectives) isn’t saying this particular suicide could or couldn’t think of others, and you’re right he probably couldn’t (even though it’s a fictional character).
He’s just saying it’s a pity he didn’t. Which it is.
And because there’s a ‘narrator of this song’, that’s where you’re also being unfair to Nigel. he narrates different songs, sometimes different sections of different songs, from different characters’ points of view, some of which we may rightly or wrongly consider to be his own point of view. Some songs are piss-takes of a particular narrative voice in a particular genre, and as Nigel clearly isn’t someone who normally goes around talking of ‘fates’, ‘lamenting’, etc, this One clearly isn’t him. Like I say at the end of the day he isn’t a coroner or a nineteenth century novelist. And by the way, some coroners can be proper twats.
Track 12 is clearly Nigel speaking in reality about a subject that vexes his righteous indignation. So, we assume, is most of track 9, but maybe only about three fifths of track 7 is based on scenes which could be witnessed in an actual chandler’s in the Marches.
This one, track 11, clearly isn’t. Nnor we assume is much of track 5, though Nigel may or may not in reality be on Shimano Ultegra – I ain’t heard.
You’re right to give Nigel credit for the greatest song about depression I know, i.e. DBT. It’s always a great comfort to know there are great people who understand. but The Coroner’s Footnote isn’t a song about suicide, any more than Nigel’s other numerous, and humorous references to suicide (including, possibly, an imminent railway suicide in the Light at the End of the Tunnel), are about that as a subject. it’s unfair to treat it as such.
But, if we are going to continue being unfair to our poor old lyrical genius for a while longer, I will take the topic seriously for a minute and give another perspective, Nick, which I will give just as that – a personal perspective, trying to avoid too many generalisations. You seem very fixed in your idea that ‘suicidal people are this or that.’ I’m sure there are as many different types and different degrees of damage, disturbance, irrationality and rationality involved in every individual suicide attempt.
My own suicidal days are well behind me. During those years I also met many others undergoing treatment for suicidal depression. And it’s an issue I still confront from time to time, for example having to counsel a suicidal friend only a fortnight ago.
A lot of suicide attempts are rational and planned and seem at the time like the best solution to what seems to be an unbearable life. Some are like that, some aren’t. That’s the only generalisation I’ll make. It can actually be a remarkably difficult thing to achieve, so it often needs a deal of thought. Getting the pills, deciding the best place to take them, the best bridge to jump from, the best section of railway line, could be weeks and weeks, even years, in the planning and the getting up the courage to do. In my case it became an obsession for a long time. I picked out a section of railway line and walked there, but I never actually tried it that way, couldn’t deal with the thought that I might fuck up or the driver would slow down and it wouldn’t be clean and instant. And I do think that if someone had given me the driver’s perspective (as they have since) then that would have helped change my mind too. I tried other ways. I was sincere in my attempts but I made a right mess of it and upset a lot of people. I didn’t think of those other poor bastards at the time but I should and could have done.
I grew away from my suicidal period only gradually, over many years. Counselling of many kinds was fairly useless in my particular case as I’d decided life was pretty pointless. Travel, sport and many other enjoyments provided distraction but underlying nihilism remained. But every time I contemplated suicide (often after the end of relationships as in the song) it was always the thought of how horrible it is for other people to deal with that primarily stopped me. And gradually, after many years of pain, my life became a much nicer place to be and I accepted who I am and that to some extent, while I have people who love me, others to be bothered if I get hit by a bus or a train, I am stuck with it.
Nick, I can remember rational ‘trains’ of thought from my own long-distant suicide attempts which are still part of me – life was not worth living during that period. I was right, but I didn’t take everything into account. I didn’t take other people into account. I’m sure you are right Nick, that a lot of suicidal people can’t do that. But personally I could have, and should have, and it’s a pity I didn’t, at the time. Which is what the coroner rightly points out.
I have spoken to a couple of train drivers about this since this song came out too. They thoroughly approve of the song, as they do of the reference back to Chigley in the fine guitar work.
End of ramble (sorry, The Samaritans were engaged).
Where’s me Haliborange?
28 September 2011
Petrovic
Moody Chops
Splendid post – thank you. Please accept this commemorative bottle of Haliborange.
Personally I like The Coroner’s Footnote a lot, but then having a sick sense of humour probably helps.
The only coroner I have ever met (father of a school friend) was a very nice, mild-mannered person, whom it was hard to imagine presiding over anything.
28 September 2011
Moody Chops
Yeah, no offence to coroners, whose ranks I’m sure hold no greater percentage of twats than any other profession in the murky areas where science and law collide. But there are some. Especially in melodramatic tales like this one.
28 September 2011
Third Rate Les
Interesting perspectives from Nick and Moody Chops – thanks.
My view is that there’s genuine despair, and there’s romantic idiocy, and they’re not the same thing. To take an extreme example, if someone just dumped by their girlfriend decided to drive the wrong way up a motorway, my first (and likely last) thought as they headed towards me wouldn’t be “oh, the poor chap”. But I also admit I’ve never been anywhere close to such thoughts myself.
The gentle criticism of self-absorption to the point of suicide is a point made with subtle brilliance in Goethe’s “Die Leiden des Jungen Werther(s)” (whatever that is auf Englisch), which actually also ends in a lengthy Coroner’s Footnote. It was a subtlety missed by plenty of daft romantic fops who cashed in their chips in honour of their hero Werther, mind you.
28 September 2011
Petrovic
Though not by Thackeray, who wrote this:
WERTHER had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
Charlotte was a married lady,
And a moral man was Werther,
And for all the wealth of Indies
Would do nothing for to hurt her.
So he sigh’d and pin’d and ogled,
And his passion boil’d and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
And no more was by it troubled.
Charlotte, having seen his body
Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.
28 September 2011
Gregg Z
Well done, Mr. Chops. I’ve been wanting to post since Nick’s first message, but this is a very tricky subject, of which I’m (thankfully) no expert. I can appreciate Mr. Walters’ strong feelings on the matter, and frankly, Nick, I’m glad you’re around to voice your opinion.
Although we can get awfully profound on this site, we’re essentially walking the aisles of the toy department. No place for a proper and sensitive analysis of the issue of suicide, right? All the more reason…
Nigel has chosen a difficult subject to satirise (see necrophilia, mass murder [at a wedding, no less], etc.), but then, isn’t that what true art is about? I contend that Mr. Blackwell is a humorist/satirist on the order of Bierce, Swift, etc, and thus, can approach “big” topics with wit and boldness. It would be easy for all pedants on this site to blindly defend Nigel’s every utterance, which I won’t do.
I don’t have a problem with the song, but then, I’ve never (seriously) contemplated suicide. But if we all took that hands-off approach, one day they’ll come for the player’s agents (fire-eaters, Bungie Jumpers, etc), and we’ll (collectively) do nothing.
The one thing that stays with me, though, is that Moody Chops has (already) spoken to a number of train drivers about this song. Obviously, if the vehicles weren’t in motion.
28 September 2011
Moody Chops
Do I detect a touch of scepticism? As it happens one of the band’s most faithful followers sorts his shifts on the trains out so that he can be in the mosh at more or less every gig, and given that the coroner’s apt words had already appeared in the Liverpool Echo review, he was always going to broach the subject and express his approval.
The other who shares the same views is a mate of mine from football.
Time Flies By, they both agree, but on Merseyrail you have to start as a guard first. When it doesn’t.
28 September 2011
Gregg Z
Not scepticism, more on the order of reverence. ‘sides, I just wanted to work in the line from “Turn A Blind Eye”.
28 September 2011
Gregg Z
Oops, I mean “Little in the Way of Sunshine”. Which is a fantastic tune for the little ones, by the way. My kids love the bit about “Mr. Wet Underpants”..
28 September 2011
Charles Exford
@Moody – good post – yep I spoke to our moshing train driver after the Leamington gig too. He’s had train driving mates who’ve been traumatised by suicides. He himself has only had an attempt that missed & bounced off the side of the driver’s cab.
@someone else – the cow being scraped from the line is surely just another passing example of the sort of (entirely separate) incident which in such a tale could have, but doesn’t, buy time for the characters to change their minds about departing this life, or this town.
And which doesn’t half remind me of train crash scenes from that recent Elizabeth Gaskell adaptation on the telly.
28 September 2011
Righteous Handbag
Apologies if someone’s pointed this out already but presumably it’s “The coward’s been scraped” as opposed to “The cow has been scraped” no?
28 September 2011
Charles Exford
No, it’s clearly “the cow has.”
I’ve just googled that Gaskell TV thingy and I neever even realised that the 2009 Xmas programme was all a modern idea of what Mrs. Gaskell might have written as a follow-up, i.e. a cow being scraped from in front of a train is the BBC’s idea of fairly standard sort of Victorian fare.
Not that I’m suggesting NB57 is thinking of that story, just agreeing with Moody Chops that it’s that type of story
28 September 2011
TWO FAT FEET
My nearest stretch of railway line (Liverpool St through Shenfield) seems to get one of these every couple of weeks on the London stretch, usually prompting a Facebook debate about whether we should expect people who commit suicide in this manner to have thought rationally about the consequences for others (those who witness or are directly involved with the incident or its aftermath, or their friends and family). I now find myself in the confusing position of rather liking a song whose narrator seems to take the opposite view to that which I usually take. But then what do I know, I seem to be the only one who doesn’t think much of Fix It So She Dreams Of Me (see also : JDOG, Problem Chimp, Foam Party), but then I didn’t think much of Blade Runner either.
28 September 2011
Paul F
I did wonder whether it might be coward, but went back to it and it is definitely cow.
28 September 2011
Third Rate Les
And the young girl may come to her senses
And the wretch may get tetchy and leave
And the chap wracked with anguish incarnate
May gladly accept his reprieve
What a magically well-worked verse that is. “The chap wracked with anguish incarnate” – mmmmm.
28 September 2011
Nick Walters
Yeah well I’ve been back and forth over this and I feel like those two slacker kids in the audience in the Homperpalooza episode of The Simpsons. It still doesn’t sit right with me however much you fart about with viewpoints, perspective, narrators etc.
Which is odd as I absolutely love the darkness of songs such as RSVP, Blood On The Quad, Dead Men Don’t Need Season Tickets, and the rest. It’s just The Coroner’s Footnote that sticks in my craw.
Moody Chops, did your rational trains of thought about suicide ever lead you to the brink of throwing yourself under a train? I doubt it. There are “better” ways, and I don’t mean throwing yourself of the roof of Dignitas. I’d try something stronger than Haliborange, though, if I was serious.
28 September 2011
Nick Walters
Forgot to add:
“The narrator of this song, or this verse of this song (because many of Nigel’s songs do seem to jump around between multiple perspectives) isn’t saying this particular suicide could or couldn’t think of others, and you’re right he probably couldn’t (even though it’s a fictional character).
He’s just saying it’s a pity he didn’t. Which it is.”
Yes it is. But he couldn’t. It’s a pity. So are many things. Doesn’t have any bearing on the intent of the suicide.
28 September 2011
Moody Chops
I did think I’d made it fairly clear that I did try rather a lot of something stronger with deadly intent on occasions, and did come fairly within feet of the train option. Yourself?
Anyway, a pity you don’t enjoy the song (though I’m not suggesting you could if you wanted to).
28 September 2011
Righteous Handbag
After further listening, I conceed that Exxo is of course correct. Still no idea what the cow refers to. Could it have something to do with the cowcatchers that used to adorn the front of trains? Apologies again if this has already been covered but I don’t have time to go through the panoply of correspondence above.
29 September 2011
Third Rate Les
Exxo is of course again quite correct that the cow is an unrelated delay to the tragedy of the kind touched on in the previous verse about the fates.
29 September 2011
Stu
I think this song is the best one on the album.
I’ll accept I have a sick sense of humour, but many things in life require that one laughs or cries. To me, suicide is one of them. I’ll always laugh rather than cry. I speak as one who knows two women who have topped themselves in front of trains (one was actually a client, the other a relative of a close friend of mine – they even did it in the same place, although not at the same time), and one former traindriver. He thought the song was quite funny too, despite language difficulties (he’s not English).
Lest you think my sick humour is reserved for suicide, I’m currently walking around in a t-shirt bearing in large letters this text:
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I have alzheimers.
Cheese on toast.
My mother has Alzheimers and no longer knows who I am. I accept that this shirt is highly disrespectful but, again, why shouldn’t I laugh about it when the alternative would surely be to cry?
3 October 2011
Giles Pattison
I assumed that the cow scraped or strayed from the line refers to the earlier lines “And the service soon after departing may stop for no reason at all”, and is in fact ‘the reason’ the train was delayed, although initially that would not have been apparent to passengers or would-be suicide (hence ‘no reason at all’. Said cow then scraped/strayed and the train can proceed. Perhaps I could have explained that better. Moo–thud–scrape–churdy gumph–churdy gumph
4 October 2011
Charles Exford
The 171st and certainly the most vitriolic transcription yet.
But are you sure it’s not ‘shithole’ ? With possibly a comma after else, to make sure it represents this site’s pedantic values faithfully should it find its way to the wider web?
4 October 2011
Charles Exford
Ahem. 171st.
4 October 2011
Stu
By the way, if you don’t like this song (and feel like joining the same league as those who protest Private Eye’s occasionally sick jokes/cartoons with letters along the lines of “Cancel my subscription immediately!”), perhaps you should be grateful your surname isn’t Edmonds? After all, you might get a visitor….
I’m with Giles on the cow issue, fwiw. “Moo thud” especially!
)
5 October 2011
Ceri
I call “A flavoursome…” over “her flavoursome”.
8 October 2011
king tubbs
I’m not sure it’s as unempathic as Nick suggests. The last verse:
Well he thought of a love unrequited
And he thought of a life full of pain
It’s a pity he didn’t spare a thought for
The poor bastard driving the train
says clearly that this man had given up on life and as a result not only didn’t spare a thought for the driver, but the world in general, which I guess is the saddest thing about suicide – If people had the wherewithal to think about what they actually have – or how their actions might effect strangers – they would have a protective factor that would prevent them ending their life.
8 October 2011
bomaya
Many a suicidee will admit beforehand (and after) how pathetic and selfish their actions can be.
8 October 2011
John Burscough
(after)?
9 October 2011
Dave Cooper
I guess this is the crux of the last verse, and I don’t know if it’s Nigel’s actual opinion or that of the coroner in the title, but suicide affects so many more people than the suicidee. If only the person could just see past their own suffering and through the fog of misery and see how the relief at ending their own miserable existence will cause anguish for all those involved.
I guess a lot of people see suicide as a coward’s way out, I see it more a a very selfish way out, depriving friends and family the chance to mourn properly because of guilt (could they have done more, was it their fault?), and causing anguish for any third party (in this case the train driver), unwittingly involved.
9 October 2011
Restlesslegs
Great posts here. I tend to agree with the majority here, and as someone quite rightly said/alluded to, once topics become censored its a dangerous road you are going down, especially if that road is a railway track. My favourite line is about the fates being ruthless. I guess that has the added advantage of being fairly non controversal, although the last verse is my second favourite.
Not sure where this album comes in my list of HMHB efforts, but its climbing the rankings. This song and the song before propels the album from good to much much more.
17 October 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
A couple more observations about this one. When considering that the fates may contrive to save the situation, there’s a reference to the wretch who may get tetchy and leave. I’m presuming that this is the girl’s unworthy suitor, as the potential suicide is dealt with in the next line. However what confuses things a bit is that ‘wretch’ seems to me to be a more appropriate term for the latter than for a cocksure lothario.
Also, in among the question of whether Nigel is stating a personal point of view re the degree of consideration for the train driver, the implication in the song is that the narrator, whether it be Nigel assuming a persona or not, appears to be giving his tacit approval to the coroner’s report (“you may wish to curb your lamenting / until you have heard the last word”) – the fact that the last verse is about the report is only really explained by the song’s title. One wonders whether the title was chosen for just that purpose, in order to deflect any possible suggestion that Nigel is being insensitive.
One also suspects, at the same time, that Nigel probably couldn’t give a monkey’s what anyone else thinks. Top choon anyway.
17 October 2011
Paul Rodgers (Crimond)
Is that a Charles Dickens echo I hear in the last two verses? Nigel refers to the last word, whereas he means the last line. In Our Mutual Friend Dickens included a postscript referring to his own brush with death on a train, whilst writing the the book. In it he advises the reader to wait for the words with which he closes the book: THE END
Of course one of the subplots of Our Mutual Friend is a love triangle…
I also believe there is a traditional folk song about this train crash. If there is I’m more than sure Nigel knows about it.
18 October 2011
Narberther
My understanding of the ‘cow’ line is that it is a common euphemism to explain delays to train passengers. It would be kinda hardcore for the announcement to mention a horrific suicide….
I once passed a ‘cow on the line’ incident on a train. I noticed lots of small lumps of ‘meat’ strewn all over the place. Not a nice thing for anyone to experience. The ‘cow’ in this instance could have been scraped into a carrier bag.
18 October 2011
John Burscough
Look out, Percy!
18 October 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Having mused upon these lyrics for several weeks and having drunk deep of the comments contained above, I’m now considering interpreting this song thus;
Verses 1 to 6 are a straightforward tale of unrequited love, in a chronological sequence, covering several hours one particular morning, which culminate in the chap wracked with anguish incarnate throwing himself under the ten twenty-seven. Verse 7 is after this event; the cow is the chap wracked with anguish incarnate, as announced euphemistically as such by the station announcer (probably a junior employee), as the services return to normal after the inevitable delay. The coroner’s footnote is just the final six lines, more than likely scribbled in semi-literate fashion at the end of the official inquest report several months later.
18 October 2011
john burscough
Brilliant Vendor, though I’d argue that the sequence as related isn’t quite chronological. Two trains, one departing town first thing in the morning (ETA midday, so some distance from the coast), the other at 10.27. The first suffers a prolonged mysterious delay, giving the girl time to change her mind but frustrating her inamorata who has left suicide notes for both her and his mother (who has already discovered hers).
Each unaware of the other’s intentions, the girl goes home but he throws himself under the 10.27. Two hours later the dastardly buck tires of waiting at Happiness Bay station and stomps off.
Both trains finally leave, and on returning home the girl discovers her note, prompting an inquest (mandatory in the case of death by suicide), the verdict on which has the eponymous footnote.
A few orthographic points: Fates (capital F)? 10.27 in verse 6 rather than ten twenty-seven? And perhaps the final verse in italics, preceded by an obelisk (†) to indicate a footnote.
(One can’t help thinking that this could all have been avoided if a bus replacement service had been available.)
19 October 2011
Charles Exford
I think, Vendor, that there is far less actual action in the song than you think. I think we need to pay more attention to the speculation in the modal auxiliaries, i.e. the “mays” and the “will probablys” and the “shoulds”.
Verses 1-3. Factual scene-setting for the drama. Nothing actually happens yet.
Verses 4-5. Speculation as to what may or may not happen next, taking the piss out of episodic melodrama/episodic folk songs/those suspense moments when the narrator comes in /moments in films when the action actually appears to have gone backwards (“I’m sure that train was only about a minute away 5 minutes ago”, etc)
Chris’ spoof verse 6 – a piece of genius that actually fits in quite well – anyone seen it re-posted on any other lyrics sites yet?
The real verse 6 – an alternative and much more cynical prediction of what’ll probably, but not certainly, happen. I think of it as a kind of reader’s speech bubble coming into a comic strip.
Verse 7 – THE ACTION FINALLY BEGINS ! The cow (which is an example of a trivial reason, if not “no reason at all”, which might have changed the course of the drama, but actually now we find out it probably doesn’t) is scraped from the line, so the train finally sets out…
Verse 8 – a warning – if this SHOULD end in tragedy, curb your lamenting for a minute until you’ve heard verse 9 (which is the actual footnote).
*then we jump forward some days or weeks*
Verse 9 – It seems that tragedy did ensue, and the coroner is unsympathetic***
(and probably imposes an arbitrary cut-off point of 3.15pm which is only really properly overturned 22 years later).
I’ve never heard the “cow on the line” euphemism. “Person on the line” is the current accepted euphemism in the UK, and I think it would actually be illegal these days to give a false reason for such a delay. But I won’t forget this seems to be set a long time ago, so it may or may not have been a euphemism then. I do think the actual moo-cow on the line is a commonplace event, in reality and in film & literature (thanks John Burscough in particular – best post in the thread by a country mile).
19 October 2011
Charles Exford
I posted simultaneously with John’s there, so I was referring to his penultimate post of course.
19 October 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
To JB & CE. Interesting both. I shall drink deeper and re-consider how I shall now consider interpreting this song.
19 October 2011
John Anderson
To paraphrase from ‘The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin’:
“Morning Joan, 11 minutes late, dead cow on the line at Effingham Junction.”
19 October 2011
Neil G
I’m slightly upset by the use of the word ‘incarnate’ in the lines:
And the chap wracked with anguish incarnate
May gladly accept his reprieve
Incarnate means:
a. Invested with bodily nature and form
b. Embodied in human form; personified:
Are we to assume that anguish took a bodily, probably human, form and came and wracked the poor chap? I don’t think so. I fear that Nigel has heard the word and worked out what he thought was the meaning from context rather than looking it up.
And it was an enormous pity that the chap didn’t think of the poor bastard driving the train, whatever anyone says.
21 October 2011
Jeff Dreadnought
Exxo, I agree with all of your post number 42 above, except that I still don’t think we know whether or not high drama did, in fact, develop. My reading is, “should tragedy ensue, this is what the coroner’s footnote would say”‘ (which is why, incidentally, the whole of the last verse should be in inverted commas). In other words, the song ends on a cliffhanger. All we know is that the poor chap by whom the girl is adored is intending to throw himself under what would in any case turn out to be the wrong train. And perhaps the hypothetical nature of the suicide AND the footnote makes both more palatable?
28 October 2011
John Burscough
I think we have ourselves a Schrödinger’s cat situation here, or what Terry Pratchett would call the Trousers of Time. Your man might go down either leg, depending on his own disposition or that of the Fates (I’m still touting that capital F), ending up either back home with his mum or the eventual subject of a Coroner’s footnote.
We can collapse the wave and condemn him to one of the alternative outcomes, or leave him in a perpetual state of being/non-being. Or, of course, in Everett’s many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, both.
31 October 2011
Charles Exford
@ Jeff & John: both admirably elegant interpretations.
@ Neil. ‘Wracked with’ is a metaphor, a literary device which is often used rather freely. Perhaps the chap was wracked on one wrack, and meanwhile on an adjacent wrack, or even taking alternate sessions on the same wrack, there was anguish incarnate, being wracked with him. One torturer to one victim is a very cost inefficient ratio after all, not least in these metaphorically stretched times.
Or perhaps, as you began to suggest, anguish incarnate was the actual torturer doing the torturing. An anguished torturer can be better than a happy, relaxed one, as at least they somnetimes have empathy with the victim. Though not very often.
31 October 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago but forgot…..
It remains a measure of NB57′s genius to me that he regularly comes up with phrases that I presume I’ve heard or read a thousand times before, (in other words it is a phrase he has purloined), whilst in actual fact he has invented it. Such is the phrase ‘wracked with anguish incarnate’, which I would have wagered was originally used by Kierkegaard or some such existentialist type. However I can find no example of it elsewhere. Google it and the only two exact matches are both from this site.
31 October 2011
Neil G
Exxo, I think you are stretching things a bit. Both scenarios that you conjure up are exceedingly far-fetched.
Vendor, The reason that the phrase hasn’t been used before is that it doesn’t make sense.
1 November 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Yes, that is the point. A man who is able to use words in such a way that you feel comfortable with the meaning of a phrase which is essentially devoid of meaning. Some poets excel at this. Try Lewis Carroll.
1 November 2011
Third rate Les in his Burberry fez
“wracked with anguish incarnate” makes perfect sense. OK, the anguish doesn’t literally become flesh, but come off it – it’s a metaphor. He is stricken by anguish that is so acute it’s become a personified form of anguish.
1 November 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
Simon le Bon used to get away with it all the time.
1 November 2011
John Burscough
Vendor, I don’t think genius (though wildly over-used in most artistic fields) is too strong a word to use. I used to believe that there had been at most four geniuses in British pop – names supplied on subscription – but NB57 is a fifth.
I’d define ‘genius’ in part as someone capable of doing things that you could never imagine anyone else doing: the things they do may not make sense, but they add something to the total of human experience and happiness (so not you, Le Bon).
As an example I’d cite the line “But there’s often more intrigue in the pool games”.
1 November 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
I was only saying that Simon le Bon used to make a living writing absolute bollocks and getting away with it. Mind you so has Bob Dylan …
1 November 2011
john burscough
Nothing against Persil Boy, Spencer, I was merely quoting UB40′s Brian Travers accepting the band’s Ivor Novello award for Outstanding International Achievement in 2003. He said, “It’s great to be having lunch in the company of the world’s greatest musicians and composers. Not you, Le Bon.”
1 November 2011
Darren
I’ve been on a train that hit a cow. Apparently we were lucky not to be derailed. The train was delayed for at least 2 hour, cos the engine was damaged. So the cow line has always made sense to me, as a reason for delay.
As someone who’s been treated for depression most of my life, I can understand Nick’s feelings. Personally, I’ve always thought the last verse was the ‘coroners footnote’ of the title.
3 November 2011
Charles Exford
Was at an open-mic folk session the other night. Never ceases to amaze me what I’ll do for decent ale. When someone started to play folk standard ‘The Black Velvet Band’ I had to leave the room to stop myself singing along to that almost identical tune with these lyrics.
15 November 2011
Gordon Ottershaw
Now is it just me or is the whole of the sixth verse incorrect. Where it reads
Now some shitty lyrics site is stealing our words
So if you’re reading this anywhere else
Come and read the original stuff on
The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project
Should it not be.
Now who wrote the words they are stealing
Was it Nigel or was it Chris Rand
Your beginning to smell of a laboratory
Instead of a fan of the band
22 November 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
This is a new level of pedantry; correcting the correction of lyrics that don’t actually exist.
Gordon of course means ‘You’re beginning to smell of a laboratory’.
22 November 2011
Gordon Ottershaw
Well done Vendor you are quite correct. It just wouldn’t have been any fun if I hadn’t left any scope for correction. I mean what would we all do then.
22 November 2011
Third Rate Les
Vendor – in your pedantic comment on Gordon’s pedantry, I think it should be a colon rather than a semicolon after the word “pedantry”.
22 November 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Can I use the excuse of a finger / shift key malfunction for that one? Whilst I’m here can I pedantically point out that Gordon’s most recent comment lacks a question mark at the end.
22 November 2011
Gordon Ottershaw
Vendor i’m glad to see that you aren’t missing any of them. To be honest i’m not sure how many more I can provide for you.
In answer to your questions, no and yes of course.
There’s a few for you to be getting on with
23 November 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
“And think what it’s like for the poor train driver who sees you lying on the line and can do absolutely nothing to avoid a collision.”
Didn’t know Jezza was a fan of the band.
3 December 2011
John Burscough
I was on a train from Edinburgh to King’s Cross yesterday when the guard announced that we would be delayed for several hours by a fatality on the line. No mention of cows, just a fatality. (This was later downgraded to a “suspected fatality”, which brought me back to post 48 above.)
8 December 2011
Ron Knee
There’s a verse here that isn’t in the actual song.
When will HMHB make their long awaited tour of Australia? Or at least Sydney?
27 January 2012
Tony Blews
Oddly, if Clarkson or HMHB comment it is bad, but when the same sentiment is conveyed in an episode of Sherlock nobody notices.
An old mate of mine headbutted a train a few years ago, and I still think more about the mental state of the driver than I do about missing him.
Another old mate once tried to headbutt a Pendalino but missed jumping off the bridge and just hit the overhead lines. He doesn’t think/talk/walk very well these days.
5 March 2012
Tony Blews
Oh, and the time we did a cleanup on the WCML only to find some dick had tied a mannequin to the line….
5 March 2012
Stu
Ron, #68
Which verse is that then, Ron? Perhaps you should have bought the vinyl version of the album, the one where Mr Chris Siteowner is guest lyricist for one verse on this track?
As for HMHB touring Aus, they so rarely get out of Northern England I don’t think you’d ever see them if you just lived the other side of London or (God forbid) across the Channel, let alone halfway round the globe.
On the plus side, you could well be the band’s most distant fan! That should be worth an award of some sort.
26 March 2012
Rubber Faced Irritant
I read the following passage today which could offer another angle on the cow line. It’s from Hard Times by Dickens and refers to a humorous story told in the Commons by an MP. The story concerns …”a railway accident, in which the most careful officers ever known, employed by the most liberal managers ever heard of, assisted by the finest contrivances ever devised, the whole in action on the best line ever constructed, had killed five people and wounded thirty two, by casualty without which the excellence of the whole system would have been positively incomplete. Among the slain was a cow, and among the scattered articles unowned was a widow’s cap. And the homourable member had so tickled the House by putting the cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any serious reference to the Coroner’s Inquest..”
Could be coincidence or could have triggered a train of thought (weak pun intended).
12 April 2012
MIKE IN COV
Blimey. Where to begin, having only just read these postings.
If you’re interested in the psychology of suicide, read The Savage God by Al Alvarez (he describes himself as a failed suicide).
Thanks and respect to those who’ve chosen to share their experiences with us in this forum. (Always tricky to get the words right. But I have known one bloke who secretly self-harmed and to my and his other co-workers’ surprise topped himself.)
I see the guy in the song as the sort of young idiot you encounter in fiction, e.g. Romeo or Werther, rather someone with true clinical depression. I think I’m with Third Rate Les on this one.
@Third Rate Les. I’ve always thought of the Goethe as The Sorrows Of Young Werther, and checking th’internet that seems to be traditional (though pains, or sufferings, might be more accurate).
@Petrovic. My copy of Verse And Worse attributes the parody to Thackeray. You intrigued me, so I looked, and found the source: his Ballads (1855).
A mate of mine was hit by a flying cow while driving. It had strayed, and wrote off four cars on a dual carriageway, without causing serious human injuries. Clunk-click, every trip.
Can anything but love be unrequited?
Third Rate Les, I think you’re spot on with anguish incarnate, if only because I’d formed the same picture. “The dove descending breaks the air with flame of incandescent terror” (Eliot). Eh? wha? terror’s an abstract noun, it can’t incandesce any more than you could wage war on it. “The night aimed shadows through the crossbar windows” (Dylan). “Tyger! tyger! burning bright in the forests of the night” (Blake). It’s this ability to stretch language, and to call up all sorts of profound ambiguities and allusions (intentionally or not), that defines a poet. It’s why we’re analysing HMHB and not JLS (I’ve taken the warning, I don’t know who they are and please don’t tell me.)
(Anyone recognise the hopefully-obscure Dylan quote, which has stuck with me since I first heard it? No guesses, no cheating, no prizes except immortal fame. If no-one does, I could be persuaded by begging & pleading. Or even deafening silence (cf. preceding paragraph).)
And finally (hurrah!), no-one seems to have remarked that if NB has the mind to, he can write really well in a classic, formal, simple, English verse style.
This has to be the longest and most wide-ranging forum in the entire Project. And about a lyric which presented hardly any verbal difficulties and which only came out last year. Thanks for the opportunity, @Mr Siteowner.
I used to be a patent agent – a scientist to lawyers and a lawyer to scientists. @Moody Chops, thanks for nothing.
Oh mother telephone the nurse. I should be ok once I’ve had my medication.
I don’t get out much you know.
4 July 2012
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
Don’t think we hadn’t noticed.
4 July 2012
MIKE IN COV
It’s been 10 days, and I can’t hold my breath any longer. Should anyone have the slightest interest, in 2012 or 2163, the Dylan quote is from The Walls Of Red Wing. Someone might want to know. And the offer of immortal fame remains unclaimed.
14 July 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
It’s generally only enthusiasm or the like which is curbed. Google the striking phrase “curb your lamenting” (and for completeness, “kerb” also), three hits, all this site.
I googled “(w)racked with anguish” and “anguish incarnate”. All sorts of hits turned up, none looking remotely like a plausible source. As VoQN has pointed out, the fusion of the two phrases seems to be original.
RFI, I like your Hard Times suggestion. It feels like just the sort of episode which might lodge in one’s unconscious, later to yield up a dead cow for no apparent reason when writing about trains and coroners.
If there’d been a broken-down bus replacement service, this tragedy would have been averted.
28 July 2012
Exxo
‘Curb’ may not be as common in everyday spoken English as it once was, Mike, but everyday in the media you’ll see it very regularly used in “newsy” contexts – about ways of curbing inflation/violence/tax evasion/drug trafficking/etc, etc, etc; also in “advicey/lifestyle” contexts – about curbing appetites/drinking/aggression/anger/ etc, etc. etc. Check out http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/ -and enter the word ‘curb’ and you’ll get fifty such random examples (though it never gives you the same fifty examples twice).
This National (Oxford) Corpus project is a very useful sampling tool to find out how words are really used, especially in a case where you want to avoid something like the vastly popular TV show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” which would so vastly skew google results. The double beauty of it in this case is that this particular 100-million word corpus is largely from 80s -90s texts , so it’s modern English but pre-internet distortion (you yourself have pointed out how Chris’ site’s high google position itself makes your research difficult on google), and that it also precedes that particular TV series & its effect on our language.
(that point has no relevance to the song what-so-ever, and this tool is unlikely to help you find any NB57 sources, but I was just a bit mystified by your comments regarding collocations of “curb”).
In old literary contexts, meanwhile, you’ll find “curb” collocating with just about everything and anything, especially abstract nouns, and of course especially naughty or negative abstract nouns, so (i) good luck in your search and (ii) yes, shock horror, a lot of these collocations may actually be NB57 originals, another reason why we can try too hard, or may be generic pieces of linguistic playfulness, “curb your lamenting” perhaps being our man’s inspired version of the _sort of thing_ a Victorian melodrama would say rather than what a particular Victorian text actually _does_ say.
Anyway, for sure like I say, at the end of the day – good luck.
28 July 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
@Charles, the examples you give all relate to external matters, not to emotions or emotional actions. “Curb your lamenting” struck me as a telling. oddly discordant. phrase, especially in the implied Victorian/Edwardian context. If it hadn’t done so, I wouldn’t have undertaken a search. The results of that indicate that it’s likely to be an original coining rather than a deliberate or unconscious quote – a small, but I think important, finding.
29 July 2012
Exxo
No they don’t Mike – some of them clearly relate to emotions (I mentioned anger, aggression and I could have given many more, and obviously the abstract nouns I referred to in literary uses are mainly emotional in nature).
I agree that this may well be an original coining (though in the infinite typewriters sense it may well have been done before),
You should be setting GCSE project work, Mike, where these days not finding anything on google is a ‘finding’ immediately worthy of at least a ‘B’ grade.
29 July 2012
Charles Exford
Is the Siteowner a genius? Or merely talented? You decide:
http://www.songlyrics.com/half-man-half-biscuit/the-coroner-s-footnote-lyrics/
The HMHB Lyrics Project borrows. Songlyrics.com steals.
28 November 2012