The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project » Back in the DHSS

All together now…

Chris The Siteowner — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 08:06:26 +0000

Busy Little Market Town is, knowing you lot, going to spark as much discussion as anything else on this site. There’s an awful lot of them (busy little market towns, that is). More on the Trumpton, Camberwick Green and Chigley music here. Thanks to Freddie Phillips

See, er, lyrics to Busy Little Market Town

Hey look down there, I can see Robert Powell

Chris The Siteowner — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:39:55 +0000

Venus In Flares is the penultimate song to be added to this site (until a new album comes along, anyway). A song which is possibly better regarded than a close textual analysis might suggest, but then again, that’s the first album all over, and we love it. That Robert Powell has a theatre named after him at the University of Salford, you know. Thanks to Tony, Nigel and Martin

See lyrics to Venus In Flares

James Dean was just a careless driver

Chris The Siteowner — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:30:14 +0000

I’m getting all misty-eyed with nostalgia adding the lyrics from the first album. Only two more songs to go after this, and (I think) the whole Project thing is complete; if you didn’t notice kids, we finished the other albums some time back. I aim to get the last song on the site in time for the forthcoming silver jubilee of Back In The DHSS: not long now before my publishing output’s all barren. Until a new album comes along, anyway – and we’ve got a head start on that. Anyway, here we go with 99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd – a shoo-in, I’d have thought, into the top ten best-known and most widely-quoted HMHB songs of all time. Mr Todd slips comfortably into the top twenty of those who shuffled off the quickest after getting a mention, oddly going just months after both of his sidekicks Benny Hill and Spike Milligan. Thanks to Nigel, Tony and Martin

See lyrics to 99% Of Gargoyles Look Like Bob Todd

Shine your shoes and head for The Crucible

Chris The Siteowner — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 10:57:00 +0000

The Len Ganley Stance will, I imagine, eventually feature quite prominently in Jon B’s HMHB Word Clouds because no other song features the same line repeated quite so many times. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Apparently the “Godfather of Punk” himself (Ganley) described the song as “a beautiful accolade”. Which it is. A link to a decent photo of the man himself doing “The Stance” would be appreciated. Thanks to Martin, Nigel, Tony, Conor and EskimoEric.

See lyrics to The Len Ganley Stance

Gob full of tapioca, I would sit and I’d watch you excel

Chris The Siteowner — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:43:54 +0000

I Left My Heart In Papworth General is another one of those songs on the first album which – to me – hint more strongly than most of things to come. Mr McKenzie appears to be alive and well, unlike Papworth Hospital, which is relocating to Cambridge (that’s all from Look East tonight, we’ll be back at the same time tomorrow). Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile OBE, KCSG appears to be indestructible. Oh, and an alternative version available substitutes “melt down your rings and things” for “melt down your fingerware”, in case you’re worried you’ve been singing the wrong words for twenty-three years. Thanks to Martin, Nigel, Jon F, Tony and EskimoEric

See lyrics to I Left My Heart In Papworth General

Rain, shine or gale force nine, his frames remain intact

Chris The Siteowner — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:00:11 +0000

D’Ye Ken Ted Moult? is, shall we say, not one of the band’s most complex songs, musically or lyrically. However, unlike this one, few other HMHB songs caused their subject to shoot and kill himself within a few months of its release. Thanks to Matt and Nigel

See lyrics to D’Ye Ken Ted Moult?

A Haliborange overdose is perhaps not the right way

Chris The Siteowner — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:30:57 +0000

Sealclubbing lifts the title and the bit at the end from the poptastic David Essex’s 1982 Me And My Girl (Night-Clubbing). Of course in this day and age the term makes more headlines for (not) being an iPhone app. Thanks to Martin, Nigel and Sarah

See lyrics to Sealclubbing

She said that Robin Askwith was funny

Chris The Siteowner — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:23:02 +0000

My, how everyone laughed at the “hope your plane back home’s a DC-10″ at the time. Of course, those of us of a certain age still do. Albert Hammond Bootleg failed to finish off the artist of that ilk, and indeed, the man himself even went on to produce an equivalently-poptastic son of the same name as if to prove there is no such thing as the curse of HMHB. Stanley Rous barely lasted a year, mind. Thanks to Tony, Nigel and Stuart

See lyrics to Albert Hammond Bootleg

If only you’d give me my Lev Yashin poster back

Chris The Siteowner — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:12:32 +0000

I’ve always felt that 1966 And All That is a standout from the earliest days of the band, because in style and sentiment it presages so much of what was to follow. But then again I may be talking nonsense. The song originally comes from The Trumpton Riots EP, which was released a few months after the debut album Back in the DHSS. Later, when CDs became trendy, the album and the EP were combined, which is why nowadays we tend to attribute it to the album. Lev Yashin went to mind the great sticks in the sky within five years of the song being written, but Ferenc Puskas soldiered on for nearly 20 more years, despite the namecheck. Thanks to Tony and Nigel

See lyrics to 1966 And All That

And now I live life in the bus lane

Chris The Siteowner — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:41:06 +0000

Well, despite Hannu Mikkola and Miriam Stoppard being OAPs, Architecture and Morality, Ted and Alice singularly failed to finish either of them off, although the same can’t be said of no-longer-early-but-now-rather-late Diana. And I can’t find any record of Jane Scott, a business I’m led to believe. Thanks to Chris, Nigel and Tony

See lyrics to Architecture and Morality, Ted and Alice