The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project

Visitor for Mr Edmonds is presumably the sound of beardy’s career/heart monitor wobbling and fading. To date, the composition has not reduced him to the same state of (de)composition as writing about Messrs Hull, Fisher, Jackson, Gerulaitis etc. Oh well. As there’s not much else to say, perhaps I can encourage you all to visit Word magazine’s attempt to revive Peely’s Festive Fifty, and vote for your favourite CSI:Ambleside selection!

Nove On The Sly appears to refer to listening to newsreader, “voiceover artist” and easy-listening DJ called Charles Nove. On the sly, of course. The song is also a chance for the band to make a song in an electro-style, as it’s about all that sort of malarkey.

There are many people referenced in Half Man Half Biscuit songs who’ve died - well, you’d expect that through natural attrition - but when many of them pass away unexpectedly, you begin to hope you never get one written about you. (”Rod Hull is Alive - Not”?). Anyway, when the fantastical Ballad Of Climie Fisher was written, including the line “You’re a Dead Man, Fisher”, who was to guess that Mr Fisher would be just that, within months, aged 39? For the more masonically inclined, the stone referred to as “Canterbury Spur” is actually called “Canterbury Spar”.

As it’s the hundredth song on the site, of course we ought to do a commensurately high profile one. So here’s the original album version of Twenty Four Hour Garage People from 2000, since which there have been almost as many versions as live performances. My, how the price of Pringles has varied over the years.

Irk The Purists rescues all sorts of bands from the dumpster to annoy a certain breed of person. And anyway, who hasn’t got a sneaking admiration for one or two of the acts mentioned? (Also though, I’m never sure what a couple of them are doing in this song in the first place…)

Mathematically Safe is under two minutes, quotes the title half a dozen times, and yet is quite perfect. I always dreamed about meeting a girl who would regard “I wanna make you mathematically safe” as an attractive comment. Ho hum.

With Goth On Our Side is a beautifully realised Bob Dylan spoof with no end of great references to Goths. Sure, the original is a classic, but this is much funnier.

It’s Clichéd To Be Cynical At Christmas starts off like the Cocteau Twins and it’s all a bit, well, odd. Kiddies singing? Someone even made a video for it.

Used To Be In Evil Gazebo is a fabulous made-up interview between yet another pretentious indie band member, and a journalist from the NME. The Nick Drake-wannabe is a classic character, but what really completes the song is the journalist’s wonderfully believable questioning. And the pause before the “I’ve been in a mental hospital” chorus. Fabulous.

Gubba Look-a-Likes forms some of the most disturbing imagery in the HMHB songbook, yet the payoff is a lesser-known footy commentator. Well, of course it is.