20 Jul 2008
Give me Rush, give me Marquee Moon
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…) Thanks to gNick and Jon F
See lyrics to Irk The Purists
31 Letters Sent:
Dave Betts
Rush are one of my guiltiest pleasures, I have all their albums. I almost went to see them last year. This and my love of prog makes me think that I should not be listening to HMHB.
Jul 21st, 2008
Max Williams
re – “rescues all sorts of bands from the dumpster”
How dare you say that The Fall are in the dumpster!!
I always read it as being ‘irk the purists by listening to their favourite artiste alongside someone they hate’. Thus, Fall fans would presumably be irked by the juxtaposition with Michael Ball, similarly Can with Meatloaf.
So the song is really having a go at purists, rather than any particular bands. That’s what i always thought anyway.
Jul 21st, 2008
Paul F
I’ve always read it as a call to listening to what the hell you like, rather than having to conform to a “genre” (“Michael Ball or the Fall I could listen to them all”) winding people up being a bonus.
Jul 21st, 2008
Grim
“Irk the purists in the bath” == “…at the back”, I think?
(Where they huddle in their elusive coteries, no doubt.)
Jul 21st, 2008
Grim
Oh, and for that matter, isn’t it “I don’t care and nor does Peel” – this having been recorded in happier times, of course.
Jul 21st, 2008
Daryl
I think it’s Neil as in Neil Crossley, the demon bassist. At least that’s how I’ve always heard it…
Jul 21st, 2008
danny
i hear “at the back” as well but i definitely think its “neil” not peel, that’s how ive always heard it anyway
Jul 21st, 2008
danny
im also quite a fan of rush and ironically “the fountain of lamneth” as come on shuffle inexcusable really but…..ho hum
Jul 21st, 2008
Luis Obispo
I hear it as, “Hall and Oates, *Random Goth*, Miles Davis”
Jul 31st, 2008
halfarsed
I’m with Luis. I hear ‘Random Goth(s)’ as well.
Aug 3rd, 2008
Informant
Sorry but I draw the line at Michael Ball.
Nov 12th, 2008
chris p
I’m in the “nor does Peel” camp myself
Dec 16th, 2008
Dave F.
Jumping off the fence, on to the side of ‘Random Goth’ & ‘Neil’
Mar 14th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
I think that’s enough “random Goth”s to go with that suggestion, anyway.
Mar 14th, 2009
Charles Exford
Following on from the point made above by Max about the juxtaposition of the brilliant with the less so, I noticed in Chris Hencken’s review of this month’s latest Bilston gig on hmhb.co.uk that he’s posted a spoof set list that he retrieved from the stage at the end of the evening. It seems to be a bit of an occasional habit of NB 57 (or maybe even Neil or Ken?) to leave these spoof lists out to tease the obsessives who come in search of memorabilia at the end, as I have at previous gigs in previous years picked such a thing up meself. But whereas I just left mine in the pub after a quiet chuckle over a pint, and have no recollection of the contents, Chris tells us that his precious souvenir read as follows, more-or-less consistently alternating the throwaway funnies with the deadly serious tracks by respected icons of musical history:
Walking on Sunshine
Digital
Shaddup ya Face
Pat Trip Dispenser
The Streak
Peking O
The Laughing Policeman
Bird on the Wire
Saspan Fach
The Bed
Remember You’re A Womble
Idiot Wind
I Feel Like Chicken Tonight!
Hand in glove
My brother
One armed Scissor
Star Trekkin’
Feels like I’m Fixin’ to Die
Now THAT, as a compilation, is what I call seriously-purist-irking, and if it were an Olympic sport might well be a gold medal-winning routine.
Mar 19th, 2009
Poolio
I reckon it’s
…in the twilight OR the afternoon…
and
…at the back…
Poo
Mar 20th, 2009
John Anderson
Since twilight happens in the evening I would also say it is “or the afternoon”.
I definitely hear it as “Irk the purists at the back” the idea being, perhaps, that purists are less likely to indulge in moshpit activity.
I’m another in the “nor does Neil” rather than “nor does Peel” camp; I think Peel would have cared if it was false.
Mar 20th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
D’you know, I think I’m going to agree and make those two changes, after all this time.
Mar 20th, 2009
Charles Exford
John (forgive me but pedantry is my true vocation) – doesn’t the twilight happen in the afternoon for at least 5 months of the year? As therefore it is really quite often the twilight and the afternoon at the same time, your point does not seem to offer conclusive proof, especially ‘cos NB is on the record as quite liking a bit of drizzle/ low cloudbase/ leaden pall / inability to see the Point (of Ayr) when he’s moping around of an overcast afternoon.
However, actually listening to the song itself does offer conclusive proof, namely the sound ‘or’…
Or could it be “o’er” ? A pedantic feelin’ came o’er me stealin’, and I did google “the twilight o’er”…
Nah, only messing. It’s a song about freedom of choice and so the 2 “or”s in the verse do seem very apposite. Thanks for the changes.
Mar 24th, 2009
Treadmore
A missing just.
My ears hear “Just so long as we can hear their song” rather than “So long as we can hear their song”.
Oct 24th, 2009
Mike Scott
Shouldn’t it be ‘Be they false or 4REAL’ – reference to Richey Manic’s DIY tattoo?
I’ve always heard it as ‘in the bath’ – ie, the image of irking music snobs by loudly singing crap songs during a long soak.
Well done on ‘random goth’; though – heard it for years as ’round of golf’, which of course makes no sense.
Mar 15th, 2010
Charles Exford
There was me for 15 years thinking Richey was the one abbreviating the English language to save on amount of excruciating self-mutilation.
But no, you must be right, it’ll be the rest of us that have been spelling the phrase wrong.
Anyway who’d have thought that in our lifetimes a national radio station would honour the song in this manner? And it was apparently Lamacq’s idea, or so Lard says on the 6Music twaddle…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mb6music/F1950406?thread=7370115
Let’s play “What’s your favourite ELO song?” Mine’s “Wild West Hero”. Yours?
Favourite Chris de Burgh? Mine’s “Spanish Train”. Anyone for “A Spaceman Came Travelling”?
I feel a duty to mither 6Music with all kinds of nonsense tomorrow. Good job there’s no football on.
Mar 17th, 2010
Mike Scott
HMHB probably had the Richey incident in mind, though, so I’d put ’4REAL’.
Also, it’s got to be ‘in the bath’ surely? For a few reasons:
1. It fits in with the tune being sung to Give Me Joy In My Heart – a hymn about the pleasure of singing.
2. You can clearly hear him say ‘in’ not ‘at’
3. You can sort of hear the ‘…th’
4. It rhymes with ‘laugh’.
Mar 17th, 2010
Neil G
Mike Scott
“4. It rhymes with ‘laugh’.” I’m sorry, Mike, but do you have a speech impediment?
Mar 17th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
For those of you who’ve just joined us from #savebbc6music, yes we are always like this here on the Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project. I think as Exxo alluded to above, just because some rather disturbed Welsh Rocker tattoos himself in textspeak doesn’t mean we all have to write the same way. Reference noted though. As for “in the bath”, some good arguments; I’m not convinced, but I can see myself relenting if you scroll down the page a bit at some point in the future.
Anyone for “Patricia The Stripper”?
Mar 17th, 2010
Charles Exford
The “Festival of Irk” on BBC 6Music in full:
Steve Lamacq
4.00pm: Lammo opens with “Irk the Purists” and explains the general idea.
4.04pm: Rush. Unfortunately not one of their prog-rock epics but the radio-friendly “Spirit of Radio”, which got to number, errm who cares, in about 1979.
“One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity.”
Indeed.
4.40pm: Hall and Oates “Man Eater”
“If you’re in it for love, you ain’t gonna get too far.”
5.08pm: Sly Stone “I Want to Take You Higher”
“Music’s still flashin’ me…
Feelings that should make you move
Sounds that should help you groove.”
5.35pm: Patti Smith, “Because the Night”
“With doubt the vicious circle turns and burns.”
6.24pm: Lammo again explains this evening’s project, demonstrating the short straws and the long straws of it by segging a short snatch of Michael Ball’s “Love Changes Everything” into The Fall’s “Glam Racket”
“You’ve cut my income by one third
You are working on a video project
You hog the bathroom
And never put your hand in your pocket.”
6.55pm: Lammo plays “a bit of Coltrane” – “The Promise”, in fact – and says his Dad will be thinking: “got him at last”.
Marc Riley
7.03pm: Lard’s second track is “Irk the Purists”, and he explains the idea again, prompting everyone in the studio, notably a contemporary beat combo called The Hornblower Brothers, to express their admiration for Our Lads. It sounded like if they hadn’t done so, he’d have chucked them out on their ears forthwith.
Lard is now going on about the fact that it’s “Irk the Purists Evening” between every song. In fact (7.20pm) he’s just offered the Lads a session… next week! He reckons he’ll “get his people to contact their people”. He’ll be lucky. Geoff, oh Geoff, wo weilest du ?
7.24pm: It’s the random Goth selection. The Sisters of Mercy with “Good Things” (1982)
7.35pm: Chris de Burgh doing a cover version of “Turn, Turn, Turn”. Surely that’s cheating!? In conversation with Lard later on, Gideon Coe says he had been tempted to ask his producer to contact Chris de Burgh’s record company to ask if the latter had done any instrumentals.
8pm: “Mr.Blue Sky” is the predictable ELO choice. Probably the first and last song tonight that HMHB have covered? Ten down, ten to go!
8.25pm: “At the request of HMHB, this is Love and “Bummer in the Summer”. ”
“In the middle of the summer
I had a job bein’ a plumber,
Just to pass till the fall
It was you I wanna ball
All day.”
8.44pm: most, but not quite all, of Television’s epic 10-minute “Marquee Moon” title track.
8.57pm: “We’re going to leave you with (and I never thought I’d say this) Simply Red and “Heaven” (the Talking Heads cover)”
“The band in heaven, they play my favourite song.”
Gideon Coe
9.26pm: Sun Ra “Watusa”
9.32pm: Hüsker Dü “All this I’ve Done for You”
9.44pm: Captain Beefheart “Moonlight on Vermont” (featuring “gimme that old time religion, it’s good enough for me”)
10.15pm: Can “Sing Swan Song”.
10.45pm: Del Amitri “Deceive Yourself”
“When over the table and two cups of tea
She told me she felt the same way about me.”
10.58pm: Gideon plays “Irk the Purists” again.
11.00pm: Miles Davis “Dr. Jekyll”
11.56pm: Meatloaf “You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth”
“Now my body is shakin’ like a wave on the water
And I guess that I’m beginnin’ to grin.”
Now that’s what I call the opposite of being irked. A brilliant evening’s listening.
Mar 17th, 2010
Mike Scott
“Chris de Burgh doing a cover version of “Turn, Turn, Turn”. Surely that’s cheating!?”
Yes, as is picking Simply Red’s Talking Heads cover. By being a bit cautious/squeamish about the non-cool bands, they do seem to have missed the point of the song. Did they actually play a Michael Ball track in full?
Also, they cheated by not playing the ITP artists back to back. The cool stuff therefore vastly ounumbered the non-cool stuff.
Mar 21st, 2010
grim
Well, I gathered together all those songs, put them in the right order as per the song lyrics, and you can listen to them here:
http://8tracks.com/grim/festival-of-irk-bbc-6-music-edition
But it occurs to me that others might be able to do better…
Mar 22nd, 2010
CharlesExford
@Grim – a classic case of C.D.O. if ever I heard one. Top pedantry.
@Mike – too right – let’s complain. How about a Spacebook Group & some letters sent ?
@Chris – I’m starting another campaigning MyFace page to get you to consign your “dumpster” & “sneaking admiration for one of two of them” phrases to the, errm, dumpster.
Mar 22nd, 2010
Third Rate Les
crikey
I always felt a bit stupid for thinking it was “random Goth”, so it’s delightful to see I’m not the only one. I put a “Fields of the Nephilim” song on my “irk the purists” Ipod playlist for that one.
However, I also put “things can only get bedder” for Del Amitri, as I always get them confused. I’m pleased to report that that irked my purist mate.
Mar 23rd, 2010
Exxo
Did people notice “That’s one for the purists. At the back”, clearly enunciated and emphasised with pointy gesture, during the 24-hour Garage People monologue at the Shrewsbury gig, when he was talking about whatever was scrawled on the back of the garage fella’s t-shirt ?
I did, and I wasn’t even there.
Mar 30th, 2010
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