18 May 2010
Hardly the Bayeux in rock’s rich tapestry
A song with a slightly chequered history, Carry On Cremating is said to have been left off the first album (or was it the second?) although I can’t believe it was “for reasons of taste” despite apparently originally having been called The Continuous Cremation Of Hattie Jacques. Anyway, it eventually popped up on ACD as the only original (non-live) track on that strange bastardisation of Back In The DHSS. Thanks to Martin, Nick, Michael and EskimoEric
See lyrics to Carry On Cremating
14 Letters Sent:Jump to latest »
Ben
There’s an interview with Nigel floating around on the web somewhere, where asked if there’s anything from his lyrics he regrets, he mentions this as being unnecessarily cruel to the late Ms Jacques, and also the “Marilyn Monroe was just a slaaaaag!” line as being a bit too teenage and stupid.
May 18th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
Yep, found it. The interview is at Cult Cargo but you may find that link to be broken and the site to be offline. From the miracle that is the Internet Archive, however, I can quote it in full:
What do you believe has been your greatest achievement as a songwriter and have you ever changed your mind about anyone you’ve written about?
I’m tempted to suggest that last affair was my greatest achievement as a songwriter but I suppose the tedious answer to this question must be that the thrill of hearing one’s song being played on the radio never wanes.
Changed my mind about a few things probably …no need for that Hattie Jacques slur that’s for sure and I do wince at that line about Marilyn Monroe on our first album (I was only a kid but it’s still shite).
And y’know, when you think about it, Styx aren’t so bad after all. I’m joking of course.
May 18th, 2010
Third rate Les
I love the Marilyn Monroe line. It’s always struck me as a wonderfully succinct destruction of baby boomers’ tiresome self-mythologising.
May 19th, 2010
Mr Larrington
Even Marilyn Monroe was a man
But this
Tends to get overlooked
By our
mother-fixated, overweight, sexist media
As the poet sang.
May 19th, 2010
Ricardo
A hundred years ago I bought a bootleg cassette of a HMHB gig from 1986. The tape was sadly destroyed in an incident circa 1992 involving a company car cassette-player (I was a running-dog for the capitalist empire in those days), but I can remember this song being introduced as “The Continuous Cremation of Hattie Jacques.” Some lyrics were different – eg England won the World Cup “nigh on twenty years ago.” In fact, it must have been recorded around the same time as this version – listen for crap NSFW joke at the start.
The kind makers of the tape also attached the first Peel session, complete with John Peel’s morose “What a callous bunch, eh?” as Old Tige ends.
May 19th, 2010
Bob
That is a bad joke. And having listened to the albums for so long I’m a little surprised to hear the c-bomb from that mouth.
Though, recording it like that would give them a reason to hold it off the album “for reasons of taste”.
May 19th, 2010
Steve Malkmoose
Must say I always thought the line was:
“She threw an apple in my eye, cor(e) blimey”
(as in the apple core, potentially being partly responsible for said blindness?)
“Cor blimey” was very Beano/Whizzer & Chips-ish, if memory serves, as opposed to “Gor Blimey”, and I bet Nige was probably an aficianado of said comics in days of yore.
May 19th, 2010
Martin
Yes, certainly “cor(e) blimey” …. never thought it could be anything else, brackets an’ all.
May 20th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
Just to show we’re not the only pedants out there, here’s a discussion of the term in a Lonnie Donegan-esque context. I agonised over whether to use “gor”, “gaw-” or “cor” but of course it’s obvious when you think about it (“she threw an apple in my eye” would lead to core-blind-me, duh).
I dunno, a young NB57 agonises for minutes over clever wordplay, and 25 years later it sails over my head.
May 20th, 2010
John Anderson
@Mr Larrington. We clearly share the same Uncorrected Personality Traits.
All hail N.Blackwell, R.Hitchcock & ME Smith, the holy trinity of British lyric writing.
May 20th, 2010
Shirley Dimensions
@Chris. Could you please lose an ‘is’ between ‘Cremating’ and ‘said’ in line one of the notes relating to ‘Carry On Cremating’. I’ve been keeping an eye on it for a while now and its presence is beginning to hinder my ability to function.
Thank you.
May 21st, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
No, thank you. This is precisely the sort of thing we want here.
May 21st, 2010
waldron76
You have the line “Who would ever want to look that that?” in there, near the end. I haven’t actually heard the song, but surely “that that” can’t be right? I’d guess “like”, or “as”, or something like that. I hate being pedantic, until I remember that’s the point.
May 27th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
And who would ever have thought several hundred people could have looked at the page and not noticed my incompetence?
May 28th, 2010
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