2 Jun 2008
Here’s Judie Tzuke to take us up to the news
When The Evening Sun Goes Down is one of those great songs which brings together a stack of brilliant but unrelated lines. Almost every one is a gem. Thanks to Patrick, gnick and eskimoeric
See lyrics to When The Evening Sun Goes Down
34 Letters Sent:
steve
Isn’t it
I’m ending on this rhyme deep in injury time.
Maybe not but that’s what I always thought it was what with that being the end of the song
Jun 23rd, 2008
Bob
I hear “attending on this rhyme” ??
Jun 27th, 2008
Mr Larrington
“sending on this rhyme” over here. Connotations of sending on a substitute in a foopball match.
Jul 11th, 2008
Andrew Daley
This was used as the theme tune for Ross Noble’s Radio 4 series. He is a fan.
Sep 2nd, 2008
Paul F
I’ve always heard it as “ending”.
Sep 4th, 2008
Chris The Siteowner
Definitely “sending on” IMHO. As in sending on a sub deep in injury time.
Sep 4th, 2008
paulie
“sending” – imho
Sep 5th, 2008
Informant
The “deep in injury time” points towards “sending” I’d say. As in sending on a sub deep in injury time in a football match.
Nov 12th, 2008
Neil G
How do the road gritters get to work? That’s a question I’ve been asking quite a few people recently? One suggested that they sleep in their lorries all night. I hadn’t thought of that.
Jan 13th, 2010
TWO FAT FEET
Don’t the road gritters get to work BEFORE the snow to grit the roads in preparation?
Actually no, they probably don’t and it shows.
Had this song as my ringtone for a bit, then I changed my phone and couldn’t work out how to program it in again.
Apr 5th, 2010
Norbert D
I always hated that road gritters line, as it really did seem like the kind of whimsical, bad-stand-up line HMHB usually manage to steer clear of (hence the radio DJ patter that comes after it, maybe).
But it’s a fair point, isn’t it? I still don’t know how the road gritters get to work.
Apr 9th, 2010
Charles Exford
Given the contents of the adjacent lines, I’ve always assumed it’s a piss-take of people (particularly people like stand-ups & DJs) who think it’s original to say things like “How do the road-gritters get to work ?”, which you hear every bloody winter from people who think it’s original, when it’s fairly obvious that the gritters usually go out before the snow falls, and that if the roads were truly impassible they wouldn’t get to work.
After all, NB57 himself is not actually in a position to give out a cruise, wheras the kind of DJ who plays Judy Tsuke might be.
Apr 9th, 2010
TWO FAT FEET
I have to say I felt much the same as Norbert, the road gritters line seemed like a rare slip from Nigel. It was only when I heard him do the song on an Andy Kershaw session that it clicked, that the whole verse was a send-up of crass DJs. Pity Judie Tzuke had to be denigrated by association though, I quite like that song she had.
Apr 9th, 2010
Norbert D
Yeah, that’s what I thought/hoped. Still grates a bit for me, though, anyway.
It’s that “questions in corners of my mind that lurk” bit too, like the bad comic on an episode of The Simpsons – “I think about weird things. Like what if ET married Mr T? Then you’d get Mr ET, wouldn’t you? ‘I pity the fool that doesn’t phone home’.”
I’d have thought NB57 would be quite into Judy Tzuke. Not sure why.
Apr 9th, 2010
TWO FAT FEET
Probably cos it’s a great name.
Apr 9th, 2010
Dave Cooper
Utterly pedantic but I think “Judy” Tzuke should actually be “Judie”.
Apr 19th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
Oh bloody hell, thank you. What a howler.
Apr 19th, 2010
Dave F.
After the Pat Boone line he sings it as “dow-wow-wow-wown”
May 29th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
Indeed he does. But I’d still contend that’s spelt “down”.
May 29th, 2010
Gregg Z
I’ve always been interested in the line: “Opposite the Bannister & Shamrock/Which used to be the Rose & Crown”. I’m perfectly willing to enjoy HMHB songs without over-analyzing the lyrics, but is this a sly observation on traditional British pubs giving way to “authentic” Irish bars, in certain trendy areas of England?
Hate to be the typical ignorant Yank, but I’m intrigued by this. Haven’t been over there since the ’90s, so my frame of reference is a bit dusty. Welcoming comments of every stripe.
Jan 7th, 2011
Bobby String
@ Gregg Z
You’re probably right about the ‘authentic’ Irish pubs thing and I think it’s maybe also to do with so-called ‘chain pubs’ where they all have similar names and all look exactly the same inside, which a lot of Britain’s ‘Irish’ pubs do, kind of like McDonalds but with beer. Here in South Africa we have the ‘Keg’ chain where each pub is called the Keg & something. Our local is the Keg & Eagle, a reference to the African Black Eagles that have bred in this area for the past forty or so years. However, despite the ‘local’ connection in the name, being inside the Keg & Eagle is just like being inside any other Keg pub in South Africa. We even have a chain of ‘Irish’ pubs called O’Hagen’s!
Ô¿Ô
Jan 7th, 2011
Charles Exford
Gregg and Bobby I think you are both quite right about the Irish re-branding name parody. But could there be a sort of visual joke in the satire as well, in that an Irish visual cliché, the harp & shamrock, does look a lot like a bannister and shamrock ? Yes I know I’m probably trying too hard.
It may also interest you to know that amongst Birkenhead’s pub names which could have subliminally influenced the lyric we find:
*The Rose & Shamrock (used to be a common pub name), rough as the Irish Sea, quite recently closed down.
*The Barristers – now knocked through with a bigger pub next door and amalgamated to form something else.
*The Crown
*The Cushion and Crown (“The Cush”, so’s not to confuse it with The Crown of course).
*The Rose and Crown just a mile and a half over the state line, in Bebington.
Meanwhile what was (in the nineties) one of the all-bare-woodwork-and- bannisters “Tut’n'Shive” pub chain (see also “Tap & Spile”) became “Leprechauns Bar” (I know, pass the sick bucket) for a while in the late Noughties, but eveything’s closed down round there now.
There’s a pub inear Cammel Lairds that in recent years has changed its name from “The Castle” to “Hotel California” but I haven’t yet had the undoubted pleasure of a pint of pink champagne and the warm smell of colitas. Whatever they are.
Does anyone still drink in The Swan I wonder ?
Jan 7th, 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Colitas are a desert flower with a warm, heady smell according to one Don Henley interview, but it is also a name for marijuana in Mexico, which fits the song better. Other suggestions include a cigarette (or joint) butt in Spanish.
All these possibilities make much more sense than what I thought it was for 20 years, which was ‘warm smell of Colitis’. Colitis being an inflammation of the colon or large intestine. I never quite understood why anyone would set the scene of pleasure and magnificence by referencing the stench of ulcerated bowels. It gnawed away at my faith in American soft rock until the advent of the internet revealed the truth to me.
Jan 7th, 2011
Helen!!!
‘Rose and Crown’ Cheapside, off Dale St, Lpool 1.
Jan 7th, 2011
Germ
Colitas,if I’m not mistaken that’s some kind of bladder infection isn’t it?
Jan 7th, 2011
Bobby String
Nah, I’m sure Colitas is some obscure South American goalkeeper that only Nigel has ever heard of!
Ô¿Ô
Jan 9th, 2011
Bobby String
Actually, I suppose it should be some obscure South American goalkeeper that only Nigel and Don Henley have ever heard of.
Ô¿Ô
Jan 9th, 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Will this never end?
Are these my ultimate pyjamas
Is this my final dressing gown
Both these lines need question marks at the end of them.
Apr 9th, 2011
BrumBiscuit
Harking back an awful long way in this thread; I used to work at a council depot where they based the gritter lorries, and the mundane answer to how do the gritters get to work is that they walked there. This was in the West Midlands, so I don’t know the answer to those remote motorway-side depots.
And didn’t Judie Tzuke have inordinately sized teeth?
Apr 9th, 2011
Deckard
To better suit the Wirralian accent I’d go for the pajama spelling of pyjama. And on the version I’ve just listened to on line I don’t hear the and before here’s Judy Tzuke but then I’d always heard it as now – must grab iPod…
Jun 18th, 2011
Dave Wiggins
Vote for Stop The Pigeon Party! What next, Exxo? Cafe Bars and Idiots, presumably?
Oct 6th, 2011
Charles Exford
Don’t be daft, David, I’m talking a far more dastardly menace that cheeses off even those beastly pigeons themselves.
Oct 7th, 2011
John Burscough
Ombudsman with capital O? See JiL comments, posts 64 + 66.
(Sorry if this sounds like a crossword clue.)
Oct 13th, 2011
John Burscough
Although “obscenities” makes more sense, I think it may actually be “I shout all my obscenity from steeples”.
Nov 28th, 2011
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