I haven’t even got a canoe
Bit of a PBR, this one, because I met an ex-teacher of mine in our city’s swanky new library the other day, and she was paying the fines through the groovy automated machines for a couple of books which appeared to be nine weeks overdue. Anyway, I Love You Because (You Look Like Jim Reeves) wasn’t as successful as many other HMHB songs at seeing the back of its protagonists: Jim Reeves had already been dead for many years, Peggy Mount soldiered on for another 15, and Tony Bastable managed over 20, although at 62 you could say his passing was an unexpectedly early walk back to the pavilion. The song also features a rare example of some NSFW language (well, a word) which NB57 appeared to get out of his system very early on. Thanks to Tony, Martin, Nigel and EskimoEric
Update: as Charles Exford points out below there’s plenty of “down-to-earth match-going English” in subsequent albums. Maybe it just doesn’t jar as much as it does with lesser songwriters, and therefore you hardly notice it. That’s my defence anyway.
See lyrics to I Love You Because (You Look Like Jim Reeves)
19 Letters Sent:
Mr Larrington
“I sold my soul to an Arctic Roll”
I salute you, Sirs. I’ve always heard this as “to rock’n'roll” and while it might be a reference to Black Sabbath, I’d always thought it rather mundane. Suddenly it all makes (no) sense.
Feb 15th, 2010
Charles Exford
Brilliant, just brilliant…. For some reason I’ve not heard this track for a while which only makes the memories sharper of how gobsmackingly different these lyrics were when we first heard ‘Back in the DHSS’ nearly a quarter of a century ago!!* When we see these lyrics written out for the first time your site never fails to put the freshness back.
I’m curious about your point re language though Chris and I feel compelled to defend Nigel here. Hope I haven’t misunderstood …but I don’t think there has been any let up in his unstinting commitment to some fine, decent, down-to-earth match-going English. Comparing this 1985 output with say Achtung Bono in 2005, in the latter we find at least 5 differing tracks featuring a shit tattoo, a twat child, Nick fucking Knowles, a bastard who didn’t indicate and a fuck about a cat. All very big and very, very clever.
Have I missed your point ? Even on clear days…
Feb 15th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
You’re right, of course. See note above.
Feb 15th, 2010
Charles Exford
Emphasis. Anger. Crescendo. Catharsis. All perfectly fine uses of our fine range of Anglo-Saxon expletives in music and on the terraces or the pitch I would have thought. (For example contrast the proper old “who the fuck, who the fuck, who the fucking hell are you?” terrace chant with the horrible Skyjacked Soccer AM-stardisation “who are ya?”, well there’s no comparison is there). Would Vatican Broadside work with its cannon muffled ? I’m surprised that it “jars” at all in the post-punk context of HMHB, but it’s easy to forget that not everyone has the same linguistic values…
That reminds me – Mrs. Exford’s mum heard me doing one of my football ‘poems’ on the wireless last year and wanted to hear more. Before I knew it Maud had sent her mum an old CD of mine that she’d found lying round (a few years ago I was selling the home-recorded CDs of my footy verses, to raise money to bid to play in a charity match with some of my old heroes). Clearly I couldn’t swear when she’d heard me on the BBC but Maud had forgotten that on the CD there was a fair sprinkling of match-going language… and it got played for the first time when her grannie was round …. oh dear, Exxo in trouble. (Grannie is quite a puritan – she also has another grand-daughter, Mrs Exford’s cousin, in the cast of Shameless on telly, but refuses to watch it because of the language ! I just refuse to watch it cos it’s gone crap).
Feb 15th, 2010
s.g.d A Shropshire Lad
F.A.O. Mr Exford
Do you have any CDs of your football verses left for sale?
s.g.d.
Feb 15th, 2010
steve nicholls
I see Jedward got the Shake’n'Vac phone call…
Let’s hope they don’t break their backs…
http://twurl.nl/1pvtpt
May 4th, 2010
Tony Bastable
And the award for nit-picker of the year 2010 goes to Tony Bastable for this one:
Since “Who’s there?” is the reply to “Knock, knock”, shouldn’t it be on a separate line? Like this.
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
The patron saint of Llandudno…
etc.
Nov 5th, 2010
Chris The Siteowner
That’s not nit-picking! That’s quite important, that is.
Nov 5th, 2010
Third Rate Les
I’d missed this one.
I had the pleasure of discussing swearing in his songs with the great man himself; I think I’d suggested I should bring my kids along to a gig and Mrs B said she used to have to cover over their ears when listening to dad’s songs. I hadn’t really noticed much swearing but actually there is quite a bit. I suppose I don’t notice it because it just sounds right. And Exxo – the only one I hate more than the “who are ya?” is the “same old… always cheating”, which has kept me away from games for a whole year now.
I pointed out that seeing as my kids watch Family Guy and South Park, I’m not too concerned about HMHB warping their fragile little minds.
Nov 5th, 2010
chedgzoy
I got a bollocking off the ex wife when my kids (8 and 7) were caught innocently singing ‘Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo’ at the dinner table.
Honestly, some people have no taste
Nov 5th, 2010
Bobby String
Be grateful it wasn’t Stavanger Toestub they were singing!
Ô¿Ô
Nov 5th, 2010
The Count of Oxton
Then almost inevitably, statistics appeared.
“Stavanger Toestub” is, as Bobby cautions, the rudest song in the oeuvre, though you’re just counting sheer volume of taboo words then technically “Shit Arm”is the rudest of all with 16 repetitions of the eponymous expletive.
Between them, these 2 songs and “National Shite Day” account for nearly 60% of the total of 76 naughty-step words in the 167 songs.
“Fuck” appears 9 times in The Compleat Workes. 5 of these (including the one Chris has down as “fu-“ ) are in Toestub. Variations like “Fucking, fucking hell, fuckinell”, etc appear another 10 times.
“Shit” appears 22 times, including 3 in Toestub and 16 in Shit Arm.
“Shite” appears 15 times, 12 times in the 3 choruses of “NSD” of course. Plus “gobshite” 3 times.
“Twat” occurs 4 times, including 3 in Toestub, plus “t-w-a-t-o-n-e” of course.
“Bastard” occurs 15 times including just 2 in Toestub.
“Dick” only appears once (Adrian/Sophie’s appendage), plus as Dick Quax of course.
“Cock” does not appear. “Cocks” appears only as the place name “Three Cocks”. The other notorious C-word does not appear either. This seems to me to indicate that NB 57’s swearing is in fact pretty fucking tasteful and a bloody good example for the kids
(except, surprisingly perhaps, he doesn’t seem to use “bloody” at all).
Exxo.
Nov 6th, 2010
Neil G
@ The Oxtonian One
““Twat” occurs 4 times, including 3 in Toestub, plus “t-w-a-t-o-n-e” of course.”
What about ‘Is your child hyperactive, or is he perhaps a twat?’ in Surging Out Of Convalescence?
Nov 7th, 2010
The Laird of Knave
@ Lord Exford of Oxton, O.B.E
What about ‘arse’? Have you omitted this fine colloquial reference to the posterior region simply by mistake or, as I suspect is the case, because it has been re-classified by the BBC as “not a swear word any more”?
Words like arse, shit(e), bastard and piss are becoming more prevalent on pre-watershed TV and are thus losing their value as swear words. Something must be done about this, questions must be asked in the house!
So, I’ll start your ‘arse’ list for you with the two I can think of off the top of my head and you can fill in the rest. In the meantime let us take up our pens and write to the Daily Mail, The Times, The West Crunge Clarion & Dubious Advertiser and start a campaign to reinstate the aforementioned words as swear words!
“Because you’ve got to get up off your fat arse…” 24 Hour Garage People
“And the others aren’t arsed either way…” Look Dad, No Tunes.
Ô¿Ô
Nov 7th, 2010
Charles "The Count" Exford
@Neil: you’re correct. Those are the four “twats”, as well as the one “t-w-a-t”. I’d wager that the wonderful “Is your child hyperactive …?” line would win a national poll for “best sweary line in HMHB” (remember, there are no prizes, so don’t phone or text though you may still be charged if you do).
@ The Laird: As well as the line you cite from 24HGP, there are 12 other “arses” and the “arsed” you mention.
“It’s all my arse” is repeated eight times in “On Reaching the Wensum”
Try and get your arse downtown next week (San Antonio FP)
Queen’s Arse and Firkin (A Country Practice)
Shove a seat beneath my arse (Friday Night)
If I had the arse of a crow (PRS)
There are as you know no examples of “piss”. If I’m not mistaken “he’s pissed and he’s boring” will be the first example of that word in the Opus when it appears on the forthcoming platter.
With the addition of the “arses”, and the realization that most of those are in “Wensum”, maybe I should revise my stat to say that 4 songs between them contain appprox 62% of the total sweariness.
Nov 7th, 2010
Ricardo
Ahem
Nov 7th, 2010
Charles "The Count" Exford
Hmm silly me, thanks Ric, there’s obviously something wrong with the way I’m using the old drop-down “find” thingy. Not that I’ve stored all the lyrics in a data retrieval system or anything, oh no, I’ve cut that caper, honest guv.
Nov 7th, 2010
Charles "The Count" Exford
Ok, when I was searching for “pissed” it was set to “find in current selection”, not “main document”, which also explains why I couldn’t find the three craps that I was sure I’d had before:
“other crap, have it back” (Bubblewrap)
“on crap three million it was spent” (Friday Night)
“paper’s full of crap” (Bad Review)
I seem to remember a massive row with me mum in 1974 about whether “crap” was swearing or not. She said it was if it was in church (me bother snitched on me after choir practice). But surely even that’s OK these days.
Nov 7th, 2010
Daryl
I’ve always found the ‘stick a burger in my mouth/shove a seat beneath my arse’ line utterly wonderful. How can a lyric be so evocative even when it contains the word ‘arse’? Amazing stuff.
Nov 7th, 2010
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