21 Sep 2009
Ivan Mauger on my car
M-6-ster is somewhere up around the pinnacle of the very small hillock that is Great British Road Songs. As with many of the noisier songs from the HMHB songbook, there are a few indistinguishable lyrics – from the five people who submitted this, we got five different takes on the last verse, and – more surprisingly – four different takes on the chant at the end. So I’ve just gone with my favourites, although your mileage may differ. Thanks to Grev, Jon A, gNick, Jon F and Grim.
See lyrics to M-6-ster
23 Letters Sent:
Charles Exford
Thanks everyone, there’s tons here I’ve never had much of an idea about.
I’ll just add my little known obsessive fan fact of the day. Yngwie is according to my research closer in age to NB57 than any other celebrity ever mentioned in his lyrics.
Sep 21st, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
Pray do tell, Charles. Especially as my research (er, Wikipedia) shows Yngwie Malmsteen to have been born in June 1963, just a few short weeks after yours truly. What a month for talent! But Nigel Blackwell? 1964 according to this, 1965 according to this…
Sep 21st, 2009
grilly
How could you forget the other M62 classic in your list? How?
Sep 21st, 2009
Mr Larrington
In one or another radio interview, Nigel says he left school at 15 in the very month that Thatcher came to power – May 1979. So if I’ve counted right, and Nigel isn’t playing fast and loose with the facts, it can’t have been 1965.
Sep 22nd, 2009
Coops
I always had the third line of the last verse as:
“Dad how did you ever manage”
Ah well.
Sep 22nd, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
So unless he left school a year early, he would have been 16 in the 1978-1979 school year, but still 15 in May 1979, placing him as one of the young kids in that school year and his birthday in May, June or July 1963.
Along with me!
(And Jimmy Osmond, Yazz, Mike Myers, the lovely Wendy Smith, “Hello To” Jason Isaacs, Colin Montgomerie, Harriet Wheeler (sigh), George Michael, Mark Kermode, Graham Poll and Lisa Kudrow. And Yngwie J. Malmsteen Esq., of course. I feel a list song coming on. I think I’ll play alongside NB57 in central midfield, with Wendy wide left and Lisa on the other wing. Little Jimmy, you’re in goal.)
Sep 22nd, 2009
Steve Malkmoose
I agree with Coops..I always heard it as Dad how did you ever manage?
Any other thoughts?
Sep 23rd, 2009
Charles Exford
Chris – I thought I’d mentioned to you before that we’re talking mid-July 1963? Or as Philip Larkin didn’t put it:
‘Nigel Blackwell of course began
In July ‘63.
Between the naming of The Third Man
And the Great Train Robbery.’
The exact date escapes me, despite being told once by the man himself and then once about 10 years later by his Mrs. (when chatting before a gig – she’d noticed that I couldn’t quite remember it in some vague birthday-related post I made on the Yahoo group a few years ago). Between the 12th and the 16th July I think. Anyway we can be certain that “I Like it” by Gerry & the Pacemakers was number one at the time, taking over from “From Me to You” which of course was the previous number one, when thee and me were both born.
Sorry to sound embarrassingly uncool & obsessed but I suppose since I heard the first songs on the first Peel session in ‘85 it’s just been about the revelation of a remarkable amount of shared experience. I gradually found out that the writer of these wonderful lyrics has the same name as me, is from the same town, supports Tranmere, finds the world equally absurd, tries to do the minimum of hard work, same rejection of riches & “success”… didn’t surprise me at all when I found out I was born in the same summer as him too.
Never thought about it before but I suppose Nige would have been able to drift away from school in the June or very early July of ‘79 before he was actually 16, and thus he can rightfully say he left at 15. Makes him sound like he was actually part of an earlier generation when he says that!
Sep 23rd, 2009
John Anderson
I have always considered it to be “Dad how BIG do you reckon that is” (deep doesn’t seem to make much sense unless he’s referring to those reservoirs in San Antonio Foam Party again) and “Yngwie Malmsteen in our BAND” although van is equally plausible given the overall concept of the song. The problem, I guess, is that I have been with these songs far too long now to change.
Sep 23rd, 2009
Treadmore
“Ivan Mauger on my car” – as in a sticker of the great man.
Can’t think why Ivan would rob anyones car.
I could never get “Dad how deep do you reckon that is?” – great ears, thanks!
Oct 4th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
D’you know, after all these years without questioning my hearing of that line, now I listen to it again, it does sound like “on”. And it does make better sense.
What say ye, regulars?
Oct 5th, 2009
John Anderson
It’s always been robbed and always will be to me. Deliciously ridiculous. Like Wendy Wimbush on a spacehopper, Telly Salvalas’ Whitechapel Oi revival or Aleister Crowley playing on a fruit machine.
Oct 5th, 2009
Mr Larrington
I’ve always heard “on my car” too.
Oct 6th, 2009
Dagenham Dave
small point, I think it’s ‘Died’ rather than ‘Dying’ on a caravan site.
Oct 10th, 2009
Dagenham Dave
for what it’s worth I agree that it’s ‘on’ rather than ‘robbed’
Oct 11th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
The “robbed” vs “on” question vexes me. Has anyone got the famous “lyrics book” to see what that says?
Oct 15th, 2009
Argieuk
Been sad and looped the song in an audio editor, slowed it down too.
Sure is ‘on’ and not ‘robbed’.
Agree with the ‘How deep do you reckon that is’- with “d’yereck’n” as one word….
Oct 19th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
That’ll do for me – cheers. But I do hate to have such long-held preconceptions dashed. Although I’m not the first, it would seem.
Oct 21st, 2009
s.g.d. a ShropshireLad
Chris, it says “robbed” in the lyrics book and it also says “died” on a caravan site.
No mention of Yngwie Malmsteen though, so you are on your own there.
Dec 12th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
Thanks SGD. These things come back to haunt us. I think we’d better go for “died”, that one’s for sure. But the consensus in favour of “on”, based on technical analysis (argieuk), what people are hearing (almost everyone) and the fact it just makes more sense, persuades me to stick with that, despite the lyrics book and despite hearing “robbed” myself for years. We’re probably at the point where only NB57 can provide a ruling, and even then, who’d believe him?
Dec 13th, 2009
Ben
Chris, M6ster got an outing in Sheffield last week, I trained my ears in for the relevant bit and he deffo sang ‘Robbed’.
Dec 13th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
Damn. So now we have to go back to “robbed”? I feel like Indecisive Dave off the Fast Show. “I dunno any more”.
Dec 13th, 2009
Chris The Siteowner
OK, it’s “robbed”. Confirmed: Source
Mar 12th, 2010
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