New York Skiffle is so called because (I’m really proud of this) it’s got references to New York. And Skiffle. And the Velvets, and Warhol, and Burroughs. In case you care.
See lyrics to New York Skiffle
New York Skiffle is so called because (I’m really proud of this) it’s got references to New York. And Skiffle. And the Velvets, and Warhol, and Burroughs. In case you care.
See lyrics to New York Skiffle
Paul F
Waiting for my van?
21 May 2008
Oisin
I think it is “and maybe Andy knows” not “and maybe and who knows”. I take it as a call back to the earlier Warhol reference.
15 June 2008
chris
Sounds quite likely. Anyone else agree?
15 June 2008
carl
i’ve “TURKEYED” way up state
20 July 2008
carl
a “maybe” and “who knows”
20 July 2008
Chris
@Carl: Any justification for “turkeyed”? Not saying it isn’t, but it’s not something which readily makes sense to me!
20 July 2008
carl
@Chris, no justification for “turkeyed”. It just sounds remarkably like it. I thought it just may be US slang.
21 July 2008
Ben
Chris, presumably as in cold-turkey, to come off heroin.
21 July 2008
778
This isn’t on hmhb.co.uk, so I’ll call it…
The chorus lyrics parody Lonnie Donegan and His Skiffle Group’s 1958 single “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose It’s Flavour On The Bedpost Overnight” which goes;
Does your chewing gum lose its flavour
On the bedpost overnight
If your mother says don’t chew it
Do you swallow it in spite
Can you catch it on your tonsils
Can you heave it left and right
Does your chewing gum lose its flavour
On the bedpost overnight
1 January 2009
lurker called forth
DEFINITELY… It is “turkeyed” way upstate – “Turkeyed” is common UK (maybe US) drug parlance, meaning withdrawn off heroin (gone cold turkey).
I also always thought it was “I’m just waiting for my van”, but I see ban makes sense (either way it’s obviously a nod at VUs song “Waiting for my man”)
16 May 2010
Chris The Siteowner
Any lurker who gets called forth to comment after such a long time gets my vote.
16 May 2010
Dave
Hmmm ‘quack nostrums’ is an oxymoron, as nostrums are “: a medicine of secret composition recommended by its preparer but usually without scientific proof of its effectiveness “. Pedantic, sorry. But as Nigel wrote it does seem better in terms of poetry.
15 February 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
Nineteenth century American Snakeoil salesmen and their ilk promised elixirs to cure all ills. Indeed they promised nostrums which were unproven in terms of effectiveness and whose ingredients were closely guarded secrets. These were quack remedies insofar as they made fraudulent claims or were of a palliative nature whilst claiming to be curative. That unscrupulous individuals should seek to exploit the vulnerable for commercial gain will probably not come as a shock to the more world weary and cynical amongst us and we should rightly be suspicious of those who claim to provide nostrums, quack remedies or indeed quack nostrums for the betterment of individuals or societies. New York Skiffle merely draws attention to this. You have been warned! Taking note of a Vendor of Quack Nostrums will invariably lead to trouble.
15 February 2011
Tangerine Wizard.
I think it’s definitely waiting for my van and i always hear it as crack it up in spite rather than crank it up.
3 June 2012
MIKE IN COV
ANOTHER one which was missing from my collection. What a rich lyric. The mingling of English skiffle and NY heroin cultures is yet another brilliancy, as is the fusion of two tunes.
I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee
I’m going to Louisiana my true love for to see
It rained all night the day I left
The weather it was dry
The sun so hot I froze to death
Susanna, don’t you cry …
Susanna, Stephen Foster. I can see NB liking the paradoxes in the verse. I remember The Byrds’ version best, but think I knew it as a nursery rhyme. NB may have heard Connie Francis’s version, which also came out in 1965. It could be one of the first songs he ever heard. (In the M-6-ster thread, Chris gives references for birthyears of 1964 or 1965. I suspect it was 1963. (1) This article from the Lyrics In The Media thread, right-hand column. (2) The otherwise-random “2163″ in This Leaden Pall; it isn’t needed for the rhyme. Anyone fancy a visit to the local rag, along the lines of Who The &%£$ Do You Think You Are?, to check the birth notices?)
…I landed up on the downtown side: Greenwich Village
I walked down there and ended up
In one of them coffee-houses on the block …
Talking New York, Dylan. Included for completeness, not a reference IMO. Dylan says “Green-witch” in the US manner, NB “Grenitch” in the British.
The washboard was a characteristic instrument of skiffle groups, along with the tea chest bass. I can play air washb … Sorry, Steve Lamacq’s just played Another Girl, Another Planet. I think I’ve regained my composure now. Skiffle was associated with coffee bars, the most famous being The 2i’s, which specialised in espresso (strong and black, of course), then a novelty.
Don’t You Rock Me Daddy-O was another LD single. It’s the sort of thing teenagers said to annoy their parents in 1957. So, “, Daddio” should be “Daddy-O” (no comma). (A homophonic emendation, it just doesn’t get any better.)
Definitely “turkeyed” – Burroughs talks about cold turkey (probably a reference to coming out in goosebumps during withdrawal). “Upstate” refers to a state-run drying-out clinic; as does “Up to Lexington, 125″ in Waiting For My Man. WFMM, and Heroin, and The Stone’s Sister Morphine, are riddled with quotes from The Naked Lunch. I think Burroughs uses “crank up” in the context of what he calls an oilburner habit, one so out of control that you voluntarily check in to Lexington, and may use “glamour”; but I’d have to read the book again to be sure. I haven’t noticed any other Burroughs references in NB’s oeuvre.
Brian Eno allegedly said, “The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band”. The Velvets split up at about the time CBGBs opened; I don’t know if they ever played there, but lots of those who bought The Velvet Underground & Nico obviously did, just look at the list. Andy Warhol produced that album, bar one track; he also liked to think of the band as his creation. Pah.
Definitely “van”.
Heh heh heh … capital G in “Giro”, penultimate verse … question mark after “shite”, penultimate verse … and ditto, fourth line from the end.
10 July 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
This cannot be the source for vendor of quack nostrums, but blimey anyway.
The two lines beginning “I’ve been a he, I’ve been a she” have that feel of being derived from something or other. Two wildish ideas:
(1) A riddle, perhaps a Welsh one. (“What’s that ‘ducdame’? ‘Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle” – As You Like It … compare Welsh “dychymyg”, a riddle.)
(2) The blind sex-changing prophet Tiresias, who turns up in several Greek tragedies, including The Bacchae (cf. We Built This Village), and also in The Waste Land. I can’t find a pertinent quote in any of those sources though.
Comments and alternatives welcome.
The following admissions will teach me to post without checking my sources:
(1) The only music-related reference in The Naked Lunch is Steely Dan.
(2) “Cold turkey” is defined in an appendix to WSB’s book Junky (Penguin edn. 1977 and probably earlier). He doesn’t use the expression in the main body of the text or in TNL. It’s certainly been common currency since at least Lennon’s 1969 single. It wouldn’t surprise me if “to turkey” was drug slang in some places, e.g.Merseyside perhaps.
(3) “Lexington, 125″ in Waiting For My Man is a street junction in New York. The matter is confused by the fact that although WSB talks in TNL of leaving New York City for a cure (he doesn’t say upstate), the only clinic he describes is in Lexington, Kentucky. “125″ doesn’t originate with WSB, but The Velvets.
(4) “Waiting on the Man” appears on the first page of WSB’s The Soft Machine. That is probably also the the principal source of the quotes in the druggy songs I mentioned; and also of the expression “heavy metal” for non-chemists.
(5) WSB doesn’t say “glamour” or “crank up”; NB, however, used the latter expression earlier in Time Flies By.
All in all, don’t you think it’s a good job that I checked?
31 July 2012
Exxo
I did say, the last time you brought up the birthday (a couple of weeks ago) Mike, and as I do whenever it comes up on here, that it’s July 1963. Nigel’s told me the exact date once, more than 15 years ago. So when somebody asked about it in some other place on the interweb a few years ago, and I replied that I’d forgotten the exact date, his sister or his Mrs. apparently saw what I’d posted and told me the exact date again when they almost literally bumped into me at a gig in Blackpool… but beer had been taken, again, so I forgot again.
And yes, ‘Susanna’ was an utter staple of my own youth (nobody’s version in particular – it was just always there in sing-songs at home, in comedy show spoofs on telly, etc – so familiar that I’d often sing loads of different daft made-up words to the tune), so it wouldn’t occur to me that it’s not obvious that this song references it. But of course now that you mention it, it isn’t obvious at all if you don’t know the song, is it?
More on this one later. Got to run up to Tuesday footy with the dog right now. Be so knackered when I get there that it won’t matter that you’ve made me late, ‘cos I won’t need the run out any more. Perfect!
31 July 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
@Exxo, I dreamt up my arguments for 1963 before learning, from the M-6-ster thread, that you’re channelling the spirit of Philip Larkin. Always nice to have a shaky speculation confirmed; and I stand by my unimportant conjecture that this fact explains why it’s 2163 rather than some other random date.
My candidate for the best single-letter emendation in all poetry (I don’t know who deserves the credit) is: “They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad”.
31 July 2012
John Burscough
Adrian Mitchell, actually:
They tuck you up, your mum and dad
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.
They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.
Man hands on happiness to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself.
31 July 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
Thanks @John (and Adrian obviously). The things you learn on this site.
31 July 2012
John Burscough
@ AR: Cor, blimey confirmed on the VoQN! You threw an apple in our eye there, and no mistake.
Andy Warhol’s paintings include “Twelve Cadillacs” and “Green Car Crash”.
“I’ve had the CBGBs’” (Country, Bluegrass & Blues, bleedin obviously) puns on the Heebie-jeebies, an old term for opiate withdrawal symptoms.
As described in Keef’s autobiography ‘Life’, Bill Burroughs recommended apomorphine to kick heroin (“The number of times I’ve cold turkeyed, only to go straight back on”).
“I’ve been a he, I’ve been a she” probably references ‘Walk on the Wild Side’: “Shaved her legs and then he was a she.”
31 July 2012
Exxo
Mike – yes defintely with you on the relevance of 2163. Not unimportant.
And Mike & John – all your Burroughs, Warhol & Velvets stuff is spot-on of course.
And yes, Mike, “to turkey” is common, everywhere, not regional except in so far as Merseyside of the 80s was a renowned centre of excellence in the heroin industry.
Meanwhile ‘vendor of quack nostrums’ would have been a fairly common phrase in Victorian and Edwardian times in the UK and even more so at that time in the States, especially used by those in authority who wished to see fewer quack nostrums vended, so naturally appearing in newspaper reports like the one you’ve quoted. Here’s Winston Churchill in ‘The Crossing’, for example:
“The finer element in this profession is constantly increasing in numbers, growing more and more influential, making life less easy for the quack, the vendor of nostrums, the commercial proprietor of the bogus medical college”. I think I’ve also read a very similar phrase in Mark Twain’s writing somewhere and I’m sure I’ve seen it several times in reading around that era without ever thinking it was _the_ reason why NB57 might have put it in this song (unlike his more unusual collocations, where always feel “biscu-reka!” when their undoubtedly unique sources are located – as you did with that Otway quote, for example).
Likewise it seems to me you may be trying too hard with your Tiresias and your Welsh riddles. In a song with such tight temporal (20th century) geographic (US & Wirral) & thematic unity they just don’t seem to have a reason to belong. NB57 may borrow a lot of stuff but he doesn’t exactly _allude_ all that much – surely that would be a bit pretentious?
In response to your comment the other day, I emphasise my agreement with you that it is always worth searching for sources – I just don’t think it’s always worth throwing out the more random suggestions that just don’t seem to fit – to me they seem to undermine your good stuff, but once again that’s just a matter of personal taste I suppose.
1 August 2012
John Burscough
A few more random thoughts.
‘New York Skiffle’: possibly a pun on Graham Parker and the Rumour’s song title ‘The New York Shuffle’?
‘Tea chest’: probably a reference to the home-made instruments played by skiffle bands. Ditto ‘washboard’ (‘bedpost’ in the original, chewing gum-based Lonnie Donegan song).
Andy Warhol’s works also include a series of Dance Diagrams.
1 August 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
Heebie-jeebies had a non-drug origin. I think I’ve seen it applied to bad psychological reactions to uppers like coke and speed as well as to downers like smack and booze.
My copy of TNL (Black Cat 1966) has an extended, lucid, scientifically unsound, appendix by WSB promoting apomorphine.
Scrub riddle and Tiresias, those two random suggestions have done their job by prompting a better one. Walk On The Wild Side feels spot on.
(For the record, the Shakespearean emendation was proposed by Robert Graves. It doesn’t seem impossible for there to have been a Welsh-speaking teacher in Stratford-on-Avon.)
I’d never met “to turkey” before, and couldn’t find it online. The things you learn etc.
A mid-C19 American literary work, or political speech, feels dead right for the ultimate origin of VoQN. Looking for Mark Twain, I came across Online-literature.com. You can search the whole site in one go! including the complete works of Thomas Hardy! No VoQN, but I did turn up this, which I would put the house on NB having read:
“He was clearly a confirmed hypochondriac, and I was dreamily conscious that he was pouring forth interminable trains of symptoms, and imploring information as to the composition and action of innumerable quack nostrums, some of which he bore about in a leather case in his pocket.” Conan Doyle, The Sign Of Four.
Also, “vendor of lead pencils” (Henry James, The Bostonians), which would have fitted the metre equally well.
Further, “Among the butchers he is believed to be an agent of the duke, who has assumed the character of a vendor of nostrums simply as a disguise” (G A Henty, At Agincourt). I’m sure I read some Henty as a boy.
Churchill was, like NB, a great collector of handy phrases for later use. I’d risk a moderate wager that NB derived VoQN from that Churchill quote Exxo found.
It hadn’t really ocurred to me before, but yes – NB often quotes directly or parodically but rarely alludes or paraphrases.
I think that between us we’ve nailed this song good’n'proper. Warm glows all round.
1 August 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
@John, I was beavering away on post #24 when you put #23 up.
New York Shuffle, surely yes.
Washboard and tea chest, see my post #15.
1 August 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
@John, the relevance of each of the three Warhol works you cited has just oozed into my conscious mind. I agree with you.
1 August 2012
Jim Wickham (still in the Timor Sea)
Much as I hate to reopen a debate, I’d always heard (and still do) “And now I’m just waiting for my band”. This kinda ties in with the alleged Eno quote (#15) about all the original VU fans forming their own band….
25 October 2012
Exxo
Don’t think it is Jim, but thanks for making me listen and remember that it isn’t “van” (thought it was “van” until a few years ago, but then a couple of years ago I must have forgotten again that it I knew wasn’t “van”, if you see what I mean).
And proving once again that I often don’t actually look at what Chris has written until someone’s comment prompts me, I must say that I don’t think “giro” looks right with a capital letter.
I once (ahem “knew someone who”) once sort of robbed his landlady’s brother’s giro. He’d left their flat with unpaid bills you see. I, I mean he, put most of the sum straight onto Germany to win the 1986 World Cup. Allegedly.
25 October 2012
John Burscough
The original National Giro based in Bootle used a capital G in its logo, as did the subsequent National Girobank (later taken over by the Alliance & Leicester, now part of Santander). http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Girobank.jpg
According to Chambers, “giro” as a social security cheque can be spelt either way.
25 October 2012
Exxo
It can. So could, for example, “Hoover/hoover”. Just looks more everyday, and less branded, without.
25 October 2012
Jim Wickham (Still in the Timor Sea)
Exxo – fair enough – the song just came around on ‘random’ on the iPod today, so having nothing better to do I thought I’d bung in my 10 cents’ worth here. It’s a great song anyway….
….and I haven’t lived in Blighty since Mrs T was in charge – but “giro” with a small “g” for me, stolen or otherwise.
25 October 2012
vendor of quack nostrums
Giro?
Gyro surely. As in gyroscope.
Or am I talking a load of shite?
25 October 2012
Jim Wickham (still in the Timor Sea)
Exxo – OK I washed out my ears and reapplied them to ‘NYS’. It’s not ‘band’, so I suppose it must be ‘ban’. By why ‘ban’? Have I missed something in an earlier post that would enlighten or educate me? I think one or two of Warhol’s filmed were banned for a time…..
1 November 2012
John Anderson
Presumably it’s the driving ban incurred by crashing Andy’s Cadillac.
1 November 2012
vendor of quack nostrums
As pointed out above in posts 10 and 16 it nods towards ‘waiting for my man’ as being in line with the general theme of the song. It’s then case of picking a single syllable word which sounds like man but isn’t. Van would work cos he is now short of transport having crashed Andy’s runabout but ban works better as a joke, as the inevitable conclusion of having an accident whilst under the influence.
Must be a piece of cake this songwriting malarky. I’m only surprised that Nigel doesn’t put out 2 albums a year and sell his rejected stuff to Ade Edmondson and Phil Jupitus.
1 November 2012
Chigley Skin
Folks, it seems that the concept of vending quack nostrums has been knocking around since before the 19th century. I give you the hilariously scathing response of Robert Burns in 1791 to a Bad Review he’d received from a critic (and it’s not “ah know whit ye look like, so dinnae come near Leith”):
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/thou-eunuch-of-language.html
Your attention is drawn to lines 2 and 3; “Thou quack, vending the nostrums of empirical elocution.”
25 January 2013
Charles Exford
That is a brilliant find for Burns night tonight Chigley, and may I just say this: weel are ye wordy o’a grace, great chieftain o’ the biscuit-race!
I think most of Burns’ dissing diatribe would apply to some of us as we pick over these lyrics, and surely any self-respecting Lyrics Project pedant would be particularly proud to be called a “pickle-herring in the puppet-show of nonsense”, a “blacksmith hammering the rivets of absurdity” or indeed a “Lyon Herald of silly etymology.”
In that spirit, I give you this from Henry Fielding’s classic ‘Tom Jones’ (1749):
“As to Squire Western, he was seldom out of the sick-room, unless when he was engaged either in the field or over his bottle. Nay, he would sometimes retire hither to take his beer, and it was not without difficulty that he was prevented from forcing Jones to take his beer too: for no quack ever held his nostrum to be a more general panacea than he did this; which, he said, had more virtue in it than was in all the physic in an apothecary’s shop.”
And this from somewhere in the wider googleverse:
‘The nickname “quack”, for people peddling fake cures and/or pretending to have medical skills they don’t actually possess has been around since at least the early 17th century. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the oldest recorded use in Francis Quarles’ 1638 book, Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man: “Quack, leave thy trade; thy dealings are not right, thou tak’st our weighty gold, to give us light.”
‘Quack’, in the sense of a medical impostor, is a shortening of the old Dutch quacksalver (spelled kwakzalver in the modern Dutch), which originally meant a person who cures with home remedies, and then came to mean one using false cures or knowledge.’
25 January 2013
vendor of quack nostrums
@ CS & CE.
Stereo hat tip.
Ah waukin’ thes braw morn tae fin’ ‘at Ah ken myself a wee bit better.
As th’ stoatin cheil wrote elsewhaur;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine
A man’s a man for a’ that!
Quack nostrums nee’ vendin’; th’ job is mine
A man’s a man for a’ that!”
26 January 2013
John Burscough
Make that a triple tip o’ the bonnet.
Here’s tae us.
Wha’s like us?
Gey few
An’ they’re a’ deid.
26 January 2013