Look Dad No Tunes is another “over-earnest band” song (I think I’ll do all of these now). References Neil Young, Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth and other earnest explorers of feedback. Say no more.
See lyrics to Look Dad No Tunes
Look Dad No Tunes is another “over-earnest band” song (I think I’ll do all of these now). References Neil Young, Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth and other earnest explorers of feedback. Say no more.
See lyrics to Look Dad No Tunes
Ben
Listening to the execrable Steve Wright show the other day, he played this, and a penny dropped – checking the other hmhb site I see he’s name checked on Quality Janitor (the lyric doesn’t spring to mind) but not for this tune, it’s obviously one and the same though.
29 July 2009
Dave F.
Sorry? – Are you suggesting Look Dad No Tunes sounds similar to A Walk In The Park??
29 July 2009
Ben
Yes!*
*No, I’m wondering if the “I’ve seen him Walk through the Park a lot” line is in reference to the Nick Straker Band, seeing as they are name-checked in Quality Janitor, I’m pretty convinced it is.
30 July 2009
Dave F.
Mr. Numan used to wander Down In The Park with all his Machmen.
And he was given a song title.
Do you think the protagonist of this song was a Numanoid?
I bet he dressed up in Black & Red.
Sorry, but I think you’re reading too much into it. He was just looking to a rhyme to Ark.
30 July 2009
Joe
How about “stamp my foot down on the amp switch”? There is actually a Peter Frampton amp switch called the Framptone. Wonder if he used it on ‘Frampton Comes Alive!’
17 October 2009
Dagenham Dave
For some reason I always thought the ‘I bet he listens…’ line was ‘I bet he listens to Mark and Lard’. If it isn’t I still reckon it should be.
18 October 2009
Steve Malkmoose
I always heard “amp switch” too (cos you would stamp your foot down on it, unlike an angst switch which Im sure dosent exist, does it? and even if it did, would you be stamping on it – you dont stamp on most switches)
22 October 2009
Chris The Siteowner
Joe/Steve: I’d agree, but I had a listen to the version of the song played on the BBC Radio Merseyside session in 2007, and it really does sound like “angst switch” (well, “antswitch” actually)…
22 October 2009
John Anderson
I’d certainly like to think it’s “angst switch”. I believe this could be a similar device to Nigel Tufnel’s volume 11 switch on Spinal Tap. The idea being that you can crank up the angst by producing a distorted guitar sound on stage. The lack of natural angst would stem from the protagonist’s aforementioned reasonable nature and comfortable life.
22 October 2009
Charles Exford
I assumed “amp switch” for years but now that my attention has been drawn to it, both versions sound like “angst switch”. Even from upstairs.
There should be a technical term for the phenomenon of hearing something just ‘cos it’s what you expect to hear. Or, as Maud would say, just ‘cos it’s what I _want_ to hear.
22 October 2009
Martin
I always heard “angst switch”… I think people are taking it too literally, there isn’t an actual FX pedal called Angst or anything like that, I think it just implies that typical heavy distortion used by Cobainites and angsty teenagers Worldwide… Calm young middle class musicians will always think it’s cool to look tightly coiled and troubled, after all.
6 December 2009
Bobby String
Greetings fellow Biccies!
In my capacity as professional nit-picker I’d like to point out that it’s ‘leave’ (our guitars up against the amp) and not ‘lean’. Also, I think it’s “she’d” gone to Spain, not “she’s” gone to Spain, not that it makes a gnat’s tadger of difference to anyone’s enjoyment of this splendid song whether she’s in the present tense or the past.
Hey…ho…
Ô¿Ô
21 October 2010
Bobby String
P.S. I also think that stamping your foot down on the angst switch fits perfectly with the image of a moody teenager throwing a tantrum because life’s not fair. Gently pressing the angst switch just doesn’t work (like turning his side of the room into a shrine).
Ô¿Ô
21 October 2010
Bobby String
I still think it’s ‘leave’ our guitars up against the amp – anybody agree / disagree? Anybody care? Anybody there?…….
Ô¿Ô
4 December 2010
S J Redmond
Belatedly Bobby String but you have a seconder for “leave” not “lean”.
29 March 2011
John Burscough
I bet the boy from over the road listens to Ark (Brummie proggers) a lot, rather than Arc. There was a metal combo called ARC Rock Band, but that wouldn’t fit.
Actually, I see on Wikipedia that when they reformed in 2010 they changed the spelling to arK – don’t you think it’s a good job that I checked?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_(UK_band)
27 January 2012
Chris The Siteowner
Hmm, possible. I think nobody’s mentioned that because Gez’s site always had it as the quite plausible “Arc – An LP of feedback released by Neil Young a few years back” and assumed that to be a reasonable enough assumption. But I guess it could be Ark, the band…
27 January 2012
John Burscough
No, as you were. I hadn’t read Gez’s explanation, which is much more plausible, what with the feedback and all.
27 January 2012
Tangerine Wizard.
I always assumed it was Arc the lp by Neil Young.
7 June 2012
MIKE IN COV
Catching up from Oct 22nd 2009…
John, check the volume control on the BBC iPlayer. A mate of a mate alerted me.
Exxo, the word you were looking for is “mondegreen”, derived from the old Scottish song “The Bonny Earl Of Murray”:
Ye highlands and ye lowlands,
Oh where hae ye been?
They ha’ slain the Earl of Murray,
And Lady Mondegreen.
(Or Moray?)
5 July 2012
Mr Factastic
^The point being the song goes ‘and laid him on the green’ which people misheard for ‘and Lady Mondegreen.’
However this isn’t exactly what Charles Exford was after, as the mishearings aren’t necessarily caused by what the listener wants or expects to hear. Or are they? I dunno.
26 August 2012
MrSpecialPants
I may have misheard but instead of ‘hey, ho’ I’ve always heard ‘pain…howl!’ I hope my version is correct as that pathetic little howl has always been my favourite part of the song
5 October 2012
MRSPECIALPANTS
Also Howl was that thing by Ginsberg which the Manics were always fond of quoting.
5 October 2012
Exxo
Mr. Pants is right. Had never read through these carefully before, so didn’t notice the error.
I’m wondering whether to point out too that there’s no way of knowing whether the comma in the first verse shouldn’t go before or after ‘well’, so probably best leave it out.
On reflection though I won’t point that out cos it’ll obscure Pants’ more special observation.
5 October 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
If “Howl” is a Ginsburg reference it needs an exclamation mark – so I’m seconding Mr Pants’s original suggestion.
Any votes for documenting (1) the “tschhh” after “time to feedback”, and (2) the Theremin-imitating “(la la la la)” BVs in each of the last four lines?
There’s a lot of Mary Chain here to my ears, and William Reid was one of the feedback kings.
The way NB sings “Howl!” reminds me of The Wolf.
**Wild secondary reference warning** The first deliberate feedback was played by John Lennon in I Feel Fine. “I announced ‘Cold Turkey’ at the Lyceum saying ‘I’m going to sing a song about pain’. So pain and screaming was before Janov [i.e. Primal Scream Therapy].” Lennon Remembers, The Rolling Stone Interviews, 1970. He also mentions Ginsburg and the IFF anecdote either there or in one of the 1980 interviews (Playboy and Peebles ). I can’t hear any direct reference to CT or to Plastic Ono Band though.
5 October 2012
John Burscough
To the Adelphi club in Hull last night, to see Thurston Moore. In between leaning his guitar up against the amp and stamping his foot down on the angst switch he got to talking about the band names stencilled on the stage backdrop, which include HMHB (though I don’t think they’ve ever played there).
I asked him if he was aware that he was namechecked in a Biscuit song, and he said he did not know that. His eyes went a bit dark when he heard which song it was, but he did conclude “I love Half Man Half Biscuit!”
So there’s that.
5 February 2013
Warden Hodges
Excellent feedback there John!
5 February 2013
vendor of quack nostrums
The Adelphi, Welly Club, Spiders. Hull was indeed a grim and fascinating place to be in the 1980s.
Sure however that the lads played the Adelphi about 10 years after I escaped the King’s town, rarely to return. Did a cover of White man in Hammersmith Palais as I recall.
5 February 2013