The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project

Hey pop pickers, I’d aimed to leave the all-time classics until the home stretch, but an overwhelming urge just came over me to add All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit to the site. Perhaps the most famous HMHB song of all, and the one which launched a thousand replica shirts. Does anything else need to be said about this?

Update: it’s getting a few mentions, not surprisingly, in Name your favourite football-related song on TimesOnline…

4AD3DCD is an early example in the long series of HMHB songs mercilessly (for it can be no other way) lampooning indie or student bands. And it’s still one of the best.

Depressed Beyond Tablets is as depressing as you’d expect from the title - as one reviewer once wrote: “I do hope it’s not too autobiographical” but it does seem personal enough that it might just be the case. The song always reminds me of 4AD3DCD, which isn’t nearly as glum.

Mate Of The Bloke (who set up the PA) is one of those songs which would sit quite comfortably on one of the earliest HMHB albums, despite being recorded fifteen years later. Old Skool! Yay!

Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo has probably been sent in to me (thanks, by the way!) by more people than any other, so it’s about time I posted it up. Great song, nothing to do with The Libertines, ‘cos Nigel said so (yeah, right). Another good modified football chant features.

Mathematically Safe is under two minutes, quotes the title half a dozen times, and yet is quite perfect. I always dreamed about meeting a girl who would regard “I wanna make you mathematically safe” as an attractive comment. Ho hum.

Mars Ultras, You’ll Never Make The Station is a Peel Session one-off which makes you think “how can any band write songs as good as this and only ever record them once, on a radio session?” And the rather excellent title doesn’t have anything to do with the song, either, in case you’re wondering.

Dead Men Don’t Need Season Tickets is one of those glorious songs which touches on a subject which probably shouldn’t be touched on, but you can’t help but smile when you think about it.

David Wainwright’s Feet is a rather sweet song from a charity compilation for children called Colours Are Brighter. The Guardian described it as “a genuinely funny, cautionary tale about pestering one’s nan for fashionable trainers”, so now you know.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Hair Like Brian May Blues is that Moby hasn’t remixed it into a dinner party soundtrack. Yet. When he does, you heard it here first.