Soft Verges might have yer typically wry Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics, but its sparse arrangement with just some (nice) acoustic guitar and a little bit of harmonica wouldn’t leave it out of place on many an album from the sort of artists we get at the Cambridge Folk Festival (I should point out that I’ve been lobbying for an invitation to be extended to HMHB to this event for years). It’s a truly great song, which shouldn’t be denied the appreciation it deserves just because the subject matter is so whimsical.
Daryl
This couplet,
“So I go through the scripts in the back of the car
And if I get hungry I’ll eat a Multigrain bar”
I find hysterical. I’m probably the only person who does so. Who the hell would think of putting a line like “And if I get hungry I’ll eat a Multigrain bar” into a song?
Also, am I the only person who finds the inlay photos on ‘Four Lads Who Shook the Wirrral’ unbelievably funny? Not so much the photos themselves but the captions. One has the Four Lads superimposed on a railway line, with the caption ‘On The Right Track’. Then there’s another photo of them on another set of railway lines, and they just reuse the same ‘On The Right Track’ caption! This chronic lack of imagination just fucking kills me, although describing it thus has probably diminished the humour a bit. Anyway…
15 January 2009
Neil G
Daryl,
The multigrain bar line is one of my favourites too. In fact, this was probably the first song of HMHB’s that really struck me. I immediately recognised that experience of walking toward someone that you know from somewhere but you can’t remember their name, so you want to show that you recognise them but you don’t want to get into a conversation because it will become evident that you’re not sure who they really are or where you’ve seen them before. Much better described as ‘acknowledgement without breaking stride’. That is pure genius. I love this song.
16 January 2009
Hagerty F.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11635125
28 September 2011
graham mccavish
yeah..unfourtunatly still drink in the swan..corner of woodchurch road and holm lane , prenton, birkenhead
1 December 2011
Rowan
I swear I read on here, but apparently didn’t, that ‘verge’ here might refer the French use of that word, meaning ‘rod’, or more vulgarly, ‘penis’.
Soft Verges obviously gains new meaning with that reading…
22 December 2011
John Burscough
You probably read it on Gez’s HMHB website, courtesy of Dr Larry Duffy, where he also quotes an Adrian Henri poem suggesting an entirely different possible meaning.
22 December 2011
Rowan
Ah yes. I’m annoyed at myself for not checking there first.
22 December 2011
Charles Exford
So having agreed with you (Rowan) in the San Antonio FP thread, I have to say here that I can’t find any relevance myself in the information supplied to Gez’s site by the said Larry Duffy. Such double entendre seems to me quite out of place in the title of one of NB57′s most personal and serious songs.
Incidentally, I’d also like to take issue with Gez when he says “tales of an out-of-work actor” as if that sums up the whole song, rather than just one third of it, the stuff that the alienated narrator reads in the Radio Times. The other two thirds is set firmly in Birkenhead amongst a very different sector of the unemployed.
22 December 2011
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
‘Soft Verges’ a double entendre indeed. Poppycock. Next someone’ll be claiming that ‘Prick Barriers’ should be considered a form of contraception rather than a reasonable measure to keep out undesirable chaps. What’s your beef?, whistle if you want to. Society is in turmoil; I read recently that a Bishop got bashed last week. They sent up a chopper to search for the culprit. It shone its light onto a guy with a large dagger. Took an officer with a massive fire-hose to ferret him out. Arrested him, John Thomas by name, only his friends call him Little Elvis. Claimed to be in love, ‘muscle in on my patch at your peril’ he said. ‘Keep your pecker up’ we said to him. What a tool. Musician by trade, played a pink oboe.
I’m getting bored now. Suffice to say that words is sometimes just words and not everything has hidden meaning. As Harry Carpenter said at the end of the 1977 boat race “Ah, isn’t that nice? The wife of the Cambridge President is kissing the cox of the Oxford crew.” Now that’s double entendre; leave our soft verges alone.
22 December 2011
Rowan
Fair enough
23 December 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
Apparently all that took place in Littlehampton.
24 December 2011
Daryl
I wonder if anyone was listening to this song on their Ipod at the precise moment when they had to put the ‘acknowledgement without breaking stride manoeuvre’ into operation?
3 February 2012
GeordiePaul
This is one of their best songs.The lyrics are funny and profound and that bit just as they come in with “Gary doesn’t live here anymore” is just wonderful. It’s just a moment musically but I think it is one of the best in all pop music.
22 April 2012
MIKE IN COV
@Spencer. The original reference was to Hampton Wick; I think there was a WWII army depot there. There was an occasional character in The Goon Show, a roving reporter called Hugh Jampton. It seems none of the suits ever noticed.
12 July 2012
Vendor of Quack Nostrums
If I remember my Tudor history correctly, Lord Hampton of Wick tried to assist two sisters known as the pair of Bristols, by attempting to kidnap the monarch in a failed plot and that’s when good King Henry got his Hampton Court.
Although thinking about it, that might all be Cobbler’s.
12 July 2012
Mr Larrington
Moreover, Sammy Hagar has a 1981 album entitled “Standing Hampton”.
13 July 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
Enough of the double entendres (although there are/were signs on the A2 just outside Dover which used to alarm French visitors, and I know about the girl who asked for one in a bar), what’s the tune? The closest I can get is Dylan’s Ballad Of Hollis Brown, it isn’t that, it feels old, someone must know.
FLTSTW is so strongly infused with blues/country/gospel that I think it’s seriously worth our trying to track down the originals of any tunes no-one’s spotted yet. Mygod this album’s bleak, as difficult a listen as Plastic Ono Band so far as I’m concerned. The band’s trick of at will sounding a tone or so flat to compounds the effect.
She’s over there, behind the wardrobe.
5 August 2012
Chigley Skin
Can’t help with the tune, but given that the verse about the jobbing actor’s interview in the Radio Times is actually the reported speech of the actor rather than the voice of the narrator, maybe the section from “I get up at six…” through to “out of work for ninety per cent of the time…” could be written in italics on the lyrics page?
I’m aware that there’s a depth of pedantry Chris the Siteowner likes to avoid if possible, but I’m sure the italics have been used in other songs to denote a separate voice – Used To Be In Evil Gazebo springs to mind.
5 August 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
Good Lord, Mr Larrington, you’re right about Sammy Hagar. He isn’t pressed hard (or even at all) about the album title.
As I’m allowed two links in one post before the police are aroused to see my papers, I’ll include this one. (Johnny Winter is credited on the album sleeve for guitar/miscellaneous screaming).
@Chigley, hmm, you have a point, maybe … perhaps a contribution towards my Trinidadian Centre of Excellence would help induce a firm opinion.
5 August 2012
ACIDIC REGULATOR
Following up Exxo’s post #35 in the Murder thread.
Carrie doesn’t live here anymore,
Carrie used to room on the second floor
Carrie – Cliff Richard
I’d forgotten or never known the second line.
Gary don’t need his eyes to see
Gary and his eyes have parted company
Gary Gilmore’s Eyes – The Adverts
This could explain why not Barry, Harry, or Larry. Even though Gary is probably a commoner name than any of those, I can certainly live with Exxo’s suggestion.
The musical language – not just the instrumentation – always reminds me of Dylan’s story-telling ballads as on The Times They Are A-Changin’, e.g. North Country Blues. Who’s playing the harp?
9 September 2012
JO0o
Song for a Beautiful Girl Petrolpump Attendant on the Motorway
I wanted your soft verges
But you gave me the hard shoulder.
Adrian Henri
17 February 2013