29 Nov 2007
Rule number one – carry on walking
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.
12 Letters Sent:
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…
Jan 15th, 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.
Jan 16th, 2009
Hagerty F.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11635125
Sep 28th, 2011
graham mccavish
yeah..unfourtunatly still drink in the swan..corner of woodchurch road and holm lane , prenton, birkenhead
Dec 1st, 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…
Dec 22nd, 2011
John Burscough
You probably read it on Gez’s HMHB website, courtesy of Dr Larry Duffy http://cobweb.businesscollaborator.com/hmhb/records/Wirral.htm , where he also quotes an Adrian Henri poem suggesting an entirely different possible meaning.
Dec 22nd, 2011
Rowan
Ah yes. I’m annoyed at myself for not checking there first.
Dec 22nd, 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.
Dec 22nd, 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.
Dec 22nd, 2011
Rowan
Fair enough
Dec 23rd, 2011
SPENCER THE HALFWIT
Apparently all that took place in Littlehampton.
Dec 24th, 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?
Feb 3rd, 2012
Add Your Bit: