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.
2 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
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