5 Mar 2011
The Lux Familiar Cup: Voyage To The Bottom Of The Road
And so to the fifth qualifying group of The Lux Familiar Cup – in which readers of The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project choose their favourite songs of all time. Voting on this album closed on Sat 19 March 2011, and here are the results. An astonishing 644 votes were cast, and although we had a clear winner, there was a decent three-way fight for the second automatic qualification slot. The two which didn’t make it must be in with a shout for the last 32 though.
Qualified for last 32
1. Paintball’s Coming Home (16.0%)
2. Monmore, Hare’s Running (12.0%)
In the race for the fastest losers:
3. Eno Collaboration (10.4%)
4. Dead Men Don’t Need Season Tickets (10.0%)
5=. Bad Review and
P.R.S. Yearbook – Quick, The Drawbridge (8.6%)
Full results
Back to the studio
13 Letters Sent:Jump to latest »
Chris The Siteowner
I don’t know about anyone else, but more than any other album so far, I looked down the list of tracks and thought: “I’m going to need to give this a proper listen right through.” So that’s what I’m doing. Please don’t disturb.
Mar 5th, 2011
Neil G
You know when you’ve listened to something so many times that you stop really appreciating how brilliant it is? That’s how I am with this album. I’ve listened to it so many times that I’ve forgotten what an enormous effect it had on me the first time I heard it. Listening again, with a deliberate ear (not just putting it on in the background while I’m doing something else) has helped me to appreciate it again. Picking out two or three of the best is really difficult. Dead Men Don’t Need Season Tickets has to be in there, if only for its crassness. That and the fact that it has one of the most wonderful rhymes in it – ‘Now I’m no hotelier, Just thought I’d tell yer’. Class.
Monmore Hare’s Running is my second choice. Fine words, incredible tune.
I’m going to keep it to three with Paintball’s Coming Home, just because it made me laugh like a fool when I first heard it.
How can I leave out Bad Review, CAMRA Man and Tonight Matthew? With great difficulty and regret.
Mar 5th, 2011
mickythehoss
C.A.M.R.A Man, one of my favourite tracks on this album, Having been to a few CAMRA meetings (under duress I may add) that this track is perfect in every way, “I want Dave and Barbara to refer me to the blackboard” and on it goes, classic one liners one after the other, by the time I get to “I’ve got a Bonneville in bits but I’m gonna sort it out” I’m usually in tears, I love this song that much I’ve done a video for YouTube, have a gander see what you think.
Mar 5th, 2011
Steve Nicholls
For the songs knocked out in the early rounds, maybe we could bring back the Watney Cup?
Mar 6th, 2011
TWO FAT FEET
Leave it Mr Conn!
Mar 6th, 2011
Jan
Not that I don’t love all the others, but…”Who put the ‘con’ in ‘concept’? It was me!” takes some beating. That song has me rolling on the floor from the opening riff.
And Micky — great video!
Mar 6th, 2011
Gregg Z
Just to show how subjective all this is, I would put “A Country Practice” (which, I believe, won the most recent Cup) at approximately #72 on my top 100 HMHB tunes (only 5th best track on FLWSTW).
Iconoclastic ranking, perhaps a bit, but I’ve never held any truck with the consensus that this track is among their best. The guitar break is staggeringly good, though.
Mar 6th, 2011
smithsocksimon
I fear the winner is predictable, so only two of my votes will count this time, but just in case Paintball falls at the final hurdle I chose three: P.R.S. Yearbook – Quick, The Drawbridge, Eno Collaboration and A Shropshire Lad. Still can’t complain if it is Paintball and AN Other, any song from this record would be a worthy contender.
Mar 9th, 2011
Chris
I’m with Chris The Siteowner on this one.
Mar 9th, 2011
2 Chevrons
Tempted to vote for quite a few. Resisted ‘He who would Valium take’ despite the wonderfully apt ‘careless shitehawk’.
‘Paintball’s coming home’ always makes me smile, so I hope that goes through. Same for ‘C.A.M.R.A. Man’.
No thoughts from Jeff Dreadnought on ‘Bad Review’s’ prospects yet then ?
Mar 9th, 2011
Ben Woodcock
OK – this one is just too tricky. Mind you I’ve felt like that about most of the rounds so far. I couldn’t lose 5 of the tracks on this album, so I’ll go with them.
Mar 10th, 2011
Norbert D
Kept it to four, though it should have been more.
As a long-term doley, “ITMA” is a guilty pleasure which makes a good deal of sense on a bright Spring afternoon (though it may not for too much longer). “Bad Review”, Peel version mind you, is the song that got me back into HMHB after years of uninformed disinterest (“oh, are they still going? Wait a minute… this is fantastic”). “Paintball” is a given. “Dead Men Don’t Need Season Tickets” may sound like it was produced by an escaped lunatic on the other side of a mud wall, but you can’t ignore a song which manages to precis an imaginary Wirral-set episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in just two verses.
Feel awful for leaving out “PRS”, a song whose closing lines make me laugh every single time… used to share a flat with a musician who received the PRS Yearbook, see. Musically, “A Shropshire Lad” is (after “A Country Practice”) the band’s finest Fall pastiche, and while the line about the hand towels may not have been intended as a Mark E Smith lampoon, but it’s probably the best and subtlest I’ve ever heard.
Never cared much for “CAMRA Man”, for some reason.
Mar 10th, 2011
bobbybottler
Monmore, ITMA and TMIGTBWJ
Paintball – fab live, but dull on the album after the 1,348th listening, soz.
Mar 12th, 2011
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