The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project

1. Ben

   “And arm themselves with CS gas”

   I am right in thinking in the original version it’s “on their toes with” aren’t I?

   I also always liked the live version on ACD I think with the changed line of “to fuck off Captain Black”, not solely from some juvenile delight at a naughty word, just cause “to fuck off” sounded so Scouseese to my Southern ears.

   May 3rd, 2009

2. Charles Exford

   I’ve spent nigh on 43 years thinking it was Mrs Honeybun, so I’ve been and checked it out, not that I thought you were wrong of course.Blimey. It’s like Neil G says, yer whole world view just gets turned upside down again and again, Ah well keeps us young, I suppose.

   Interesting whether to put a capital ‘C’ for Cant or not, because if you do it’s clearly just Brian Cant the narrator, but if you don’t I think it’s a marginally, nay infinitessimally better play on words. “cant rhetoric”, “cant dogma”, “cant conformism” etc. being the kind of thing that we used to bang on about in our revolutionary days.

   May 8th, 2009

3. charliew

   “And Chippy Minton’s Socialists ”

   I always thought this was Chigley Militant Socialists?

   I never knew it was Cant Comformism, but it’s so clear now, just goes to show you can listen to something for ages but never really know what’s being said.

   May 15th, 2009

4. Dave F.

   I always thought it was ‘Chippy Minton: Socialist’.

   Although I have to admit he would cut a lonely figure all by himself in the square.

   May 16th, 2009

5. a_p

   The dogmatist in me insists on Kant.

   May 17th, 2009

6. Paul F

   Surely the “Cant” (as in Brian) is a pun on “Kant” rather than “cant”?

   May 18th, 2009

7. Paul F

   “Cant” on the Back in the DHSS CD sleeve for what it’s worth…

   May 18th, 2009

8. dj

   cant, as in secret language

   May 18th, 2009

9. Charles Exford

   Well, whilst going mental to this song in a great many Bickies moshes since 1986 I may have sung “Mrs. Honeybun”, having I guess just convinced meself as a tiny kid watching Trumpton from 1966 onwards that that’s what her name was … but at least I know me etymology, me revolutionary politics, me narrators and me German philosophers, and I know it ain’t “Kant”.

   [Actually I can't tell which of you really believe what they're saying & who's just taking the p*** here, so at the risk of making a fool of meself and/or being even more boring than usual, I've done that googling-to back-up-what-I-thought-I-knew thing and here goes...]

   Whatever the pun, it all comes from the same root word anyway.

   Brian Cant and Immanuel Kant’s mutual surname (see below) originated in the medieval period, from the Old French or Latin word for song or singer.

   But from the 12th century onwards, before people even knew what a surname was, never mind how to spell it, the same church-Latin word for chant/song, “cantus”, had come into Olde English as “cant”, used as a pejorative term for dogma, pointless or hypocritical rhetoric, obscure jargon, words you say but you don’t really understand (like when you were chanting the Latin mass) or don’t really mean, etc. and there it has stayed. We get “chant” from the French and “cant” from the Latin word it would seem.

   As Big Sammy Johnson said to one of his mates:
   “My dear friend, clear your mind of cant. You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in society: but don’t think foolishly.”

   What you need a bloody good dictionary, better than Johnson’s, to find out is that it was and still is also an adjective, meaning “of, or having the nature of, cant.” Webster’s 1913 edition gave us a quote from Jonny Swift:
   “To introduce and multiply cant words is the most
   ruinous corruption in any language.”

   This is a song featuring militants, socialists, etc. In political debates, especially involving socialist ideas, etc., it really is quite commonly used, though maybe not as common as when I were a lad, to dismiss dogma as “a load of old cant”, or even occasionally as an adjective “that’s just cant old Trotskyist nonsense”, “cant Thatcherite rhetoric” etc. Believe me, I was there. It’s a very angry and dismissive word, which is why it made such a superb pun in this setting – Trumpton – where Brian Cant was the narrator.

   The surnames Cant and Kant come from the same root. They were probably descended somewhere along the line from church singers/chanters. I cannot see what this song can possibly have to do with Immanuel Kant, but in a way that doesn’t matter – Kant is already wrapped up in the pun anyway, because Brian and Immanuel may even be descended from the same roots, unlikely as it seems. Apparently a whole load of Cants came from Flanders to Scotland in late medieval times. Immanuel’s grandad was a Scottish Cant but emigrated to East Prussia late C17th, and even Kant’s dad still spelt it “Cant” before it was Germanised.

   Meanwhile all I know about Brian’s roots is that his dad was an engineer in Ipswich, where Brian grew up …(and that his mum’s dad was a roller skater in the music halls I kid you not) … and it may just be that in lots of parts of England choristers got the “cant/chant/chantry” surname, independently of the Flanders Scottish Cants that Kant descended from….

   but having seen far too many episodes of the act-ors & actresses tracing their roots in the horribly fascinating “Who Do You Think You Are…?” series … well, you never know, do you?

   I won’t give references. You can google.

   May 18th, 2009

10. Paul F

    You lost me at “Well”.

    May 18th, 2009

11. Neil G

    “I won’t give references”

    Thank the Lord for small mercies.

    May 18th, 2009

12. Dave F.

    Prolix! Prolix!
    Where is Nick Cave with his pair of scissors, when you need him?

    May 19th, 2009

13. Chris The Siteowner

    Look, we’ve had precious few celebrity supporters here at Ipswich, so you don’t think I’m going to let the possibility of one of them being mentioned in an HMHB song go, do you?

    May 20th, 2009

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