Honestly, I don’t only add these when people die. It’s just they’re falling almost at the same rate as I post lyrics up nowadays. In retrospect, the musical component to Reflections In A Flat sounds rather poignant. Anyway, David Nixon went a long time ago, but today it was the turn of “hard working stage magician Ali Bongo“, who – as any HMHB listener knows – was always good at contortionism. Gone forever, but not shot by his Uncle Trevor. Thanks to EskimoEric
See lyrics to Reflections In A Flat
Dave F.
Hi
I reckon it’s:
“She works at Marks And Spencer’s”
Not sure if M&S should have an apostrophe. Isn’t it just plural & not possessive as has been done for Lech Walesa? I’m willing to be proved wrong on that
“I loved you more than ever”
The whole of the last verse is sung in the past tense so, as well as sounding like loved, it fits.
9 March 2009
Chris The Siteowner
I’ll go for “at Marks And Spencer’s”, thanks. Not sure about the other two though.
9 March 2009
Paul F
Two ultra-pedantic M&S comments. Firstly the “and” should be an ampersand. Secondly (@Dave F) unless she works at more than one Marks & Spencer store, it must be Marks & Spencer’s.
Apologies.
10 March 2009
Charles Exford
I’ve always assumed Lech Walesa’s to be comedy rhyming slang for Marks’ , which would make it more likely to require an apostophe than a plural. There is absolutely no way of proving this, but it just fits in with the feel of a song where the playing-with-various-daft-ways-of-rhyming-or-not-rhyming quotient is higher than ever.
13 March 2009
Ricardo
So he didn’t die at all, this is where he went…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/world_agenda/article6821807.ece
Now that is good contortionism
8 September 2009
s.g.d. a ShropshireLad
I think that it should be “pick my life up” and not “picked”.
p.s. Shrewsbury 25/03/2010
s.g.d.
12 December 2009
TWO FAT FEET
How should we interpret the title? Does it refer to ‘wistful ruminations in my humble apartment’ or ‘reverie in the key of A flat’?
I’m not muso enough to be able to tell whether the latter would be musically accurate.
Don’t worry, I’ll shut up when I reach the top of the list.
6 April 2010
Charles Exford
It occurs to me TFF that when you come to appreciate (if you ever do) that certain words and groups of words can have more than one meaning simultaneously, often for humorous effect, you may rid yourself of the fallacy that HMHB songs can ever be either not as funny as their title, or indeed gag-free, and you may appreciate them all a lot more.
Furthermore, if you have theories (e.g. lyrics of a song by another artiste that is being parodied) it often helps to firstly read the whole thread and/or look up on the internet before you post. I have learned this the hard way myself. Ringo Starr sang “lips like strawberry wine”, by the way.
I do envy you one thing though, and that’s your ability to wait excitedly for more than three and a half years after a song’s appearance (by the sounds of it knowing the title all that time) to listen to it. Even JDOG could be a bit of an anti-climax after all that excited waiting. I can’t wait to her what you’ll make of the “CSI” LP when you get it. Father’s Day 2011, maybe?
Sorry but you do seem to have been asking for this since you appeared on here, and I thought I’d wait and do it all in one post.
PS: are you the Rotherham Postie after too many Easter Eggs ?
6 April 2010
TWO FAT FEET
My apologies for the following.
Having an opinion on the quality of certain songs. I thought I’d be entitled to it after nineteen years of being a fan.
My vagueness over the wine/vine thing, I admit I didn’t look it up and it was only from my faint memory of a previous discussion of the matter, which did suggest the original song used the word ‘vines’.
Fair cop, I got the timings of the last two albums back to front, I was thinking it was on CSI. I haven’t listened to HMHB much over the last few years as I don’t get as much opportunity these days and my CD collection is stuck under some boxes at the moment.
Finally apologies for not being part of the in-crowd, I’m new to these parts.
6 April 2010
giff
I’ve always thought it was:
‘though I’m still mad at Trevor’
7 May 2010
Paul F
Ali Bongo contortionism!
14 February 2012
Tangerine Wizard.
I also have always wondered if the title refers to the musings from an apartment or if it is in the key of A Flat.
5 June 2012
MIKE IN COV
A sad muso writes: surely the title (at least) rips Ballad In Plain D, off Another Side Of Bob Dylan? The pun on a flat/Aflat is brilliant. Any guitarists out there who can tell us how easy/possible it is to play in four flats?
1 July 2012
John Burscough
Possibly a Dylan reference, though there are works in A Flat by many classical composers (who can’t sue either). Chopin was apparently a major A major fan, writing several Waltzes, an Étude and a Polonaise (famously performed by Dr Teeth and his Electric Mayhem on The Muppet Show) in that key.
Madness pulled off the same trick with ‘Rockin’ In A Flat’. There was also a 1952 US mystery movie called ‘Murder In A-Flat’.
2 July 2012
BrumBiscuit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Bought_a_Flat_Guitar_Tutor
10CC got in on the act in the ’70s.
2 July 2012