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‘Depressed Beyond Tablets’, (nice BrassEye reference),
which contains the wonderful lines:
Your optimism strikes me
like junk-mail addressed to the dead
Depressed beyond tablets
I’ve gone beyond pills
The cloud-face is low on the Clwydian hills
There is perhaps nothing on this album as instantly
striking as some of their former tracks, no ‘Fred Titmuss’
or ‘Life At The End Of The Tunnel’. And as
ever there’s the odd miss on the way. ‘Joy Division
Oven Gloves’ has an excellent title but meanders off
into the pure silliness most people (who’ve heard of
them) imagine they’re all about. ‘Restless Legs’ is an
inconsequential observation of, er, someone with restless
legs to the tune of George Formby’s ‘When I’m
Cleaning Windows’ (also underrated in my view but …
we’ll save that for another time…)
‘Upon Westminster Bridge’ contains the “list of modern
malaise” track which features on every album; and
this isn’t one of the best of them, though it does have
the highly saving grace of incorporating the ‘12 days
of Christmas’ tune; and including (TV’s DIY SOS’s)
“Nick FUCKING Knowles” instead of “five GOLD
rings”. Yes, that makes up for it in fact.
Yet despite weaker moments, what is present
throughout is the incredibly wide-ranging wit and allusions
of the song-writing that has been written of as
‘novelty’ for far too long. Let’s get this straight. Half
Man Half Biscuit are a ‘comedy band’ (Black Lace,
Barron Knights, Fat Les, Electric Six, The Darkness)
only in so much as The Bible is a self-help book.
And yet, in the end, yes, I suppose you’d have to
find some of their more obvious lines funny to appreciate
their other qualities. Much is in the delivery and
context, yet I suppose if you don’t find “Is your child
hyperactive? / Or is he perhaps a twat?” or “It’s a cricketing
farce / With a thickening plot / Act One – Scene
One / Brenda Blethyn gets shot” amusing even in the
abstract then the band as a whole is not likely to appeal.
Your loss.
Here’s perhaps my favourite off the album: “Gouranga
Gouranga? / Yes I’ll ‘be happy’ / When you’ve
been arrested for defacing the bridge”
Part of the joy of the Biscuits is there’s so many
references in the songs you can’t possibly know
them all, but you can then seek them out (or look
at this site to help you.) They should be on the
national curriculum. For instance, the above lines
makes perfect sense to me. If it doesn’t to you, you
could or should embark on a journey examining the
vandalised state of north British motorway bridges,
which would then lead you to the propaganda tactics
of the modern Hare Krishna movement. It also
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