The sticker on the album cover shows I paid £6.49 in Our Price records for this album, although I can't remember when I bought it or whether it was in Richmond or Hounslow. I hadn't heard anything by the band before I purchased this but I was aware of their reputation and the favourable press they had been receiving. I wasn't aware though that by the time this had been released they had broken up, citing the memorable reason of "musical similarities", when most band use musical differences as the excuse when they break-up. The band did get back together again a couple of years later.
As a follow-up to "Back In The DHSS", "Back Again In The DHSS" was a collection of sessions recorded for John Peel's radio show, plus a couple of singles and some previously unreleased material. The album titles are a play on The Beatles "Back In The USSR" but instead with the Government Office with responsibility for unemployment.
I thought the album was fantastic, with great tunes and outstanding lyrics in post-punk indie music. All of the songs were brilliant and laugh out loud in places, featuring rare wit, satire and keen observations you wish you had thought of over mundane life in small-town Britain in the 1980s. Absolute poetry !
I absolutely loved the surrealism of "The Trumpton Riots" and thought the lyrics to "The Bastard Son of Dean Friedman" were amongst the best ever written. I had completely forgotten who Dean Freidman was, so at the time missed the irony of the "You can thank your lucky stars" line at the end of the song !
I am not sure what people from outside of the British Isles would have made of Half Man Half Biscuit, and assume most would be bemused by it all, and miss most of the parochial cultural references, apart from perhaps Bette Midler ! However, all of it resonated with my childhood and the world I was currently living in at the time.
"The Best Things In Life" opens side one with a jaunty intro before the drums and main riff. The closing line "There is nothing better in life than writing on the sole of you slipper
with a biro on a Saturday night instead of going to a pub" is often the one quoted from this song but I like "Well today I knocked upon their door, and said that I was passing, and Charlie launched a scathing attack. When I asked him what I'd done he said You Stupid Bastard, we live in a cul-de-sac ".
"D'Ye Ken Ted Moult" mixes the Ted Moult Everest Double Glazing ads with the title of the traditional folk song "D'Ye Ken John Peel". It has a toe-tapping guitar riff whilst describing the methods used in the adverts to demonstrate the indestructibility of the double glazing. "Helicopters in my garden bringing wind, I beg your pardon"
"Reasons To Be Miserable ( Part 10 )" is a play on Ian Dury's Reasons To Be Miserable Part 3. Its slow and gloomy but has great observations such as Turkish Delight being full of Eastern monosodium glutamate, sexist builders, and people who think they're sophisticated 'cos they eat Fry's Chocolate Cream. "Reasons to Be Miserable, another good excuse to wish you were dead".
"Rod Hull Is Alive - Why ?" asks the rhetorical question about the unfunny comedian with the badly behaved stuffed Emu. "Tonight I'll cry myself a bath of tears and ask the world. Why is Rod Hull alive – and getting paid as well?" Other great lines include
"Heard a Palace Spokesman mention Sarah, said she'd known the groins of Jacques Laffite. She's well prepared to be a standard bearer as pure as unproverbial driven sleet"
"And I wonder if they'll bring back National Service and the birch, and I wonder but I doubt if they will ever bring back the Watney Cup".
"Dickie Davies Eyes" is a play on Kim Carnes "Betty Davis Eyes" but instead with the dashing host of ITV's 1970's Saturday Sports show World Of Sport. Lines here include "Moorcock, Moorcock, Michael Moorcock you fervently moan" and "Brian Moore's head looks uncannily like London Planetarium"
"The Bastard Son Of Dean Friedman" features a penny whistle synth sound synth and at times the vocal is reminiscent of the Pogue's Shane MacGowan. There is also a brief wacky guitar solo. The lyrics are so good they deserve to be repeated in full :
Well I heard a lovely rumor
That Bette Midler had a tumor
So gleefully I went to tell my friends
But they said it was a lie
That she wasn't going to die
"And by the way, have we got news for you!"
And they told me that the man
I had always known as Dad
Hadn't met my Mum when I was born
And they reckon that I am
But I hope to God I'm not
The bastard son of Dean Friedman
The bastard son of Dean Friedman
And my school work fell behind
With this bombshell on my mind
But the art teacher said he understood
But he could only sympathise
With the sadness in my eyes
Even though he showed me his Magritte!
And in the corridors of fear
I would shed a lonely tear
As ridicule flew at me from both sides
And they mocked me in my mocks
And embroidered in my socks
The bastard son of Dean Friedman
The bastard son of Dean Friedman
"I Was a Teenage Honved Fan" pays homage to the all conquering Hungarian football side of the 1950s and has a delightfully ironic fantastic middle-eight
"Is this the bit where we’re supposed to make guitars collide
And is this the bit where we release all that raw energy
And is this the bit where we go crashing through those barriers
Like what they do in music mags?"
"Arthur's Farm" is another surreal piece of magic as Arthur Askey and Douglas Bader, two men who had their legs amputated, visit George Orwell's Animal Farm and get drunk with Napoleon "Four legs good no legs best". It's a rousing song !
"All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit" is a picture of playing Subbuteo and Scalextric as a kid. Certainly myself and two mates used to play regular Subbuteo competitions and had most of the accessories. The Subbuteo brochure had 100+ different team kits with many exotic teams you had never heard of. My favourites from the dozen or so teams I had were the yellow and black stripes and black shorts of East Fife and the all white kit with a diagonal red stripe of Peru.
"And come to half time you were losing four-nil
Each and every goal a hotly disputed penalty
So you’d smash up the floodlights and the match was abandoned
And the dog would bark and you’d be banned from his house
And your travelling army of synthetic supporters
Would be taken away from you and thrown in the bin"
I have been to watch Dukla Prague on several occasions and home and away
Shirts, both modern and retro were available at Club Shop on the path
from turnstiles to main stand. I was tempted but resisted !
In "The Trumpton Riots" the world of the 1960s idyllic children's animated TV series has moved on twenty years into the 1980's social unrest and a violent uprising. It starts with the gentle theme tune from the programme before launching into a great punk song. Again, the outstanding lyrics deserve being shown in their entirety :
"Unemployment’s rising in the Chigley end of town
And it’s spreading like pneumonia
Doesn’t look like going down
There’s trouble at the fire station someone’s had the sack
And the lads are going to launch a scheme get rid of Captain Flack
Tell PC McGarry to get himself a mate
And arm themselves with CS gas
They’re gonna be out late
We’ve had Cant conformism since 1966
And now subversion’s in the air in the shape of flying bricks
Someone get a message through to Captain Snort
That they’d better start assembling the boys from the fort
And keep Mrs Honeyman right out of sight
‘Cos there’s gonna be a riot down in Trumpton tonight
All this aristocracy has really got to stop
We overthrow the surgery and kidnap Dr Mopp
And Chippy Minton’s Socialists could storm the Market Square
And make plans to assassinate our autocratic Mayor
Windy Miller leads his Basque-like corn grinders to war
With windmill sails and bombs with nails they smash the town hall door
But Snorty and his boys arrive with one big erstwhile crew
Whereupon they bring about a military coup"
Listening to the album now, it remains a classic, and brings back so many memories !
Track Listing :
2. D'Ye Ken Ted Moult
3. Reasons To Be Miserable ( Part 10 )
4. Rod Hull Is Alive - Why ?
5. Dickie Davies Eyes
2. I Was A Teenage Honved Fan
3. Arthur's Farm
4. All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit
5. The Trumpton Riots
Released 1987
UK Chart Position : 59
The Trumpton Riots ( - 1986 )
Dickie Davies Eyes ( - 1986 )
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