I’ve been a fan of Neil Innes, Vivian Stanshall and the Bonzo Dog Band for as long as I can remember – from being entranced by the Innes Book of Records on my TV set as a young sproglet back in the who knows when to discovering the family tree and back catalogue when I was a keen music consumer.
As there’s likely to be an election called in the next week or so, I thought it would be a timely response to post the following song, which must be about 20 years old now, called “No Matter Who You Vote For, The Government Always Gets In…”
Never has a truer word been said or sung. More of the same, but in a different suit. Apathy…? You betcha!
And here are the words so you can hold your lighter aloft and sing it like you mean it…
No Matter Who You Vote For,
The Government Always Gets In (Innes/Stanshall)
BONNGGGG
Preside!
Hear, hear, hear!
Might I remind you…
Say it…
Order!
Might I remind you…
(Heigh ho!)
No!
OOORDERRRR!!!
Noises on the radio
Megaphones on cars
Sermons from the Street of Shame
Know-it-alls in bars
Posters in suburbia
Experts on t.v.
Don’t let them disturb-i-ya
They’re just the powers that be
Heigh ho!
Don’t worry
Nobody can win
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in!
Heigh ho!
riiiiinnng!!! (yaaaawn)
Oh, great, great slumbering nation cock-a-doodle-doo!
Awake! Set yourself free!
Oh, smell the comforting bacon
Taste the bromide tea
sluuuuurrrrp aahhh!
An’ give a little chirrup as I ladle on the syrup
Promises are cheap
Let me bear your crosses
Make me Boss of Bosses
Then you go back to sleep! ha ha ha…
Heigh ho!
Don’t worry
Pop your cross in the bin
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
No matter who matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in!
Heigh ho!
Heigh ho!
Heigh ho!
Heigh ho!
Men have dreams of a finer place
Incorruptible Shangri-la
Women too have their Shangri-Las
Shangri-La la la!
See them in the public eye
Oozing oily charm
Hear them all personify
Down on Animal Farm oink oink moooo!!
Dog eat dog, not cock and bull
Isms are the game
Ism this and ism that
Ism it a shame?
Heigh ho!
Don’t worry
Nobody can win
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
No matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in
gobble gobble gobble
Heigh ho!
Don’t worry
Pop your cross in the bin
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
No matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
Don’t worry
You know you can’t win
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
No matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
(Heigh ho!)
Pop your cross in the bin
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
(Heigh ho!)
The Government always gets in
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
(Heigh ho!)
Pop your cross in the bin
(Heigh ho! Heigh ho!)
Category: Diary
Sorting through a box of things, trying to figure out what to do next, I came across my old box of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies cards. I drew a card at random:
Make a sudden, destructive, unpredictable action; incorporate
This seems to echo with the instincts in my head.
After discussions with her management team and deals being inked, Verity has decided to have another crack at singing from her magical musical lullabye book. Her previous effort only garnered a three-star rating. I mean, what kind of meanie gives a two-and-a-half year-old cutie three stars? And so Verity is aiming high for a five-star rating this time. There’s only one mistake, when her musical book malfunctions during the final song, but we kept it in for this stunning live performance.
They might have been the biggest hyped rock band of 1999 (oh remember the glory days, Darren, when you had FUN), but this tune is pretty neat for namechecking Aerosmith and Kraftwerk. The album “Leisure Noise”, a title that sounds as if it might have been nicked from Brian Eno, wasn’t THAT bad. Quite spacey and accomplished for 1999.
But the upbeat, balls-in-your-face, euphoric drive of this song always gets me by the scruff of the neck and pulls me upwards towards the light. The dying coda, complete with some of the most sensible lyrics ever penned, have been helpful in these rough times and have been my mantra.
It’s so easy to complain
Take a look around
Everything’s OK
Make it easy
Take your time
Let it go
And drift away…
Very zen, very buddhist…and ain’t it daft to take solace from a song by a band that everyone hated? Thank goodness for YouTube and its loyal users for uploading these occasional and hard-to-find treats.
The Missus often says to me: “Oi fat git, you know we are still the same people we were when we met. We are happier with nothing, just keeping it simple, just walking the streets, record collecting…”
But then you get a big idea and suddenly make everything so complicated for yourself. Alex the Wonderdog keeps looking at me with an accusatory stare, he says to me: “Why did you have to go and ruin everything? We had a sweet thing, we had a nice life, you know.”
Currently, entering the third day of stomach cramps…probably the stress. Oh well, decisions are slowly being made. Endgame approaches soon…I hope.
Here is yesterday’s track with added words. It’s a pithy little number. Like I said: a bilious, cathartic, purge of a song. Not sure if it works. Here are the words so you can sing-along, yes indeedy…
It Seemed Such a Good Idea at the Time
What was I thinking?
It was the perfect plan
A way to take control
The best way to be a man
Stand up and be counted
Don’t get pushed around
But punch above your weight
And they’ll only knock you down
I never make mistakes
But this was the biggest and best
All that could go wrong went wrong
It all seemed like one big test
And you stumble
From one disaster to the next
And start to wonder
How you got into this fucking mess
And you hope
That everything turns out fine
It’s funny how
It seemed such a good idea at the time
You saw me coming
A fool and his money
To be parted quickly
But that joke isn’t funny
They sold off the family silver
Before you arrived
Death by a thousand cunts, more like
Wondering how you can survive
But you have your hand
The one that’s dealt you
And you play the game to your rules
And not the way they want you to
And you stumble
From one disaster to the next
And start to wonder
How you got into this fucking mess
And you hope
That everything turns out fine
It’s funny how
It seemed such a good idea at the time
Then you came out of nowhere
Found us, no surprise
I could sense it coming
From the moment I arrived
To see the stars through the missing wall
You running into the night
The smell of brick dust, gas and plaster
The car on its roof, smoking alight
A warzone brought to my door
You could have wiped us out
Lucky just my home was smashed
With us evacuated into the night
And you stumble
From one disaster to the next
And start to wonder
How you got into this fucking mess
And you hope
That everything turns out fine
It’s funny how
It seemed such a good idea at the time
So the process to begin again
And men who don’t care for you
Argue over the value of your sorrow
So you sit and wonder what you can do
I’ve learnt that there is no insurance
To fix the pieces of a broken mind
No compensation for the mental scars
As you wait for the healing time
Seconds into minutes into hours
Into days into weeks into months
And after a year you are back at the start
With no map, no compass or hope in your heart
And you stumble
From one disaster to the next
And start to wonder
How you got into this fucking mess
And you hope
That everything turns out fine
It’s funny how
It seemed such a good idea at the time
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