Gertcha!

10 of my recent posts featured Comedy Songs – this hyperlink will take you to the first of them. They seemed to go down well so here’s another amusing ditty – Chas and Dave with a slightly cleaned-up version of their cheerful anthem to an archetypal cockney dad.

The words are printed below. Omitted from the original lyrics, the word ‘cowson’ – a mild term of abuse for one born out of wedlock – and the phrase ‘When the dog’s left a message on the step’ – a gentle enough euphemism, you’d think, but clearly too racy for dear old Auntie Beeb back in the day!

As for the line ‘Sister’s boyfriend put his sister up the club’, well, that suggestive ‘put’ is replaced by a more innocuous ‘take’.

Never mind, plenty left to enjoy! And a timely reminder that once upon a time we Brits could make the world smile – on purpose rather than just by accident …

 

Now there’s a word that I don’t understand
I hear it every day from my old man
It may be Cockney rhyming slang
It ain’t in no school book
He says it every time that he gets mad
A regular caution is my old dad
Rub the old man up the wrong way, bet your life you’ll hear him say

Gertcha, gertcha
Gertcha!

When the kids are swinging on the gate
Gertcha!
When the paperboy’s half an hour late
Gertcha!
When the pigeons are pecking at his seed
Gertcha!
When the barber starts digging up his bean
Gertcha!

Gertcha, gertcha

Bar stool preaching
That’s the old man’s game!

Now the old man was a Desert Rat
Khaki shorts and a khaki hat
How me mother could have fancied that
I just don’t know
But when the enemy came in sight
They gave up without a fight
They rubbed him up the wrong way
This is what they heard him say

Gertcha, gertcha
Gertcha!

When me rock and roll records wake him up
Gertcha!
When the Poles knock England out of the cup
Gertcha!
When the kids are banging on his door
Gertcha!
When the barman won’t serve him any more

Gertcha, gertcha
Bar stool preaching
He’s always been the same!

Gertcha!

Gertcha, 

Gertcha!

Gertcha!
Gertcha!
Gertcha!

Gertcha!

When me mother says he can’t go down the pub
Gertcha!
Sister’s boyfriend put his sister up the club
Gertcha!
When the tomcats, when they’re kicking up a din
Gertcha!
Tottenham Hotspur couldn’t get one in
Gertcha!
When me mother locks him out of the flat
Gertcha!
When it’s raining and he can’t find his hat
Gertcha!
In the mornings when his motorcar won’t go
Gertcha!
Next-door neighbour, when he won’t give him a tow
Gertcha!
Gertcha!
Gertcha!
Gertcha!

Songwriters: CHARLES HODGES / DAVID PEACOCK

Gertcha lyrics © Kobalt Songs Music Publishing, Snout Music Limited

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Zzzz …

           In the meantime, here is some music …

 

Storm in a Teacup

'The time has come,' the Blogger said,
      'To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
      Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
      And whether pigs have wings.'

'But wait a bit,' the Reader cried,
      'Before you start your post,
Consider customer fatigue
      Where some give up the ghost
Whenever folk go rambling on
       With length their only boast.'

'Let's talk instead,' the Blogger said,
      'Of what you really need:
The benefit of minds like mine
      Is very fine indeed —
Now if you're ready, Reader dear,
      You can begin to feed.'

'But not on you!' the Reader cried,
      Turning a little blue.
'To wade through half-baked tripe would be
      A dismal thing to do!'
'It's tit for tat,' the Blogger said,
      'If I unfollow you!'

'Please yourself,' the Reader shrugged,
       'It's all the same to me.'
But deep inside, well, something cried:
       A blogger's heart, you see,
While over in the Blogger dwelt
       A reader's sympathy.

'It seems a shame,' the Blogger said,
      'To play this spiteful game,
When mutual support so far
       Has been our climbing frame.'
The Reader, oh, said nothing but
       Was thinking just the same!                       
  
  
                  with apologies to Lewis Carroll

Image: en.wikipedia.org

Appy Days!

After far too long struggling with the slowness of my WordPress link, I’ve finally got around to downloading the WordPress App.

No idea why it took me so long. The difference is striking. Typing this now, letters and words appear instantly instead of several seconds later – in effect, I was writing blind and trying to marry what was in my head with whatever eventually showed up on the screen.

The link was so slow that I couldn’t access my list of followed sites, which made managing them well-nigh impossible. Now I can whizz through them – just been unfollowing those who haven’t published in a year or more. The number of these surprised me, as did the higher number that haven’t posted for several months.

I also noticed many sites with no information about when they last posted. Does anyone know if such sites are disused? It seems sensible to unfollow redundant blogs and so make it easier to concentrate on active sites.

I haven’t been visiting as much as I should and would be happy to receive heads up and links to posts you think I might like. I well remember doing just that in the early days to build up my readership.

Ah, the boldness of youth!

What am I talking about? That was only three years ago … or was it four?

Ah, the forgetfulness of age! Listen, did I ever tell you about that time at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival when everybody went skinny-dipping?

I did?

Oh well … won’t hurt to hear it again, will it? You see, in all the excitement, nobody had thought to pack their cossies …

[That’s enough excitement for today, time for your Ovaltine … Ed.]

 

 

Melodious Mirth 10

I know what you’re thinking. Desperate for people to read his posts, he’s finally flipped his lid and started to post pictures of appealing baby animals. Admit it, you wouldn’t be at all surprised to read this corny caption: ‘Aw, just look at that cute liddle puddy-tat!‘

Well, frankly, I’m hurt. Do you really believe a respectable site like this one would court easy popularity by providing gratuitous eye-candy for people to gawk at? Rest assured, A Nomad in Cyberspace is a kitsch-free zone with a zero-tolerance policy on anything too soft and/or fluffy.

(NB  This policy may be changed without notice if the cat pic produces a sudden stratospheric viewing spike in my WordPress Stats.)

Joking aside – what do you mean, you didn’t know I was? – the above picture wasn’t there for entirely gratuitous reasons. It shows a yellow cat like the one that features in a funny song I recorded from the radio – Children’s Favourites, as I recall, introduced by Uncle Mac – on our brand-new Grundig-made reel-to-reel tape-recorder all those years ago.

It wasn’t the best song on there, by any means. So why is it here, I hear you ask, in the final post of my Melodious Mirth mini-series?

Well, that’s down to the National Film Board of Canada who in 1988 made a great little film out of it. The film took over 15 awards, including a Genie Award for Best Animated Short as well as an Academy Award nomination. It appeared in animation historian Jerry Beck’s 50 Greatest Cartoons, placing at #32, and was included in the Animation Show of Shows.

Anyway, cat-critics, I’m not the only one to sell his soul to the highest bidder. Mr Johnson and the cat were later used in two adverts for Hula Hoops …

 

Kitten Image: Pinterest

Melodious Mirth 9

My mini-history of comedy music is coming to an end.

That’s not because I’ve run out of material – on the contrary, I’ve never produced so many draft posts, each with a musical comedy gem waiting for me to add some words of introduction. I just think it’s time to wind things up.

My previous post took a turn towards a harder edge of humour with satirical sideswipes at the Vietnam War (Country Joe MacDonald) and Cult Religion (Frank Zappa), so how about keeping the satire sizzling with this splendid spoof from Down Under that kicked new life into the semi-comatose novelty-song genre?

It’s also, by my standards, bang up-to-date – well, more recent than most of what I listen to! – which may improve my somewhat shabby street-cred and help me get down with the kids and stuff. So for now I’ll leave Chas & Dave and The Two Ronnies, not to mention The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band … [You just did! Ed.] … though of course I’m always open to reader requests … [So much for street-cred! Get on with it! Ed.]

Yeah, right, don’t want to alienate the younger element … future of blogging and all that … so it’s over to “New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo” for something or other hot and happening from where it’s at … [Where’s that? Ed.]

 

Melodious Mirth 8

Post 8 already?

The previous 7 have, for the most part, featured jolly music – cheery tunes you could whistle when your mum asks you what you’ve been up to – although the lyrics may sometimes be darker than a jaunty melody might lead you to expect. A good example of this is Tom Lehrer’s So Long Mom in ‘Melodious Mirth 4’ where the meaning is deliberately at odds with an upbeat air.

Such mismatches can make satire sharper. They add bite when the satirical targets are war and the gung-ho public attitudes that can, all too easily, lead us into it. Country Joe MacDonald set his acerbic song I Feel Like I’m Fixin To Die to the upbeat tune of Louis Armstrong’s Tiger Rag. The film of his 1969 Woodstock appearance provides powerful and moving evidence that he’d read the zeitgeist right.

Er, have I posted this clip before? Never mind, here it is again, just in case anybody reading this hasn’t seen it. And who knows, some of you who have seen it might fancy another look.

Me, well, 50 years on and I’m not tired of it yet ….

Flash forward five years and we find Frank Zappa taking aim at self-styled spiritual teachers who used bogus ‘healing’ methods to defraud gullible and often vulnerable people. But his contempt is for con-artist and con-victim alike. The persona he adopts is the guy who sees through all the hocus-pocus.

Zappa always satirised without fear or favour – hypocrisy and stupidity were his targets, no matter who you were. Nothing seemed to escape that eagle-eye, whether right-wing bigotry or fuzzy ‘New Age’ thinking. An outspoken critic of mainstream education and organised religion, he was a passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship.

But humour is always his weapon, deployed here in the range of voices that he adopts – including a prototype rap-style delivery – and the clever match between a chaotic subject-matter and a musical arrangement that sometimes appears on the verge of collapse – though, of course, it never does!

It’s a bit like discovering a circus for grown-ups … with a decent band, for a change!