Tiny Dan investigates Super-Posh Rufus’s mind #2

Back in January I launched the quiz which abjectly failed to set the internet ablaze.

And now it’s back! I, Tiny Dan, with my limited height and ropey command of English will present to you some lyrics from popular music rewritten, as I imagine, by the mind of Super-Posh Rufus.

Rufus quite rightly pointed out to me that the last attempt was rather more like Viz legend Mr Logic with words simply substituted for other words – so, this time, I’ve tried to genuinely ‘Posh It Up’. Once-listeners to the Steve Show, imagine S-P Rufus reading these lyrical conundrums to you.

Also, last time, the quiz was frankly far too easy – especially since I’d suggested the winner might win a million quid. So, this time I think it’s tougher.

The prize is either a mention in the comments section at the bottom of this page, or a Tropical Ireland. Yes, that’s right, a Tropical Ireland. Because I’m a bit drunk, I’ve typed it wrong. But I’ll stick with it – a Tropical Ireland. So, get this right and you might win the country of Ireland which I will then tow towards the equator for the favourable climate contained therein*.

Same rules as before. Here follows four song lyrics rendered in Super-Posh language. If you can return them to their original state, tell me about it, using the form at the bottom of the page.

UPDATE 12-03-10 – this exciting internet-inferno-ising competition is now closed. Answers below.

Super-Posh Lyric #1 – Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car by William “Billy” Ocean
I say! (I say!) You! (You!) You there! Young lady! Young lady! I say! Young lady! I say!
(Hey! (Hey!) You! (You!))
Are you referring to my own person?
(Who me?)
I am! Indubitably! Enter my motorised vehicle immediately – and without delay.
(Yes you! Get into my car)
Woo! Wah! Affirmative!
(Woo! Wah! Yeah!)

Super-Posh Lyric #2 – Pull Up To The Bumper by Graceford “Grace” Jones
Perambulating around this urban environment
(Driving down those city streets)
Currently in abeyance ahead of future cavorting
(Waiting to get down)
Would you be awfully kind and produce your hulking apparatus?
(Won’t you get your big machine?)
Which is, I believe, located with this conurbation?
(Somewhere in this town)

Super Posh Lyric #3 – Because I Got High by Alfred “Afroman” Moorthwaite
It was my intention to engage in conjugal relations with you – but I became intoxicated
(I was gonna make love to you but then I got high)
I fully intended to devour your kitten as well – but, regretfully, I entered a state of inebriation
(I was gonna eat yo pussy too – but then I got high)
At this moment, I am currently involved in an act of onanism, and I am fully aware of how this situation came to pass
(Now I’m jacking off and I know why)
It came to pass because I became delirious on a form of either Colombian, Jamaican, Maui or Panamanian wowie and I fear it caused some kind of freak out
(Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high)

Super-Posh Lyric #4 – Peaches by The Stranglers
I have obtained from somewhere (precisely whencetofore, I am regretfully unsure) young lady, the idea that you are in possession of a chemical unguent which will enable me to filter harmful UV rays – and that said embrocation is currently situated within the carafe which is currently about you
(Well I got the notion girl that you got some suntan lotion in that bottle of yours)
Would you be so kind as to extend and proliferate some of the aforementioned liniment upon my desquamating epidermis?
(Spread it all over my peeling skin baby)
Ah, that is a most satisfactory sensation
(That feels real good)
Goodness. A preponderance of doxies appear to be revelling in the brilliance of the day
(All this skirt – lapping up the sun)
Make whoopee with me, I implore!
(Lap me up)
What good reason can there be for not engaging with this?
Go on a spree with my own self!
(Why don’t you come on and lap me up?)

(* Please note, the prize will be either a Tropical Ireland, as described above, or a mention in the space below this article on the page. I’ll decide on the day, but given the logistics of moving an entire country half-way around the globe, it’s likely to be the mention, to be fair)
~(Addition 12-03-10 – yup, it was the mention)~

6 Feet Under

by Harry

So, it’s true.

Erstwhile home of The Steve Show and favourite radio station of everyone who likes music, 6 Music is to be shut down by the BBC.

In a strategy report released today, the BBC announced that 6 Music and the Asian Network are to close, along with cutbacks to their website and various other tinkerings.

I fell in love with 6 Music the first time I turned on my brand new DAB radio and heard them playing Husker Du.  No-one plays Husker Du.  I woke up to the grumpy mumblings of Phill Jupitus, I nodded off to Marc Riley in the evenings, and often considered throwing a sickie just to tune in to the brilliant Gideon Coe.

And then, incredibly, we got the gig!  Where else would a bunch of utterly unqualified hangers-on like us be allowed to broadcast for two hours a week on national radio?  Apart from talkSPORT, maybe?

Now don’t get me wrong – 6 Music isn’t perfect.  I’ve never understood the point of 6 Music News Music News, the playlist can be a bit annoying during the week, and then there’s George Lamb.  Also, it took them ages to sort out our passes for the building, the security guards on reception were useless, and finding a pair of headphones that worked was always the toughest assignment of the afternoon.

6 also had a big part to play in the rise and rise of ‘landfill indie’, the dreary corporate alterno-fodder used in the trails for every E4 show.

But by playing interesting, often challenging stuff that you really don’t hear anywhere else, by giving a platform to hundreds of lesser-known artists to play live sessions, and by having some of the most musically articulate and passionate DJs around, 6 Music really is unique.  Maconie’s FreakZone?  The Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show?  The aforementioned Coe and Riley? Garvey, Cocker, Robinson?

And yet it has to go.  The BBC is shutting down a station that could not exist in the commercial world.  We sometimes received bleating emails from unhinged listeners carping on about how playing something that they didn’t like was somehow against the remit of the station, which was obviously bollocks, but at least proved the passion of the station’s supporters.  Today’s decision, to me, flies in the face of the remit of the BBC.  

If they’re going to shut anything down (in what is, let’s face it, a pre-emptive strike against a BBC-hostile Tory government which may not even be voted in), it should really be Radio1 – there are countless commercial stations that replicate the output of Radio1, and the cost saving would be off the scale of anything announced today.

Of course, everyone should join the Facebook group, but frankly, once businesses make decisions like this, they tend not to change them.  You might as well join a group appealing for the return of New Coke, or the abolition of Tuesdays. 

If I’ve learnt anything over the last 12 months, it’s that no matter how inept a business decision, the individuals responsible will fall behind it and defend it to the death, and hope that people eventually just give up the fight.

But wait – what’s this?  The chairman of the BBC Trust has said that the decision could be overturned if there is ‘massive public concern’.  And absurd shadow culture spokesman Ed Vaizey is now apparently a huge 6Music fan.

So take to the streets.  Daub pro-Nemone slogans on your duvet covers and hang them from motorway bridges.  Don Shaun Keaveney facemasks and storm the town halls of this fair land.  Raze the studios of XFM to the ground and dissect the corpses with sharpened Fall CDs. 

Let’s save 6Music.

Steve’s Musical Highlights of 2009

My Five And A Bit Musical Highlights of 2009

by

Stephen Merchant

5. This Tornado Loves You – Neko Case

I always think Neko Case sounds like a small piece of carry-on luggage you might find for sale in Muji.

Oh, what a charming fool I am. Ms Case is of course the flame-haired alt-country siren and sometime vocalist with The New Pornographers.

This, the opening track from her fifth album Middle Cyclone, sees Neko as a destructive tornado rampaging across the States in search of some missing beau.

Lovely.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FhVbyeWFvo

4. Leeds United –  Amanda Palmer

On February 1^st, as The Steve Show limped towards it’s unmourned end, we played host to a live session from Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls.

Amanda is a wild, wonderful presence, full of the same energy and eccentricity that infuses her solo album Who Killed Amanda Palmer.

One of the highlights of the album is the song Leeds United, which she bashed out live on a keyboard in the studio and dazzled us all with her fiery performance.

On the album version, Amanda’s voice is frazzled by a long day in the recording studio, which injects a wild, ravaged passion to a song that feels like it’s lifted from some great gothic cabaret.

It’s on constant rotation round my way. Tremendous.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i62UF7uROGU

3b. Say Please – Monsters of Folk

Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis, Jim James from My Morning Jacket and sing/songwriter M. Ward have formed Monsters of Folk, an alt-country super-group with a terrible name but some cracking tunes, including this rollicking indie/folk/rock/pop nugget.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgIUJpugr0

3a. Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear

My mate was like, “You should listen to Grizzly Bear’s new album” and I was like, “No, it’s not my thing” and he’s like, “No, I reckon it is” and I was like, “Yeah?” and he was like, “Yeah, totally” and I listened to it and I was like, “Yeah, it’s good, nice one” and he’s like, “Yeah, no problem”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjecYugTbIQ

2. The Breeze/My Baby Cries  –  Bill Callahan

As former listeners of The Steve Show will know, Tiny Dan believes we should all adore mindless pseudo-jazz electro-twaddle, Harry gets off on shouty American men and who knows what the heck Sammy is listening to in any given week.

They are all idiots, which is the reason I fired them all and quit the show.

The truth is there is nothing more affecting than a talented person, their voice, a guitar or piano, some quality lyrics and, if needs absolutely must, one or two session men. That’s why Bob Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks and Neil Young’s On The Beach are two albums I carry on my person at all times.

Sadly, in our age of retro 80s synths and R n B loudmouths, it’s increasingly hard to wheedle out the raw beauty of a talented singer/songwriter.

My vampiric bloodlust for fresh singer/songwriter meat is rarely sated, so imagine how thrilled I was to stumble across Loving Takes This Course: A Tribute to the Songs of Kath Bloom.

Kath Bloom was a folkie with many admirers but no great commercial success who retreated to Conneticut to raise kids sometime in the 1980s.

The seductive, six-minute stand-out track from this recent tribute album is by Smog main-man Bill Callahan.

Over simple guitar, keyboard and low-key percussion, Bill’s whispering growl of a voice and Bloom’s heartfelt lyrics hypnotise me on every listen. “I’d like to touch you, but I’ve forgotten how…And said I didn’t need you, but look at me now…”.

I promise it will melt even the coldest of hearts. (Harry, that means you)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBiEMPXDAXM&feature=related

Start the video at 1.25, ignore someone falling over out of shot at 2.43…

1. Because The Night – Bruce Springsteen Live At Glastonbury, 2009.

I nearly missed Bruce Springsteen at Glastonbury.

The plan was simple : race down to the festival Saturday morning, worship The Boss when he headlined the main stage that night, then crash-out in a tent for a few hours and drive home again the next day.

I woke up Saturday morning as excited as an orphan on Christmas Day when he knows Noel Edmonds is on his way round with a camera crew and a trip to Legoland in his back pocket.

I leapt in the car – and the bastard wouldn’t start. It just spluttered and choked and did nothing. Bastard.

I began a frantic dash around local car-hire shops to find a replacement, all the while sweating at the thought of poor Bruce saying “Good evening Glass-ton-bury” and not seeing my beaming face staring back at him. How would he get through the show?

Finally I paid some crazy price for a tiny car my 6’7” frame could barely squeeze into, picked up a pal en route and drove south like a demon (a demon who obeyed all speed regulations, naturally).

I made it to Glasto mere hours before Bruce and the E Street Band took to the stage but I couldn’t relax as I needed to pitch the tent before darkness fell. From bitter past experience I knew you don’t want to be erecting a tent in the dark at Glastonbury.

My friend had promised to pack his tent but he’d let me down. Luckily I’d had a distant memory of a tent that I had bought years ago for a previous festival but never used.

I had found it, unopened, in the back of a cupboard and thrown in the car. Now, as the sun began to set, I unfurled the tent and out fell ground sheets and metal poles and rubber hoops – and everyone around me started laughing.

Apparently, tents have changed a lot since I last slept under canvas. Now they are all bendy and pop-up. Mine looked like a proper old school Carry On Camping tent minus bubbly Babs Windsor and her poorly fastened bikini top.

“Nick that off some Brownies?” chortled a passer-by.

“Fuck off!” I said, brilliantly.

As more pointing and laughing rippled around the field, I slipped off into the night and tramped my way over to the main stage.

The Boss divided opinion. He played an uncompromising set, which was a thrill for die-hard fans but probably featured too few sing-a-long hits to convert all the heathens.

Some of the strangers around me seemed suitably impressed by Bruce’s unparalleled showmanship; others said they found his hard-working rock ‘n’ roll schtick corny, which I didn’t understand.

Oh well. I wasn’t going to defend the man.

For me it was an electrifying performance.

At one point, the cool night air hit Bruce’s over-heating body and he began to steam. Actual steam rose up from him. Backlit by the stage lights he looked like some glorious rock ‘n’ roll demon/angel and for believers like myself he seemed even more Messianic than usual.

There is nothing quite like Saturday night in front of the main stage at Glasto.

That vast, seemingly never-ending sea of expectant faces, the homemade signs, the setting sun, the overpriced beer — it’s joyful.

And as I finished hollering along to the chorus of Because The Night I remember actually shouting “This is the greatest night of my life.”

And I believed it.

But it wasn’t the greatest night of my life because I had to sleep in a tent that was 25 years old. With people constantly unzipping the flaps and peering in and saying, “Look, I told you, it’s that bloke off the telly. He’s nicked this off some Girl Guides”, and then swaying off into the night to tell more drugged up knuckle-heads where they could laugh at me.

But as their jeers and taunts spoiled my sleep I thought back to Bruce’s performance :

“They can’t hurt you now / can’t hurt you now / Because the night belongs to lovers…”

And everything was okay.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDiS33rxSG0

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL…

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