Songs: Call The Lyric Police

notes / gigs / releases

I was really quite impressed when you ran down the frets
With your eyes tightly closed because it meant you knew the chords
And I nearly got undressed when you looked so intense
But then I had the misfortune of listening to the words

They were a pack of lies
There was not a word of truth in the whole bloody song
And also it was shit and was a bit too long
So I called for the Lyric Police.

You never were a blacksmith
You've not got five children or a wandering wife
You're not a troubador, you're not even poor
And you've not been down a mine-shaft in your whole stupid life."

Well, you may say it's folklore
Or you may claim it's a dying art
But you can take your penny whistle, shove it up your arse Because I've called for the Lyric Police

And ain't it funny how the folkies who claim to keep it real
Are the biggest phonies of them all?
And if you ever should encounter them you know who to call
Go on and call for the Lyric Police

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

This was written after a gig in Derby with a local folkie bloke - he spent half an hour doing six songs, each of which had about seven words (all of which were LIES) interspersed with years of grimacing and comedy bad twiddly guitar playing. Usually this is all well and good because you can just piss off, but I was being polite because I was playing later on, by which time he and his beardy mates had, of course, left. At one point he claimed to be both "a poor boy" and "a long way from home", of which he was very obviously neither. I thought "Aha! GRATE! I shall play my anti-Folky Gits song", realised I didn't have one, and so wrote this.

As you can hear on the recorded version, we had a lot of fun recording it!