BPS SET LIST: A  DRIVER’S GUIDE

 

 

BEDDUTH BANK    (Mandolin, Guitar, fiddle and vocals). A re-arrangement musically, of “On Owdham Edge” by the Oldham Tinkers, with new and original lyrics by BPS.  It refers nostalgically to local landmarks, some of which are now no more. For example: the spoil tips of the Mid-Warwickshire coalfield: Larry Grayson: the British Leyland factories of Coventry, and Courtaulds’ cricket ground-where Warwickshire C.C.C. occasionally played first-team games with the third tallest chimney in the U.K. as a scenic backdrop. Life before the Clean Air Act:

 

“They should come up ‘ere from Switzerland,

And ‘ave a gas mask in their hand,

For Bedduth air, let me tell thee,

Beats alcohol and LSD!”

 

 

BESIDE THE SEASIDE   (Accordions, Guitar, Bucket and Spade)     An early first half appeal to get down with the band:[“ Oh I do like to be beside the Seaside”]. Features the awesome sound of duelling accordions and guitar. The original song is given a Parrotesque makeover. An affectionate if slightly waspish hymn to the Great British Seaside:

 

“There are Bingo Halls and Cockle Stalls, Rolf Harris in a show:

The toilet’s like a Troopship hold but still-you have to go:

The lunatics in silly hats all grab their piece of sand:

The Goths stare at The Ghost Train with an I-Pod in their hand.”

 

BLACK VELVET BAND   (Banjo Fiddle ,Guitar, ) Our cover version of a traditional and much loved song. If you can’t sing along to this you have no soul. We think this proves we can do traditional folk as well as anyone else.

 

 

SALT OF THE EARTH   (Accordion, Fiddle Guitar and cruet set) BPS at their  angriest. Written originally as a retort to the Strawbs “Part of The Union,” this new version of an old Parrot song attacks, in four bitter minutes, council corruption, town planning, those who refuse to vote, dog-fouling, quiz shows, professional Midlanders with affected accents and Neighbourhood Watch.

 

“See that lock on the Factory Gate?

See the demise of the Welfare State?

See what used to make Great Britain great?

The Salt of the Earth.”

 

 

THE WHISTLER    (Banjo, Fiddle, Guitar, Swanee whistle  and triangle).The original “B” side from a 7” Parrot EP first released in 1978. New Musical Express  described it then as: “A classic. The best whistling on vinyl since the Rolling Stones’ “Walking the Dog”.  It’s for anyone who gets very agitated about invasive, tuneless persistent whistling. Especially on buses, and in offices. Grrr. Makes you mad just thinking about it, unless you’re Roger Whittaker.

 

 

D.I.Y.   (Banjo, Fiddle,Guitar, First Aid Kit).   We’ve had to build extra laughter breaks into this, as some of the imagery clearly tickles live audiences. A cheerful  ditty about killer budgies, electrocution and flying toilet seats.  Anyone who has ever hit their thumb with a hammer, or assembled flat-pack furniture upside down will relate to the two line chorus:

 

 

“DIY ain’t it grand?

The doors fall off and the legs won’t stand:

D.I.Y.-ain’t it good!

Hitting things with bits of wood.”

 

 

THE ODEON   (fiddle, mandolin and guitar)   “Do you remember the days/when we used to go/to The Odeon for the Picture Show?”

A BPS song. Us at our most mellow and nostalgic. Occasionally we used to scrape onto the same bill as the greatly missed Cosmotheka, and we’d like to think Al and Dave would have enjoyed hearing this song. “The Odeon” reflects on the days when Cinema was about “going to the pictures” rather than driving to the Multiplex.

 

“The Gaumont The Regal The Lyric and the Ritz

A Wurlitzer rising from the orchestra pits

With an ice cream tub and a wooden spoon

You could watch Flash Gordon landing on the moon.”

 

 

HOOLIGAN’S HORNPIPE   (Accordion, Fiddle, Guitar and football rattle). Another album track. Football as it used to be, Barnstoneworth-style: Premier League and Executive Boxes it ain’t, but you can smell the embrocation and faggot and pea batches!

 

 

“Oh I love the roar and rattle of supporters packed like cattle,

In the Popular Enclosure where we eat meat pies.”

 

 

THE WAG OF SHOP 14   (Accordion, Fiddle, Guitar, spanners).  A “Lathe Shanty “tribute to the Giant Engineering Shops and assembly lines which were once a trademark of Britain’s heavy Industry. Every Shop had a Wag - a lairy character, in with everybody. Could get you anything, from cheap shirts to a Hillman Minx assembled from parts smuggled out in a duffle bag. As the Wag of Shop 14 concludes his daily diary, he performs the little known Ryton Spanner Dance, to a background of jigs and reels.

 

 

“BEING NOT WELL” Accordion, Fiddle and Guitar). A lively ditty about the hopelessness of unsuccessfully trying to get all those Government Health Warnings right. The conclusion is that you might as well do it all: dripping on toast: Turkey Twizzlers :dogging, the lot.

 

 

OWD SAMMY SHUTTLEWORTH  (Accordion,vocals and Macaroons).  Traditional Lancashire Music Hall Song with shedloads of Eee Bah Gum. Featuring bigamy, arson, poisoning, alcoholic excess and overcrowding. “Tha’ don’t write owt laike that any more owd lad!”   (Good job,eh?)

 

 

REQUIEM FOR STEAM  (Mandolin, Guitar, fiddle,Oil Can)  Requiem is a serious and rather wistful cover version of a Dave Goulder song about the end of the steam locomotive in Britain.  Fred Dibnah would have loved it.

 

 

COVENTRY LULLABY (Accordion Mandolin, Guitar and tambourine) The Spinners and Cilla were amongst those who made the Liverpool Lullaby famous in the 1970’s. A slightly over-sentimental piece about tousled haired Scallies dropping off to sleep as Mammy crooned to them. We’ve brought the idea right up to date. Now it features Asbos. Plasma Sets, Chavs and Pit Bulls.  And a frenetic East European Instrumental at the end. If anyone can do Cossack-style dancing or those ear splitting Slavonic whistles whilst the Tambourine solo is at its height, that would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

“You look so sweet there on yer bed, spiky hair on spiky head

When he hears the budgie’s dead, you’ll gerra belt from yer dad.”

 

BONNY BLACK HARE-DIRTY GERTIE  (Fiddle, mandolin, guitar) Our nod to the Mighty Fairport.  This is a traditional song, which they adapted in Swarb days. It proves that innuendo and euphemism is timeless. Either BBH is  a song about ruddy faced young men hunting out British wildlife for the pot, or it’s a mucky ditty about getting it on in the erm, undergrowth. Either way you can enjoy it. Very interesting watching audience faces as they struggle to come to terms with this choice. Whilst they consider this, our version of BBH has an instrumental “bridge” which segues effortlessly (-ish) into a BPS song- Dirty Gertie. “Gertie”  goes right back to our rock band format, 30 years ago! It continues the theme of good girls gone bad. Gertie herself comes to a sad end as the bells toll out:

 

 

“As dawn shone out its golden smile across the sleeping city

a ragged figure lay prostrate-the corpse of Dirty Gertie. “

 

 

Nary a dry eye in the house. This is the longest unbroken sequence of music we do at present-a good opportunity for Festival goers to rest their hands eyes and other essential organs.

 

 

COCKNEY POWER  (Guitar, Banjo, fiddle) Dry those tears for Gertie. Let’s  have a bit of a knees up. Features all kinds of instruments including a piano, if we can lug it up the stairs at a club near you! An affectionate kick at professional Southerners who affect  mockney accents even though they live in Hampshire or Suffolk. A right old larf it is, straight up!  Homage to those great Folk writers Chas and Dave. Concludes with a brief medley of Lahndan songs like Muvver Brahn, Any Old Iron, Lambeth walk etc. Before anyone gets the hump, our singer got married in West Ham Parish Church, and our guitarist used to live in Brockley. So there!

 

 

“Chummy had it away, on my Manor, up on his toes like a Cockney Sparrer!

You wot, you wot? Knock it on the ‘ead, stare at me mate and you’re Brown Bread

You can talk about about chalk and pork: Stroll on! Going for a Lambeth Walk

Don’t dilly dally, I’m going doolally, knees up knees up at the Ally Pally.”

 

 

BLACK JACK DAVID (Fiddle, mandolin and guitar)  This is our tribute to another seminal influence on us, The Incredible String Band. ISB did a lot of fringe stuff which was not to everyone’s taste, but this is a cover of a rather jolly ditty they recorded in several formats. Again, it’s a bit saucy. Basically lucky old David courts and wins the gorgeous young Eloise from his perch “in the green green trees.” Eloise, seduced by his “singing,” dumps her fab life style and goes off to join him and become a hippy instead. Daddy is not happy. That’s it basically, with a kind of Cajunny instrumental feel added. Swing those pants, people, and rock with the Seaside!

 

 

MANURE    (Guitar, Mandolin Fiddle, Slurry shovel) A Paean to Pooh.  Singalonga Dunga.  Written loosely around South Pacific’s, “There is nothing like a Dame,” this is a song which farming communities amongst our audiences always seem to relate to. Most of our village audiences have either spread it, or sat through a summer barbecue inhaling it on a windy afternoon. It’s all about muck, in fact it’s a proper shower load of s**t, basically.

 

 

I AM A VACUUM CLEANER WITH THE BRAIN OF A BIRD. (Guitar,Fiddle, Mandolin, Hoover) The Anthem. We don’t like to show off, but this is single was played on Radio One by the late, great John Peel. We have the evidence to prove it!  What taste that man had! He understood instantly what a bummer it would be if, on dying during the American Civil War, you were promised “Another Life Beyond,” by the Preacher man and then you came back as a vacuum cleaner. And just to cap it all-you had the brain of a bird. Frankly, the whole idea sucks. Out come the lighters in the stadium, as the massed racks of Parroteers sway from side roaring out that catchy chorus of:

 

“I am a vacuum cleaner with the brain of a bird!

I’ve heard of reincarnation-but this is absurd.”

 

RAILWAY MAGAZINE   ( Accordion, Fiddle and Guitar).  Another song off the album. Forget YMCA. This is the ultimate participation song, as an audience tries frantically to touch the salient body parts en masse at speed, and in unison to each chorus of:

 

 

“There are bellies bums and thighs,

there are boobs of every size:

But I only want the Railway Magazine.”

 

AT THE SEPTIC MONKEY (Fiddle, mandolin and guitar) A BPS song resurrected from the 1970s about the Folk Club from Hell. Re-named to protect the guilty. No one would call their folk club something as tasteless as this, would they? So it can’t be you then. After all, your club doesn’t have a Master of ceremonies like this hosting the evening – does it?

 

 

“He’s a guy who’s a follower of Love and Peace

He smells of sweat and axle grease

He once knew a sister of Tom Paxton’s niece

And made a cheap L.P.”

 

The Monkey features the Traditional Warwickshire Raffle dance, as we break out into a sequence of Jigs and reels at the end. Well one, anyway.

 

 

STRUGGLING AGAIN   (Guitar and harmonica).  Little-known 12 bar blues which will find empathy from anyone who is paid monthly. Swamp music from the confluence of the Anker and the Sherbourne Rivers, where they merge into the Avon Delta Bayou country.

 

“It’s the end of the month…that’s the time when I’m struggling again.”

 

OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY.  Cos we like Sharpie and John Tams. (Sorry, “Hagman”).   “Pass me that Baker rifle, Private!”

 

 

THE BOLD PIRATE   A song about what would happen if the HSE meets Treasure Island.  Has Risk Assessment got out of hand? -Ask Captain Hook. Another song which features active audience participation and a very abrupt ending.  

 

 

"So I’ve spliced the mainbrace one last time, and locked my treasure chest

I’ve put away my earrings and I wear a thermal vest

My Galleon’s been impounded because it is a risk.

And I have to fill a chitty out every time I want a ....."

 

 

 

 

IN DEVELOPMENT, MOTHBALLED  or UNDERGOING RESTORATION

 

BONIO ROMEO     A BPS love song. About two dogs doing it on a roundabout admittedly, but proving once again that we have an ear for the romantic lyric. Unlikely to be the Valentines Day number one unless you’re a corgi.

 

THE POACHER  (Unaccompanied). Traditional four-part harmony. A cheerful old Nottinghamshire song about naughty village boys nipping out at night to get something for the pot. One of whom is shot dead by the Gamekeeper. Jolly  stuff.

 

REAL ALE   ( Monologue).  A one man homage to “Thunderbowels’s IPA”

 

SHOALS OF HERRING    (Banjo,Fiddle,Guitar). A work in progress.  It’s a song we’ve always liked, and this is an abbreviated version: just a nod to it.  “Shoals” was originally part of Ewan McColl’s extensive repertoire. It was a rarity in that it was not, as many people think, one he wrote. Shoals was a traditional song, he arranged to fit into a radio documentary. Lots of regions claim versions of it, and living 100 miles from the sea in any direction, this is ours.

 

 

THE OLD BARBED WIRE (Unaccompanied)  Four way vocals. A brief and ironic World War I song which was first performed in the Trenches during the 1914-1918 Great War.

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