"It's for the custard, dickhead!"

March 17, 2022 11:13 AM

Half Man Half Biscuit has a new album out called The Voterol Years. Tracks include Tess of the Dormobiles, Grafting Haddock in the George, and In A Suffolk Ditch. As usual, the lyrics are provoking a good deal of discussion. Recently the band did a kitchen session for Andy Kershaw's podcast. Here's some previously and some 2021 live footage.

Voltarol is a pain relief gel for the elderly - hence the album's title.

posted by Paul Slade (12 comments total)

It's an odd album; there are some great songs, and I've had it on repeat for a couple of weeks, but there's a lot of darkness in there. Most of the light-hearted moments – e.g. When I Look At My Baby – are tempered heavily with suffering and death. I mean, "I’m getting buried in the morning, so get me to the chair on time" !

However, I will pick out one great moment; the football-chants of the midnight-mass incomers vs the regular congregation (to the tune of Cwm Rhondda) are just wonderful.

"Where were you, where were you, where were you in mid-July?"
"What's it like, what's it like, what's it like to see a crowd?"

There's nobody like them.
posted by vincebowdren at 12:05 PM on March 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

I lived in Britain for 14 years, I have a British passport, but I am resigned to knowing that I will never be British enough to understand Half Man Half Biscuit references.
posted by acb at 12:06 PM on March 17, 2022 [6 favorites]

@acb don't worry about it, most of them pass most of us by too. Just rejoice in the ones you do get e.g. "Do re mi so far up your own arse!"
posted by vincebowdren at 12:12 PM on March 17, 2022

I agree about the occasional darkness of the album - Slipping The Escort was the song that particularly struck me there - but In A Suffolk Ditch and Token Covid Song are loaded with HMHB's typical biting humour: "I've found a place for your installation", "Doh re me so far up your own arse," and so on.

I think it's in that Metafilter previously thread that someone from the Wirral itself - HMHB's own part of the UK - says it helps in getting the references "but not as much as you'd think".
posted by Paul Slade at 12:16 PM on March 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

Heck, I'm a Yank who's never even set foot in Britain, and I still love 'em. (An ex who spent a junior year abroad in the late 80s introduced me.)

Thanks for the heads-up, Paul Slade -- I'd missed this.
posted by Quasirandom at 12:19 PM on March 17, 2022

Nigel Blackwell's been learning Welsh for a few years, I think inspired by his frequent hill-walking expeditions (and the fact that there are classes available on the Wirral). When I've seen them in Cardiff they've included Welsh-language covers. It's only a matter of time before they do a whole album in yr hen iaith.

Here he is with his tutor Neil Wyn Jones on Rhys Mwyn's Radio Cymru show.
posted by ceiriog at 1:40 PM on March 17, 2022 [2 favorites]

For entirely random reasons (it was played on the Kermode and Mayo podcast, got stuck in my head, I played it a bunch, and my son liked it when he was one) Half Man Half Biscuit’s For What Is Chatteris has been in rotation as a lullaby for my kids. I’ve probably sung it a thousand times, at least. I’ve yet to grow bored with it.
posted by Kattullus at 2:00 PM on March 17, 2022 [5 favorites]

oh my god their discography the album titles
posted by lalochezia at 2:23 PM on March 17, 2022 [3 favorites]

May the Lord have mercy on Stringy Bob.
posted by credulous at 3:00 PM on March 17, 2022 [1 favorite]

They're one of my all-time faves, and by all-time I mean I was playing "Back In The DHSS" in the 80s, but they are also not something I can expect anyone else to like. The closest I've come is setting up Joy in Leeuwarden to my best friend for five minutes before playing it and him trusting me enough to hang on until the "some contain top, top players . . ." punchline.
posted by whuppy at 6:17 AM on March 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Being British alone is woefully inadequate to understand the band. To become a proper Biscuiteer you need to be dressing up as one of the band’s characters as you attend every gig. You should spend a considerable amount of time in Liverpool’s Probe records - and it would probably help if you were pals with at least few of those celebrities who worked there. In fact you may be Julian Cope himself.
posted by rongorongo at 8:34 AM on March 18, 2022 [3 favorites]

rongorongo, someday I will cross the pond to catch a gig. Here's hoping the TSA lets me through wearing hi-viz.
posted by whuppy at 9:32 AM on March 18, 2022