Lend us a fag, Maxine, I’m gasping...
SONGWRITER ON THE STORY OF MANCHESTER RAP
IT couldn’t be described as a one-hit wonder because it never troubled the top 40.
But if you were a kid in Manchester in the early 90s, chances are the lyrics ‘Lend us a fag Maxine, I’m gasping, Are you right or what?’ are etched on your brain.
The Manchester Rap by The Bosnians was one of the more unusual novelty hits of the nineties.
Sung, in the loosest possible sense, in a Manc accent as thick as treacle and with references to the 105 bus in Wythenshawe and going to ‘Asdas,’ it became a cult hit after being played on Sunset 102, Key 103 and BBC Radio Manchester.
Written by Wythenshawe brothers Pete and Chris Eavers, it was recorded by their band, The Bosnians, which included their two sisters Fliss and Kate and pals Ian Parker and Martin Callaghan, at Cavalier Studios in Stockport in 1990.
Pete, 54, a former headteacher, told the M.E.N. how the song came about.
“Myself and Fliss were driving back from a gig one night,” he said.
“It was at the time that rap was starting to get big but all you heard were American or London accents and we said there should be a Manchester rap, so we just started making it up in the car for a laugh.
“We used to play it as an encore, it had a good beat and it would get everybody up dancing at the end of the night, but we thought no more about it. But then one night at a gig at the Southern Hotel in Chorlton there was a guy from Newcastle who was interested in managing us. After the gig he said ‘That last song, that’s the one.’
“I thought he meant the last song of the normal set, but he was talking about the Manchester Rap.
“At that point it didn’t exist anywhere other than in my head, so we made a really rough recording of it on a four track in my bedroom. The next thing we knew it was played on Radio 1, I was interviewed by Janice Long and on TV with Michaela Strachan.
“It just took off in the space of about 10 days. It just took on a life of its own.
“We had about 3,000 copies pressed and they all sold out very quickly. We had to make a decision if we were going to get more copies done, but I said ‘No,
that’s it’ and we didn’t push it any further, so it became it kind of cult thing. “It was great fun while it lasted.” Pete, who now lives in Timperley, said the lyrics were inspired by family anecdotes and local landmarks.
‘Maxine’ was a girl Chris saw one night on the top deck of the 105, while the extra ‘s’ in ‘Asdas’ will be familiar to many Mancs.
“Being part of a large family we had loads of stories we’d all tell and phrases we’d use that became little legends, so I worked lots of them into the song,” said Pete. “The 105, for instance, used to stop right outside our house and I’d catch it every day.
“We really went for it with the accents. We overplayed it wickedly, but we were actually brought up to be very well-spoken so our mum wasn’t chuffed to hear us speaking like that.
“But that was part of the reason for doing it. You’d hear London accents on the radio all the time, so we wanted to celebrate Manchester and say we are proud of it up here. It’s a homage to Manchester.”
Almost 30 years on Pete, who is still recording and performing having recently released the album Keep On Making It Wonderful, says he still gets people asking him about the Manchester Rap. “It absolutely took me by surprise. I will admit for a time when I was trying to make it as a serious musician it was a bit of a millstone, but now I just think it’s great, it’s lovely.”
BBC Radio Manchester presenters Eamonn O’Neal and Jimmy Wagg launched Wagon Records – an amalgamation of their surnames – to release the song. Eamonn told the M.E.N.: “We grew up with Pete and Chris in Wythenshawe and we used to put The Bosnians on at shows at the Oldham Coliseum.
“We had the records pressed in London and then drove round the record shops in Greater Manchester selling them on a sale-or-return basis. It did quite well and even got a play on Radio 1, but it never sold in Liverpool or London, I think maybe because it had Manchester in the title.
“A couple of years later it was covered by a parody act called Take Fat, which was four fat blokes from Salford. We’re actually very proud of the record. It was a bit of fun and a great little adventure while it lasted.”
Thanks to the wonders of the internet you can still hear The Manchester Rap in all its glory.
The song was uploaded to YouTube a few years ago where it’s been viewed more than 22,000 times.