LOONY TUNES
10 slices of prime Ginger Geezer, by MAT SNOW. THE INTRO AND THE OUTRO
(from Gorilla by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Liberty, 1967) Over a jazz club vamp, debonair master of ceremonies Viv introduces all seven Bonzos plus a Sgt. Pepper sleeveful from Hitler to Val Doonican, each with an instrumental twirl or sound effect, a joke that never stales. “Great honour, sir!”
BIG SHOT
(from Gorilla by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Liberty, 1967)
Just as Raymond Chandler was English, so too this spoof of ’40s American pulp high style: “what a dame, a big, bountiful babe,” with the “hottest lips since Hiroshima” – dressed, of course, as Biffo The Bear. Roxy Music
CANYONS OF YOUR MIND
(single B-side by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Liberty, 1968)
Former Southend Teddy boy Vivian sends up his beloved Elvis in a spoof of the portentous likes of The Windmills Of Your Mind from The Thomas Crown Affair movie, high-flown sentiment punctured by “the holes in your string vest”.
RAWLINSON END
(from Let’s Make Up And Be Friendly by The Bonzo Dog Band, United Artists, 1972) Namechecked in two previous Bonzos songs, the Rawlinsons evolve into a full-blown Archers/ Afternoon Play/Book At Bedtime parody fantasia of well-bred Home Counties comfort listening, nine minutes of spoof squirarchy, Empire nostalgia and top-drawer jokes. Enter Sir Henry…
STRANGE TONGUES
(from Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead, Warner Bros, 1974) Half-buried in a mix of Trafficperformed art-rock, Viv poetises his gathering distress in multi-meaning wordplay and imagery – “Mendel’s sons and processed daughters, cloned in uniforms of flesh.”
His mind was no longer a mere laughing matter.
THE YOUNG ONES
(single by Vivian Stanshall And Kilgaron, Harvest, 1976)
Yes, the 1961 Cliff Richard hit, played in straight-faced Shadows style but re-imagined by Vivian in his vocal George Sanders smoking jacket as a suavely lubricious seduction, relishing every syllable as he coils around his victim.
AUNT FLORRIE’S WALTZ
(from Sir Henry At Rawlinson End, Charisma, 1978)
“Lotus-fed Miss Havishambling opsimath and eremite, feudal still, reactionary Rawlinson End. The story so far…” Mashing up Joyce, Wodehouse and Dylan Thomas, peak Stanshall ushers us into his imperial sunset rustica to genteel strains befitting a palm court tea dance.
THE TUBE
(from Teddy Boys Don’t Knit, Charisma, 1981)
From one of the better albums The Kinks never made, a rare song rivalling Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely where a besotted parent dotes on baby. With loving realism, little Silky, born in 1979, is portrayed as a voracious digestive tract.
GECKO
(from Dog Howl In Tune, Madfish, 2023)
Joining the poodle, parrot, rabbit, rhino, gorilla, wildebeest and more in nature lover Stanshall’s menagerie in song, the gecko on the ceiling focuses a reverie akin to I’m Only Sleeping, Nature Boy and Stardust, seemingly slight but wistfully resonant in mood.
LADY RAWLINSON’S LILT
(from Rawlinson’s End, Madfish, 2023)
Nine years on at Rawlinson’s End – “its inhabitants pickled, corkscrewed, maddened and without light” – Vivian’s feudal English Gothic endures, every curlicue of its linguistic and comic tracery as richly detailed as the original. The late Dave Swarbrick accompanies on mandolin and violin.