The Full English Lyrics

Sampled drum loops like this are referred to as 'beats'

And you can use them straight out of the box.

This fake stuff often sounds lifeless and dull,

But just occasionally it rocks

And originally, someone must have hit those drums

Maybe ten, maybe twenty years back,

Some anonymous, hard-working session player

In a cheap Los Angeles twenty-four track.

Perhaps the technology brings things together,

Or perhaps the technology splits them apart,

But I swear I can hear that drummer laughing. He says

'It's clever, but is it art?'

It's clever, but is it art?

But the rest of the drumming on this record

Comes from a human pair of hands,

René Van Commenée, who recorded his tracks

In Utrecht, in the Netherlands.

 

And Michael keeps his organs and accordions and so forth

More than fifty miles away,

So he's recorded all his stuff over there.

It's how a lot of music's done today.

 

I don't have some post-modern structural agenda.

I'm not having a bit of conceptual fun,

It's just that given the time, and given the budget

This is just how things came to be done. (But it made me think...)  

So did this technology bring us together,

Or did this technology keep us apart?

The devil sat on my shoulder and whispered

'It's clever, but is it art?'

It's clever, but is it art?

Only Fury's here in the studio with me,

Two grumpy old men rocking-out.

But look! He's still playing the bass, but now he's got his guitar.

I mean... Jesus! What's that all about?

All music's done with smoke and mirrors,

It's truths always come with a dash of deceit.

Mozart's got more tricks than a barrel of monkeys

Even Bach and Beethoven cheat. 

But do the smoke and mirrors bring the music together,

Or do the monkey tricks blow the music apart?

And the music critics in their powdered wigs said

'It's clever, but is it art?'

It's clever, but is it art? 

Is it effortless trash, or honest endeavour?

Is it one off the wrist, or one from the heart?

These are serious, pertinent questions,

But you just know some fool's gonna start with

'It's clever, but is it art?'

My studio computer was built in Korea,

The OS comes from the USA

While my software is splendidly German

In a 'Vorsprung durch Technic' kind of way.

And whether we can bring the whole world together,

Or we finally manage to crack it apart,

In a thousand years, they'll define us

By the fragments of what we call art,

The clever stuff that we call art. 

The CD was more than half recorded when I woke in the middle of the night with some odd lyrics going through my head, and had to get-up to write them down. I had been thinking about the way the album was being recorded, with musicians recording their parts at different locations, and how the illusion of an ensemble was created, and the lyrics seem to be part of that train of thought.

Since this is the most recent composition, it's my favourite track on the album. This is the first time I've ever worked with sampled break-beats, as I have the feeling that rapping, like singing Reggae, is something that's probably best avoided by old, white geezers. It was fun though.

All the musicians get a chance to strut their funky stuff: René plays a Bendir, a sort of giant Tambourine with rattling strings from Morocco (as well as thumping an enormous Tam-tam gong at the end), Michael has a blistering Hammond Organ solo, and John (who has been known as 'Fury' for many years), gets to play his beloved electric Guitar for the only time on this album, and gives us a solo to remember.

The slogan 'Vorsprung durch Technic', made famous by a series of TV commercials, means 'progress through technology'.

The 'Voice of the Drummer' in the first verse is that of Steven Defoe, from avant-garde music-terrorists, the Larry Mondello Band. Steve lives in America and sent me his contribution by post. He's been a close friend for more than a decade, but we've only actually met twice. In our case, the technology does bring things together.

For non-UK listeners
'One off the wrist' is a very rude expression, and really has no place in a piece of quality family entertainment!