Ben Murphy 17 May 1994
(I really must,
put Ben’s address,
On my
Business
Database
!!! ???
Dear Ben
SONGS FOR YOUR TAPE
Despite the delay, I now enclose the songs I promised you. Get thee to the studio and may we all prosper.
Good luck in the studio.
Every day I check the post carefully for the cheque you have promised me, but I guess the post must be real slow travelling west to east. I look forward to a very fat one soon (and a big cheque).
Speak to you soon
Ian Harris
encs
Month: May 1994
Submission To Daryl Boot, NewsRevue, 10 May 1994
LIST OF SONGS SUBMITTED AND TAPE TRACK LISTING
DARYL BOOT MAY-JUNE 1994 RUN
Dear Daryl
I enclose your starter pack of lyrics and tape for my offerings. The pack consists of new songs, songs currently in the show and one or two rewrites of older ones etc. If you want me to work on an old chestnut of mine that you might have uncovered in the archive, just let me know.
Feel free to call me and let me know if you are short of any subjects or styles and I shall try to oblige. Also, if any of these need a bit of rewrite then I am happy to change them on request.
I should get some time next weekend to write you some brand new ones.
Hoping all is well and looking forward to seeing you again soon.
Letter To Dai Jenkins Re NewsRevue, 9 May 1994
Dai Jenkins 9 May 1994
News Revue
Dear Dai
SONGS, SKETCHES, YOU NAME IT
I enclose the Terre’Blanche update, a new one about The Yemens and a little sketch about rabies (rabbis).
There is no tape this week, as the only new song is to Oranges and Lemons. Hope you like the gear. See you soon.
Yours sincerely
Ian Harris
encs
Channel Tunnel Rabies Threat, NewsRevue Quickie Sketch, 8 May 1994
I don’t think this one was used much, if at all. Sketches were not my strongest suit.
RABIES THREAT (A Sketch for fox, rat and Rabbi Lionel Blue. Fox and rat have stage French accents)
RAT:Bonjour, fox. What are you doing here in the channel tunnel? (Salivates wildly.)
FOX:Comment ca va, rat? I am going across to Britain of course. (Also salivates wildly).
RAT:But you must be crazy. There is no cheep booze to be bought over there. And besides, the English are paranoid about le rabies. They will shoot you before you can say Jacques Chirac. (Salivates wildly.)
FOX:OK, Monsieur smarty pants. If you are so damned clever, what are you doing here in a thirty five mile long tunnel, laced with rat poison and with not so much as a single scrap of Camembert? (Salivates etc….)
(But before rat can reply, Rabbi Lionel Blue appears on the stage)
RAT:Sacre bleu!! Who is this weirdo coming along the tunnel?
FOX:Vraiment bleu!! C’est Rabbi Lionel Bleu.
BLUE:Good morning, fox. Good morning rat. Good morning everybody. A dear, dear friend of mine asked me just the other day, “Lionel”, he asked, “why do you rabbis always answer a question with a question?” “Why shouldn’t we?” I replied…..
RAT:Rabbi Bleu. What on earth are you doing wandering along half way through the channel tunnel?
BLUE:Why shouldn’t I? And besides, my script says that there is a serious danger of rabbis entering Britain through the channel tunnel.
FOX:I’ll kill that script editor (salivates wildly).
BLACKOUT
Civil War In the Yemens, NewsRevue Lyric, 8 May 1994
I think I was churning out material at that time without being too discerning.
My excuse (not that excuse is needed) is that I was, by then, preoccupied with thoughts of setting up the business that became Z/Yen.
Anyway, this lyric about Yemen could have been used practically any time in the last 25 years (he writes in April 2019) but probably best that it remained (and remains) on the unused pile.
_ CIVIL WAR IN THE YEMENS _
(To the Tune of “Oranges And Lemons”)
VERSE 1
Oranges and lemons,
Civil war in the Yemens;
The people are starving,
While the warlords are carving.VERSE 2
Watch tourists hair raise,
They flew in British Airways;
“BA’s too rich”,
Says an aggressive bitch.VERSE 3
Who could she be?
She’s that cow Kate Adie;
What does she know?
She’s in Sarajevo.VERSE 4
Rift twixt North and South,
Big as Kate Adie’s mouth;
Those Brits who stayed on,
Flee from San’a to Aden.OUTRO
Here comes a vandal to burn, loot and rout,
And here comes a chopper to fly Britons out.
Below is a video that shows the lyrics to Oranges and Lemons while singers sing that old tune in a rather charming olde worlde folke musicke stylee:
Letter To Charles Riley Re NewsRevue, 3 May 1994
Charles Riley 3 May 1994
News Revue
Dear Charles
MORE SONGS
Here are my latest offerings, including a new South Africa Song at last – “Old Mandela”. By chance, I even have the music for three of the new songs, so Brian should be happy.
Hope to see you all on Thursday.
Yours sincerely
Ian Harris
encs
Crappy Together, NewsRevue Lyric, 2 May 1994
The problem with me tackling TV related news stories is that I knew almost nothing about them. I hadn’t had a TV for years.
Indeed, writing 25 years later, I had to Google “Don Miami Vice” to discover that this lyric is about Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith.
I do recall at that time Janie being especially amused by the “Hello phenomenon”, which meant that a couple featured in Hello magazine looking happy together invariably split up acrimoniously soon afterwards…
…but I don’t think this lyric got used much, if at all, by NewsRevue.
_ CRAPPY TOGETHER _
(To the Tune of “Happy Together”)
VERSE 1
DON:Imagine Melanie and me,
A working girl by day and night, she’s full of shite,
Like Richard Gere and Cindi too, we mainly fight,
Unhappy together.
MEL:And when I call Don up, we scream and shout,
That’s when I can get hold of him; he’s mostly out,
When Hello gave that interview, we both made out,
We’re happy together.CHORUS 1
DON:I can’t see me sticking with dog shit like you for all my life;
If you’re with me baby I just want to spew when you’re my wife.VERSE 2
MEL:Me and you and you and me,
No matter your Miami Vice, pretend that we;
Are blissful for the youngsters who, think families,
Are happy together.CHORUS 2
DON:I can’t see us acting the role of good sports, it must look wrong,
MEL:Smiles in Hello just means goodbye in the courts before too long.VERSE 3
DON:Me and you and you and me,
Like Rosanne Barr and Arnold live unsuitably;
We ought to chuck the towel in soon or else we’ll be,
So crappy together {oh-oh-oh-oh}
MEL:I’m light as a feather {oh-oh-oh-oh}
DON:The end of my tether {oh-oh-oh-oh}
BOTH:We’re crappy together {mmmmmmmmm}.
At least the lyric relies on a super tune – here is a video of that wonderful band The Turtles performing Happy Together. Howard Kaylan could unquestionably gain entry to the pavilion at Lord’s in that attire (and happily sit next to Fingers). Mark Volman has some explaining to do about his use of the trombone (or lack thereof)…is it possible that the lads are miming in this vid?:
Below is a video with the same track, but with lyrics on the screen:
Sprogging In Chains Gang, NewsRevue Lyric, Jointly With Sue Nelson, 2 May 1994
In truth I don’t remember writing this one jointly with Sue Nelson, but I took pains to give her a joint credit, so I suspect that, at the very least, the conceit of the song came from Sue at a writers’ meeting.
I don’t think this piece made it into the show, or if it did it only got a short stint at the tail-end of a run. It was a fairly short-lived news item, if I recall correctly, about a pregnant woman having been badly treated in custody.
Where was Colin Stutt when we needed a comedy writer better equipped than me to take on the criminal justice system?
_ SPROGGING IN CHAINS GANG _
(To the Tune of “Back On The Chain Gang”)
VERSE 1 – FEMALE PRISONER
I saw a picture of Sue,
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh,
It made the Star and the News of the World;
Now Styal prison says Sue’s gonna sue,
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh,
A Styal victim when the babe unfurled.CHORUS 1 – FEMALE PRISONER(S)
She was sprogging in chains, gang,
{CHORUS:Boomp-waaaaahhhh, boomp-waaaaahhhh, boomp-waaaaahhhh}
Oh-oh, sprogging in chains, gang.VERSE 2 – WARDER(S)
Circumstance beyond our control,
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh,
We handcuffed Sue Edwards to her neighbour;
Perhaps she should have been out on parole,
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh,
Instead we made the cow do hard labour.CHORUS 2 – WARDER(S)
And now she’s whacking her claims in,
{CHORUS:Boomp-cash, boomp-cash, boomp-cash}
And we’re all packing our jobs in.
Below is a video of The Pretenders singing Back On The Chain Gang with the lyrics on the screen. Much simpler tune than I thought it might be – I think I might give that one a bash on my baroq-ulele…
Old Mandela, NewsRevue Lyric & Ben Murphy Recording, 1 May 1994
This is one of the most successful of my lyrics, which ran in NewsRevue for most of the remainder of 1994. It was also recorded by Ben Murphy. I must say I am still mighty proud of this lyric, 25 years after Nelson Mandela was elected, as I write, on 27 April 2019.
_ OLD MANDELA _
(To the Tune of “Old Man River”)
(A song for Afrikaner solo and/or chorus)VERSE 1
Old Mandela,
Dat Old Mandela,
With fans street dancing,
Like the Vandellas,
And old vendettas,
Have just got nowhere to run.VERSE 2
Dis whole nation
Was our plantation,
And now we’re losing,
Our demarkation;
But Old Mandela,
Says he’ll let bygones be gone.MIDDLE EIGHT
You and me, we’re not well built,
We’ve never had to toil and we’re racked with guilt;
All dis stress makes us go pale,
Now we have lost our power will we land in jail?VERSE 3
We’re not grieving,
But we are praying,
Too rich for leaving,
Too scared of staying;
But Old Mandela,
He just keeps polling along.
Ben Murphy suggested the above closing line – my original version closed with the line:
He just might rule us all well.
In NewsRevue, the performance was a belter; several performers over the months did justice to it with excellent Afrikaner accents and powerful voices. Ben Murphy’s recording, while excellent, is more comedic and vocally restrained. You can listen to Ben’s recording below:
Below is a video with William Warfield’s voice and the lyrics to Ol’ Man River on screen:
Below is a clip of Paul Robeson singing Ol’ Man River in the original movie version of Showboat:
Whitewater, NewsRevue Lyric, 1 May 1994
The Whitewater controversy was one of the main scandals that hung over the Clinton presidency. This lyric was rather good fun and I think it went down well in NewsRevue for a while.
_ WHITEWATER _
(To the Tune of “Oh Susannah”)
VERSE 1 – BILL CLINTON
Well I come from Hope in Arkansas, a bimbo on my knee,
And I jog so much I’m fuckin’ sore round Washington DC;
Well I’ve been in power more than a year now Government is cleaner,
Tho’ I spend most all my energy avoiding a subpoena.CHORUS 1
No Whitewater, things aren’t all what they seem,
Like his daughters name is Chelsea but she ain’t no football team.VERSE 2 – BILL CLINTON
Now I’ll make a stand for human rights, cos whipping folks is cruel,
But a villains out after three strikes, I shock them as a rule;
(During the above line Clinton electrocutes one seated member of the chorus)
“Hypocrisy” I hear you cry, a mighty fancy word, (looks puzzled)
I’ll check it in the dictionary I got when at Oxford.CHORUS 2
No Whitewater, and don’t you cry for Bill,
Cos they’ll never catch those Clintons with their fingers in the till;
No Whitewater, and Bill don’t draw no spliff,
But the vultures are above his head now Nixon is a stiff.
In January 1996 I wrote the following update:
WHITEWATER 1996 REMIX
(To the Tune of “Oh Susannah”)
VERSE 1 – BILL CLINTON
Well I come from Hope in Arkansas, a bimbo on my knee,
And I jog so much I’m fuckin’ sore round Washington DC;
Well I’ve been in power most of my term, now Government is cleaner,
Tho’ I spend most all my energy avoiding a subpoena.
CHORUS 1
No Whitewater, things aren’t all what they seem,
Like his daughters name is Chelsea but she ain’t no football team.
VERSE 2 – HILARY
Well I did some work for Rose law firm, I don’t recall a thing,
I was much to busy frettin’ where Bill might have put his ding;
“Chicanery” I hear you cry, a mighty fancy word, (looks puzzled)
BILL: I’ll check it in the dictionary I got when at Oxford.
CHORUS 2
No Whitewater, and don’t you cry for Bill,
Cos you’ll never catch those Clintons with their fingers in the till;
No Whitewater, and Hilary don’t lie,
She’s lookin’ up above her head to see the pigs that fly.
No Whitewater, the Clinton’s weren’t affected,
The biggest joke of all is that they might get re-elected.
Below is a rather sweet version of Oh Susanna with the original lyrics on the screen. It uses the traditional form of one verse then one chorus, rather than the two verses and then a chorus form that has oft been used since and which I used in the Whitewater lyric: