― Ally C (Ally C), Friday, 3 September 2004 23:38 (nineteen years ago) link
― the music mole (colin s barrow), Saturday, 4 September 2004 00:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― fact checking cuz (fcc), Saturday, 4 September 2004 00:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Bumfluff, Saturday, 4 September 2004 00:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― Rancid, Saturday, 4 September 2004 11:58 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ally C (Ally C), Saturday, 4 September 2004 17:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― the music mole (colin s barrow), Saturday, 4 September 2004 22:46 (nineteen years ago) link
Is Weller thick enough to print his adress on his keyring?? How the hell are the muggers going to know where the hell he lives by just stealing his keys?
― mahoney, Monday, 6 September 2004 19:33 (nineteen years ago) link
I think this part shows the attack took place close to home because he seems sure that they will know the area well enough to get there without directions
― Chris Duffy, Monday, 6 September 2004 19:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― Queen Electric Butt Prober BZZT!! BZZZZZT!! (Queen Electric Butt Prober BZZ), Monday, 6 September 2004 23:01 (nineteen years ago) link
Perhaps the thugs are local thugs who have seen him around. Perhaps they have a grudge.
― Alba (Alba), Monday, 6 September 2004 23:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― the music mole (colin s barrow), Monday, 6 September 2004 23:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― the music mole (colin s barrow), Monday, 6 September 2004 23:35 (nineteen years ago) link
Plum, because a yellow ticket would be banana but it doesn't scan.
Cheers otherwise.
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 06:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 07:26 (nineteen years ago) link
I refer anyone to a station like Bank (there are many others) where you go down into the tube station to cross the junction. They do have said Cadbury's machines (though they normally are jammed) and they are a very good place to go if you are looking for a kicking.
I am surprised in my brief scan of this that noone has mentioned he is very unlikely to be getting a train. Turn of midnight, your kind of pissing in the wind with LU.
― ___ (___), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 08:00 (nineteen years ago) link
i'll field this one: as the older among us remember, there wasn't much of a premium on male colognes in Britain in the 70s. Brut 33 had to enlist the help of renowned boxer Henry Cooper to give their product the required masculine cache. Several other companies tried to jump on this bandwagon, often with disastrous results. I refer in particular to Estee Lauders' short-lived flirtation with macho chic: the scents 'pubs' and 'wormwood scrubs' were withdrawn from stores in 1979 after catastrophic sales. generally being seen as a sign of downward mobility by consumers, the bouquet of sweat, fear, fermenting fruit and woodbines these colognes gave off never took off in the UK, except in Northern Ireland.
Could Weller have been intimating that his assailants were Irish? republicans, even?
― dave amos, Tuesday, 7 September 2004 08:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― cis (cis), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 09:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 09:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Joe Kay (feethurt), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 09:49 (nineteen years ago) link
Or is that for another thread?
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 09:50 (nineteen years ago) link
The entire lyric is clearly all slightly paranoid conjecture about what might have happened to him if he had attempted to go home by tube, rather than taking a taxi like any sane person would do if they'd bought a curry and didn't want it to get cold before they got it home to their wife.
He's obviously imagining all this after having comsumed best part of that bottle of wine, hence why so much of it appears not to make sense.
The clearly nonsensical bit about pulling out a plum occurs when he's temporarily distracted from his reveries by the discovery that the pudding that his wife's served up after the curry, is in fact plums and custard when he'd evidently been expecting something different; possibly rhubarb.
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 09:53 (nineteen years ago) link
xpost wait I like Stewart's version.
― cis (cis), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 09:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 09:57 (nineteen years ago) link
I read to many thrillers
― Porkpie (porkpie), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 10:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 10:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Porkpie (porkpie), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 10:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 10:17 (nineteen years ago) link
I put in the money and pull out a plum, Behind meWhispers in the shadows - gruff blazing voices, Hating, waiting"Hey boy" they shout - "have you got any money?"And I said - "I've a little money and a take away curry,
He's not saying "I've a little money and a take-away curry and a plum". Though, with drunken thugs in front of him, he's not going to hide this Fruit&Nut from them and anger them further, is he?So the "plum" must refer to the curry, that he just took out of the machine. Probably a vegetable curry or it refers to a chutney, whatever. Or it really is just a clever Jack Horner reference.
In any case, it sheds light on why he's down in the tube station: to get the curry. He might live next door, for all we know.
― Vasquesz, Tuesday, 7 September 2004 10:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― ___ (___), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:14 (nineteen years ago) link
there are wheels within wheels in this song
― dave amos, Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― ___ (___), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:21 (nineteen years ago) link
Oh and Beano = Bhoona, obv..
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:24 (nineteen years ago) link
"Little Plum" recently.
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:25 (nineteen years ago) link
― dave amos, Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:31 (nineteen years ago) link
This sent me scurrying back to the third line of the song:
"The glazed, dirty steps - repeat my own and reflect my thoughts."
Meaning that his thoughts are a) glazed and b) dirty.
Yup. He's pissed. Explains a lot.
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:37 (nineteen years ago) link
Maybe the machine was so high up, he dislocated a testicle.
― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:43 (nineteen years ago) link
If it's behind him, that's a badly dislocated testicle!
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:46 (nineteen years ago) link
(My God: the possibilities are endless. Only a lyricist of Weller's calibre could have introduced so much tantalising ambiguity in the space of one short line.)
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:48 (nineteen years ago) link
He avoids the plum issue completely, though
― Joe Kay (feethurt), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 12:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― ___ (___), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 13:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 13:02 (nineteen years ago) link
chinese curry is sort of star anise-y and gloopy - which brings us closer to the plum sauce theory again.
however i do like the testicle idea: wellers agonised bellowing after trapping a nad in a chocolate vending machine attracts the unwelcome attentions of a group of thugs, closing in like hyenas.
― dave amos, Tuesday, 7 September 2004 13:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 7 September 2004 13:05 (nineteen years ago) link