31. the best ass in rock 'n roll
In 1968, Massiel won the Eurovision Song Contest for Spain with a song called La, la, la. The following year, Lulu shared first place with Boom Bang A Bang (her heartbeat, gettit?). In 1971, Monty Python spoofed that with Bang Bang Bang Bang, which came joint fourth behind the relative sophistication of Bing Tiddle Tiddle Bong, by Les Deux Hommes Célèbres.
That's what we need, I said. A rock 'n roll Bang Bang Bang Bang.
I was in Howard Street as usual, just me and Bernie in the back room. Discussions about our entry for the Song Contest didn't take long. I came up with a name almost immediately.
With Boom Bang and Bang Bang in mind, I found myself thinking of Rin Tin Tin, an alsatian dog in a series of old Hollywood films. Before my time, but as a kid I enjoyed a TV comedy series about Mister Ed, a talking horse.
The two blended together in a title that came out of nowhere.
Dinkey Donkey Doo.
I know, but shut up.
I wasn't about to write anything on the state of the world. When a few chileans appeared in Oxford during our first year, I didn't ponder Pinochet's coup. The combination of three-day week and nuclear threat worried me for a day or so, but otherwise I was virtually apolitical.
And I wasn't mature enough to pen something about broken relationships, even though I'd had recent experience.
Anyway, none of this would've been appropriate. Rag Week is about doing silly things for charity. Some of the entries in the Song Contest were 'proper' songs, the acts meant them, but others were send-ups or just plain frivolous. Piston Broke, remember.
So I contend that a song about a donkey singing into a microphone was perfectly suited to the occasion. And the rest of the band were with me. Bernie guffawed when I mentioned the title, but all four of them set about arranging the track like a serious bit of work. With different lyrics, we would've been proud of it. As it was, we were very proud.
Gonna tell you a story about a rock 'n roll ass
He'd never snort coke but he sure did like grass
I wrote three long verses of this kind of thing, about our farmyard friend turning his back on a career in showbiz. An asinine version of Loneliness of the long distance runner. Painful puns about ponytails. I kept the lyrics for many years before losing them. Shame, because they'd still make me smile as well as wince.
The last two words of the title mean donkey shit, but that didn't occur to me till all these years later. At the time, we didn't say doo, or poo, we used shit and crap like normal grown-ups.
Meanwhile the musicians amongst us were doing their bit.
Pat started with a Chuck Berry intro, what else? But that immediately turned into a brief instrumental version of Hang down your head, Tom Dooley, with Bill tapping the edges of his snare drum to mimic the clippety-clop of hooves. It speeded up slowly, then every verse rocked till it came to a complete halt, whereupon Harry took it away with a Status Quo riff. The ending was abrupt and dramatic.
Everyone contributed (the hooves were Bill's idea) and it was a perfectly good twelve-bar composition. That included the words, in a way.
If you're going to write nonsense lyrics, they have to be true to themselves, pretentious as that sounds. They need to be serious about the story they're telling. That's how the best spoofs are made. Like Young Frankenstein, which I'd watched with Steve in the cinema on Cornmarket, and Monty Python films.
He's a rock 'n roll donkey and his story's all true
You never seen nuthin' like...
Dinkey Donkey Doo
Not gonna win any prizes, but we thought it might stand out. And the sound check proved us right.